How to Use the 4 Seasons for More Magic in Your Business [COMPOSTED]
Just like the seasons, most areas of life are cyclical. Including your business. Sam walks you through how you can use the energy of each season to create a balanced and sustainable business model.
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Episode 165 Show Notes:
Today we’re talking about the seasons of your business.
Even though I live on Maui, where there isn’t a huge change in seasons… I’m originally from Michigan where we get hot summers, colorful autumns when the leaves change, super snowy sub zero winters… so I know what it’s like to experience all the seasons.
And I know that, just like the seasons, most areas of life are cyclical. Including your business.
There are periods of growth. Awesome growth where you’re hitting all your goals and kicking ass. And then there are periods of death where you have to take a step back and reevaluate what you’re doing if you want to cycle back into success. There are times of celebration and times of rest.
And these cycles correlate with the seasons.
Also let me just clarify that I'm not saying your business cycles should align with the actual seasons that are happening right now. You can have a summer in your business on a snowy day in January. You can have a period of rest in the dead heat of July if that's what your business is ready for. Here, we’re looking at how you can use the energy of each season to create a balanced and sustainable business model.
And these seasonal cycles apply to more than just your business. Anything that you are birthing with your business will have these cycles inherent in it. So your last online program will also have these periods of preparation, high sensation, and rest.
So, let’s dive in.
Spring is a time of birth, growth, new life… it’s when the flowers start to bud and the animals start shacking up.
If you've been listening to this podcast for a while you probably know that I live on a regenerative farm, where we grow a ton of food. Some of it we give away, some of it we sell in FSA boxes, a lot of it we eat ourselves (and it’s easily the best food you could get anywhere)...
So needless to say, farming is really important to me. Growing my own food gives me a lot of gratification. And along the way I've learned so much about the process of planting and growing and how that applies to the rest of life.
Spring is a time to plant your seeds. Pretty soon after that, you begin to see sprouts start to pop up out of the ground. The plants aren’t anywhere near ready to harvest yet, but this is the time of preparation and planning that you need to put in if you want to eventually get something out of the land.
So if you're in the spring phase of your business, that means you are starting to plant the seeds of your next big goal. Maybe you know you want to launch an online membership, but you first have to come up with an incredible idea and then figure out exactly how you're going to implement that to change peoples lives.
You have to brainstorm and refine your ideas (and if you want to learn more about how to refine your ideas, listen to episode 7 of the podcast where I talk about how to distill your message, I’ll link it in the show notes).
Basically, if you ever want to get anywhere in your business, you first have to take the time to birth your big idea and then figure out what you need to help that idea grow. You need really fertile soil, and that might mean something different to everyone depending on what your business is.
So let’s look at an example.
Let's say your business is as a master coach that helps other coaches build their businesses. When your business is in its Spring, it will probably look like finding the people who you want to coach, determining who your ideal customer avatar is and refining that person until you know exactly who you want to work with.
So spring is the time to get specific about your audience. Because if you think about it, you can plant 1,000 different seeds at the beginning of the growing season. But unless you have the time and energy to actually commit to taking care of all those 1,000 different seeds when they sprout and then eventually become plants that need daily care and attention… yeah, those seeds you planted are just going to wither away and die. And you aren’t going to get anything out of them, except wasting your time and money.
So use the spring phase of your business to focus on specifically what your business is and who you want to work with. And then you can prepare and plan out how your big awesome business idea is going to seduce the right people into working with you.
And a part of this is marketing, right? I mean a big part of growing your business is marketing your business the right way for your audience.
So let’s talk about growth for a second.
A lot of people, when they think of business growth, they think of pulling in a ton of money. They think of the monetary growth that comes with having a successful business.
But growth does not equal profit. If your business is in growth mode, then you give up profit. Because it costs money to grow. You have to pay for more people on your team, more ads and marketing, plus all that new content you’re creating takes a ton of time (and time = money)...
That’s growth. That’s spending your money and your time.
And… If your business is in profit mode, realize that you'll also have to stabilize your business & optimize your processes so that your expenses go down so your profit goes up (remember that profit is total revenue - expenses).
So you really do need a balance of growth mode and profit mode in order to really maximize the money that you're pulling in and make your business as successful as possible. This means things like nurturing your audience on a customer value journey, optimizing your funnel, and preparing for your next launch far an advance.
Another element to this is that when your business is growing that means you're creating a ton of new content. This is another type of planting a seed.
Content creation is a slow moving part of business, but it’s a huge part of building your brand and your audience.
But I still know business owners who have a ton of internal resistance to creating Instagram posts and other social media content, because they feel like it’s this huge time suck, either for themselves or their team members. The copywriting, graphics, responding to comments… it’s a lot of work. And organic growth does take a really long time. Just like it takes a long time for that seed that you planted at the beginning of the growing season to eventually turn into food that you can harvest.
You want to plant those seeds so that in the future you'll have new audience members and customers who can buy into your program.
Now… Let's talk about pulling in that money!
