059 | What Does It Mean to Coast in Business? pt.2

Speaker A: Well, hey, friends, welcome back to the podcast. This is episode 59 of She's Equipped with Jennifer Allwood. I happen to be Jennifer Allwood. It's funny how that happens. Uh, so I took a little. A little break. See, today between part one of this, which was episode 58. If you didn't watch that, you're going to want to go back and watch, um, because it sets up this episode. This is a two. It's a twofer. Um, so I took a little break and went to the Home Depot, which I just think it's funny when you pronounce words wrong on purpose. So I can call it what I want. But, um, I decided if you're watching the Jennifer Allwood home Instagram, where I don't talk about business, I talk about house stuff, um, I decided that I think I can build a little mudroom. And by mudroom, I mean, like, there's a wall on this second flip house that Jason and I just bought that I'm just gonna put beadboard and just a little piece of wood with some hooks. Paint it green to match the cabinet. It's gonna be cute. And so, um, I just put down and with my long list of things, I need other things for the house, and then the stuff I need for. Couldn't find my measurement for the beadboard, um, which is problematic because I was asking them to cut it for me. One moment. Our realtor is messaging me. Just a second. Ah. Uh, no worries. One moment. Hey, no worries. I actually meant to tell you that I found somebody today, and they went over there today, period. Okay, sorry. I thought because I'm, um, closing on a property in the morning, and I'm like, ah, ah, Realtors messaging. Okay, So I go to Home Depot, I need to give them the measurements, they can cut the beadboard for me. And I literally, like, blank out. And I'm like, where do I have that written down at? Is it in the notes on my phone? I can't find notes on my phone. Is it in ChatGPT? Which gave me, like, the steps and, you know, all the things I need, including the screws and the adhesive and. And the guy's looking at me and I'm like, okay, how? Uh, about four foot tall. And, ah, let's just go 36 wide, you guys. It's, ah, a. It's a. There's an exact measurement to this wall, and I guarantee you it's not 36 inches. But it's like I blanked out in front of him. And I couldn'. I couldn't say. I don't know pride would let me do that. So I'm like, it's about probably close to. Let's just go 36 inches. Oh, my God. This is why I can't have a TV show. This is why I can't be on hdtv. Because they all. They all know their stuff. I don't know my stuff. I'm guesstimating at best. And then it's like, you need two different types of, like, nails and screws. And I'm like, wouldn't. Why. Why do I not just use nails or screws? Why do I have to use both nails and screws to put up beadboard and a piece of wood? And. And then I get to the nail in the screw aisle, and it's like I'm, um, a deer in the headlights. I feel like this is probably how every man in America feels like when he walks into a Victoria's Secret store. Like, just so many bras, so many panties. They all look the same to them. I'm looking at all the screws and the nails. I'm like, they all look the same to me, except they're not. And then I'm like. But there's how. It's like a neat. It's fine. It's finding a nail in a haystack. That's what it is. That was a fun trip. That was a fun trip. Anyhow, shout out to Home Depot for being willing to cut wood. I guarantee you they're going to be cutting it a second time. Just don't tell my husband, who also has told me, Jed, I really don't want you using. Um, I have a very nice Lincoln Navigator that I love. I love that vehicle. Um, I don't know if you guys remember when I got that a couple of years ago place, uh, in Salina, Kansas. In fact, I should just give them a shout out. It's been years. Um, but they contacted me and asked me to do a commercial, um, for their Navigator. Could they come to my house and literally just, um, and do a commercial that I was in and they would loan me the Navigator for two weeks, and I was like, sure. Well, that was, um, when, uh, people were getting sick left and right from COVID still. And so, um, the person was supposed to come back. Okay. I can't find their name. Dang it. They're in Salina, Kansas, though. But the, um, this has nothing to do with podcast, by the way, but it's my show. I can talk about uh, so they're like, we'll give it to you for two weeks if you do this. And they were paying me for the commercial on top of that. And you will let you drive the vehicle for two weeks? I'm like, great. So then I drive the vehicle for two weeks. The person supposed to come pick it up got sick. I don't know if they got Covid or whatever. Oh, my gosh. My husband just texted me. Dolly Parton passed away. You are kidding me. Okay, give me a moment. I'm calling my husband. Are you kidding me? You guys, I love Dolly Parton. Like, I was devastated when Kenny Rogers passed away during COVID One moment. Hey, I've got you on the podcast right now, so keep it clean. Allwood. Are you. Are you joking about Dolly Parton?

