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Welcome to Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

00:36

Hello, and welcome to the show. So today I want to talk about how to remain emotionally resilient when your bank balance isn’t behaving, so when your business isn’t making the money that allows you to feel safe in yourself, and you know what’s interesting is that I think a lot of people associate the need to be like this with the early on stages of growing a business, but the truth is, as you grow your business, you particularly, if you’re highly entrepreneurial, the chances are you will be a bit of a risk taker, and that means you will make certain investments in certain masterminds, programs, mentors, software, AI, you know, the list is endless, essentially, and ultimately, as we grow in your team, there are always additional things that we can be investing in as a business, and therefore, while we might not have the same kind of challenges as early on in business, there’s still very much an element of needing to hit the bottom line to be able to sustain the investments that you are making or have made in your business, so the need to be able to zoom out doesn’t really go away, so that’s what I wanted to talk about today, because if I’m being entirely candid, which you know I am, on this podcast early on in business, if I had a client who came to me and said they hadn’t been making sales, I would much more easily be able to be pulled into their energy of fear or lack or urgency, and obviously that isn’t helpful to be on the receiving end of, in some ways, it can be comforting when you see somebody feeling your concern, but what isn’t helpful is them not feeling the hope that a mentor or coach should be able to support you with when you’re running a business, and I guess it goes beyond hope, it is about resiliency, and I guess that’s what I wanted to tap into today, because for me it’s not been a natural journey, like I say, I imagine my own scarcity mindset, my own lack mindset was potentially what was being mildly projected onto my clients really, really early on, back in 2021 when I started out, probably because I wasn’t that far ahead of them, probably because it wasn’t that long ago where there was that sense of, oh my goodness, am I going to be able to pay the bills this month, and also because for me I had the additional pressure of raising two children. Yes, I had a boyfriend, but the majority of the finances have always been on my shoulders, and my kids have additional needs, which has its own challenges in terms of the hours that are required, so I’ve been, you know, essentially advocating for two additional needs kids, while also running a business that is also responsible for paying the rent, paying the bills, paying for the groceries each month, and paying for the holidays, weddings, and everything else. What weddings? One wedding that have happened since. So, you know, there’s a need for my business to work, and I always feel like that’s worth referencing really early on, because I do appreciate I work with some clients who it’s not been an immediate need, so that the kind of concern that comes up for them more often is, is there something wrong with me, they’re not feeling that financial squeeze, instead there’s that sense of can I even do this, and that’s a whole different episode. Today’s episode is purely around what to do when you feel like your back is up against the wall financially, because what I have noticed in business owners is that it’s very easy, and I’ve told this about human design, that if you’re an emotional authority, if you’re in human design, that might be relevant. I’m an emotional authority. Really, what that means to me is that one of the reasons why I love my work is because it just like genuinely fills my cup up.

04:32

It makes me so goddamn happy, but of course that also means I’m vulnerable to when it’s not doing so well for it to feel really catastrophic, because it’s such a huge part of what makes me happy. I mean, that’s a lot of what because she work has been around, has been around ensuring that there are other elements in my life that also fill my cup, so that my business isn’t the be all and end all of what I identify with as a human being, but again, that’s a whole other episode. Let’s stick to the money conversation here. So, one of the nice things about having done what I’ve done for so long now is I cannot tell you the amount of times somebody has come on a call feeling like, you know, like, is this even worth it? It’s been a really hard month. What is even happening? All the things that used to work, aren’t working anymore. That new thing I’m trying doesn’t seem to be gaining any traction yet. And then to speak to me a week or a month later and be like, oh my goodness, you’ll never guess what’s happened, and it’s like they can’t even remember the version of themselves that was feeling on the floor and feeling desperate, because now everything is brilliant again, and they’re having, there’s some clients I’ve worked with for three years, and I’ve seen them kind of go on this roller coaster of extreme highs when it’s doing really phenomenally, and then extreme lows when suddenly something doesn’t appear to be doing as well as it was before, and you know, does that mean the end is nigh? Now, what’s interesting is a lot of the time there might just be one thing that’s just not converting as well as it did the month before, and at the same time they see that as a sign that everything is about to fall apart. 

So, I guess my first recommendation to you is to be really mindful about what you allow things to mean when something isn’t working as well as it used to, and taking into consideration, know what might have changed, or what you know, what, what is it that was working previously that you could do again, like a lot of the time we are so, like, who knows, one tiny thing is like, let’s say, maybe going to harm your profits by maybe 5% this month, or 10% this month, or maybe you even have a month where you take a bigger dip, as like 30 to 40% but you also know there’s other months in the year where you have revenue that’s plus 30, 40% One of the things I encourage all my clients to do is to zoom out for a moment, zoom out for a moment, and look at the trends in their business. Is this something that has historically happened for them other years, like the better we understand the patterns and trends in our business, which really vary industry to industry. So I’m not here to tell you like this is the one time a year, and actually I’m kind of against getting too caught up with these beliefs, because like I say, I hear silly things like, oh, we can’t make money over summer, and at the moment I’ve got some of my clients celebrating their best months of the year yet, so I call bullshit on that, but you know, at the same time it is helpful to look at that, because you can then look at, you know, what were you doing then, what are you doing now, is there something, you know, for me, for example, in July, end of July, I’ve got my kids, I’ve got holidays, a lot of my clients are mums, and so quite naturally July tends to be a quieter month for me, but then on the other hand, August tends to be a bumper month for me, as a lot of people start thinking about what they want from September onwards and start investing in support and recognizing that because it’s a busy time of year for me, if they want to get in, they need to get in now, so August is always a really, really good month to me, and I’ve kind of learned to, like, not sweat if July is a bit slower, because historically it always has been.

