Maintaining Your Momentum

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Welcome to The Business Animal podcast. Saddle up for a

gallop to the top of the animal industry, where you'll learn how

to tame your wild business beast with tips, techniques, and tools

that will take overwhelm to obedience school, and have you

wagging your tail with joy. And now your hosts Kim Beer and Cara

Taylor Swift.

Hey there business animals. It's Kim with

Be More Business

and Cara with Fast Horse Photography. Hi, Kim.

Good morning. Happy Friday. It's Friday here in our world. And

it's so hot. Oh my gosh, I'm just sweating nonstop right now.

I walked outside yesterday, and I thought my skin was gonna melt

off from the hot breeze or you guys are having that kind of

weather over in Missouri right now.

We had really hot weather this last week. And then

Tuesday, we had a little rain storm and it cooled off to the

90s. And it's within the 80s even one day so we were really

happy with that and our humidity dropped down quite a bit. It was

really pleasant. When I was out here just a few minutes ago, I

went out because we were having a motorcycle race this weekend

on the ranch and the guys are here to work on the trails and

stuff. And so I was out telling the guy that was doing it to

make sure he watched his dog so it didn't hurt our baby goat

that's out there. So anyway, it was really really pleasant

outside very pleasant. Yeah, my goats are quite the characters.

So

I'm not jealous at all. We're over here

in Florida, we're basically sweating through our bras when

we have to go out and be courses. So it's like melt your

skin off hot. That's the only way to describe it. Which is why

I think today's episode is so perfect because it's summertime

right and I am 100% Feeling the summertime slump. Right now I

want to be on vacation or just at a staycation I want to go to

the beach, I want to go the barn, I want to do anything

besides work. So I love our topic today, maintaining your

moment, I

totally get that because I feel you I'm right

there with you. I've had such a stressful spring with health

issues and trying to maintain my business. And I've decided to

eradicate a lot of the stress out of my life. And I have to

tell you, I'm thoroughly enjoying not living at a

stressed out level. And I don't want to go back to that again.

But I also want to maintain or actually restart some of my

momentum. I had a lot of big plans at the first of the year.

And some things got derailed for higher priority incidents. And

now those things are put away and I need to move on and get to

the next step. So I do think this is a very timely topic for

people. And it's something where I think we get into different

times here both the summer and for me also the dead of winter

tends to be a little bit on the slumpy side, I just don't want

to work, the holidays roll around and you want to spend

time with friends and family or you're here in the summertime.

And you get that moment where you're just like, Ah, I'm tired,

I just want to go take a nap and drink lemonade under the tree.

It's so true or in the air conditioning if you're in

Florida. So we have three things for you guys today that Karen

and I are both doing and that we think sharing with you might

help you also through those times in your business when you

feel like you've made a lot of progress. But you want to make

sure that progress keeps going and you're able to maintain it

over time. So I'm going to run down the big three and then

we'll jump in the first one is to review and assess where you

are with your goals and adjust accordingly. And then number two

is to seize the slowdown, there is a lot of positivity that you

can have around to this person my favorite part of the process,

it's it's part of that circular process of our lives. And then

finally play like you've reached your goals and celebrate your

success for number three, going back and reviewing and assessing

where you've kind of set your goals to be and adjusting them.

I think that people sometimes feel like and I know I do, too.

I set a goal. And then I feel like if that's the goal I have

to reach and if I don't reach that specific goal, I either

haven't been successful or a conversely, another problem I

have is I reach that goal right away. And then I'm like okay,

check mark, no reason to do anything more after that. So

there's two sides to that coin, where I think that we need to go

back take a look at the goals that we've set for ourselves in

our business and decide if we want to adjust those. If you've

reached the goal and you're early. Do you want to up that

goal and make it bigger. Or if you haven't reached the goal,

were you unrealistic when you started out? And can you set

that goal a little bit better.

