Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I know that you guys can relate with this. If you already have been in business for a while, you've had clients that you really don't want to work with, they're pretty difficult. Maybe they are slightly racist, slightly misogynist. I don't know. There's something wrong with them. There's something that you don't like about them, but because you need their money, then it would be very hard to let them go. And what happens is that maybe you tend to just skew your values a little bit or maybe compromise on certain parts of your a little bit because you just have no choice.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: You weren't born to sit in traffic, work for approval, or wait for Fridays. You were built to be free.
Welcome to Rich and Remote, the show for the ones who dare to do life differently. Here we talk about building businesses that give you choices where you work, how you live, and what you create.
This is for the entrepreneurs who crave freedom, financial freedom, location freedom, and freedom from everyone else's expectations. If you're ready to design a life on your own terms, you're in the right place. Rich and Remote, hosted by Alex and Carla Booth.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: If you are a business owner and if you're feeling a little anxious or maybe big anxious about your business, today is going to be quite a better day for you because I will share some of my best learnings on how to avoid anxiety in business. And so I decided to shoot this video or if you're listening to our podcast, Rich and Remote on Spotify and Apple podcasts, maybe you're listening to this while you're on a drive or maybe at the gym. So hi to all of our listeners. I realized that a lot of you guys watching my YouTube or listening to our podcast Rich and Remote, maybe you can relate to this and maybe this is a message that you really need to hear right now. I think that there is a reason that you are in this video or listening to this podcast. I would really love to be of help to you. So. So I'm Carla Singh, son and I'm the CEO and founder of Proximity Outsourcing. I have also started multiple businesses in brick and mortar and in online since 2009. I went into business right out of college. I actually never had a real job and it's been a great time. Business and entrepreneurship has given me a lot of amazing experiences, but I also won't lie, it is also one of the most challenging things out there and one of the things that will really, really test someone's character and someone's grit and Someone's emotional strength. Last week, I had a very peculiar experience when two of my clients were complaining about our services. And it is not because we did not do our jobs. It is because they didn't read a contract or our public terms properly, and they were trying to contest what they wanted to be. But this is months after they have paid and months after we have started the service. And one of them actually was probably six or seven months into us already working on the project. And on top of that, we've had some problems with some other clients. No, just very minor problems. And then there are also people that we had to let go. And so a lot just happened. And last week, I was in a very high anxiety time, and I was also applying for something that was pretty critical, and I had to fly out of my city where I live in, to show up for an appointment. And when all of these things happen in the span of a week, it was pretty tough for me. And I'm not going to lie. I definitely cried more than once because that's what I love to do when I just want to release some feelings and some emotions. I always feel better every time I cry. And my husband knows about this, my friends know about this, and I always feel that recovery immediately. And I feel a little bit lighter every time I cry. And so I just kind of did that one, one time. Even last week, I cried while I was watching a movie because I just had a very heavy day. And I told myself, you know what? I just want to shut off from the world and just watch a movie. And so I went into a cinema, I watched the movie, and I tried to forget about the rest of the world. But in a way, I also felt safe to kind of release my emotions. And so I cried inside the cinema. And I'm sure that a lot of you guys can relate to this. You got to know that being an entrepreneur is one of the most difficult things out there. And there is a reason why most people would not be entrepreneurs or will never be entrepreneurs, will never have the courage that is needed to be an entrepreneur or to be successful in this journey. Right? And so even my own employees or the people that I work with in any capacity, they would from time to time, give me a pat on the back and say, oh, my gosh, Karla, this thing that you're doing, it's actually not easy. And I want to let you know that I see you, I acknowledge you, and I really appreciate it. And I. But I don't think people are forgetting how difficult entrepreneurship is. The people that forget it actually are the entrepreneurs themselves. And this is why I want to start this episode by saying that as a reminder that if you're an entrepreneur and if you're having a hard time, you have to understand that, yes, this is just part of entrepreneur life. My husband and I both run different businesses and some days we just vent on each other and we just go on this word vomit, all of our complaints