Did you know that 72% of all small business owners struggle with feeling overwhelmed? And it’s no wonder, with the constant pressure to meet the daily demands of being a business owner and trying to balance generating revenue with client fulfillment while even potentially raising a family and trying to do all of this without burning out. It’s easy for anyone to fall into a state of overwhelm but it doesn’t have to be that way.
I know what it takes to move from maxed out and overwhelmed to balanced, supported and a lot more profitable. Are ready to get off the struggle bus and become an empowered CEO of your business and your life? Then you will love my latest newsletter!
What is overwhelm?
Overwhelm is just a feeling of anxiety or stress and for entrepreneurs this is typically caused by looking at the laundry list of the tasks ahead and feeling like there is no end in sight. It’s a feeling of lack, not enough time to do everything that you want to do. And look we all have lots to do and yet we have all have the same 24 hours in every day but the #1 cause of overwhelm is a lack of focus and prioritization and this causes you to worry about the future.
Then your mind spirals into a black hole of stress that you will never be able to get these things done and it can paralyze you as the biz owner. But look take a deep breath , first off all Rome wasn’t built in a day.
You simply can not do it all at once and there is no point in killing yourself to try to do this.
You will hurt your well being and the recovery from that will cost much more time than simply becoming more mindful/aware of your thoughts and intentional with your time and focus.
Second of all, you will never ‘get it all done” because no sooner than you check items off, more will begin to fill up the page. Your mindset is really important in how you view what you have to do. So let’s talk about the top causes of overwhelm and how to solve them.
#1: Lack of Focus
Entrepreneurs are some of the most passionate and innovative people in their world. They literally are here to improve, to make things better, faster or easier. But they can also be some of the most easily distracted people I have ever met, especially when it comes to new tactics or ways to do things.
Entrepreneurs are often so open minded that they quickly abandon ship from one strategy for the next shiny object.
While new tactics are shiny and interesting and often with promises of being “the next best thing for you to get what you want’, they are just that, new, and they are a distraction.
I can tell you countless stories of people who derailed their trajectory for success by jumping ship to implement a new shiny object. A big part of what I do as a coach or advisor for my clients is not only teach them my system for scalable success but also help them to say no to anything that will pull them away from their ultimate vision.
Whenever I am considering any strategy for my business or even my clients I always come back to the quote by Steve Jobs, “With focus and simplicity you can move mountains.” Is the tactic you are considering adding simple, is it focused or is a distraction?
#2: Too much complexity
Which brings me to the next cause of overwhelm, complexity. The more complexity you add to your business, the more parts you have to manage, the stronger your systems need to be or you will go into overwhelm.
There was a time when I had dozens of funnels, tons of courses and all of this caused a huge amount of stress. One of the best things I ever did to scale my business was to delete all my funnels, pull my courses from the shelves and start from a blank slate. I had built far too much complexity in my business too fast. I followed all the internet marketing gurus and put out dozens of products and made money but none of it was really a scalable strategy.
This is actually when I flipped my model on its head and took a top down approach to my marketing – starting with high ticket (and later back building the lower end offers).
I got focused on one next level strategy for getting my clients massive results and ditched the small wins and started selling huge transformations. The result? Just 6 weeks after launching the one main focused offer and strategy, I generated a quarter million dollars.
Simplicity is essential to managing overwhelm. I have tons of client stories of entrepreneurs just like me who hired me in a state of overwhelm. They had too many offers, too much complexity and they were the bottleneck. They could no longer do more to make more.
Like my client Michele, a business coach and strategist for the interior design industry. She had 7 different offers, had tried nearly ever shiny marketing tactic and was still stagnant at $250k-$300k for 3 years.
We transformed her model into one that was focused, simple and ultra high end. The result? She 4’xd her income scaling to 7 figures in a year and she did all of this during covid when everything came to a halt. Her business could have collapsed instead, it exploded. She then repeated those results just 9 months later. Want to read more about her journey? Grab a copy of our 7 figure case study here.
#3: Constantly launching
Another common cause of overwhelm in entrepreneurs is constantly launching. Again so many coaches and consultants are constantly launching new products/programs. This constant push to generate revenue is not only exhausting but it also burns out your audience because you are constantly selling to them.
Even if you have your launch strategy dialed in like I did (hello, I used to teach a course on launching?!), it still is exhausting and more than that it doesn’t feel good. Once I defined my next level offer/strategy, I didn’t launch for years and yet I made more than ever.