That's so true. I'm doing I'm actually

doing this right now in my business with I have a couple

photography pals, Betsy from ride the sky photography and

Tracy from pennywhistle photography we meet regularly

and one of the next topic we're meeting on is assessing our

goals to see where we are. And in anticipation for that

meeting, I pulled up my goals and was looking at like what I

said at the beginning of the year, okay, these are the things

we're going to focus on this year. And some of the things I

feel like I've done a great job on and on other things, it's

definitely going to take some refocusing, or maybe doing some

course correction around what I thought I was going to be doing

this year, and then life kind of kicks you in the butt and you

get kicked down the road to another direction. So anyway,

just if this is such a good point in the year for that, to

really figure out where you stand with those goals you set

for yourself at the beginning of the year, you know, and ask

yourself, What am I focusing on? And why and what am I not

focusing on? And why like, there's reasons for those

things, is it because it's fun or not fun? Is it because it's

not a priority right now, or your business has worked itself

in another direction, and you've had other priorities, and that's

okay, that is totally okay to have those thoughts and to make

decisions around that. And it's okay at this point to weed out,

I think what you don't need at this point and start kind of

making some cuts, it doesn't mean you're cutting your goals,

but you're reevaluating the priorities and making some

changes around the goals that are no longer a priority for

your business. And I think it's a it's a great time to use it to

reinvigorate and re motivate by looking at those goals again,

and refining them doing a little course correction and get you re

motivated just because okay, I now have new priorities. And I

understand where I'm going with those goals. And there's still a

lot of time. Yeah, we

still have six months of the year left as we're

recording this. But the truth is, even if there's only three

weeks left in the year, you have time to reevaluate your goals

and adjust your objectives. And I think here is a really good

point to reiterate what goals and objectives are, because I

think we talk about this and then we don't get really

concrete about it, or we forget how to be concrete about it

goals are overarching things that you want to add to your

business or that you want to take away like you want to

remove stress is one of my now goals. It wasn't my goal at the

first of the year. But now it definitely is because I've seen

the toll that stress can take on my life. So another one would be

to make more revenue to have more customers. I mean, goals

are these overarching things that you want to do for the

year. And then your objectives are the things that you do step

by step in order to reach those goals. And sometimes it may not

be the goal that you need to adjust, maybe you want to leave

that goal, but the objectives that you have defined to reach

that goal maybe are what need adjusted. So for example, if you

wanted to add more customers to your business, and you decided

at the first of the year, one of the objectives that you were

going to follow was to get 300 more Instagram followers, and

now you've gotten close to that or you've tried it, it didn't

work, you haven't seen that improve your bottom line, then

it's time to readjust and say okay, what can I do differently

to get that momentum back on track? Or if it started a little

bit and just kind of fizzled out kind of short of what you wanted

to do, then how can you up your game a little bit so that you're

able to actually reach that particular goal. So I think that

that's a quick little reminder and what goals and objectives

really do mean to us. And to know that maybe you don't need

to change the overarching broad goal, but you need to change the

steps that you're taking to get there. If they're not working,

or if they worked really well, then expanding the objective

quantification to actually be able to expand it even further.

I love the adage of ride the pony until it's done. So keep

going on that if you find something that works keep going

until the horse underneath you says hey, I'm done and I don't

want to go anymore and then go get a fresh horse. And it's been

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I would just add with that to like your goals

that you're setting for your business and for yourself that

they don't all have to be like work, you know, like it's okay

to have an add in at this point of the year when you're feeling

your momentum is slumping, add something fun, you know, have a

fun goal that you could spend a little time working on to that's

going to have something awesome at the end of it that's outside

of your work, I think that sometimes we get so caught up

and all of our goals are around moving the business forward or

making our lives better or our family's lives better. And

sometimes we need to just have the goal. You know, like Kim

said, removing stress from the life we need to have the goal to

get outside more or be horseback more, or take the dogs for an

extra walk or get to the beach more often. You know, I mean, I

live a couple of miles from the beach, and I'm never there. So

you know, thinking about things like that can get us excited

about okay, you know, we can talk about that when we get to

number three. But I just think that that can help get me

motivated when my goals are not all work related all the time.

Absolutely. And I think one of my biggest lessons

from this year thus far has been that I've been doing this

entrepreneurship thing for a lot of decades. Now. It's decades,

not years, it's a decade Hot Minute. And I've had a

refocusing, like you said reprioritizing, what is

important and what isn't. And many times I set my goals up

until this year up until this spring, I set my goals based on

what I thought was best for the business. And the truth is, is

now I'm readjusting that view to say what is the best for Kim?