08:08

And to be honest with you, I probably play a role in that too, because I also like to slow down a bit, a little bit, certain times a year, and you know, my ad spend sometimes I reevaluate my campaign for August, so that I can have something that’s really hands off while I’m on holiday, so that usually means July. I’m tweaking with funnels rather than having them live, so that I can put double the spend in August, which works better for me. So, there’s all sorts of things that play into a good and a bad month. So, zooming out for a second, not only looking at the trends in your business, but also looking at what is actually going on financially. Where is there currently safety in your business? Where is your bread and butter revenue coming from? Where do you get to lean into that and make more of that? You know, there’s so much money immediately available to us in potential client upgrades, in potential client retention, in reinviting past clients back in, it’s that whole thing that you know, someone’s bought from you once, they’re much more likely to do it again. There’s always a lot of money readily available to us, but interestingly, when things aren’t going well, so often I’ll hear things like, I’m going to launch a new offer, I’m going to launch a new funnel. I’m going to start on a new platform. These are not the things to do if your money is running low. The things to do is to lean into the five revenue levers that I’ve done a whole podcast episode about. So, I recommend listening to that separately, but you want to lean into those because that is where the most immediate cash flow is hiding. So, do go listen to my podcast episode, The Five Revenue Levers. I think it’s all about how you can double your revenue in a year, that might be the title of the podcast. I’ll see if I can link it below, but yeah, do go check it out. If you can’t find it DM me, I will send you the link. It’s a really good one, but yeah, that’s what you want to lean into immediately. So, zooming out to recognize our. Actually, how safe you probably are, because what I find is people like, “Oh, my revenue’s down 10%, which means I’m probably about to lose my entire business. When actually, what it really means is, so how many clients do I need to top up that 10% that’s lacking right now? 

Oh, one one to one client, okay, I can do that, or two one to one clients, or I need to sell three spaces on a retreat, like it’s looking at what is the easiest thing to sell, what is available to you now, what will calm your nervous system, or is it that you have certain expenses in your business right now that are redundant and don’t need to be there, that like they used to, I mean, now with the age of AI, there may be certain things that you can be releasing, but it’s really important to recognize that you are not a few steps away from losing absolutely everything, and the exercise of what next, what next, what next, and don’t worry, this is not an audio malfunction, that is me repeating what next, because that is the exercise, so the exercise is if I don’t make my money this month, then I am going to be down 30% and what next? What next is I then won’t be able to pay myself as big a salary, and then what next? Then I would need to go into my overdraft, or I would need to use a credit card, or I, but kind of recognizing that you are not one sleep away from homelessness, and I know that might sound obvious, but the nervous system can go into that space of I am not safe, we are not safe, and in that the nervous system’s response is like we will not have a shelter over our head soon, and when you get into that space of fight or flight, you will not be magnetic, you will not see opportunities, you will not be able to receive money, even because you’ll, you’ll be so afraid that everything you’ll be bracing, you won’t see what’s happening around you.

11:53

And why I say you won’t be magnetic is that if you’re bringing that frantic energy to your promotions, people will pick up on that frantic energy, and there’s nothing less attractive than that sense of people needing a sale. You want to want a sale, so even when your nervous system may feel like you need one, the reason why we need to do this work to remind ourselves that we are safe is so that we can authentically go into our marketing, our promotions, our sales conversations from a space of abundance, a space of with or without you energy that is really hard to fake. The only way we can do that is to authentically go through the process of recognizing how far away we are from everything falling apart. Okay, so one way we do that is a very practical one, like I say, the what next question, and looking at what that would look like financially for you. Okay, then we almost want to reverse engineer that in the opposite direction, which is I really like. I mean, when I’m looking at my clients, one of the things I will reflect to them, because it’s true, and it’s something that, as weird as it sounds, I sometimes have to do with myself, is taking a moment to think about, like, look at the bloody resilient human being you are, look at all the things that you have achieved so far, if you’ve sold it before, you can sell again. If you’ve had a happy client once, you can have a happy client again. If your marketing worked once, it can work again a lot of the time. The frustrating thing about the online space is sometimes it can feel like we are chipping, chipping, chipping, chipping, chipping in a mine with nothing coming through, and we are inches away from a massive breakthrough from a reel that goes viral, or from the right person seeing a post and be like, “Oh my god, that’s me. Shang with another person says, “Oh my god, that’s me. I mean, I literally had a client saying to me last month, she was having a slow sales month ever. She came on a call yesterday saying, “Oh my goodness, I’m on the panel with two industry leaders in this country had no clue it was quite such a big event that it was. Similarly, she’s also been booked to do one call per month for this corporate industry, which is incredibly well paid, and she said it’s like a lead generation machine. It gets her like three to four new clients per month. So she’s landed herself two opportunities, and one of the things that really supported her with that was being consistent with her marketing, consistently showing up consistently, being magnetic, consistently believing that that result was there. 