Speaker B: No. She passed away. They just had a press release. I just listened. I'm just listening to it right now.

Speaker A: And what from. Was she even sick?

Speaker B: Um, well, I don't know if she was sick or not. I know she missed, like, an, ah, opening ride at Dollywood here, just not too long ago, like, in the last couple weeks.

Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.

Speaker B: So she gets dizzy and lightheaded sometimes. Um, so she was 80 years old,

Speaker A: um, and looked better than most women my age. I'm. I'm devastated by this.

Speaker B: Well, and. And, uh, you have been known being called. I have called you Dolly before.

Speaker A: You have called me Dolly before.

Speaker B: Between the hair.

Speaker A: It's the big hair and big boobs. You can say it.

Speaker B: Your beats that you have. Um, yes, you've been known to be called Dolly. So, um, yeah, she is. Covid took Kenny Rogers, and now a few years later, we've lost. We've lost Dolly, one of the two of the greatest people in the entire world.

Speaker A: I'm sorry. I'm letting you go now. I'm devastated. And I'm still recording. I still have record going on on the podcast. So, uh, I love you.

Speaker B: I love you too, baby.

Speaker A: Okay, see you soon. Bye. Okay, that stinks.

Speaker B: Dang it.

Speaker A: Now I lost my concentration. I don't even know where I was at in my story. I was always talking about my Lincoln Navigator. But now Dolly Parton died. In what kind of a world do we not have Dolly Parton? I was devastated when Kenny Rogers died. I mean, like, literally, I'm like, I grew up on Kenny and Dolly. Okay, well, that really stinks. All right, now my friends are all texting me. It's the end of an era. That sucks. Okay, back to my Lincoln Navigator. Oh, so the person Got Covid that was supposed to come pick it up. So they left it with me for a couple more weeks. Then there was a snowstorm in Kansas City, so they left it with me a couple weeks. So I ended up having this Navigator for six weeks, and then I didn't want to let it go. I mean, who wants to go back to their old vehicle after you've driven a brand new Lincoln Navigator for six weeks? So I ended up buying it from him. So anyhow, Jason's like, could we please not use your Lincoln as, like, a work truck? Because he's got a Ford F150. He's like, Take my truck, honey. But this morning, he was out running errands with his said truck. So I had to take my Lincoln Navigator to go get paint and to go get all the beadboard and everything that I think I'm going to need for this project. Half of M, which is probably wrong and going to have to be recut. Okay, and now for the podcast. Dang it about Dolly. That stinks. All right, so if you listen to episode 58, I talked about how I have talked for years to my coaching clients about the fact that I think that, you know, there's a season to everything under heaven is what the Bible says. And there is a time to weep and a time to rejoice and a time for war and a time for peace and a time in business. This is not what the Bible says, but I'm just telling you, seasons are a biblical thing, but in business, there are times to rest and there are times to run. And it's super important that you understand what season you're in at any given time, because at times, God may be like, hey, let's hit the brakes a little bit. You've got family stuff that needs your attention. You got a kiddo off the rails. You've got, um, just your personal health to take care of, your mental health to take care of whatever. Like, let. Let's just pause a little bit here, honey. Let's. Let's rest a minute, right? And sometimes God's like, hit the gas. I mean, you know, in the words of my grandfather, who I loved and adored, like, you got to make hay when the sun shining. And so I think it's super important you understand what season you're in. When I was talking to Nell about, hey, I gotta come up with a podcast episode this week, and Nell did come up with me this morning. I asked her, how many podcast episodes have I done? And the final number where we are at is 790episodes I have done in the last several years. Because I was like, I have nothing new to say after that many episodes. I'm like, do you have any ideas for a podcast episode? She's like, I have been thinking a lot about just how this summer I have not run and I have not rested. I have just been kind of on coast all summer long and it has been just phenomenal. Um, we've traveled, I've been, I'm getting ready to go to Florida for my fourth time in. Over the summer, um, Jason and I have done a couple of overnights to different places. We've gone kayaking. We've bought and sold our first flip house. And the second one I close on tomorrow morning. Um, we've just had a really good time. We've been back to Iowa, unfortunately for a funeral. And, um, I've had the kids home. The girls are both back to school as of today. And so, you know, I'm probably transitioning into a different season, but this summer was all about coasting. And it's not about, um, taking a full rest and it's not about hitting the gas. It's just about maintaining what you've already built. And for some of you, I think that you should consider doing this for a season. Penciling it into what makes sense or paying attention to whether or not God may be, um, presenting you with a season of coasting. Okay. And so I talked in the last episode about how if that is a season you would