As much as we love building our own businesses and being in charge, it’s not always going to be smooth sailing. It’s still real life, and challenges will probably come up. When things do go wrong, the tendency is often to panic and freak out.
In today’s episode, we are giving you a set of tools to figure out what the problems are in your business (or any area of life!) and exactly how to solve them. Worried about how many hours you’re working? Stressed about not meeting your financial goals? Tune in to hear how this problem-solving framework can get you right back on track.
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Looking for closed captioning or a transcript? Watch the episode on YouTube!
Read More: How to Manage That First Copywriting Client Panic
When you start getting work, your first reaction will be elation. But then the panic may set in. Learn how to overcome that feeling and push through the panic with our blog post here >>
A Sneak Peek at the Episode
[1:44] Challenges are likely to come up when building your own business but panicking about them will only hinder your progress.
[5:31] Whatever the problem is, start by viewing it objectively and ask yourself what you know for sure about the situation and what the absolute facts are. Your feelings are valid, but they’re not objective.
[10:48] The next question to ask yourself is what problem you are looking to solve, e.g. are you working too many hours? Then you can go through all of the elements that may have contributed to that.
[13:55] Nicki and Kate discuss some possible scenarios for working a certain number of hours and not making enough money. Are you factoring meetings into your price? Are you making an assumption about the number of hours you’re working?
[21:59] As you go through and see what all of the contributing problems are, it will be clear exactly what is causing the main problem. The last step is figuring out what to do now instead.
[23:26] Having too much work can be a sign of not setting or enforcing effective boundaries with your clients. Make the shift toward wanting your clients to respect you, rather than like you.
[26:35] Using this process is useful for hitting your financial goals, but can also be used if you have too much work.
[27:58] Once you have the facts about business activities like pitching and social media, you can figure out what you need to objectively do to move forward. You can’t make those decisions in a state of panic.
[33:33] Tracking the metrics in your business is key for determining if the activities that you’re doing are generating revenue.
[35:44] Aim for slightly higher goals, as achieving them can happen a lot faster than you think. It’s all perfectly possible but not if you spend all of your time in panic!
Must-Hear Takeaways
As with every episode, we highly encourage you to listen to the entire conversation! But here are a few of the highlights:
“Whatever the facts end up being, once you have the facts you can figure out what you need to objectively do to move forward. Not just sit there and say “ahh I don’t know what to do!!!” Yes, absolutely take a moment to feel your feelings, but when you know the objective facts, you can come up with the steps to move forward.” – Nicki
“If we’re not enforcing our boundaries, if we’re working well beyond the hours that we told our clients that we would work, or if we’re doing extra work for our clients just to be nice, that’s going to compound and that’s going to end up with us working way too much for way too little.” – Nicki
“We’re looking for what objectively happened because as you start to list out these problems and list out the symptoms, the factors that contribute to those problems, you’re going to start being able to come up with what I would then call hypotheses or possible scenarios to fix it.” – Nicki
“It is a spiral that’s hard to get out of because you just keep saying yes to work and keep taking on work. And then you still have all of these problems and you’re wondering what’s going on. And sometimes the cash is nice enough to make up for that, but you’re somehow burned out and miserable in some ways like ‘I thought I was going to have more time as a copywriter’. You can, you just need to go through this framework to make sure you’re setting up your business in the right way.” – Kate
“The truth is, there’s no problem in your business that can’t be fixed and I hope that makes everyone feel really good. Wherever you are, whatever you’re facing, there’s nothing that can’t be fixed and whatever your goal is, it is absolutely possible to get there.” – Nicki
Related Links
- Frustrated, Disillusioned, and/or Procrastinating? It’s Time to Fight Resistance
- Copywriting Rush Fees: When and How to Charge Them
- Ep. 17: How to Set Your Copywriting Rates
- What Are Your Copywriting Business Rules?
- Ep. 134: Keep Copywriting Fun: 3 Must-Implement Business Boundaries
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About the Build Your Business Podcast
Ready to turn your love of writing into a successful copywriting career?
Join professional copywriters Nicki Krawczyk and Kate Sitarz to get the tips, tools, and training to help you become a copywriter and build a thriving business of your own. Nicki and Kate have 20+ and 10+ years of experience, respectively, writing copy for multi-billion-dollar companies, solopreneurs, and every size business in between.
Whether you want to land an on-staff job, freelance full-time and work from wherever you want, or make extra money with a side hustle, the best place to start learning is right here.
See Previous Episode
Ep. 146: Face Your Freelance Finances Fears – with Crystalynn Shelton (CPA)
Last Updated on March 21, 2024