about clients, employees, taxes, whatever it is, right? And then we would tell each other other that, well, this is just part of entrepreneur life. And to be honest, we would not have it any other way. So let's talk about anxiety. Anxiety is a feeling that when we feel fear or we feel a little scared of the future or we remember something about the past that doesn't put us at peace. So it's like the opposite of the experience of peace, of comfort. Right. So usually how it manifests in our body is maybe increased heart rate or you can't fall asleep, or sometimes you always look for comfort. Like you, you want to binge eat or you want to do not so nice things to your body, like you want to go out drinking. Some people want to go out and do drugs or, or, you know, go on a dopamine journey on their dating apps or watching porn. And so there's so many ways that people self soothe because they don't know how to deal with anxiety. And of course, there are antidepressants as well. There are things that you can get to help you with it. Some people smoke weed or take edibles or something. So different people go through this journey differently. For me, I cry. I journal it, really. I would vent to my husband or I would vent to my friend. I would ask permission, like I would just send a voice note to my best friend and say, hey, can I vent? And I just share it with them. And this is just a normal thing that happens in the life of an entrepreneur. And so in this episode, I want to share with you three things that I've learned in my almost two decades of experience as an entrepreneur on how you can minimize anxiety in your life and in your business as much as possible while you are still growing your business. And if you are still looking to approach the rest of your life doing business and doing that with the least amount of anxiety. Because some of you guys might say, all right, this is my limit. I'm not going to do this again. Maybe I'll sell my business. Maybe next year I'll just stop being in business. So that's fine too. That's your choice. But if you want to continue doing this, here are some of my top tips on how to deal with anxiety in business. Number one, and this is the most practical advice I can give is always have a list of people that's ready to give you money. So this means that you have your sales cycle or your sales process really intact. If you lose multiple clients today, there should be a line of people that's ready to give you money. They should just be maybe one email or one text short of a follow up. Maybe you have a setter who's always consistently setting appointments for you, setting up sales calls in your calendar. Maybe you have certain ads that if you just increase the ad spend or your budget per day, then you can get more clients. Maybe you have certain affiliates or certain friends in business that always refer you clients. And so if you are maybe a high six figure business or seven figure business, which is the majority of the listeners of our podcast and the people who watch our YouTube channel, a lot of people follow us to really, really learn about how to scale their business to seven and eight figures and how to staff and build their remote teams. Shout out to my company, proximity outsourcing and to my husband's company, get csm.com so because you guys know that you still have a lot of room to grow, I know that even though you already have that experience, experience having your sales process be as predictable as possible and having a steady list of people that are ready to pay you money, or if you lose some clients, you just feel okay that you're not going to be broke, you're still going to pay rent and you can still basically sleep well at night. I would say that this is also another way that you can peacefully release clients that are probably not a good fit for you. I know that you guys can relate with this. If you already have been in business for a while, you, you've had clients that you really don't want to work with, they're pretty difficult. Maybe they are slightly racist, slightly misogynist. I don't know. There's something wrong with them. There's something that you don't like about them, but because you need their money, because without it, it would be hard for you to pay rent or to make payroll or to maybe even get to break even. That would be a nightmare by the way. So I hope you're not in that situation. Then it would be very hard to let them go. And what happens is that maybe you tend to just skew your, your values a little bit or maybe Compromise on certain parts of your contract a little bit because you just have no choice. You have to keep this client because if you can't, then it doesn't make sense in your P and L and you would be losing money, you can't afford rent, you're not going to hit break even or you're not going to be able to make payroll. This is one of those times where they say money solves almost everything, right? Sales solves most of things. Because if you have sales and if you have a line of people that are ready to give you money and become your clients, then it's easier to let go of the clients that are not going to be a good fit for you. And not just as that they don't have to quit or they don't have to be part of the attrition. You can also fire them. You can also fire clients and tell them, hey, it's not a good fit right now. I don't think we should, you know, continue working together. I wish you well. So for you to have the confidence to