What is the best for me moving forward? And where can I have

the most impact while also having the most joy and ease and

passion fulfillment in my life, rather than what is the best

thing for the bottom line of my business? That's a new step for

me as an entrepreneur to really look at that in that light and

sort of take my own medicine is I tell people that a lot. And

I've started to chip away at it over the years, but having a

health crisis where you look at your life and go, Okay, it's

time to figure out what really makes me happy and what doesn't,

and understanding the impact of the stress that it can be as an

entrepreneur that can impact your life and going okay, what

stresses me out, I want that out of my business. What brings me

peace and joy I want more of so I do think reprioritizing is

really important. And I think it's a nice time of year to sit

and look back and say am I really in the right track.

Because honestly, at the first of the year, we're all so

wrapped up in goal setting. And I mean, it's it's like peer

pressure, right? Everybody's on it. And this time of year, it's

not as prominent, we're not having that discussion every

single day. So you can take a little bit more time to relax

and ease into how you want to do the rest of your year playing

out. So I think it's time to move on to number two, because I

know you have some great ideas around how to seize the moment

of the slowdown, how to actually feel into this and let the

momentum be flexible and mutable and allow it to kind of find its

own path. So I'm turning it over to you. And I'm going to tell

you right now, number one on your list I really am wanting to

embrace.

Well, it's time to seize the slowdown. And

it is a time when a lot of businesses either slow down or

they pick up and if you're one of those businesses like mine

where we're slowing down right now it's hot out and it is a

time when you can kind of reevaluate I say take a break,

take the break, plan a trip, enjoy a little staycation if you

can take a vacation take it this is the time and it's okay to set

the auto responder the out of office responder on your email

and enjoy a little time off you are you know it Kevin may had

this conversation this morning. If you need a day your business

isn't going anywhere he just need a day you know to relax and

to catch up. I also think it's a great time to do a little spring

cleaning. There's a reason that spring cleaning term is around.

It's an awesome time to reset your workspace for me when my I

think I've said this on here before when my space starts to

get messy and cluttered from being busy. My inspiration and

my excitement about being in the office is a downward trajectory

the messier it gets the less I feel like being in the space so

it's a nice time to reset your workspace. I recently had sugar

ants in my car which is extremely awkward to talk about

I guess on a podcast but I had a really bad sugar at issue in my

car. It's part of having a child that eats junk food in the

backseat I guess constantly and little crumbs are building up so

part of my spring cleaning was attacking the sugar and

situation I'd like to announce to the world that it's

officially under control. But I was like my truck is everything.

I take my truck everywhere. It's got all my work gear In it

everything and it was like I couldn't get in without being

covered in sugar in it. So everybody's totally creeped out

now. You're laughing but it's like a real issue. Okay. And I

Googled it. And apparently this is a very common thing.

I am only laughing because I commiserate

because we have had a sugar an invasion of our own. So somehow

outside, I don't know how it happened. But outside the front

door that we never used, there's gotten to be a conglomeration. I

don't know if they're sugar ants, they're freaking ants, I

their little tiny ants, little itsy bitsy once. And they have

they have like, invaded our home. And like they've, they've

started crawling up into our sink. And I there was one on my

desk this morning when I came in here, and we keep spraying for

them. So I totally commiserate with your ant problem. And

you're gonna have to share your secrets and how you rid your

life of these ants, because we are battling the ants right now.

And the little shits are winning.

All right, well, I, I believe that we are

probably not the only two people on the planet that have this

problem. So if you too are suffering from sugar hands,

please send us a DM and let us know how you handle this

situation. I also think that this year is a good time, this

time of year is such a great time to try to complete one of

those. I'm putting this in air quotes. But you guys can't see

that. But Kim can if I only had the time activities, try to

complete one of those if I only had the time activities, how

many times have you found yourself saying gosh, if I if I

just had the time, I would sit down and write this book or I

would you know, record this song or I would do you know a total

rework of my marketing materials like this is a great time to do

that, like set that as a goal and set it as a priority and

feel really good when you knock it out. And then the last thing

I want to add to sees the slowdown is this is such an

awesome time of year to really assess where updates are needed

in your business. Is it time to update your website, your

marketing materials, maybe you've been holding off doing

that software update forever, because it takes forever and

you're worried it's going to crash your computer, now's a

good time to manage that situation, right? Update your

client resources, if they're needed, maybe your social media

descriptions need to be updated. And y'all it's probably time to

update your bio. If you haven't, this is a beautiful time to do

that I'm in the process. So this is that's what I want to add to

seize the slowdown. Kim, do you have anything you want to add to

that?

