Let's talk about what to do when things aren't really going to plan . I am going to tell you guys like bookmark this podcast, remind yourself that this podcast exists, because what I want to go through with you today is some of the favourite work that I teach you guys inside of the flower boss bootcamp, but making sure that everybody has access to the tools that you need to help you pick yourself up off the ground.

Because one of the things that you learn when you run a business is that sometimes things don't go to plan. And I wish that somebody had told me that the real secret to resilience and building a business and the relentlessness that's required for us to keep showing up and keep believing that our success is possible. No matter where you are in your flower and business journey, it could be that you're on day one and you have all these beautiful dreams and hopes and loves.

Your ambition is like right at the top of the surface, or you've seen a season or two, and you're kind of feeling the fatigue. The energy is draining, and you're looking at possibly your statistics and your data, and your brain really wants to talk you out of the exercise of continuing to show up. Because for most of you, you are like me. your brain is immediately gonna jump to, it's not working.

You should stop, but I want to very specifically record this podcast episode so that you have access to these tools and these resources, and some of my favourite shortcuts to help you get yourself back into a groove. Now, this is not a remedy for how to fix like adrenal fatigue and burnout. . This is about when you kind of just wanna stop working when you kind of are like my sales figures, aren't there.

It's not working. I'm not good enough. And that's where our brain wants to go, right? By default, our brain is driven by efficiency. It wants to keep repeating the same stories that it's been repeating forever, which is like, let's all get a billboard in times square that says I'm not good enough. That's where the vast majority of our internal dialogue has been spent for the last many, a decade.

I think we can just leave that story because as a coach once said to me, nothing good happens in that movie, in the movie that is advertised. I'm not good enough. Literally nothing happens. like we don't do anything. We don't push ourselves outside of our comfort zone. Quite literally, there is no action. There is like no plot line in the script of the movie called I'm not good enough. And that internal narrative, that dialogue that we have, we need to very intentionally replace it with something that's going to help build momentum and propel us forward.

So if you've ever asked the question or thought about asking that question or want some of my best insights on how do you navigate those down seasons in your business? What do you do when sales aren't unfolding, the way that you expected them to, what do you do if you're just not even meeting your sales target, what do you do if you've launched a new service and it's not kind of ticking in, like you thought it would set another way you could come in and distill this question down into something like Kathleen, how do you build resilience to keep going?

Then I was thinking about this the other day. And I was like, actually, I think the most simple question, everything here, every one of those questions could be put into the category under the headline of how do you entrepreneur, because that's what we're doing.

And I know for me, it took a really long time. Like I always had this vision of like the entrepreneurs being the Mark Zuckerbergs and like the bill gates and these guys definitely mostly men in Silicon valley, right? And they're all computer engineers in some way, shape or form. Like, that's always what I associated with the concept of entrepreneur.

It's like that language has now slipped into the mainstream and I'm beginning to realize like no longer do we talk about being a small business owner, very rarely do we even talk about ourselves being business owners at all. It's not something that we really step into from an identity perspective. But when I was introduced to the concept of being a creative entrepreneur, and that's what we're doing, that's what we're doing. When we make the decision to start a flower business. And I know my journey was wow, floristry.

That would be amazing. You get to make money with flowers, sign me up. And it's like, we take this side entrance to being a business owner, because that is secondary to our vision or our mission. And it takes a mindset shift. It takes a shift in perspective to recognize that it's your creativity that actually serves you through every area of your business, the passion and the drive and the fuel of what gets us started as floral designers is like the precipice.

It's just at the beginning. And then you get into running a business. And once you move past the resistance past the denial, of being a CEO and you step into the concept and you really embrace the idea that your creativity is what generates your business in all areas of your business. I think I was mistaken. I was under the guys that creativity only ever happens at the work bench, right?

Creativity always involves design, but when you start to think about the creativity required to solve a lot of the problems that we have as business owners, how can we staff this event? How can we staff for this team, particularly if you're navigating, being in a small town, it requires you to think and look at your staffing differently because you don't have access to this like steady stream of experienced floral designers. You have to use your creativity to start to solve some of these problems.