like to be in or you know, find yourself in, like some of the things you really need to be intentional about so that you can enter a season of coast. Okay? So number one, I would say you've got to get your expenses under control if you're going to coast and have no, like new launches or email campaigns trying to get people into your group or getting people signed up for your one on one coaching, whatever, you need to look at your expenses before that season and see what you can be cutting back. So I have had Nell looking at our expenses pretty intensely for the last couple of months because it is unbelievable to me how much we were spending in monthly subscriptions. At one point it was like 8 or $9,000 a month and we are down to like 2,500, but 8 or $9,000aMonth on just different softwares, different apps, different services that I'm like, do we actually even need this? Are there contractors that you're not using? Are there subscriptions? You've forgotten about software, you no longer need expenses you know that during whoops. During a rookie move, almost knocking over my, um, my podcast mic. But, you know, when you're in seasons of running, sometimes you don't have the capacity to have your eyes all over the place. Right. And if income is doing really well, a lot of times we just kind of ignore where we're spending because, you know, there's plenty of cash in the bank. And so if you're going to coast, it is going to mean you're not going to have an influx of cash like you would if you're going to do a launch or something like that. And so, you know, the leaner your business is during a season of coasting or resting, the less revenue it's probably going to produce if you're not pushing on the gas. And so you want to make sure that your expenses are, you know, just chopped down enough that, um, you're only really paying for what you still actually need. Okay, that's number one. Number two, I would make sure you have a really solid team of people around you. The only way I was able to take off the entire month of July last year was because, you know, I had my sales and marketing person, I had my director of ops, I had, um, you know, our community manager. I had all these people around me who know all of what they have to do. And when I say I was off for a month, I was. I think I checked in with my director of ops with Nell, one time in the entire month. That's it. Uh, because the team needs to know, you know, um, I needed to. To fully back off for a month. And they. We had plenty of conversations beforehand. They all knew what was required of them. They all knew what they were responsible for. Nobody was new to the team. They all had the ability to make decisions without me. They knew, you know, like, we've had things in place for years. If it's over a 500 decision for the business, please, please talk to me about it. If not, make the decision, like, don't bug me with it. Um, and I mean that respectfully. I have that same rule in place with the people that manage our Airbnb in Florida. If it's less than 500, don't bug me. You know, with needing to know, hey, can we replace the TV remote that, um, you know, one of your renters broke? I mean, obviously, unless it's more than 500, I just don't want to hear about it. So make sure you have, A, the people in place. But B, they know the expectations. They know what's required of them. They know they have decision making ability. Because even though last year I took a solid month off, this year I didn't take a solid month. I coasted for the last three. I've coasted for three months, possibly even closer to four because in this season that's what I wanted to do. And ah, I will tell you that there was a time when I would have said I have earned the right to coast until God convicted me of that. What, what does this earned the right? And in my head I was thinking, I've paid my dues, I've worked hard, I can coast. But the Lord really convicted me. Are you only allowed to coast once you've busted your tail? Are you only allowed to coast once you reach a certain income level? Like why are you thinking, Jennifer, that that's what's required of you? The dog may bark because Amazon's pulling up. Um, and so I've had to rethink that. You don't have to pay your dues. I was speaking to somebody today. Someone needs to really get this deep in their spirit. Okay, um, the Lord has this for someone. You don't have to earn the right to take a break or to coast. You don't have to pay your dues to take a break or coast. And we need to undo that Thinking as business owners, I don't know where that seed got planted in me, but I have dug that baby up and tossed it over my shoulder. Even if I hadn't made this much money, even if I hadn't been coaching for 12 years, that doesn't mean, uh, there, there's no dollar amount or time amount that is required in order to coast and just maintain for a minute. And we've been fed the lie. You got to keep pushing. You got to keep pushing. You got to keep pushing. And if you're not pushing, then you got to rest. And, and there is a gray area, friends. So have a solid team of people around you or person around you that can make decisions without you, that you don't, um, you don't have to worry about while you're kind of just pausing and maintaining a good team or a good person in your corner is going to give you the ability to stop being involved in every single thing in your business and that will allow you to coast a