I’m not saying to never launch. I believe launching is important especially when clients come to me to transform their positioning to move into more of an expert category or when they are going after a new market and with a new program. Launching is necessary and I teach people how to do this effectively BUT I’ve learned that once you have a focused, simplified ultra high ticket service/program and you build expert authority, you don’t need to constantly launch, it’s something that can be done sparingly.
#4: Lack of systems
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits wrote “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
I can’t tell you how many entrepreneurs come to me stuck and overwhelmed who have little to no systems in place. Many are making multiple six figures but that’s combo of great referrals and some luck. There is no predictability, consistency or scalability to their business and without the right systems in place they cannot grow their business.
I teach 5 essential systems to scale an ultra high ticket coaching or consulting service based business. The order that entrepreneurs do this is essential to success as each one builds upon one another.
Now in my method, the 4th system we focus on is getting the right systems and team in place. This is everything from marketing systems to support visibility for the business owner and generate excitement and demand for services to sales systems that create expert positioning and making selling five and six figure deals seamless to client delivery systems to ensure you have a high touch experience so that you are set up for success with getting your clients results.
All 3 are necessary to not only generate leads but close deals and fulfill on your commitments. Many coaches and consultants focus on lead gen systems or acquisition of new clients only and that’s why many of them break when they hit 7 figures. You have to build the entire infrastructure to support scalability or the business will implode.
#5: Lack of support team
Another key cause of overwhelm is not having the right support team in place. One of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make is focusing on business support without adding what I call “life support.” And while you can’t add it all at once, it is important to fill the gaps in where it will be most supportive for you.
For your business, having someone to support the marketing/lead generation is usually one of the first hires to make. They should help pay for themselves. Next comes a client support person to support delivery and an ops person to manage projects and streamlines systems and processes. These are all things we support our clients to do (of course generating the cash flow to achieve this first and then adding team members strategically to scale) but don’t forget about the life support you can put in place.
Many of my clients are parents. I personally built my business as a single mom raising my daughter on my own so I fully understand the challenges that come with being a parent and building a business. Making sure you have dedicated time to work on your business is essential. If you have a partner that can support you that’s wonderful but you can also invest in childcare to help you as well. This could be someone to babysit to give you a night out, it could be someone who supports transporting your kids to and from school or even watching them for a few hours.
Home duties can also eat up a lot of your free time where you could be either working on your business or even better, relaxing and enjoying life so you can spend quality time with your family. Things you can outsource are cleaning your house, doing laundry, light tidying, meal prep or even cooking full meals, running errands and more.
Look at your to do list. What are the things you really don’t enjoy doing that you could delegate?
It’s surprisingly more inexpensive than you think, especially when you weigh what that person will give you back in terms of time and quality of life.
#6: Over scheduling your calendar with work activities
Another common cause of overwhelm for entrepreneurs is not prioritizing your schedule. A lot of entrepreneurs are high achievers and so they fill every free moment with work activities. They over schedule and this creates stress and there is no time to be, to dream and these are all essential to drive the business forward.
Remember you cannot pour from an empty cup and if you don’t block off time in your calendar with other things, work will quickly fill it up.
It’s important to balance your time with things like time to create, time to workout, do a quick meditation and time to have an actual lunch away from your desk. Time blocking is essential because as we have already discussed, there will always be more work to do.
Be sure to review your calendar every week and make adjustments if you can see that you are already overextended and will be exhausted by the end of the week. Block out time for important activities that are going to refuel you. You can also take control of scheduling client related activities. I personally have dedicated days where I do client calls. I don’t work on Fridays and I have entire weeks blocked off where I do not take calls.
Remember that you don’t have to be a victim to your schedule, you can create it. This wraps up how to reduce overwhelm. If you’d like to discover how we help our clients scale build a a highly profitable business that creates the ultimate time freedom check this out.
Client Success Spotlight: Career & High Performance Coach Generates $70K in 6 Weeks!
Meet my client incredible client Andrea, a Career Acceleration & High Performance Coach. She joined my program just six weeks ago with a goal to step into selling high ticket so that she make more money in less time.
Andrea is an action-taker. She hit the ground running, implemented my strategies and started closing deals. The result? She generated $70K in just 6 week and she is just getting started! Andrea is just one of many incredible client success stories happening right now. If you’d like to discover how Expert Accelerator can help you successfully step into selling and scaling ultra high end coaching or consulting, apply for a strategy call here.
Download the Ladder of Influence
Want to discover how to influence others to buy from you so you can scale your authority to grow a 7 figure+ coaching or consulting business? Be sure to download a free copy of my 33- page guide called the Ladder of Influence
Credit: Jessica Yarbrough
