Ep #191 Your Permission Slip to Do Business Your Way

There's a lot of ways to do business and a lot of people telling you how you "should" do it "right". The truth is that there is no ONE way and there is no RIGHT timeframe for success. The whole reason you got into business is probably to have more time and money freedom and to chart your own course and then it's easy to start comparing yourself to others and conclude that you are doing it "wrong".  

I hope this episode gives you a sense of freedom and release from the "shoulds". A business, if it is to last longterm, needs to fit into your life, not the other way around. You have permission to do it the best way - your way. 

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Check out my YouTube channel at www.foodbiz.tube for how to videos to start and grow a packaged food business.

Transcript

Sari  
Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the packaged food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host Sari Kimbell, I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach, and it's got to be fun. In this podcast, I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in, and food founder journeys so you can learn what worked and didn't work, and not feel so alone in your own journey. Now, let's jump in!

Hey, there, welcome back to the podcast. Glad you are with me. Oh, my gosh, you guys are blowing my phone up with all of your comments about last week's episode with Dax Hammon about AI. And so many members are like, can he come into Fuel? And I'm like, yes, we will bring him into Fuel VIP. I will get that worked out for this summer. So if you want to have these conversations with the experts, let's do it. Come join me in Fuel, get Food Business Success. Let's go, what are you waiting for? So that was really fun to do that episode. I'm so glad it's resonating with you, if not freaking you out a little bit. It's okay, me too. I'm with you. Other things that are happening in my world. If you're on my mailing list, or you check in with my social media at all, you saw that I finally hit partners status on YouTube. And I'm sure a lot of you guys listening, maybe found me on Youtube or have listened to or watch videos over on YouTube. And it's just so fascinating to look back five years it took. And I'll definitely, I have another episode I want to do, kind of using that as a metaphor for your own businesses.

But what I'm so excited about, yes, there's some financial compensation that comes with being partner status, which is great. I'm all for building up. I love affiliate revenue, where it makes sense. And I think every business personally should have embraced that. But what's really great about hitting that partner status is that I have more control over the advertising that you guys get shown. And so yes, I could make more money. But that's not really what the YouTube channel is for. So what I did was actually, I took away the ads, I removed the ads that come in the center, in the middle of videos, which are super annoying. I find it very annoying when I'm trying to watch something, and eight minutes in, there's a you know, a couple of ads, and then another eight minutes in. And I've been wanting to do more meditation things, offer some other mindset tools, but I hated that YouTube would throw ads in the middle of it. Like, it's not that YouTube hasn't been advertising on my channel. Of course they have. I just haven't gotten any benefit from it and I didn't have any control. And so now I do. And you know, I did that super thinking exercise a while ago and it was so annoying, I felt so bad, I didn't realize that it would get you know, it's like you're in this 20 minute meditation, and you're supposed to be going deep, and then YouTube throws in an ad in there. So that should not be happening anymore because I removed those ads. This is about me having more control and giving you guys what you need without that junk. So that's exciting. That's been a really fun thing. And it's just fun to reflect back on kind of the urgency that I felt at the beginning, and then letting it go. And then it just happening kind of, quote unquote, on its own. I mean, I still had to do work.

In any case, so that was fun. And then we have so many wins that we're celebrating in Fuel, new brands, businesses, founders that are launching or relaunching their products, doing cool workshops. It's just so fun. It just really lights me up. And I love that we have that platform to share our wins because when we share our wins, when we have community to connect with and not feel so alone. It's like we get these old dopamine boosts that, like, oh, I am winning, I am making progress. And this is working. And it feels so good. It feels so good to celebrate other people's wins. And you just kind of feel like you're part of like, a winning team. Right? It's like, cool to be on the the winning team, right? If you're going to be on any kind of sports team, let's be on the winning team. And we are having so many great wins inside Fuel. All right, so I just want to do a catch up. It's spring, loving it. Except the wind, we've been having some really windy days in Colorado, not a fan. But hopefully you guys are enjoying spring, you're ramping up for farmers markets. You can get the uplevel your farmers market workshops still, I'll make sure the links in the show notes. That's such a great tool for how do you increase your farmers market sales. How do you have more fun? How do you use farmer's markets to really fund your whole business but help you make good business decisions because it's such a beautiful testing ground, and also how to hire and to train people so that you don't have to be in every market, right? We can have a winning Farmers Market strategy, and not have you work every single weekend and be burned out and all the things. 

