1. You Haven’t Grounded Your Mindset Yet
I hate to tell you, but the people that avoid the mindset work and write it off as being “woo” or frilly or lazy are the ones that need it the most. So let this be your wake-up call. If you don’t prioritize your mindset…you’re going nowhere fast, my love.
Yes, mindset is about affirmations and shadow work and trauma and limiting beliefs, but it is so much more than that. Many times it is about completely deprogramming an abusive internal dialogue or rewriting a story that is going to keep you in a perpetual cycle of self-sabotage.
I can line up the top 100 coaches and consultants on the planet and give you a billion-dollar grant to start your company, and if you refuse to address your mindset, the whole thing will implode.
Every. Single. Time.
I have watched more friends and family and truly wonderful people lose it all because they tried to start or scale a business without this most essential foundational piece. It’s fucking heartbreaking!
So if you’re serious about scaling your business, you will also get serious about implementing a regular practice to both heal and strengthen your mindset around every area of your life, health, and business. It truly is the first step; and the forever step.
2. The Business Plan Is Always On The Back Burner
If you’re a creative freelancer like a writer or designer, or artist, then sitting down to write out a technical business plan sounds like complete torture, and you completely skipped this step when you launched.
No judgment Lovebug but here’s the thing; now that you’re passed the point where this is just some whimsical hobby or side hustle and you’re ready to make the big girl money with the creme de la creme of clients, you have to take your business seriously.
That means it’s time to implement a business plan or fine-tune the one that you have. In fact, in addition to your overall I think there should really be a 5-year business plan and an annual business plan there to guide you like comforting North Stars.
So many freelancers waste thousands of hours per year on tasks and tactics that will never produce results in alignment with their true goals or desires. They find themselves brainstorming to figure out what they should be working on and always worry in the back of their mind that it won’t make a difference in the end.
Living and working this way without a clear sense of direction about who you are as a business, who you serve, how you serve them, how you allocate your revenue, your core values, your mission and your vision is exhausting. And yet I meet women every day who are wandering aimlessly in their business because they don’t have an actual business plan. So they invest in countless strategies and tactics, chasing the next opportunity without ever feeling grounded and secure.
If you have been putting off writing a real business plan that you actually implement and follow because you think it has to be boring or you don’t know how; let this be your call to take it seriously and reach out to me.
3. You’re More Reactive Than Proactive
Are you constantly putting out little fires everywhere?
Do you close your laptop at the end of the day completely drained with empty boxes glaring at you from your planner?
It’s a shitty feeling and one that can breed all kinds of capacity-killing self-doubt and negative self-talk.
Again, having a business plan in place guiding you through each phase, stage, and step of your long-term goals can empower you to be more proactive, but first you have to get control over the situation.
The moment you feel like your business is calling the shots and running the show and you’re just running from one problem to the next you need to call for a hard stop to everything and plug the leaks.
I don’t believe in treating symptoms; I believe in treating the root cause. Hence, you can’t solve mindset issues with sales tactics and strategy.
It’s time to perform a holistic audit to identify where the true root causes of these issues lie. Do you have a lack of systems that is causing repetitive tasks to pile up and take away from your ability to shine on client work the way you want to? Or does lead generation come to a complete stop when your calendar fills up? Do you find yourself constantly dropping balls you wouldn’t normally?
Go through every area of your business to identify holes that are causing the actual root problems and stop wasting so much energy spinning as you treat the symptoms repeatedly.
4. You Don’t Have A Team Or Support
There is nothing wrong with being a solopreneur and yes you can scale to a certain point that way. However, if you don’t want to take on employees in your business, you can hire them to support your life.
Use grocery delivery services to run your errands for you.
Hire someone to do all or most of your cleaning.
Outsource your styling to companies like Stitch Fix.
Walk your dog yourself – that shit is good for both of you.
Develop relationships with other women that freelance you can turn to for support.
Get yourself a coach that can hold you through mindset, strategy, healing, growth, etc.
Just spend less time in general doing repetitive tasks like these that are relatively inexpensive to outsource without training.
However, if you are open to hiring on a team, make sure you give them the room to spread their wings within their role so they can flourish as they support you. They won’t be able to do that if you micromanage or control them so just give them the room they need to do their job and you focus on your own work.