This is the summer of your business. Summer is the season of big round juicy fruit, celebration, parties and barbecues, the start of the harvest season...
This is a time of high sensation. You know you’re in a summer phase when your business feels really intense. When your campaigns go live, when you're doing your big launch and you're hitting your goals. You’re pulling in new clients and a huge cash influx.
This is probably also when you're working longer weeks. You're staying up late at night to make sure everything is going smoothly. Maybe you feel some anxiety about constantly checking how many new people have joined your program. There's a lot going on, there's a lot of emotion involved, and this is when you really see all of the hard work you put in during the growth period come to fruition.
And if you've done a big lunch before then you know they often go by so quickly you kind of miss the excitement of it until it's over. Just like summer, it seems to come in a flash and then you feel nostalgic for it when it's over.
And then it’s time for Fall. Fall is about the continuing of the harvest, when things are starting to die off, and about processing the harvest you’ve already reaped.
So this is the season of fulfilling the work. This is after your launch, when you’re running the numbers and doing the accounting. This is a time when you really want to be reflecting back on what your goals were. What happened to the seeds you planted way back in spring? Did they germinate and create an awesome program or product? Or did they wither away?
The excitement from the launch is dying down. It's time to shift your focus to celebrating the harvest.
You want to be basking in those new customers or clients, and showing them why they joined your business to begin with. If you missed episode 16 of the podcast, we talked all about how you can get your customers to actually participate in your program, fall in love with your program, and leave you ecstatic testimonials that will help you bring in new people.
And that's what the autumn of your business is all about. The excitement of the launch has died down, the big cash influx has died down, but now is the time when you need to be reflecting on how you can best serve your new clients or customers.
So I’ll link episode 16 in the show notes, and I recommend giving it a listen because it’s going to give you so much more insight into what I’m talking about here.
You are processing that harvest: you are giving your customers the proper care and attention they need to stick with you through the rest of the seasons of your business.
And finally winter. This is of course the period of death, coldness, fallow land, and being stuck inside which in a spiritual sense translates to going inward, connecting with your ancestors and your spirituality, and embracing darkness itself.
Part of resting and recuperating when we're talking about business often means getting back to a harmonious business family relationship. Now is when you might want to step back and connect to your loved ones. That could mean penciling time into your schedule to go out and get a drink with a friend. It could be spending more time with your spouse or your kids. Whatever that looks like, this is actually a really important part of work. Because if you feel like you never get the chance to recuperate from being busy with work, you might start to resent your business and give less of yourself to it. Or it might cause problems at home which will also make you less present when you are at work.
So this is a part of the cycle, too.
It's a fucked up perception of our society that business has to be about continual growth & anything other than that is failure. Because nature is in constant flux.
Constant growth is why we're way overpopulated for the capacity of our planet. It’s why our landfills are overflowing with things people bought that they didn’t really want or need.
Stabilization is a beautiful thing. "Lifestyle" businesses — businesses built around the idea that we’re all people and some of us have kids and some of us have bad days and all of us are human beings trying to live in the world — these are a beautiful thing.
And one other thing… realize that a lot of online businesses that are boasting about a 7-figure or 8-figure revenue have little to no profit. They are spending as much as they're making in order to boast about the vanity metric of top-line revenue, because they aren’t going through these cycles. They’re working nonstop but like a hamster on a wheel they aren’t going anywhere… when it would make a lot more sense for them to take a step back and spend some time re-evaluating their business and what needs to change.
Here are some inquiries that can help you use the cycles of the seasons to make your business more effective and successful.
Spring:
What does business growth mean to you?
How might mentally distinguishing between increased profit and increased reach/audience help you to reach your goals?
How do you decide which seeds to plant in your business? Do you spread yourself too thin by planting too much? Or do you ever plant seeds without fully understanding the amount of work that will come when it’s time to put the work in to harvest them?
Summer:
How do you handle times of high sensation in your business? Do you tend to lose sleep and carry a lot of stress during your launches?
If you do, it’s time to examine how you can help yourself stay more in the flow. Just like your business cycles, you need to take time to rest even in the midst of big events in your business.
Allow yourself to have a period of “summer” during each day of your launch, where you are a shit ton of stuff done and do all the things you need to do to make your launch a success… a period of fall, even if it’s only an hour of relaxing with a glass of wine in the evening… and a period of winter where you let yourself get some sleep!
Autumn:
Now is the time to reflect on everything you’ve learned in your business during the first two phases of the cycle.
So first, think about what has already happened in your business.
What went well about your launch? What could you have done better? How will you alter your goals and your approach for next launch?
And then the work that still needs to be done...
What steps are you taking to nurture your clients post-launch? Is there anything you could be doing better to guide and support them in your work?
Winter:
Do you fear the winter of your business? Do you start panicking if you have a slow month?
Now is the time to turn inward and reflect upon what you need from your business… and what your business needs from you.
Remember, your business has its own soul. Just like you, it will go through periods of ebbing and flowing.
By thinking about your business in this way, you give it the space it needs to energetically flourish.
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