What It Means to Have a Proactive versus Reactive Business

Jun 15

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Running a proactive versus a reactive business is no easy task when our businesses are constantly changing. We dream of having a business where it eventually feels easy. In today's episode, Katrina walks through the steps you can take to achieve a proactive business that runs in alignment with your priorities.

The episode:

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Badass Business Squad podcast. It's your host Katrina Widener, and today is just me talking to you all about having a proactive versus a reactive business. I mean, I'll admit that this is something that it took me a while to really figure out. It took me a while to really understand the concept and really understand why I wanted to operate this way, but it really goes along with a lot of the things that I talk about. It goes along with this idea of alignment, it goes along with self-care, which is something I've been talking about since I very first started my business. Really having a proactive versus reactive business is intentionally choosing how we want to spend our days and how we want our businesses to look now, instead of crossing your fingers and hoping that it'll happen later on.

I mean, look at every single business that we've had. When we are in business, we are constantly learning and evolving both as human beings and as business owners. What this means is that our businesses are constantly changing. We are constantly changing. So even though we're taught this narrative in entrepreneurship, that we want to have a business where everything is figured out, where everything's running on autopilot, where we can really be passive, right? Passive income has been such a thing over the last several years. That that's when the business is going to feel good to us. That we can hustle and we can struggle and we can work really hard now, but once we reach a certain income level, or once we reach a certain place where we can hire out work to other people, then it's going to feel good. Then it's going to feel easy. Then that's going to be where you're in a good place.

And this whole idea of having a proactive versus a reactive business is instead of deciding that we're going to wait until we reach a certain point to feel happy and to feel good about our businesses and ourselves and our day-to-day lives, to actually sit down and plan that from the get-go. So to stop focusing on getting to a place where everything's figured out, and instead focus on making the process, the day to day part of the journey feel good, right? To make that feel really stable and feel really secure and feel fun and feel easy.

This is why I talk about having a proactive versus a reactive business all the time. Because if we are not prioritizing having the day to day feel good and we're focusing on, "One day I'm going to feel good," that's where burnout happens. That's where overwhelm happens. That's where self doubt and anxiety and fear, that's where all of that lives. Is in this like, "Well I'm just going to put my head down and keep working and hopefully I'll get there one day and then it's going to feel good."

When we are putting this "one day" on a pedestal, two things happen. The first is that the day-to-day feels terrible because we're not enjoying what we're doing in the moment. Or the second thing is, is that we will reach those goals eventually and then realize that we don't magically feel better once we've reached those goals, and then set new goals and then keep working really, really hard and keep pushing ourselves too, too far, right? Stretching ourselves out too thin. That means that we then never feel the way that we want to in our businesses. That's my entire goal and my entire hopes and dreams as a business coach, is to help my clients feel that way now.

And like, I will admit telling people, "I'm here to help you make the journey of entrepreneurship feel stable and secure and fun," is not as sexy or not as flashy as, "I'm here to help you make 10k in 10 days," or "I'm here to help you make your first six figures" or whatever it is. And I'm not saying that I'm also not going to help you do those things because they definitely can happen. I definitely have seen clients who've done those things. But more realistic, more achievable, not inflated promises in a day-to-day life that actually feels good? That feels fun to me. That feels important to me. And it might not be as sexy, but it's the stuff that business dreams are made of, right? Making more money than we're making today and doing so in a way that doesn't feel quite so difficult, right?

I mean what I tell people all the time is, you made your current consistent income by putting your head down and working really, really hard. And struggling and pushing and doing like the 15 different marketing things that someone has told you. And doing all of the courses and watching the YouTube videos. And learning how to do all the things and then going out and doing them yourself. But you don't have to make your next chunk of money that way. You don't have to reach the next level that way. You can reach the next level in a way that feels relaxing, in a way that feels achievable, and that feels like "my day to day doesn't suck." which when you're an entrepreneur, it can be so isolating. It can be so lonely. It can be so exhausting and sitting down and thinking about from the get-go, how to plan out a business from a really proactive place, can be that game changer.

So now that I have talked to your ear off about this idea of having a proactive business. A business where you are not constantly striving and burning out and overwhelming and lacking clarity and procrastinating, because we're going after this big goal that feels so hard. And instead of we're sitting down and saying, "How do I take what I'm doing now and really be strategic about it, and really get aligned and really systematize and streamline what I'm doing so that I can reach my multiple six figures in a way that feels safe and feels fun?" and you're like, "That sounds great. How do I do that?"

So I'm going to give you guys a place to jump off of right now. So that you're not thinking about this hands off, autopilot, big goal in the sky of where I'm trying to go to. But more of this place of like, "I can on a day-to-day basis, feel really good about where I'm heading in my business. What I'm doing today and how things are operating now."

Obviously all of you have heard me talk about Human Design a ton. I use that in the strategy phase to help people get aligned. But also one of the first questions that I ask people, and this is something you can get started doing on your own if you're listening to this episode, is "What is the marketing I'm doing right now, and where have all of my clients actually come from?" This is something that I like to do regularly. I also very often will do actually an audit at the end of every year of "Where did all my clients come from this year, and where did I spend my marketing energy this year?"

This is where I recommend everyone gets started. And the reason why I'm talking about it now is because it does feel very, very important to sit down and say, "The first thing I want to do is give myself brain space and give myself an ability to sit down and have the energetic, the emotional, and the time space to figure everything out." Having a proactive versus a reactive business really is sitting down and planning out with the goals that you want, and how do you have those now?