5. You Don’t Have Systems That Streamline Operations
If you are anything like most freelancers within the first three years of business, you have very few and simple systems if any at all. Still no judgment here, Sister, just tough love.
The reality is from an operational standpoint your business is not sustainable even at a small scale if you don’t have systems and automations in place that will allow your business to operate without you.
So let me ask you this…
If you couldn’t be present in your business for 6 weeks, what would happen?
Do you have an emergency or contingency plan in place if you get hurt or seriously sick or have a family emergency?
If you have built your business to be dependent on you, this is your wake-up call that it is not only not sustainable long term, it is toxic to you and to your clients. I am not saying you are or have been intentionally harmful, but the reality is by creating a co-dependent relationship with your business and, consequently, your clients, the dynamics are never going to be healthy.
But when you implement systems and automation that tackle repetitive tasks, eliminate guesswork, and highlight areas for improvement for you in your sleep it becomes much easier to be a proactive and strategic leader.
6. You’re Not Taking Financial Planning Seriously
This goes back to the mindset for many of us that have a rat’s nest of stories in and around money. So many women are struggling with a flight, freeze, or fight response. They feel they can’t escape when it comes to money, and it causes many of them to avoid taking their business finances seriously.
The whole point of scaling a business is to have a larger impact while making more money to propel future growth and more of the same, right? So you know you won’t be able to do that by playing hide-and-seek with your financial statements.
I know and I paid the price first-hand for not taking my own finances seriously in the first few years. Don’t get me wrong, I made a ton and saved a ton and paid off all of my debt. However, I went into a freeze response at one point in regards to my taxes and learned a $30K lesson the hard way.
I hate to break it to you but you can’t hide from your bottom line. You’ve gotta learn to love it enough to look at it even when you don’t want to because you know it’s what’s best for both of you.
7. You’re Trying To Do Too Much, Too Fast
I see it all the time and it shreds me.
Women get systemized and organized and sales start taking off and then they decide to go for the moon because they can’t see what could possibly get in their way now.
And then WHAM….bankruptcy.
One of the worst things you can do is try to grow too much too fast without proper consideration of your capacity to maintain quality standards, brand standards, and your health sustainably.
The second a few things go wrong, you will start to teeter and tilt, and so much of your focus will go into your expansion that you will start to ignore the foundational parts of your business that got you where you are, to begin with, and then those wheels start to fall off the wagon, and the whole thing topples down.
It’s always wise to do a complete audit of your business and your capacity for expansion before taking the leap to extend yourself further. Make sure you also check in with your why, mission, and vision for alignment with the pace and purpose of your expansion.
8. You’re Ignoring Your Self-Care and Health
When you’re a freelancer or solopreneur, you are an essential part of the business and your health directly impacts the quality of the work that you do. This is your craft and your reputation we are talking about.
You owe it to yourself, your integrity, and your brand to put your holistic health at the very top of the priority list before anything and everything else. If you’re not healthy and whole, nothing else will matter anyway.
If you’re going to Door-Dash make it a salad and a green smoothie instead of a burger and fries and make sure you move your damn body.
I love working with pomodoros throughout the day so that I have to take a 5 minute break to move around and stretch twice per hour. I also decided I needed a mental solo sport to keep me grounded and motivated so I took up marathon training to support my health and my business.
9. You Don’t Have A Bestselling Offer Suite With Passive Offers
This is another extremely common reason so many freelancers are all frazzled and freaked out when it comes to scaling. They don’t realize they need a comprehensive and balanced offer suite of signature products for passive income that covers their monthly expenses, done for you services they provide, and seasonal offers that support both.
It’s time to stop getting paid for what you do and start getting paid at scale for what you know as well!
As you are working to build out your freelance portfolio, you should also be building out a suite of signature offers based on your best selling products and services. Once you have 3-5 bestsellers we can really start to ramp up and scale but prior, we need to focus on meeting that milestone.
10. You’re Not Ready To Lead From An Emotionally Empowered Place
When it comes to scaling big, you’re going to have to hire a team and step into a leadership role no matter what. This means, you have no choice but to develop your emotionally-empowered leadership skills.
Honestly, I suggest this for every business owner because the practices that you learn within these teachings are groundbreaking work for so many reasons. You will learn so much about yourself and others through this type of training, and if you’re really serious about it I can refer you to the best coach in the business to become certified in emotional leadership.