I do? I? Of course I do. How could I not. So

the title of this episode is maintaining your momentum. And

I'm gonna tell you from my perspective, there's also

another thing that I would like to add here and that it's okay

to coast. So, you know, as an entrepreneur, it's sometimes it

feels like when you're building your business up, it's like

climbing a big giant hill, you are going up and up and up and

up. And you have to take moments and breathe and then you get to

the top of the hill. And, yes, now is the time to look at the

next hill. But it also might be the time to just sit down, take

a Zen moment, breathe and let yourself coast on the progress

that you've made. That's one of the things that I have enjoyed

for the last couple of months is that I did make some big changes

in my business a few years ago. And I did change a lot of the

things that I was doing that weren't making me happy and to

things that were and I shifted my business model quite a bit.

And I was able to actually sit back and really take care of

myself this spring and coast a little bit on the business karma

or the progress that I had made prior to that. And I appreciate

every one of my clients who's been super patient with me

through this, I promise you I am I'm back in the office and on

the on the track for getting things done again, but the fact

that I did all of that work ahead of time made it so nice.

And you know what I just want to give everyone who's at that

point where they're at kind of at the top of the hill, just,

you know, go ahead, take a minute, take a deep breath,

enjoy the view coast for just a few minutes and enjoy it and

really, really be present with yourself and with your success.

It's completely okay that things are going to slow down.

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We never feel like as business owners that that's okay. I mean,

we're on social media, we're hearing from our other business

owner friends, you know, in our groups and stuff, and it feels

like in order to keep your business going, you have to keep

going and doing all the time. And it's part of that is because

a lot of us are solopreneurs. And we're the only person and if

we're not working it, nothing's happening. But the other piece

of that is we're always feeling like we're in competition. And

if I decide to take a vacation and take some time off, and I

don't, for example, if I take a social media break, I feel like

what does that mean? Like what's happening with my competition?

Or does that mean that my business isn't being successful

this week? And I think that we have to give ourselves that,

okay, and say, it's totally fine. We're not going anywhere.

Our friend Marcy Joe photography, said to me the

other day, I said, Oh, I haven't posted in three days. And she

said, No one is noticing that you're not there. It's when you

are there that they see you. But they don't say to themselves, I

haven't seen a post from you know who in a while. It's when

you're when you do post that they see you. And I think that's

the truth. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, no one's sitting

around going, Oh, I haven't seen anything from Fast Horse

photography this week. I mean, come on, they're following

10,000 people online, they could care less. So it's totally fine.

Like you're not hurting anyone's feelings by not being out there

doing something all the time you're not. And with that being

said, this is an awesome time to take a social media cleanse, I

mean, I will tell you, the only downside to doing it is when you

start, it's really hard to get back into it. I just took a week

off from social media. And it was really hard. And it almost

felt sickening to have to like get back on all the platforms

again and get back to work there, I was really enjoying the

break, I really want to take a little break, and just enjoy not

being social for a while.