Then we think about the ups and downs in terms of supply and flower availability and all of the challenges that we face from a technology point of view. And it's like, we get to bring our creativity to the table in every single thing that we do. So I thought it would be really helpful to put together this podcast episode, because you are going to have days, weeks, months, seasons in your business journey where you might call it like a down season or you're not reaching your sales targets or things aren't going to plan, or this whole idea of anytime your brain wants to offer up.

It's not working. Come back, listen to this, write down the three income producing beliefs. I'm gonna talk you through in this podcast because they have served me so well. And the reason that it's really important that we get to talk about these things is because, I mean, honestly, if you're listening to this podcast, you already know that being a floral designer, isn't just all pretty pictures and effortless designs being posted to Instagram with no energy and effort in tears, behind it. But of course, nobody talks about that stuff.

Nobody's gonna show up on Instagram with a look at the meltdown that I had today. I mean, they probably do. I shouldn't say that. It's just not the people that I follow on social media, but it's not really what gets us started in our business. And it's so helpful to just know things don't always go to plan the concept of a plan B was created because things don't always go to plan and whether you're new as a floral designer, and you're just kind of discovering this amazing world, this will help you to understand that you're gonna hit the wall.

Sometimes things aren't always gonna go to plan. You're not gonna necessarily always reach your revenue target. And that's okay, because now you have the tools to help you help yourself overcome some of that struggles. And then as you get further into your business, the longer you're in business, it's really easy to have lost a little bit of that passion, the energy that you start with in the beginning, because you see how much energy and effort you need to continually put in to build your business. And you've kind of lost like that spark.

I think that spark comes from our ignorance, right from the, oh my God. It would be so fun to make money from flowers. This looks so amazing. Then you see everything that has to go on behind the scenes. And you're like what? Google ads and CRM systems, curity and my Instagram feed and pricing and taxes and cash flow and bookkeeping and let alone supply and demand of flowers and labor shortages.

And who knows what the future folds for us but having this podcast where we can come back and be like, okay, I need Kathleen to gimme a little bit of a pick me up things aren't really going to plan. I know I need to shift my thinking and I need to shift my mindset. Give me a quick fix. And I think for so many of us, I know for me, I've been thinking about this a lot recently, this concept, right? Which you can interpret very literally, but also quite figuratively of not feeling qualified.

This idea of, oh God. Yeah. Like of course our brain is craving a piece of paper or a certification or an endorsement or a permission slip because that's how we are trained through the first, like 20 years of our life through the traditional education system, you earn diplomas and you earn pieces of paper and you earn girl guide badges, and you earn all of these things.

That really almost conditions our brain to believe that it's the thing that creates confidence for us. So I know there are thousands of floral designers who have been in business for decades and still have that little voice in the back of their head doubting. And second guessing everything they're doing because they're not qualified, they're not formally trained.

I think every single one of us has a story around wishing that we felt more qualified as if somebody else is going to come along, hand us a piece of paper. And all of a sudden we shall change into feeling qualified , but it doesn't happen that way. It doesn't happen that way. And it's so easy for us to stay stuck in our businesses and looking for more certifications, more qualifications, sign up to more workshops, go do this thing, go do that thing in the hopes that it will kind of fill our gap, fill the void, help us not feel like an imposter, help us not feel like a complete fraud.

I have bad news. It doesn't happen that way. The concept of really understanding that confidence comes from within and learning how to pick yourself up when things don't necessarily always go to plan is the skill to develop. We don't need somebody else to come along and tell us it's going to be okay. You can do that for yourself. You can look at wherever you are in your business and decide it's all unfolding in your favour.

It's all happening the way that it should be. And we know that because this is the way that it's happening. And I think one of the best lessons for the last couple years is how easy it is to argue with reality, wishing that there wasn't a global pandemic wishing that there wasn't conflict happening in so many different countries, wishing things that were different to the way that they are.

But it's Byron Katie, who always says, when you argue with reality, you never win. And this practice of accepting what is, which is why I'll always tell you guys, like come back to the data because our brain is gonna throw a lot of bullshit our way. And it's going to be negatively geared for every single one of us, because that's how our brain is programmed. And really being able to get ourselves out of that funk, get ourselves out of that. It's not working. I should just give up and I should just stop doing whatever it is that I wanted to be doing.