do that or for you to just quietly let go a client that has been complaining and trying to threaten you for chargeback, or maybe they actually filed a chargeback that has happened to me. A client filed for a chargeback for something that we have actually not just delivered, but we have over delivered on. And even if we have proof that they were the ones that is holding up the process and the project and the delays, all of this, we all have proof. They were even talking to us very rudely and they were telling certain lies. And when I asked about them about proof of their claims, they didn't reply because they, they don't have any proof. Instead they just issued a chargeback. When I got the notification in the past, I would feel very, very high anxiety. But when I got that chargeback or dispute notification from my payment processor, I just attached the documents, I just attached all the proof and I let it go. And to be honest, when I look back at my bank account, my payment processor, all of the clients still coming in, all of the clients that are upgrading their accounts because they're so happy. When I look at my calendar at all the people that I still have yet to talk to, they want to be clients. When I look at my inbox and I received word from some of our affiliates that they're going to refer more people to us, that all of those things made me feel like what happened, like the dispute or the chargeback, and it helped me forget about it and it helped me Actually turn that experience into something positive. Because I feel like I was delivered from that and now I'm delivered to the people who deserve my time and who deserve my effort and the people who can treat my team very, very well. So I would say, practicality wise, that is my number one tip. Have a tight sales process and always have a Rolodex or a line of people that's ready to pay you money, that's ready to become your customers. That even if you have a little bit of attrition or maybe even if you're losing some clients, even if you feel that, oh my gosh, I could have avoided it, I should have done this, I should have done that. It's going to happen either way. Right now. What's important is that you can replace that income. And of course, taking this further, if you have very good cash flow, then you can set aside some of that disposable income to really good investments, maybe high yield savings accounts and other ways for your money to just make more money in a passive way. Obviously, having that nest egg and having that safety net also helps in not adding to your anxiety. So it's not always that you have to replace this client or it's not always that you have to chase a very good, like attrition rate. What matters is that you feel okay financially and you don't feel like you have to do something radical just so you can survive for that month. Because I've been there, guys. I've experienced pawning jewelry, I've experienced borrowing money from my ex boyfriend. So embarrassing. Borrowing money from my sister, my best friend. I have experience borrowing against my credit card. Like I literally issued myself a different email so that I can. And then I paid that with a credit card so that I can just get that money. So yeah, I've done everything to survive in business. I've been there. And after I realized that, you know what, a lot of this anxiety related to business can be fixed with money, I just focus on that. And so I've never had an empty sales call calendar. I've never had an empty inbox with no affiliates referring people to me and all of my clients. I always want to keep them happy and I always reward my team to also encourage our clients to upgrade or to refer other people. So we've built a whole system around it. Number two tip, do your best. Each time I would say just know that every moment you do the right thing and stick to your values, stick to your integrity and just don't compromise. So if you always do the right thing. Each moment. Looking back, some of those decisions could be wrong. But in the moment, whatever you think is right and whatever you think is aligned with your values, don't compromise on it. This way. If you. Even if you feel a little bit of anxiety, you're not going to feel a lot of regret. And let me tell you, if you feel regret, that's going to just bring up more feelings of anxiety, and it doesn't give you a chance to trust yourself. One of the reasons why we feel a lot of anxiety and that feeling lasts for a long time is because we don't trust ourselves. But if something wrong happens and if we trust ourselves to fix it, or we trust that we can just get over this issue, then it's easier to just move on. And the way that we can get over it is to know that we're acting in line with the integrity and we're acting in line with the values that we fought for in the first place. So if your company has core values listed, then I would encourage you to go back to that. If you have some leadership principles that you really want to stand by, then go back to that. Once you know in your heart that you're doing the right thing, even if you lose money, even if you lose clients, you can just accept it better and faster, and then you can move on to the next thing because you know that you did the right thing. And even if something wrong happened, you know that in the moment, you did your best and you were operating with absolute integrity. The other benefit of this is, as a boss, you also should remember that your team is relying