little bit. I still think having predictable revenue, maybe it's a game changer. It's a game changer when you have monthly recurring revenue. Mrr, um, if you will, then you know what your baseline is. You're not Going to make zero that month. So we have the monthly recurring revenue from my software, from my coaching clients. Um, and so that means I know roughly what we're going to make every month, whether I'm present or not. Does that make sense? So if you don't have something in place giving you some predictability for recurring revenue and you work online, I really suggest you do. It doesn't necessarily have to be a membership or a subscription. Um, but is there a way for you to get repeat customers? Is there a service, um, that you can reliably count on bringing you a certain amount of money every month? Um, do you have an evergreen funnel set up that you're just putting ad money behind that consistently sells over and over, just so you have, like a baseline, because then you can actually really feel confident and comfortable about going. Okay. For the last three months, I've just been coasting. I haven't pushed anything new. I haven't come up with any new webinars. I haven't launched any new courses. I haven't pushed you towards my coaching. I haven't done any of those things. Not because I earned it, but because I wanted to since my kids were little. You know, I have been a business owner for 27 years. At this point. I have always pulled way back in the summer, and for a long, long time, I hid that because I felt guilty. If my team's working, I need to work. If the girl's painting for me, I need to act like I'm working. If the girls, you know, um, in the online space, in the coaching space. If the rest of my team's working, I need to be working. That's bull crap. That is bull crap. We hire people to work on our behalf, work for us, work with us. But I am working in plenty of different ways. Even if I'm not actively sitting in this chair. Does that make sense? Last thing I would say is, if you want to try to coast for amount of time, make sure you automate the things that you can, automate anything that you can that doesn't actually require you, because your business should have systems for things that happen over and over and over. Somebody buys your coaching program, like, what happens next? How do they get welcomed from you? What do they get in that purchase? How do they get reminders about coaching calls? Does your team know when different things need to happen? What happens if that customer cancels or finishes? Like onboarding, fulfillment and offboarding should not depend on you remembering what to do. It should all be automated. So the more that you can Automate and document, um, with standard operating procedures, videos, recordings, whatever, the easier it becomes to let your business machine run without you. So, again, going back through those four, it is getting your expenses under control, having solid people around you that are working for you, predictable revenue of some sort, and automating whatever you can. Okay, so coasting does not mean totally ignoring your business friends. It still means you're watching the numbers. I'm still looking at the piano every month. It still means you're taking care of customers. I'm still responding to all my boxer clients. Um, we have plenty of clients that are still just coaching clients, still making sure I'm doing all those calls. You're still leading your team. You're still paying attention when something needs you. You're just not trying to come up with new things for growth all the time. You're not launching, you're not creating new offers. You're not trying to double the revenue this quarter. You're just letting the machine that you built do what it was built to do. And so I think so many entrepreneurs can struggle with this because we've been trained to believe that maintain, maintaining, like maintenance. Maintaining the maintenance of revenue, that. That isn't productive. And we automatically assume, well, if we're not going forward, if we're not producing more, if we're not growing more revenue, then we're going backward. And that's just simply not true. Maybe you just need to try something new for a minute. I wanted to try flipping a couple houses this summer. It's been so much freaking fun. It has lit a fire in me that, honestly, I just really needed. Um, maybe you just need some downtime to regroup, to figure out what the next vision of your business looks like. You don't want to make any huge decisions, but you just need some space, some capacity to freaking think. I mean, because sometimes when we're in the nitty gritty, we just don't even have thinking time. I used to jokingly say to people who would ask me, when I own my painting company, I would walk into a new construction site or something, and I would have all these women that were there painting for me. And inevitably, inevitably, I would have some man. It was never a female, by the way. It was always a man. And by the way, I grew up with all brothers. I have two half brothers, four stepbrothers. I have raised two sons. I am not a man hater. This is not a sexist statement, but it was never a woman that asked me. It was always a man. It was only the men that wanted to know. Oh, so you're the boss, huh? Huh? They'd say stuff. That's how they'd always break in the conversation. You're the boss. Boss ladies here, like, you can call me just ma'.

