You can wait for the right time forever

This is Natasha Vorompiova. She helps teams amplify their impact by creating systems for scale.

You can wait for the right time forever

Natasha has made a lot of changes in her business in the years that I’ve known her. What’s more, she’s helped me make a lot of changes in my own business—training our COO Rosie, changing the way I think about business systems, and constantly demanding (in the nicest way possible) higher and higher levels of work from me.

She’s the kind of person who takes intentional and decisive action when it comes to the growth of her business (and her clients’ businesses too).

We spent a week together in the Flathead Valley of Montana talking about what’s next for her business. And, I have no doubt she’ll succeed at making the pivot she’s working on now.

I’ve watched a lot of people make plans to change their businesses over the years.

Some, like Natasha, succeed—they earn more, grow their teams, stay focused, and stress less.

Most don’t.

The ones who don’t succeed wait for the right time to make a big change. They wait for their bank accounts to have a certain amount of extra padding. They wait for their schedules to thin out enough. They wait for permission from the universe, from social gatekeepers, or the market.
Most of these business owners are still at it.

They’re still plugging away at their businesses the way they’ve always worked. They’re still selling the things they’ve always sold. They’re still working the schedules they’ve always worked.

There’s never a right time to make a big change in your business.

There’s only now.

Right now, it’s scary and uncertain to consider pulling the plug on the offer that’s consistently made you money (but sucks you dry).

It’s scary and uncertain to let go of the team member who’s been with you for years (but hasn’t kept up with the direction of your business).

It’s scary and uncertain to stop doing what you’ve always done (but hasn’t given you the results you want).

You can mitigate risk—but you can’t avoid it.

You can’t avoid taking a leap of faith—if you really want what’s on the other side of the gap.

I’m fond of saying that we don’t set big goals to achieve them, we set them to change our behavior.

Changing what you do is the only way you can change your situation.

If you want a different business model, you have to make a change. That likely means you have to stop offering something, start offering something else, and focus on making the new way work.

If you want a different customer base, you have to make a change. That means you have to stop catering to  some people, start wooing others, and focus on building relationships with the new folks.

If you want a different schedule, you have to make a change. That means you have to cancel appointments, shift responsibilities, mark days off, and focus on making that schedule work.

That probably all seems obvious but so few people actually do it.

They wait and wait and wait.

They grow more and more frustrated that things aren’t going to plan. That their plans must be broken. That they’re just not good enough to make it work.

Yet…

…they haven’t even started on the new plan. Not really.

Now, it’s time for some deep introspection.

Reader: am I talking about you?
If I am, there is no shame in that.
Now you know.

You know that it’s time to make the change you crave.

It’s time to pull the plug, make the call, send the cancellation.

It’s time to start the new thing. Make it happen. Focus your attention.

Because the only time to make the change you want is now.

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Rebecca Tracey did just that a couple of years ago. She realized that she wanted more space in her business. She wanted to be able to pursue rock climbing, backpacking, and spontaneous travel.

But she was stuck in a cycle of launching her core offer 6 times per year.

So she pulled the band-aid off.

It required a leap of faith, a bit of investment in going big, and an iron will to make it work.

And now she can take months away from her business if she wants to.

That’s what we talked about in this episode of Profit. Power. Pursuit.
Click here to listen or read more on making a big change in your business to pursue a more adventurous life.

Pursuing an Adventurous Life with Uncaged Life founder Rebecca Tracey

Pursuing an Adventurous Life with Uncaged Life founder Rebecca Tracey
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The Nitty Gritty:

  • How conscious scheduling allows Tracey to time gaps to be “out” of her business and travel
  • Why careful cash flow management is imperative when you sell fewer products or services
  • How experimentation was key to helping her business evolve

This week on the Profit. Power. Pursuit podcast I talk to Uncaged Life founder Rebecca Tracey, and the insights she has for building a business that allows her to pursue her personal adventures in rock climbing and traveling the world are incredible. Rebecca helps solopreneurs, life and health coaches, virtual assistants and more who are just starting out build an online business they can run from anywhere in the world.

Conscious Scheduling

I take a lot of time off. To the point people ask, ‘Do you work at all?’

– Rebecca Tracey

Even though Rebecca first started her business while living in a van while on an 8-month rock climbing trip (something she doesn’t recommend by the way), she soon realized that for her to live the life she wanted it would be important to not have client time during the climbing season. She has created a business model that allows her to run one main program that launches twice a year that are strategically scheduled for right before or after climbing season. When she’s traveling, she doesn’t have anything in her business that consistently needs her time, although she admits it did take some time to experiment and figure out what would work.

Careful Cash Flow Management

My lifestyle is adventurous and awesome, but also pretty cheap.

– Rebecca Tracey

Rebecca used to run her program six times per year, but has gone down to two times. It’s her second year trying out her streamlined business model and she’s still getting used to it. It’s definitely a bit scary and a little stressful being reliant on only two launches a year to make the money she needs. To ease that stress, she has a financial buffer in savings to cover her personal and business expenses if one of her launches doesn’t hit the numbers, but so far, things are working out well. Her operating expenses are also quite low.

Evolution of a Business

As her business model evolved Rebecca wasn’t afraid to experiment. The program that she runs is really fine-tuned and gets results, and it’s the thing she loves doing most in her business. She decided that her program was going to be the thing she would sell, and she stopped messing around with trying to create new things all the time. She decided to just give it a go at her program being her main thing. It was working and feeling pretty good, so she decided, why not just go for it.

When she realized that running the program six times a year wasn’t very “uncaged” of her or good for her sanity, she experimented with reducing the frequency. As a result, even though at first she didn’t want to increase her group size and it was a little scary to do so, she had to if she was going down in frequency. So, she doubled the group size and when everything seemed to run smoothly, she doubled the group size again. She did have to make changes to the program to accommodate more people and she’s still adjusting her marketing efforts to be sure she gets the number of participants she needs for each launch. She knows that she will continue to evolve her business model in the future, as the program she runs will eventually expire.

Be sure to tune into the full episode where you can learn more specifics about Rebecca’s adventurous life and her formula for success at juggling her business and her personal passions.

I invite you to subscribe to the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast on iTunes to join our community of like-minded entrepreneurs and learn my guests who share the nitty-gritty details of forging the life and business you want.