on you, and your team is watching you as you make these decisions. And so you want them to be good followers. You want to become a really good role model to them, and that is the only way that they become good followers. The more that you stick with your integrity and stick with your values, no matter how hard the situation is, they will see that as an inspiration. And it will also inspire them to act a certain way and even help you with your situation. So I've had experiences in my company where a client would be rude and then they would be complaining, and I would talk to my team, and then I would realize that it was actually the client that had unrealistic expectations or they were being rude. So what happens is that I would just talk to the client. I would be transparent with them. I would give them feedback, and I will tell them that if this doesn't work for you, then it's okay. It's just not a Good fit. So, in a way, I was firing that client. And my company and my employees know that I am literally giving up income. But I also want to show them that I want to protect them and their mental health and that I value the time and effort that they bring to my company. And I will always care about how they are treated because they see this, even if they know that I am sacrificing a part of my income because I'm doing it in such a way that I'm not compromising on my integrity, on my promise to protect them, as well as leaders of my company, as representatives of my company. It gives them motivation and encouragement to do better at their jobs. And let me tell you, that is an asset that is very, very strong in terms of bringing growth to your team and passing off accountability and actually being a good leader. You don't want your team to only have one leader, and that is you. You want them to also step up. You also want them to be inspired by your actions, and you want them to be leaders for others as well. And so this is one way that you can do it. Stay true to your integrity and stay true with your values. Example number three, another practical example is as soon as you notice certain mistakes in your business, quickly adjust and course correct. So a lot of problems that happen in business actually is a system problem, right? I talked to my new accounts manager today who's kind of like an appointment setter. This person is in charge of new accounts. And I told him, hey, I noticed that this prospect replied to us today, but I looked at the email thread and you haven't replied to him for 10 days. You were supposed to follow up after the third day. What happened and how are you tracking it? And so he said, oh, I overlooked it, I'm sorry, it won't happen again. And so I told him, no, you didn't overlook it. You didn't have the right system for it. So let's change that, right? So I just did that. I did not blame him. I did not dwell on the moment. I just told him, hey, all right, that's what happened. No worries. I already followed up on that prospect. Now, what can we do so that this doesn't happen again? Because you really just fall into your systems and you really are on the mercy of your Systems and your SOPs and what is repeatable and what can be automated, right? So now that we have tons of options for automation, for AI, you can find a lot of lessons here on my YouTube channel, by the way. So if you're listening to just on the podcast. Check out my YouTube channel. I teach a lot of ways on how to grow your team through the use of AI and cloud, and of course how to manage remote teams as well. And so there are so many tools that can help you with systematizing and improving what processes you already have. If some of the disagreements that you have with previous clients or with prospects are because of your contracts, because of your terms, every time that you discover something wrong, just adjust them. My contract is a living and breathing organism. My business is a living and breathing organism and yours should be the same. So treat it as such. If you find a mistake, if you find the thing that causes anxiety in your business, change it. Change it in terms of changing your Systems, improving your SOPs, and improving your processes. Documenting everything, automating everything that you can automate and use AI for the things that you can use AI for as long as it can be accurate and efficient. All right, so those are the three ways that I try to really, really reduce or almost get rid of anxiety in your business. Anxiety will always be a part of our lives. It's just a matter of managing it and not losing ourselves in the process. I hope you like this episode and if you feel like this episode could help someone, I hope that you send it to them and see you next week.
Thanks for listening to Rich and Remote where freedom isn't a dream, it's a decision.
This is Karla, this is Alex Booth, and this is our journey to our dream Rich and remote life.
[00:18:20] Speaker C: If this episode inspired you, share with a friend who's ready to live life differently too. This is perfect for entrepreneurs who crave financial freedom, location freedom, and freedom from the opinions of others.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: And don't forget to leave a quick review. It helps more freedom seekers find this show. Big thanks to our sponsors, Huckleberry Consulting, getcsm and Proximity Outsourcing.
[00:18:46] Speaker C: See you in the next episode and check out our online hangout spot, richandremote. Com.