She just needed to keep on showing up for it, right. So it’s kind of reminding yourself, of course, you’re the badass that deserves all these things, because where I see some people’s brains go is into a space of, like, well, I am not successful because look at the month I’m having right now. As I say that out loud, can you realize, can you hear how ridiculous that is? But have you perhaps ever said that to yourself? Okay, it’s so silly, like, yes, you might be feeling like, oh goodness, I’ve only had three applications. This month, and only one or two clients join, and only several likes of my posts, but you’re also the person who’s been running a business for x number of months or years. You’re also the same person who’s brave enough to get started. You’re also the same person who’s done the studies, all the qualifications, or whatever it is that you’ve done to get to where you are right now. Maybe it’s just a lived experience, and it was an absolute badass. He’s imparting your wisdom to people who want to go on the same journey as you, like whatever it is you’ve done, all the things you’ve had, the happy clients, you’ve maybe published the book, you’ve maybe done the talk, you’ve maybe done the like, whatever it is that you have done, stretching yourself outside your comfort zone, you are one resilient motherfucker. Oh my goodness, all the bad language pouring out today.

15:44

But I just really want you to know that I really do, because I have the biggest admiration for self-employed women. Because if you look at the stats around how many businesses fail within a year, how many limited companies fell within a year, how few female business owners get to ever having six figures, when I get to sit at a table with women who are either paving their way to six figures or already achieved it, I just feel like we’re changing the world, and like the world needs you to succeed. So, I guess I’m adding another dimension to this, which is go beyond yourself. This isn’t just about you. Remember the people who need you. Remember the world that needs you. Remember the impact you’re going to have on your own industry. Remember what you are modeling to your children, if you have them, when they are seeing you living with a career by your own design. And yeah, you know what, it’s not always shiny, it’s not always all rainbows. I’ve had to take people to court in the past, I’ve had people stealing my intellectual property. I’ve had people bad mouthing me in communities where it’s felt horrible, right? You know, it’s so lovely when people say brilliant things about you, but my goodness, it doesn’t stop it feeling awful when people go out their way to bad mouth you, and ultimately, the bigger you get, the kind of the higher impact, but equally the more vulnerable you can feel. The whole tall poppy syndrome, right? So I guess that’s the other way to say it never gets easy in that regard. 

Resiliency is something that you want to be continually fostering in your business, and I guess when I say it never gets easy, that’s the kind of line that I definitely have a much tougher skin than I did when I started out. I would lose sleep in the past over things, I would lose weeks sometimes to feeling really low about maybe a client doing something that you know really betrayed my trust, for example. And nowadays, again, I can zoom out, I can really look in on my business as a CEO, someone running a business rather than being the job, and you know, feeling all the feels like my identity is not my business, I guess that’s the difference, right? But, like I say, I guess the important piece to say is that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get challenged, it just gets challenged in different ways, and you know, as lovely Yinka, who was at a mastermind event I went to recently, she shared that one of the biggest things that has helped her with her business growth is learning to dance with risk, and I think I’ve already quoted her before, you roll, I think, is how you pronounce the surname, I think I’ve quoted her before, and I just thought, what a beautiful way of summarizing what it is to grow a business, and you know that dancing with risk is that same conversation I’m having with you right now about resiliency, that the more we can work on helping ourselves feel safe with the unknown, safe with the odd wobble, no, looking at nature and life, and recognizing that nothing is linear, anything that is worth it is gonna have its wobbles. I feel like that should be on a T-shirt. Anything that’s worth it’s gonna have its wobbles, including me, baby, I got my wobbles. But yeah, honestly, it really is. So, you know, just as another beautiful client, my months said, Leanne, is that holding the stare, holding the stare in those moments when it’s not all materializing for you. And again, referencing someone else who I saw recently, Sarah Dalrymple did a brilliant post on why you’re not making sales, and she shared one brilliant – I mean, all the slides were brilliant, but one that really stood out to me was no, the people you see succeeding where you’re not are the ones who kept on trying, where you stopped, let that land. In fact, I think I should leave it there. I shall be in your ears next week with another episode. Let me know if you like these mindset episodes.

19:32

I’m kind of, you know, in a place where I’ve talked a lot about everyday sales, a lot about funnels, so I’m enjoying talking a bit around this whole mindset piece. Let me know if you’re digging what I’m putting down. If you’re not, I’ll go back into the strategy piece. So, yeah, you’ll dictate the next episode. DM me with what you’d like to hear next. I’ll be in your ears next week.