So I'm going to give you guys a hard example for me in my business. I always wanted to have my business provide me the lifestyle that I want to go for. That means not working 40 hours a week. That is not being tied to my computer. That is being able to watch my niece if my sister and brother-in-law can't bring her into daycare for the day and need assistance.

It is being able to say, "You know today I'm feeling really tired or I have a headache, or I just want to take care of myself. So I'm going to get a little bit of work done and then read for the rest of the day." Or like me right now, it's Minnesota and we're finally getting some warmer weather. And so it's being able to say, "I want to go spend some time outside. I want to go garden and do yard work. I want to go for a walk and have the ability to not be tied to my computer."

So if I were having a reactive business, I would be sitting saying, "Okay I'm going to work really, really hard and I'm going to one day achieve this goal. I'm going to be able to hire someone once I make X amount of money. I'm going to be able to systematize some stuff to get it done, and they're going to be able to do it for me. And once I work really, really hard, I can get to that point where I can take a day off." And the truth is I can have that now, and I do have that now. I don't have to wait until I make a certain amount of money. I don't have to wait until I have a certain amount of contractors. Because honestly, we as entrepreneurs can always add one more thing to do to the list, and if we're waiting for someone else to magically take things off our plate and tell us to stop working, that's not going to happen.

So instead, what I decided to do is sit down and say, "Okay where are my clients coming in? Where am I spending marketing hours?" Most of my clients come from networking and from referrals because I am a super extrovert. I also get a lot of people from social media because I show up there. Who I am and showing up as who I am is usually what converts the most. Because it's my unique voice, it's my unique take, it's my unique approach to coaching, et cetera, et cetera. So spending a lot of hours on SEO is not going to actually get me to that abstract goal in the future where I'm suddenly making enough money where I can take Fridays off. So that's the first step that I was talking about. Evaluate where you're spending your time and what is and isn't working for you.

But the next step that I would say, is if I am sitting here today saying, "I want more free time, I want to take every Friday off." Then all I have to do is go work backwards and say, "Okay if I am only working four days a week instead of working five days a week, I still don't want to be working 40 hours a week. How many hours do I have to be working averaged a day? Cool. Okay. How do I break up my days so that I can have some free time in those days and still be getting all my things done? Okay, cool. What are all of the things I'm doing? Okay. I have meetings with clients. I have podcast interviews. I have every once in a while a coffee chat. I do consults and free strategy calls with potential clients. So I got to plan that in. Okay, cool. I also have things like therapy. I also have things like meetings with my business manager. Okay, cool. So how do I plan that in?" Well, now I have a more succinct and strategic marketing plan. "All right. What am I going to plan that would work in every single week?"

And by sitting down and actually being really proactive and really planning it out and being strategic about my time, I'm able to say here now today I get to take every single Friday off. I get to have flexibility in my day to day. And I did that because I sat down and I planned it out. I was proactive about it. I wasn't sitting here saying "One day in the future, I'm going to have Fridays off." I said, "I want that. I want it now. How can I make that happen now?" And I also want to put the caveat out there that this worked for me. It might not work for everyone, right? I am not a website designer. I am not a photographer. I do not have the non-client facing hours of work that some entrepreneurs have. For me my meetings are me doing the work. I don't have a ton, I have some, but I don't have a ton of additional work per client outside of our meetings. So this doesn't work for everyone, but then what we're sitting down and saying is, "Okay you want to have every single Friday off, we don't have enough time in those other four days for you to get everything we need to get done." That's when we come in and we streamline. That's when we come in and we systematize. That's maybe where we hire someone. That's maybe where we cut some of your things out. And that's where we take a high level CEO view of the things that you're doing and get really, really strategic about them so that you get the time and the flexibility that you need.

So exactly how I was saying earlier that one of the fastest easiest places for you to start is to look at that marketing, do that with some other things that are in your business. Do that with your website updates. Do that with, again if you're a photographer, your editing. If you're a copywriter, your writing. If you're a website designer, your designing. Figure out the areas where you can make something a little bit easier, and a little bit easier, and a little bit easier, and they all add up. That is really the goal. Is to be able to have that ability to take the bird's eye view. To step into that CEO role, as opposed to being in the weeds and focusing on the work that you are doing in the moment, and zooming out and looking at the work you can do on your business, as opposed to in your business.

So this is, I hope, a little bit of an incentive for you to maybe take a step back to reevaluate a little bit. I do have a free workbook on the website that has a lot of these evaluation questions that you can go and explore and dive into if you want to get started. It's on the free resources page, we'll also link in the show notes. But really what you want to be able to do is have that high level strategic look at everything going on in your business. See what you can streamline and systematize, and then take the next step and say, "What is my strategy then to get to the next level?"

Because you can burn out and overwhelm and struggle your way to a 100k, but after that point, it takes strategy. It takes streamlining. It takes systematizing. I'm going to say those three words over and over and over again, because I want to drill it into your brain. Because I want every single person listening to this to get to that point, and to get to that point in a way where you can prioritize the things that you actually want on a day-to-day basis, instead of hoping and praying that one day they'll magically drop into your lap.

So I hope that this was super helpful for everyone listening. At the very least I hope it maybe opened your eyes a little bit to a different way of operating or like changed your mindset a little bit around how you can approach your business. If you need any help as always I am available in my email inbox, in my Instagram DMs to work on this with all of you. And also as many of you know, doors are currently open for the Badass Business Squad Mastermind. So if you are looking for a way that you can do this with some high level of support, also please, please, please check it out because we would love to have you. Anyway, thank you guys so much for listening to this and I will see you next week.