Absolutely coast, just enjoy the coast and the

progress that you've made, and appreciate it and be thankful

for where you are gratitude wise, as you're standing at the

top of that hill. Or if you're halfway up it, it's okay to take

a break too. I mean, I totally agree with all of that. I think

that our culture just tells us push push, push, push, push, and

you're not being successful if you aren't pushing, and I'm

sorry, but the reason we push is so that we can take a break. And

so push, push, push, take a minute, breathe, and enjoy the

view. So the third part of what we want to impart today is to

maintain your momentum to play like you've reached your goals,

and then celebrate your successes. And I think we've

talked a little bit about that in this series, The slowdown

just now. But one of the things that I've noticed in a lot of my

clients, businesses, as well as my own, not so much now, but in

the past in particular is I'll set a goal, I'm I'll just throw

myself under the bus here, but I'll set a goal, then I don't

feel like I've reached that goal, right. It's a new goal,

maybe for me, and I haven't, I haven't made as many inroads

into being able to achieve that goal as I would like. And so I

don't, I don't fully step into it with confidence, right? I

don't have a lot of confidence around it. And then I find

myself when I do that, that at the end of the day, I fall short

of that goal. And what I want to encourage people to do,

especially to help maintain momentum in their businesses is

play like you've already reached the goal. Like if you want to

add 10 more customers to your business, play like you already

have those 10 Customers added I work with a lot of people who

are starting coaching businesses. So I have a great

many of clientele that are starting into coaching

businesses, and at the beginning of a coaching business, they

don't have a full client book. But when they come to me and we

sit down and we talk about their coaching business, what I

recommend is that they take a look at their schedule, and I'm

a big proponent for how do you want to spend your day How do

you want to spend your week how do you want to spend your year

and when we look at the day or the week, I'm like, how do you

want to spend that if it's in a perfect world and everything is

the way that you want it to be? How many clients do you want to

see in that week? Well, I want to see six clients every single

week. Okay, mark out those six client time periods, whether

they're 30 minutes or an hour or whatever it is, and show up.

Even if you don't have a client show up, like you're gonna have

a client be at your desk, be in the barn be wherever it is that

you see your clients, and spend that time in that space. Like

you already have those clients. Now on the backside of that you

got to go after the clients, you can't just just let that drop

and just hope that they appear in those time periods. The world

isn't that magical. But what happens in that is because you

play like you have those clients, like you have a full

client book, when you have a person approach you and say,

hey, I want to work with you don't tell them Well, I have all

of these six slots open, say, Well, I have a coaching slot

that I think will work for you. And then shuffle around and see

what would work for them and add them to it. But play like you

already have that book mostly done like you have filled your

coaching slots up for the week, and you just have one left to

fill up. And you'll notice that it really does work in that you

get in the mindset of you're going to be there at those times

when you said you were going to coach and you're showing up for

yourself you're showing up and proving and I know Cara's gonna

go You're being too woowoo here to the universe, that that that

that time is perfect for what you've designated it for. So

don't just say, Oh, I don't have a client this afternoon. So I'm

going to sit down and watch all my children or something. I

think all my children is off the air at this point. But I used to

be addicted to that show. By the way. I've wasted a lot of my my

early entrepreneurial years watching all my children versus

seeing clients. I miss all my children. But anyway, so just

make sure you're focusing on that Kara's laughing Did you

ever watch any soap operas

days of our lives? I started with my mother.

You watched the one after the one I watched a

nude into college. I was Yeah, I can't use

came on.

I was I was definitely all my children was

always my favorite. I just I loved that show so much.

Well as a 10 year old I think more than two

hours of soap operas was probably plenty and my mother

was probably like, Okay, you need to get outside and play

now. You've seen Days of Our Lives as the days of our lives.

She's the things that we did. I don't think

anybody watches soap operas anymore.

We have reality TV. Yeah, I

guess we're watching Real Life soap operas.

So who cares about the made up

when it's right, it's way more exciting.

I don't know. I still love the fact that anybody

could die on all my children and they could come back. They were

their evil twin or they're identical. At any point,

it was the same thing. We're like, Yep,

we've really gone down a rabbit hole here. With that being said

it spent a little more time enjoying your soap operas. So if

the way you want to celebrate your success at

reaching your goal is to watch your soap opera in the afternoon

and give yourself that hour. By all means do so. But definitely

play like you've reached your goals. And when you do reach the

goal or get close to it, celebrate your progress, for

God's sakes, take yourself out to whatever makes you happy. And

it doesn't have to be work related. You know, take the

staycation take a weekend off and say, you know, I've worked

really hard, I'm going to take the weekend off. And I'm not

going to think anything about my business for three whole days.

I'm gonna just concentrate on self care and my family and my

animals and just enjoy my life.

All right. Well, I think that wraps us up

for today. Ken, what do you think?

I do? I do. And I think that I hope that well, I

hope that people have gotten a lot of good out of this because

I know I have. It's made me feel a whole lot better about where I

am just talking it out like this and understanding it from the

perspective of being able to take that break and to

understand that that momentum will continue.

Absolutely. Well, you know what, we hope

that this episode helps you guys get through your summertime

slump and helps you maintain your momentum with your animal

based business, y'all It is time we are in need of a couple of

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ours. My hope you guys are having a good summer and we'll

see you next week.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Business

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from you. Until next time Keep your business well trained with