I wanted to go through these three income producing beliefs that I learned a few years ago, and they're not mine, but they have served so well. And they are almost at the bare bones, bare basics of the way you get to show up in your business, whether it's day one, day, 1001 or day, 10,001, I still on the hard days on the days when I feel like the results aren't coming, the way that I want them to, I still come back to these because they almost feel like they are inner truth and they are so simple and so concise and it's taken practice, right?

It's taken intentional belief building to, without a shadow of a doubt, know that each one of these income producing beliefs now feels true to me. But when I was first introduced to these three concepts, I had to sit down and do the work to sell myself on the fact that each one of them was true. And I had to do that individually.

So I will tell you guys to do the same work. And these three concepts I learned from Stacy Bowman and Stacey Bowman is a business coach. She teaches sales and it's so incredible to actually understand the psychology of sales and the basic principles of sales tactics. Stacy grew up being one of those like product demo girls in Walmart. Like she literally, she has such funny stories of selling like the sham. Wow. and like, particularly, I just think about being in a, like a Walmart in like Washington state or something.

It's so fascinating because I don't remember much of that happening in Canada. It doesn't happen here in Australia. Certainly not now, but they do that on morning TV shows in Australia. I think they do this in the UK too, but I basically have like half an hour infomercials, which always make me think of Ron is his name, Ron, Popio the Ronco food dehydrator as an aside, I don't remember her name. I feel like it was Val or something like that, but this would've been like the late eighties, early nineties, when the concept of like a hand blender, would've just come out guys this is like in the days of the microwave and the VCR .

I remember a woman and I'm sure we could find it if we Google it. But I remember the infomercial of the hand blender, and she was showing like, one of the magic things with this blender is that it will turn skim milk into like a beautiful whipped dessert, the good old days of, you know, everybody having great fruits and special K and skim milk.

But this idea of like, I still remember. And I still think of that every time I think of like a hand blender, I've never even tried to do that with milk. I don't know if it would happen with non-dairy milk, but super interesting. These memories that are ingrained in your brain anyway, Stacy Bowman is one of those people. This is literally like, that's how she earned her first income as a human being. So she's like super intense trained in sales.

Now she's taken those concepts and she's taken the concepts from Brooke Castillo and molded it together and now teaches sales. And I learned these three concepts from her because this is really about understanding your own mindset around being a sales person, which is what you need to do when you are the head of a business.

Particularly when you're the head of a floral design business and understanding how sales fits into the equation and this skillset of being able to continually show up, even though not enough people are buying or the number of people who are buying aren't in alignment with what your revenue goals were.

This has really changed the game so that if you're looking at your data, right, and we can take all the drama out and we can look at the facts, you now can take this, take these three income producing beliefs, layer it on top. And all of a sudden you'll find yourself showing up taking action and continually moving your business forward. Because I think it's really important to know that not everything that you do in your business is going to work. And I know we like intellectually know that it's like, correct.

I can appreciate that sentence, but I think for so many of us, and I know for me, it's like, I resisted that concept. And for me, it was because I would always attach my worthiness as a human being to my results. So my brain was so quick to jump, to beating me up.

You're not good enough. You're not smart enough. You're never gonna be able to make this happen. And it would use the lack of progress in my business as a way of like open up the flood gates of talking down to yourself and criticizing yourself and judging yourself. And when I started to learn the concepts from the life coach school and the concept like these sales concepts from Stacy Bowman and going, it just helps you cut through so much of that negative self-talk because it gives your brain something else to focus on.

That's something that is a skill that we get to practice and we get to learn. And once you understand, okay, right. So my human brain, the way that it comes outta the box is it's programmed for efficiency. Like it wants to take the path of least resistance, which means it wants the repeatable behaviour all of the time.

And when you have that internal dialogue of I'm not good enough, I can't figure this out. Of course, when you're looking at your sales data, that's where your brain's gonna go and an unmanaged mind or mismanaged mind is going to continually go there. And we, as the human being with the prefrontal cortex need to come in and interrupt that pattern. It's not going to happen naturally.

