How to Make Right-for-You Decisions in Business (& life)

This transcript has been automatically created and minimally edited/formatted. As such, there may be some errors in the text.
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[Episode preview]
Our motivation for why we do things is such an important part in this process of making decisions. So before we even make a decision, we want to look at what is my motivation here? And then is my motivation actually productive? Or is it actually my motivation is something that, that itself needs attention and what I’m trying to do here on the surface or what I’m trying to choose whether I do this or this on the surface actually is just a distraction from healing the thing that needs some attention.
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[Podcast Intro]
Hey, welcome to the Sustainable Success podcast. This is your home for honest conversations about building and running an online business that brings you as much joy as it does revenue. I’m Carly Jo Bell, the Sustainable Success mentor and your guide on this journey with self trust as your North Star and foundations under your feet, you’ll be able to look external for ideas, internal, for answers and build your business your way. Let’s dive in.
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[Episode begins]
What should you charge for your services? How much time should you keep in between coaching sessions a week, two weeks? Should you mark it on Instagram or linkedin? Is now the time to start networking. Do you need to be growing your audience right now? What percent of your content should you be selling in? Wait, what about nurturing? How, how much should you be nurturing? Should you use Stripe or Square to collect payments? What about calendly or acuity for booking? Honey, book or Dubsado for invoice, invoicing and client management? I could keep going because a business is full of a lot of decisions. And with it being so full of decisions, it’s so easy to start getting so overwhelmed with all of the decisions that you feel like you are constantly having to make. And so what I want to talk about today is how do you actually make decisions in your business? You know, there was a point in my business where making decisions was in some ways easier. Although actually, it was a lot harder because there were so many voices outside of me saying this is what you should do and it was just like, oh OK, I’m gonna follow that voice that I just kind of made decisions based off of what someone outside of me was telling me I had to do in order to build a successful business. But when you start to exit out of that culture of speedy success in which everything is a sh a shiny object or a strategy Du Jour and you start to enter into the culture of sustainable success where you’re able to look extra internal for ideas and internal for answers and start exploring what decision is right for you. Then it actually there’s a moment where making decisions starts to feel way harder because it’s like, well, I need to make the right decision before it was. Well, this is what this person outside of me said I have to do. So that’s what I have to do. And there’s actually a little bit of like ease in that because you don’t have to make that decision. But as we, I think a lot of us know that obviously does not lean to sustainability because what’s gonna happen when you are no longer working with that person and they’re no longer telling you what to do or what if something that they said that you need to do that you should do. But if you do that thing and doesn’t work how they say it’s going to, what do you do then? So this is when we start to make that shift into, well, I need to figure out what the right decision is for me, but then how do I figure out what the right decision is for me because there’s so many decisions. So in this conversation today, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about how do you actually make decisions in your business even? And especially once you have exited that culture of this is what you should do and are now entering into or living in an era of your business where you are looking more for decisions that are not just the right decision, but that are truly right for you. All right, let’s go ahead and dive right in. The very first thing when you are starting to make a decision is actually before you even make the decision, getting clear on what your motivation is for even asking the question that is requiring a decision. I remember early on in my business and I think I’ve told this story before, but early on in my business, I thought that I had to automate my client on boarding experience. I think I was at that point seeing just so many marketing messages that said like if you don’t automate your client experience, then you know, you’re not professional or people aren’t going to take you seriously or your clients have to have this beautiful client experience, this beautiful on boarding experience. And it really started to feel like if I don’t do this, then something’s wrong with me or people aren’t going to take me seriously or I’m not going to be a successful business owner or people are going to think that, oh, why did I buy with this person? Because, oh, look at their onboarding. These are the thoughts that I truly had running through my head. And so I finally was like, oh, ok, like this is what I have to do. I have to automate my customer onboarding and, and make it really beautiful and sleek and, you know, absolutely frictionless and all of these things. And so I chose Dubsado because that’s what a particular expert quote unquote at the time was saying that you have to do. And I tried to build out an automated client on boarding for a literal, like dozens of hours. I tried so hard. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in dubs soto, I find Dsot really challenging. It seems to really work for some people. It does not work for my brain. So I tried four hours to create this beautiful, you know, seamless client on boarding experience. Until finally, I was like, I can’t do this. I hired someone to do it for me. The problem was though even in hiring that person and I’m like, ok, I have to do this thing. Well, that person ended up ghosting me partially through the project. So I kind of went back to square one which then left me with, well, I can’t figure out dsot, oh, this is way too hard for me. And so I started exploring other options. I’ve had another option that worked for me. It’s called Hello Bonsai. I still recommend that to a lot of clients. Actually, once I chose Hello Bonsai, I then went in and I was like, well, trying to set up all these automations was really overwhelming. So I’m going to just do this as simply as I can I allowed myself to essentially set up automated invoices in hello, Bonzai. That was the only thing I really automated. And then everything else. I just kept doing it manually. I would manually write and send the email that said, hey, welcome to this program. I’m really excited that here’s our next steps. Here’s how to book your first call, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And in doing all of that going through this whole journey, I realized that I actually never needed at that point in business to have this really complex onboarding process. Because even though I was manually writing this email, which frankly how does the client even know whether you’re manually writing it or not and also do they care. But even though I was manually writing that on boarding email, and I didn’t have all these fancy automation set up, my clients still liked working with me. They still got great results. It didn’t really seem like anyone thought any less of me. Even though that on boarding wasn’t automated. I spent so much time though, because someone’s marketing outside of me was saying that I have to have this automated client on boarding experience. I spent so much time trying to make a decision about how to automate it. And then once I chose, ok, I’m going to use Debatto, then even within that is OK, making all of these decisions about all of these different automations and all these different parts of on boarding. Like I need to do this and I need to do that and I need to do that. I spent so much time making all of these decisions where the reality was, if I would have literally just taken a moment before any of this started. Right. That first time I read someone’s piece of content that was like, you have to have a client on boarding experience if I would have read that piece of content and then notice myself start going into, oh, I need to have a client on boarding experience. It’s all automated, seamless yada, yada yada. If I would have taken a moment to just pause and ask myself, what is my motivation here? I would have saved myself so much time because when I look back, I look at what my motivation was for trying to automate my client on boarding experience. It was that I felt like I had to in order to quote unquote be professional, which ultimately means that my motivation was fear. My motivation was a fear that if I do not do this, if I don’t have this beautifully automated client honoring experience, then I am going to be an imposter. People aren’t going to take me seriously. I’m not legit. I could have, if I would have just taken a moment to get curious about my motivation, I could have then recognized that my motivation here actually is a very productive motivation. My motivation here is actually a little bit misplaced because this actually isn’t about trying to automate my client on boarding. It’s actually about me being afraid of not being good enough. Our motivation for why we do things is such an important part, such an important detail in this process of making decisions. So before we even make a decision, we want to look at what is my motivation here and then is my motivation actually productive or is it actually my motivation is something that, that itself needs attention. And what I’m trying to do here on the surface or what I’m trying to choose whether I do this or this on the surface actually is just a distraction from healing. The thing that needs some attention. I could have invested my time energy and even money into healing that fear of not being good enough rather than pouring myself so much into this project that frankly, I didn’t actually need at that time in my business, I didn’t have anywhere near enough clients to need to automate it. But instead of pouring that time and energy and money into that, I could have recognized. Wow, there’s a part of me that’s really hurting here that is trying to just do this project because it feels like it’s going to save me from this fear. But an automated client on boarding experience in Dubsado is not going to save me from not feeling like I’m good enough. I need to work on the not feeling good enough and allow myself to come back to automating my client experience when my motivation for doing so has changed and is more productive. I think it’s so easy to do things where we think like, oh yeah, I need to do that like, oh yeah, of course. Of course, I need to do that. Of course, I need to get on to tiktok. Of course, I need to start a podcast. Of course, I need to start a membership. Of course, I need to have a high ticket offer. Of course, we start just thinking of. Well, of course, I need to do that and then that opens up so many subsequent decisions. Ok, I mean, I’m going to have a high ticket offer. Well, what should I price it at? I’m going to have a membership. Well, what should that be priced at? What should I include? How much, you know, content do I want to include? Do people have to sign up for three months, six months, 12 months later? These things that we just think? Well, of course, I have to do that so often. Our motivation for even thinking we have to do that thing is not actually productive. It’s actually we’re doing that because we’re trying to cover up some sort of fear trying to almost pre empt ourselves from having to feel some sort of discomfort within ourselves. Now, that’s not always true. Right. That can be true. But if I think about, for example, with automating my client on boarding, if I had checked in with my motivation, and I realized that my motivation actually was, well, my team and I are pretty maxed out with the work that we’re doing a lot of which is unnecessarily manual and not automating. This process is now costing us money then. Ok. At that point. Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. My motivation is productive. My motivation for automating the client experience is productive. But when my motivation is fear almost always not productive. So before you even go into making a decision, I invite you to ask, what’s my motivation here? Why am I even considering this? Why am I thinking that this is the right next step for me? Let’s just what’s my motivation here? Once we do that and we discovered we do actually have a productive motivation, then it’s about really considering the tradeoffs. I think so often when we’re making decisions, it’s like this or that we just think, you know, do I market on Instagram or do I market on linkedin? Do I do a course or do I do a group program? It’s just this like this or that this or that this or that? And when you’re choosing between this or that, it’s really hard to make a choice because on the surface it’s like, well, I don’t actually know, I don’t know which one is right for me. And I think you know, either one maybe like, but is there one that’s better for me? Is it Instagram? Is it linkedin? Is it what this is it that so instead of just choosing between this or that what I like to do is I actually like to choose between trade offs. I’m not choosing between the actual thing. I’m choosing between the tradeoffs of choosing that thing. Here’s what I mean about that. Let’s continue using this example of should I mark it on linkedin or on Instagram? Well, let’s say that I like spending more time on Instagram, but I really hate creating graphics and Instagram kind of requires graphics to a degree. Whereas linkedin, I don’t really love spending time on the platform, but it’s nice that I could just create purely written content and not have to have some sort of little graphic or photo with it. OK? Well, on the surface, I choose between Instagram and linkedin. But the tradeoffs are that if I choose Instagram, I’ll enjoy being there more. But I’m gonna have to do something that feels really laborious for me, which is creating these graphics. Whereas if I choose linkedin, I might not enjoy being there as much as I enjoy being on Instagram, but I can just create written captions and let that be that. So now instead of choosing between linkedin and Instagram, I’m choosing between the tradeoffs of those choices and understanding the tradeoffs of those choices can then help you make a much more informed decision because you recognize that there are things that are going to come after the decision as a consequence of the decision. And now you are prepared for those things, you are prepared for the trade offs and you are making a decision that you’re now able to kind of recognize. Well, there’s not really a right answer. There’s also not really a wrong answer. It’s kind of just which one would I rather? And it takes so much of that pressure off to find the quote unquote right answer. Because you truly, when you look at the tradeoffs, you realize there isn’t a right answer. It’s just what are the tradeoffs, which tradeoffs would I rather have after you look at those trade offs and then you make a decision, frankly, you get to make the decision and you get to then follow through on the decision. And I think that this is so often where actually a lot of people get stuck, they do end up making a decision, but then it’s the follow through and the commitment to the decision that is not there. And this often looks like, you know, ok, I’m going to send one email a week. Ok, I’m sending one email a week, but now it’s been three weeks and I haven’t sent a single email. Well, I made a decision. That’s what I said I was going to do. I knew the tradeoffs, my motivation for doing so, was good and it was very productive, but I haven’t followed through on it. Well, if you are not following through on the decision, of course, then the decision can’t be successful. Right? Of course, if you’re not following through, then you can’t actually see the decision be successful or maybe it’s, you know, OK, I decided that I’m going to do a three day challenge in the next month and I’m gonna use that to sell this offer, this program, this whatever, that’s the decision. Now, I did the three day challenge but then actually following through by sending the emails, inviting those people to work with me, I maybe did a couple and now I just never followed through on it. And then we start getting in our head of, oh, the launch did it work. But actually it’s not that the launch didn’t work is that you didn’t follow through on it. So you couldn’t actually see if it was going to work or the emails. Well, I was gonna send one sales email per week and then you send that sales email twice in a row, but then you don’t do it for three more weeks and then you do it another time and then you’re like, well, I sent these three emails over the six weeks and it didn’t work well. Yeah, it didn’t work because you didn’t have that follow through. You didn’t stay committed to it. I think so often that it’s easy to make a decision. Well, it’s not always right. But so often once they do make a decision, we’re like I made the decision. Awesome. But then it’s the follow through that actually is crucial to seeing the success of that