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Hello, my #PrettyAwkward family! I am so pumped to talk about this topic today, because it’s something that is really present in my life right now. And it’s something that I feel like I have worked long and hard to be able to achieve. So I want to talk to you today about creating offers that you can step away from.
It can take time to get to the point of being able to do this. However, when we’re talking about building offers you can step away from, I do believe you can start doing that earlier on in your business. I think I could have done it in a slightly better way and set better boundaries early on. So let’s jump right in!
So when people start out in entrepreneurship, they usually people want to replace their nine to five or whatever their day job is. I personally never had a nine to five. I had a 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM. I was working multiple jobs; I was on set doing background work on film and television. I worked as cocktail waitress. And I remember thinking that I couldn’t wait to be a full-time entrepreneur, because it was going to give me so much time back. And all of a sudden, a few years in, I realized I was working so much. I was working nonstop, to the point that I was deep in entrepreneur burnout. Now, hustle is important, especially in your first few years, but you can accidentally set your offers up to the point where you are at your client’s beck and call every second.
I tried setting boundaries to avoid entrepreneur burnout. I said I would only check my messages from nine to five Mondays through Fridays. And I said I only did calls on certain days. Guess what? I did not stick to those. There were so many times I absolutely ran over my boundaries and checked my messages at 10:00 PM, 11:00 PM. If someone messaged me on Instagram, interested in my coaching, I felt like I had to answer.
And I realized after a little while, I literally felt like I could not leave my clients for a second. I could not take a day off. Even on the weekends when I said I wasn’t working, I would still check messages. If a client didn’t have a great result, it was all I could think about all weekend. It would consume me. That was really, really exhausting, and it resulted in such terrible entrepreneur burnout—yes, that’s a thing! Many people end up dealing with entrepreneur burnout because they feel like they can’t take their hands off of their business. So something I really want you to think about is this: how can you set up your offers so that you don’t actually have to work 24/7?
The most important advice I have for this is to make it clear that you expect your clients to take radical responsibility for their results. If someone won’t commit to this, I don’t take them on as a client. Because the truth is, I can do everything in my power, but at the end of the day, they’re the ones actually doing the work.
If you are taking the responsibility for your client results and they’re putting that on you, I don’t care how many or how few calls you give them. You’re gonna be the one taking the blame, or you’ll be the one taking the credit, and you can’t operate like that. It is so mentally draining. It is so exhausting. It results in severe entrepreneur burnout. This is why I’ve seen people literally quit their businesses, because the entrepreneur burnout gets so terrible they just can’t do it anymore.
Implementing radical responsibility was game changing for my emotional and mental health. Yes, it means you won’t get as much credit when things go well, but it also means you don’t carry the blame or the stress or the guilt when something goes poorly. This frees up so much mental space.
So radical responsibility is a huge one, but I also want to talk about the structural side of building offers you can step away from. I’m going to share this through a story.
My old version of my mastermind was six months long. I had ten people at first, but I dropped it down to eight because ten felt like too much with how it was structured. Every single person got monthly private calls with me. They got private one-on-one messaging access to me Monday through Friday, nine to five. We had two group calls a month. We had monthly guest experts. We also had a live event, and gosh, I’m exhausted just saying all that.
I should preface this by saying, I really loved the clients. They were absolutely amazing. But the way I set up this mastermind, it was basically one-on-one coaching. It had the mastermind aspect, but let’s call a spade a spade. It was one-on-one coaching. There was no difference between this offer and my actual one-on-one offer, so it competed. Why would someone join my one-on-one when they could join this, pay less, and get more value because they were also collaborating with the group.
So ultimately I realized that because of the way I structured that offer, I was so tied to it. It was hard for me to take time off. I had to reschedule millions of calls. I couldn’t step away from it. Every time I tried to, I was like, “Oh, I feel this pull to go back in.” So when I ultimately decided to take a break, I was like, “I’m just gonna take a full break.” I needed it. So I took six months off from doing my mastermind.
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I was suffering from entrepreneur burnout from having to constantly be available with that program, so I decided I was taking a break. In short order, though, I started to miss the collaboration part. I really missed the group atmosphere. I was in my own mastermind and I thought “Man, I love this style. I miss facilitating this. I miss having these really great conversations with really smart people, but I don’t wanna go back to that model.”
And then I thought, “Why do I have to, though?” Why was I making myself think I had to keep that program the same? That dropped me deep in entrepreneur burnout. I didn’t want to do that again.
And so when I really sat down to restructure this offer to get myself out of entrepreneur burnout, I said, “Who do I wanna attract?” I wanted people who were really committed. I wanted someone who didn’t need handholding or permission to do things.
So the way I set it up was on a one-year timeline, which covered the commitment piece. Instead of monthly calls, we did quarterly planning calls where we dove into what they were going to focus on for that quarter. And I decided to do two group calls a month, and those are truly mastermind calls with collaboration among all these really great minds. And instead of monthly experts, we brought in guest experts as needed, which was less stressful for everyone, because it was one less thing for all of us to commit to—and for me to pay for! Entrepreneur burnout solutions were built in automatically.
So this offer worked much, much better for me, but I had to stick to my boundaries while I built it. During this launch, I had many people say they really wanted that one-on-one aspect. When I reached out to old clients, they wanted a six-month timeline and one-on-one time every month. And I could have filled every slot right there if I’d changed it back. But it would have been totally hypocritical of me to do that; I would’ve ended up right back in entrepreneur burnout! People are hiring me to help them build a business that prioritizes their life, and if I’d compromised, it would have gone against everything I’m about. I am here to build a legacy for my family. I am here to work with clients that excite me. I am here to build offers that let me step away from my business. I am not here to resign myself to entrepreneur burnout for the sake of filled slots.
When you go to structure your offers to avoid entrepreneur burnout, I really encourage you to write down what you want your days to look like, and whether the offer you’re crafting allows that.
And remember, this isn’t only the amount of time you’re on calls, but what happens outside of that? What are you doing when you’re not working? How much are you thinking of them? How much are you invested emotionally?
If you take nothing else away from this, remember to teach your clients radical responsibility. That’s the number one thing that’s going to help craft your offers so you can actually step away from them—and step away from entrepreneur burnout.
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I have helped HUNDREDS of women get their unique coaching voice and find their soulmate (clients that is!)
Because I’ve been there too. I went from wanting to be a health and fitness coach...trying to take awkward booty pooping selfies, to embracing my #prettyawkward style and scaling my coaching business past six figures.
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