It's not going to happen by itself, but I want to give you these three thoughts as a way to interrupt that previous pattern. And you don't have to do all three at once. Pick one that feels the most true to you right now. Use it as your go-to belief. When your brain wants to go into the it's not working, I'm never gonna be able to figure this out thought pattern, but also take the other two, whichever don't quite feel true to you yet and sell yourself on why they're true.

Like literally sit down, write down the belief and sell yourself on why it is true. So when it comes to understanding and really looking for resources to help you build your business, I think these three sales beliefs, these three income producing beliefs will serve you for forever because they're so powerful in the energy and the action they will create in your business.

So when shit has hit the fan and you're like, nobody wants to buy my flowers, particularly, particularly if you're at that point in your business where you've finally gotten up the courage to raise, raise your prices. And you're super clear on your design aesthetic or your one or the other, right? If you've finally raised your prices and you're convinced that nobody wants to work with you, pay attention. if you have finally let go of maybe like an entire iteration of your business or department in your business, or like maybe you're one of the amazing humans.

Who's like, you know what? I'm gonna be totally honest with myself, weddings. Aren't my thing. Or maybe you're one of the people that are like, I don't wanna do daily flower deliveries. I don't wanna do funerals. I don't wanna do corporates. I don't wanna do subscriptions. I just wanna do $30,000 weddings. The shit works no matter where you sit on that entire spectrum.

At the end of the day, I know for so many floral designers, it's so easy to get wrapped up in the tactics and the how, and can I have your template for your quote system? And can I have your template for your mood boards? And can I have your template for this? And can I have your email for that? And at the end of the day, I mean, part of it is inside of the flower boss bootcamp, but we do give you every single template that we've ever created in our business.

So you have something these to work with, but I also think you take this work, you take these three concepts and you layer it on top and you will become unstoppable. And instead of thinking that you need to take somebody else's framework and memorize it and do the script verbatim.

I want you to come back and really think about the fact that at the end of the day, when it comes to sales, it's your energy that matters the most, your energy, the emotions, the feelings that you have. When you're saying the words, when you're doing the thing, when you're creating the content, when you're creating the design, when you're having the consultation, when you're setting up your website, when you're trying to craft the email, the energy is what is going to create so much of the action in a productive way. And these three thoughts create a very positive energy.

So grab a pen and a piece of paper and write these down, put these in your phone, create a little graphic that you can save as your wallpaper, whatever works for you. But here we go. One, what I have to offer the world is of value. Two people want what I have to offer. Three people are waiting to work with me. So, as I said before, I literally had to sit down and I did the work to sell myself, to sell my brain on why each one of these things is true. And the first one, what I have to offer the world is of value.

Total transparency, complete honesty with you guys. There was a time quite a few years in my business where I completely undercharged because I did not appreciate the value and the magic and the effort of what we offer our clients, because it flies in the face of this idea of particularly, if you've worked in corporate, you have to work hard to make money.

It's a very like well instilled belief that a lot of us have, then all of a sudden you go into floristry and you're like, but there's a joy and a love and a passion and a creativity here. I could not possibly charge that much money for it. This one belief what I have to offer the world is the value change the game for me. And you can come at this from so many different ways.

Like you've heard me talk through the process of like selling yourself on a single stem or on the process of a single bouquet or on the single design that you're creating. But you can also on the complete flip side. And I will say it's funeral work that really, um, brings this to light for me. But if you think about the impact that your designs have on your customers, if you are doing a flower delivery for a dad who cannot be there for his daughter's birthday, or somebody's just graduated high school, or somebody just had a baby, somebody just got a new hip.

If you are doing the table arrangements for a bridal shower, if you're doing an installation for a 60th wedding anniversary, if you're doing flowers for a funeral, what you have to offer the world is of tremendous value. So I will say, write that sentence at the top of a piece of paper and then go down, literally write out for yourself. All of the reasons that that is true, every single one that you can think of.

That's how you instill these beliefs into your brain, so that when you're looking at your data and you're not quite reaching your sales target, or yet another client has ghosted you or somebody said that that's too expensive. You redirect your brain back to what I have to offer the world is of value. You will find yourself giving away your product, way less. You will find yourself less reactive in terms of offering discounts or wanting to undercut your own pricing.

When you get to work and you build the belief. What I have to offer the world is a value. So that's like the foundational belief. The second one on top of that is people want what I have to offer. And this one I know like once you get that foundational belief of what I have to offer, the world is a value.

