#6: How to Lead Through Uncertainty in Times of Stress
The number one question you should ask yourself right now is, “How can I serve those who need me in a unique way?”
Many of us are struggling with uncertainty during this crisis and are worried about the health and wellness of our loved ones. In addition to worrying about your family, you may also be worried about your business.
This may come as a surprise to you, but I had some of my best years during hard times.
I built and scaled a seven-figure business during the recession by spotting the gap in the market and filling it.
If you have the ability to pivot, or you can figure out how to shift your message – that opens possibility to serving your clients in a new and unique way. I share quite a bit about how to do this in this podcast episode.
If you feel like you need help doing this, or just want to chat, please don’t hesitate to reach out by emailing me at hello@joybrandcreative.com.
It's part of my own personal mission to help entrepreneurs like you navigate the ups and downs, and unexpected challenges, of growing a business.
What is the secret to scaling with joy? It’s simple- making more profit with less stress. To find out how to make more profit and work less, visit https://tenprofitdrivers.com. Yes, it’s possible to grow your company without adding on complicated programs, products or divisions. These are the same simplified growth methods that I have used over and over with my own private consulting clients and national brands, in info products, retail e-commerce, and service.
Join me every Monday, as we scale with joy!
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:00):
This is the Scale with Joy podcast, episode six: Leading Through Uncertainty.
(00:08):
Welcome to the Scale with Joy show, a podcast about scaling your company while living your most purposeful life, because here's the thing: there are no rules to say you can't grow a massively profitable empire and have joy in the everyday. My name is Laura Meyer and let's get started.
(00:32):
At the time of this recording, my children have been home for two days straight and I have found out very quickly that I am good at a lot of things and being an elementary school teacher is not one of them. When the school bus dropped off the packet yesterday morning, I looked at it and thought, oh my goodness, I am really appreciating my children's teachers more than ever in this moment. And for many of you, you are really struggling with uncertainty around the health and wellness of you and your family and I want to share with you some business tips that will probably help in terms of mitigating some of that uncertainty. But before I do that, I wanted to address that this is a no way diminishing the care and concern that we have for our family's health and wellness and the fact that we are in a health crisis and that we are needing to prioritize the number one thing which is the safety for our families in the midst of a very difficult and uncertain time.
(01:34):
And so I just want to share with you that while I haven't ever been through anything like this and I'm sure you haven't either, I have been through a lot of ups and downs in my business. If I listed out all the challenges I've been through, I've been through bankruptcy, I have been through really challenging relationships that turned on me in ways that I was never expecting. I had a whole industry shift while I was in the midst of scaling and completely lost our economic model, which resulted in the two prior things I just mentioned. So really what I want to share with you is that if you are feeling like where is God in all of this? Where is my sense of safety and stability? Where was my sense of security? Where has that gone and that has disappeared quickly, I completely understand, and I've been there before, and I am here with you now. And the one thing that I wanted to share with you beyond those challenges that we all experience right now, and it was really interesting because my interview with Jamie Swanson was actually pre-recorded before I knew any of this was going to happen and next week she's going to be talking quite a bit about how she responded to the shift in the same industry that I was in and how she quickly was able to pivot in a way that I just couldn't because I had way too much moving in the same direction.
(02:55):
If you do have that opportunity to pivot, this is something I would really invite you to consider. I want to share with you in this podcast episode some of the conversations that I'm having with national brands, that I'm having with big companies, that I'm having with CEOs and entrepreneurs that within days of really it being revealed of how this was all going to go, they were able to make some pretty big shifts that have already shown a positive economic impact for them. And the biggest question I would invite you into if you're trying to figure out not only just how to survive through what's happening right now in this economic climate, but really make it some of your most profitable years ever, which is completely possible. It is the number one question that you need to start with, which is how do I serve?
(03:47):
How can I serve in a different way, in a more unique way, and maybe a way that I could have even resisted previously because I thought it was beneath me or I thought I wasn't going to be good enough, or whatever story I was making up, where is the need that I can show up and help serve right now? And I can promise you that if you start with that question and you let go of everything else that you might be thinking about what's possible and what's not possible, opportunities are going to start opening up because your mind will start opening up to possibility and opportunities start with possibilities. So, when we really think about this, it is important to also consider how we need to step up and lead. This is also really important to think about because as business owners, once our sense of safety and security is pretty much under control, it is our responsibility to think about the ways in which we can help others.