All right. So today, I wanted to write you that old school permission slip. Remember back in like elementary school, or junior high, or middle school, I guess, you know, you had to come in with a permission slip if you were late, or you need a permission slip to go on that field trip. And what I find when I coach folks inside Fuel or my one on one clients is oftentimes they're in their own head of overwhelm and overthinking, maybe sounds familiar, was like I just, I get so, I'm just overthinking this. I'm like, yeah, you're the only one. Just kidding.

Everyone does this. I think that this is a trait of high achievers, I think that this is a trait of learning how to be an entrepreneur and trusting your gut. And how do you think enough about something? How do you put in like, do your due diligence, get the information? And then also, how do you trust your gut and stop overthinking so that you can get into action? And so the permission slip that I want to write for you, is for you to allow your business to work for you, to be a part of your full life. And to give you permission that if it's not working the way you want it to in your current season of life, that you get to change it. That is the beauty of being an entrepreneur of having your own business. I am all for going hard and ramping up and going all in on your business but we cannot separate these two, your business and your life. Like they're not two different things. And how do we bring them together to be a fully functioning unit that betters your whole life. There's not just like personal stuff and then business. And what you probably learned as you started your business, or, you know really getting serious about it is that it kind of overtakes your life, you're thinking about it all the time. And that can be really fun. And it can be really annoying to people around you. And annoying to yourself, right? But I've been having conversations, I've had a couple of conversations, which is why I wanted to do this episode, where members and clients were coming to me and saying, I just don't know if this is working for me anymore. And I don't want to shut it down but what do I do with it? How do I adjust it? And just having that conversation of like, well, what's going on, right? Being willing to just look at it like an observer, like a scientist and say, well, let's just see, like, what are the pieces of your business that you're doing, right? Well, I'm doing farmers markets, I'm maybe doing wholesale and doing e commerce. I'm doing social media, like what are all the things in your business that you're doing? And then what's going on in your life, right? We have seasons of our lives, our personal lives that are going to ebb and flow. And so maybe, you know, you have kids and they're in a really meaningful time of their lives and you really need to be there for them. Or maybe you have a parent that you need to care for that is kind of a new thing. Or maybe there's a health issue. Or maybe the kids are now away from the house and you have extra time. Like, our lives are not static, right? They change very quickly up and down, and the amount of like the priorities change, I guess. And I want to give you permission to adjust your business around that. And we kind of think, like, once I make a decision, then I have to stay with it. You know, once I've decided this is my business model, I'm doing farmers markets, that I must do farmers markets forever and ever. And I'm giving you permission to evaluate that to say, does that actually work in your life? You guys know, I love farmers markets, but do you need to hire? Or do you just let it go for now? These things aren't set in stone, you can change your mind again, you can come back and say, well, you know, given the season of my life, here are the things that are new priorities for me. And so because of these new obligations, or the care that I want to get my family or, you know, whatever it is that you get to then adjust your business around that. And so I was having a conversation with a Fuel member and she was in the middle of that, and like, she wanted to be there for her teenager, you know, we only have a couple more years in high school, and wanting to really, you know, be there for all of his activities and things. And she just was like, just feeling such resistance and overwhelmed with my business. And so we just talked about different options, you know, well, you could do it this way. What about this? What about this? And sometimes we need to go get more information. What would that look like, let's go get the details that we might need to be able to make good decisions. But ultimately, and I've done a couple of podcasts on making decisions. But once you have the information that you need, then it's just about, okay, what feels right for you, in your body. If all things worked out amazing, and you got the end result that you want. It might not be in the next six months, but you ultimately got what you want. What feels the best, because when you choose the thing that feels in alignment with you, and your goals, and your desires and your life circumstances, you're going to do it. You're going to be more likely to do the things than choosing the thing that you think everybody says you should do. We're going to F the shoulds. It's up shooting all over yourself. And we're going to choose the model that feels the most in integrity and alignment with your life. And that might mean that you go find some who's, it might mean that you go come work with myself or other coaches to get some support. It might mean that you scale things back. All right, it's okay, your business is a living thing. And you have permission to make changes to reevaluate it. I really love to do even a quarterly evaluation of like, what's working, what's not working? What am I loving about my business and my life? What do I hate? What do I resist? What am I procrastinating on? And I've done so many different episodes that can really speak to some of this. There's, I think the lawn and