Speaker B: Am.

Speaker A: That's fine. I don't need to be a boss lady. I hate that term. Um, so what do you do? They're here all day, Peyton. What do you do? And I would jokingly say I get paid to think. But that was the truth. And still, as an entrepreneur today, I'm paid to think. And I guarantee you, you are, too. But when you're in the thick of it. If I was actually on site painting every day, I would have no thinking time. And by thinking time, I mean thinking through, like, what are we going to do next? You know, it was different what I would think about in the service industry, the painting company, like, how, you know, uh, how am I going to get this on the calendar? How am I going to finish these people on time? What do I need to be ordering for supplies? How am I going to make sure we have, you know, a full month of, uh, October planned? What do I need to do? Um, you know, in terms of my social media, like, there was a lot of thinking time required in the coaching space. Same thing. When do I want to launch again? What do I want to launch? What does it need to look like? What does this next season look like? If you are not building in time to think, I guarantee you, you are feeling like a hamster on a wheel. You are exhausted, you're burned out. You're probably ready to burn the whole thing down. You can't be doing all the things and thinking about all the things. And so I hope that this episode was helpful for somebody today, somebody that's needing to regroup, somebody wants to try something new, somebody that maybe you're in preparation of, like a season of running, maybe, you know, this fall, I'm going to be balls to the wall. And so if so, like, we are not meant to be in, you know, pushing on the gas mode at all times. We're just not. At some point, your nervous system is just going to revolt against you and just gonna go. We. We're.

Speaker B: We're.

Speaker A: We're tapping out here. We need some help. And a lot of you are in that season where you need to press pause, not stop, but pause, and you just need to maintain for a minute. And so if that's you, I just pray that the Lord of, um, the heaven and earth, the God who loves you, will just make it real obvious to you that you need a coasting season. And to show you what that looks like, because it probably looks something totally different than what mine did. And that's okay. Coasting is not laziness. Uh, it's so easy to overwork and just bust your butt all the time. It takes way more discipline to pull back, friends. It takes way more maturity. It takes way more courage to pause and to rest. And so, for some of you, I just pray that you would know in your knower what season you're in, and you would have the courage to do what God is asking of you and requiring of you in this season in Jesus name. All right, friends, I hope that this was helpful today. I love you so much. We'll talk to you soon. Bye.

Speaker B: Bye.