3 Things to Consider When You Want to Shut Down Your Business
I feel like everyone I've talked to these last couple weeks has been ready to burn shit down.
(Not too surprising going into another eclipse season)
Their marketing strategy. Their program. Their entire business... 🧨🔥
Whether you’re a life coach, spiritual leader, or course creator — I’m guessing you’ve had these thoughts at least once. You’ve been burnt out, exhausted, and hopeless in your business. Maybe you’ve tried to overcome them with thought work, or you’ve pushed your frustration down so you could power through to your next business goal.
If you feel a little called out, don’t worry. Nobody wants to admit it, but this is so common.
So let's talk about it.
Questions to ask when thinking about shutting down your business
1. Are you truly ready to let go of this [thing/strategy/business/relationship], or are you just bored?
If you don't have a juicy life outside of [thing/strategy/business/relationship] then no wonder you want to burn it down. You're expecting all of your needs to come from you business, which is just not possible.
In the case of your business, if your purpose, excitement, passion, creativity... all come from your business & you hit an obstacle or your get bored of what you're doing, you're immediately going to want to switch.
So... (in this example) start INTENTIONALLY creating other channels for purpose, excitement, passion, creativity to flow into your life outside of business. You'll be shocked how you stop having the compulsion to burn it all down after realizing you are totally obsessed with CrossFit or photography or knitting.
2. Do you really need to BURN IT ALL DOWN, or would a couple little tweaks fix it?
Often if something is 25% (or even 5%) misaligned then we have the desire to flush it down the toilet because it just doesn't feel right.
You know what's easier? Just addressing what's 25% "off."
Some examples of ways to tweak your business into alignment
Do you hate working with clients, or do you just hate 1 of your clients, or 1 type of client?
If that's the case - suck it up and fire the bad client & create "rules" around what types of clients you take on.
Better yet, totally systematize your sales + onboarding process so that you bring in the best clients & train them how to be stellar clients. It’s about learning how to create emotionally mature client relationships.
And if you’re tired of feeling like you need to convince all your clients to work with you (instead of them organically feeling deep excitement as soon as you mention your online program), check out my blog on What to do if someone says they can’t afford you.
Do you hate podcasting, or do you hate having to churn out an episode every week?
If that's the case - change it up instead of killing the pod.
You could batch create your episodes when you're inspired, bring on a co-host to do it with you, only put out an episode a month, stop bringing on guest and just do solo episodes, do it live in front of an audience & repurpose it as a podcast...
Do you hate your offer, or are you just not getting enough clients, or hate one aspect of it?
It's really common to feel like an offer is a "failure" if you have few (or zero) clients buying the offer.
Letting go of whether someone buys as the measure of your love for your offer is sooooooo important (it's like deciding you want a divorce because one of your friends says your spouse is not that hot) -- and come back to your sacral chakra DESIRE for your own offer!
If you can't access that desire, it's time to start tweaking it. What can you add or take out to make it OMG to you?
Maybe you need to cancel all the live calls & hire a support person. Or change the length from 6 months to 6 weeks. Or make it a live retreat or VIP day. Or bring on a collaborator. (Keep going until you feel like "WTF I want to buy this!! I can't believe I'm only charging this much for all of this!!")
Do you hate your business, or do you just hate social media or whatever you do to market your business?
There are 1001+ ways to get new clients + customers. If you're unhappy with how you're marketing, change it.
If you feel like you're talking into a void, or Instagram really bums you out, you do not have to continue doing it.
Start doing relationship-based marketing like networking, having real conversations, creating an affiliate program, doing joint venture promotions, asking peers if they want to work with you or promote your work, ask old clients if they have anyone to refer to you or if they'd like to work with you again, contact the media to feature your story... (I could keep going)
Are you burnt out, or do you just need 1 more day off?
When you're overworked and overwhelmed it is so easy to want to kill it all. But really, if we cut our work hours from 40 hours a week to 30 hours, or 5 days working a week to 3... all the problems resolve!
As the owner of your business, you get to create your hours + most of us fill the vast majority of our time with BS + we could get our required work done in 20 hours a week or less. Seriously.
So get serious! If you had nothing to lose (you were about to kill your business) how would you make the same amount of money or MORE working less. THEN STICK TO IT.
If scaling back your time in your business feels impossible, I highly recommend you check out my video on 4 Ways to Get 2 Hours Back Every Day.
3. Maybe you do need to burn it all down!! 👹
No matter how many hours you put in, no matter how much money you've invested, no matter how much you've built... you're allowed to burn it all down.
If there's a dream in your heart to do something VASTLY different in your business and/or life, then I dare you to jump head first. If you went all in now + tried to become a killer [hypnotist/scarf knitter/occult Etsy shop owner/coach/artist/silk aerial artist...] then in a couple years time you could have that be your thing.
And really, the best business is just to be impeccable at what you do, so your desire to do the thing & be amazing at it is the foundation of making a business out of it.
(Or deciding you want to be an off-grid homesteader and cut all your expenses and live the good life -- going all in on that, in 2 years you'll be shocked at who you become + accomplish in the process.)
FREE DOWNLOAD
Meet the Soul of Your Business Guided Meditation
THE FASTEST WAY TO TAP INTO THE FULL DESTINY OF YOUR BUSINESS’ FUTURE POTENTIAL NOW & LET GO OF THE CHRONIC STRUGGLE & *PERPETUAL DOING* OF TRYING TO MAKE IT WORK ON YOUR OWN (AND FINALLY FEEL SUPPORTED)