exercise of like, putting everything about your life out on the lawn, and evaluating it before you bring it back in the house and making changes. There's also procrastination as a tool, like when you notice that you're procrastinating on something that is an indication that maybe it needs to be adjusted. And so wherever you are in your business, maybe you're just getting started and you're like, I don't want to shut it down, or I don't want to scale back. And I'm like, okay, awesome. I'm giving you permission to go full in to turn on the gas. And that means that you're going to have to say no to some other things. You're going to have to look at the other pieces of your life and say, you know what, I might not be able to do that birthday party or that wedding or that graduation thing because I'm going to be at farmer's markets. I'm going all in on my business. Or there might be some evening things like whatever it is, you're going to have to make some trade offs. It's not about sacrificing, but it is about making trade offs and if you look at it that way that can be really useful. I did a podcast on my other podcast called Reinvent With Sari Kimbell, that was about going into your busy season and getting prepared for that. So that might be an episode you want to check out as well. But, you know, just like if you were a CPA, that you would get your family ready, you would prepare them, you would look at your calendar and say, for the next three months, I'm not doing this stuff, right? We would take care of ourselves and our lives. And so it's okay, if you want to turn on your business and go all in, right? Just make adjustments and communicate with people, and let them know like, it's not that you're not a priority. But this business thing is top priority. And here's how we're going to still, you know, think about like a relationship or something, right? Here's how we're still going to stay in connection. And we're still going to have a date night, or we're still going to do this trip. But I'm going all in on my business and you have permission to do that, just as you have permission to look at it and say I actually need to ramp up a priority, a different priority in my life. And I may like ramped down this business thing. So you get to choose, that's all I wanted to say to you is how you have permission to design the business for your life, to fit into your life, your business was never meant to be a chaining you to it, you created a business because you want to start a business, you want to grow your business because you want time, you want freedom. And yet oftentimes, our businesses suck all of the freedom and time from us. And that does not have to be the case. And I was just talking to a client yesterday, and we were talking about balance, right? And the reality is, you know, there's never going to achieve, like, perfect balance. What is that, right? Like, there's never like I spent 20% on business, and 20% on relationships ,and 20% on health, and 20% on spirituality or whatever the other things are, that are important to you, you know, it's about recognizing and reevaluating that, like I'm going into a season where my business is going to take up 50-60% of my life, I'm going all in. And then here's how I'm going to allocate the rest, and I'm choosing it on purpose. Or I realized that, you know, maybe a relationship or health needs to expand. And so I'm going to reduce the percentage that I spend in my business. And we just want to do that with intentionality, with integrity, with communication. If you're in stores, and you're like, whoa, I need to go take care of a sick parent. It doesn't mean you just cut and run, like have those conversations, be truthful, be honest, be upfront, and say, here's how I can still support you, here's how I can't, here's how it's going to work, like make decisions as a CEO to ramp up or ramp down your business, and communicate with your whole life team and get support. So that's where I'll end it. I don't I don't want to belabor the point. But you have permission from me, him writing you that permission slip to life, that you get to ramp up or ramp down your business, create it how ever fits in best for you, in this season of your life. And if you want more support, if you want to have these conversations, if you need help with clarity, I helped me people make decisions all the time. And I'm like you're overthinking it. And I force sometimes force you into making a decision. And there's so much relief. When you're like, ah, now I know exactly what my next steps are. I've made a decision. I can stop like ruminating and going back and forth and wondering all the time that we waste. Imagine if you just got clarity and you made decisions, and you felt good about them because you talked it out and you understood the consequences of things. And you got that information that you needed. And then you just took action. That's when your business starts thriving. That's when your business starts compounding on its own success. And that's when you're living a fully whole fulfilled, aligned life. All right, that's what I got for you today. Come join us inside Fuel, get Food Business Success. That's how you get inside the program. Go to foodbizsuccess.com and you'll see on the homepage there the ways that you can work with me. And until next time, have an amazing week. 

The smartest thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to invest in Who to help you with the how to speed up your journey and help you skip the line. When you are ready for more support and accountability to finally get this thing done, you can work with me in two ways. Get me all to yourself with one on one business coaching, or join Food Business Success which includes membership inside Fuel, our community of food business founders that includes monthly live group coaching calls and so much more. It's one of my favorite places to hang out and I would love to see you there. Go to foodbizsuccess.com to start your journey towards your own Food Business Success.