It will help you get your pricing sorted and it will help you set the foundation for profitability. And then particularly, and this is something we talk a lot about for those of you guys who feel like, and I'm gonna say this in quotes, that you have a different unexpected or unusual design aesthetic, you have to go out of your way and sell yourself on the fact that people want, what I have to offer. You might also be like me and like my story around, like, but I'm new.

And I'm in a hugely competitive town and my customers don't wanna pay that much money. Cuz I was comparing myself to like the cheap and cheerful box arrangements or the like flowers on offer at the grocery store. And I literally had to sit down and sell myself on the fact that people want to spend more money. They want more premium blooms. They want this level of abundance. They want the kind of exclusivity and the luxury factor that I wanted to offer people want, what I have to offer your brain is not gonna go there on its own.

Your brain is gonna go to, nobody wants to work with me. like, that's where it's gonna go by default. So you have to sell yourself on the belief of people want what I have to offer. When you tell yourself and you truly believe in your bones that people want, what I have to offer, you will find yourself showing up on Instagram, making updates to your website, going out and telling every single person that you come across.

Hey, I've got this amazing new opportunity. Do you want in, would you like to buy, would you like to be part of my floral subscription? Would you like to have a place at this workshop that I'm putting on? Would you like to send flowers to Nana for her 90th birthday? Like all of a sudden you'll feel so much more energy and so much more compelled to promote your own business.

All because you're telling yourself people want what I have to offer. And then the third one, people are waiting to work with me. And this is a belief that you have to practice. Even if people are not sending you emails, they are not liking your Instagram posts. They are not DMing you. They are not sending you messages. They are not calling you. They are not on your website. You literally have to sell yourself before you can see the data before the sales comes in, continue to remind yourself that people are waiting to work with you.

And I wish I could go back. Like if I could go back and tell Kathleen from eight or nine years ago, when I had this dream and the business that I wanted to create, I wish that I had had that cheerleader to there, that person there, who was like, Hey, people are waiting to work with you, yell it from the rooftops, go out and tell everybody, celebrate the fact that you have created this offering because people are waiting to work with you and that thought will help fuel action in your business.

Because then you go out and you find the people who are waiting to work with you. So these three thoughts, my friends write them all down. As I said before, create yourself, go to Canva and create yourself a little bit of a wallpaper, save as template and come back to these thoughts.

Anytime you can feel your brain getting paralyzed in that cycle of it's not working, I should just give up that thought process happens to all of us. It's totally normal, but it's what you do in those instances that will help propel your business forward. So what I have to offer the world is of value. People want what I have to offer and people are waiting to work with me, sell yourself on every single one of those beliefs. And you will blow your brain up in terms of the results that you create in your business.

These three beliefs propel you into such a frenzied level of action in such a productive way, helps cut through so much of the indecision. So much of the confusion. So much of the overwhelm. If you try one of these on you are going to create a different result. You are going to see more sales.

You are going to see more inquiries. You are going to see more revenue. You are going to see more profit, but it takes intention and it takes practice. None of this happens by accident. It doesn't just come out of your brain. until you practice it enough that it becomes a default thought that your brain offers up. So particularly in those instances, when you're going through down periods in your business, when you feel like you've made a change and it's not working, come back to these three income producing beliefs.

What I have to offer the world is a value. People want what I have to offer. People are waiting to work with me, my friends, they are such powerful beliefs, go out there and builds them in yourself and build them in your children and build them in your partners and build them in your moms.

Because the work that we do here, my friends has an incredible ripple effect. It's so powerful. So take this work, put it into action for your business. Tell your friends about it. Tell your flower friends about it. Tell your creative entrepreneur friends about it because it is so incredibly helpful. And remember to come back and listen to this podcast when your brain is convinced and it's arguing and it wants you to stop. And it wants you to be like, no, I mean, don't keep going.

I mean, this is hard work. Yes, but what you have to offer the world is a value. People want what you have to offer and people are waiting to work with you. That can become your new mantra. My friends. Okay. Take care of yourself. Have the most amazing week. Drink some water, get some sleep. And we'll talk to you again next week. Bye for now. Bye.