decision, to seeing that to giving that decision an opportunity to be successful, to actually work. And when you come to that moment where you realize, oh I didn’t follow through that actually is a great thing when you realize that because that gives you an opportunity to recommit to the decision that you already made. Instead of what I think a lot of business owners do is they make a decision, they try it and then they don’t follow through and then they’re like, it didn’t work. So now I’m gonna make a whole new decision, but then that just puts you into a cycle where you’re making a decision and then you’re not actually giving it time to work, how you are wanting it to. And then now you’re making another decision and then you’re not giving that time to work, how you want it to. And it’s just this consistent cycle of frankly frustration and exhaustion and a lot of things that we don’t actually need. So when you finally make that decision, you get to follow through on it and when you realize that you maybe haven’t followed through exactly how you want to. Amazing, that’s an opportunity to recommit to the decision and in that recommitment and in the follow through, that continues to happen, maybe not consistently, but more and more and more that process of making the decision following through recommitting when you stop following through and then continuing that cycle that actually builds up self trust because we’re all not going to perfectly follow through on things that we decide we’re going to do all the time. Of course not. But when you say, hey, I noticed that I didn’t do that totally fine. But now I’m making the decision to follow through again. I am recommitting to that decision and then you actually follow through again, you’re showing yourself that you can trust yourself to stay committed to the decisions that you make and that self trust, not only then again, has the manifestation of whatever the decision you made actually now being able to work, but that self trust that you’re building also then starts to bleed into all of the other areas of your business. And it allows you to then make more decisions with even more ease, to follow through with even more ease, to stay committed with even more ease. Because in this whole journey, you are building up that capacity for self trust here at HCO. Our motto is Look External for ideas and internal for answers. And I share that here because again, we started this conversation talking about how so often we feel like there is a quote unquote, right? Or wrong decision. But I hope what you’re seeing in this is that there’s not and it really is about you looking at, here’s the options and I’m going to look at them and I’m going to maybe even hear what people outside of me are saying that I should do or that the right thing is to do or whatever that is. I’m gonna look at them and I’m gonna let those be ideas, but I’m ultimately going to look internal for answers. I’m ultimately going to look at my own motivation. I’m ultimately going to consider the tradeoffs, which your tradeoffs might be different than my tradeoffs in the exact same situation in the exact same decision. I’m going to look inside of myself and make the decision that I want to make. And then I’m going to follow through on the decision. And then when I maybe lapse a little bit in following through on the decision, I’m just going to, again, look inside of myself and recommit to that decision. The last little note of nuance that I want to bring in here is that sometimes of course you make a decision and then you struggle to follow through on it. And when you get curious about why and you again, are looking internal here, why am I struggling to follow through on this? You might notice that actually the decision you made wasn’t as aligned as he thought it was. Now again, even in this moment it is an opportunity to look at the motivation if you’re like, oh, this isn’t aligned. I need to make a new decision is the motivation for doing so a fear that recommitting to the same thing isn’t going to work. Because again, I think any motivation that we’re bringing that is very rooted in fear, often is not going to be a productive motivation. And therefore anything that we chose from there is going to have a much harder time being successful or having whatever the result or outcome is that we are looking for in making that decision. So of course, there’s always room for you to make a new decision. Yes. And even in doing so, I invite you to examine your motivation. Why are you making a new decision and more often than not? I bet you’ll find that when you have kind of struggled to follow through on a decision and you look at why is that happening? You’re going to see that. Well, it actually was just whatever other fear or it was, you know, it was that I got busy or I didn’t actually stay committed and that’s ok. And that right, there is an invitation to recommit to that same decision and continue allowing it to have the time and space. It needs to have the productive outcome or result that you’re looking for the next time. You find yourself trying to make a decision. I invite you to remind yourself that there isn’t a right decision. And in fact, there are even potentially many right for you decisions you get to ultimately choose and it’s in the choosing that that decision even has an opportunity to be successful, happy decision making.
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[Podcast Outro]
Thanks for listening to the Sustainable Success podcast. You’re home for honest conversations about building and running an online business that brings you as much joy as it does revenue. I truly believe that these are the conversations we need to be having more of in our online business community. If you know too, would you leave me a review and/or share this episode with the friends?
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