(04:48):
It's what we signed up for when we became entrepreneurs. This is not a time to pull back. This is a time to lead and for many of you, you probably knew that this was coming. I certainly was preparing myself for it. I didn't know it was going to be a health crisis. I thought it was going to be just an economic downturn, but what is it that you would dream about? What is it that is possible for you in terms of how you can help, how you can serve in ways, again, that maybe you had not considered before because you are biggest pivot to your biggest opportunity to profit right now starts with where can I serve? When you ask many entrepreneurs, me included, what some of their best years in business where they will say it was 2008, 2009, and 2010.
(05:40):
In those years, I built a seven-figure business within a three-year period. And honestly, if I knew what I knew today, I probably could have done it faster. And the reason why I did that is I saw where the gap in the market was and I was able to quickly pivot towards that. So keep in mind that people in your market are still investing. Those people who have not been affected by the economic shift and some have even gotten busier depending on the type of industry that they're in. So it's important to not project your fears, any scarcity mindset that you have into your market's buying habits because there will be additional spending. It may just not be on where it was before. And what's really important, which I'm sure you know, is that you can't serve others if you can't serve yourself first. It is that old analogy of putting your oxygen mask on first, taking care of yourself first, and then going out and looking for the people in your market who are counting on you right now to show up, to serve, to create meaning.
(06:50):
This may be the first moment that you've really encountered this level of hardship in your business. It's possible that maybe you were just doing really well 10 years ago when something similar hit our economy or you weren't in business at that time. And really what I would encourage you to do is think about who you want to be during this time. And I'll tell you within the first two hours, I went into that fear mindset. I thought, oh my goodness, it's happening again. We, our family is going to experience economic hardship again. And it wasn't that long ago that we had just gone through it and then very quickly I was able to get into my frontal cortex and decide in advance who I wanted to be, how I wanted to show up, what I wanted to contribute, and I was able to mitigate that fear mindset, which is not easy, but it's a decision that we make in advance and then we implement with our day to day actions and within four days, I had two national clients that hired me to help their global team with a marketing initiative to support their new pivot and as I was inviting those team members to think about who they wanted to be through all of this, I couldn't help but think, gosh, that is such an important thing for us to be considering as leaders, is thinking about who we want to be and then invite other people into new possibilities of how they're going to show up in the world as a result of what is going on. In this invitation to pivot, in this invitation to shift, I want to share with you that those who are just going to stay business as usual who are not willing to admit that we are in a health crisis, who want it to just all be okay and might even be in a little bit of denial, are going to find themselves suddenly irrelevant to their customers.
(08:42):
Those who ignore government advice or try to push through it anyways, they will suffer because it is not business as usual. Its business shifted tremendously in a very short period of and whether or not this affects your business depends on two things. The first is are you suddenly willing to serve in a totally new way, open to possibility and letting go of any thoughts that would be holding you back from serving in that new way. And the second is, who do you want to be? Because there's going to be a leadership gap that will continue to create a divide in between those who are willing to show up and lead and help other people lead in the same way, and those who are going to pull back and move into a fear and scarcity mindset. I'm going to invite you into the idea that this is a time to lead. Your market's counting on you and it's your best interest to serve and create meaning in your market.
(09:42):
For those of you who are really serious about stepping up, I invite you into new possibilities on how you can serve and serve other people, to not contribute to what is already happening in the world, but to be a light in spite of it. Next week we'll be talking to Jamie Swanson who went through her own version of this just around the same time I did, and I invite you to continue joining in and be inspired by these stories of people who grew businesses in very similar, challenging times. It's really nobody that I know that all of a sudden had this idea, hired all these people, they were able to execute and implement. It's really the people that I know who are the most accomplished entrepreneurs, who I respect the most, who I've been having on this podcast, and will continue to have on this podcast that created the unexpected during turbulent times, either in their lives or in the world. And I can't wait to share more of those stories with you for inspiration during the challenges that we are facing today. So thanks so much for joining me and I will see you next week with Jamie Swanson.
(10:56):
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The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.