3 Questions To Ask Yourself Right Now To Banish Q4 Burnout

TRANSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED [00:00:00] Hey, Hey, today, I want to chat to you about December last year. I know, super random. So cost your mind back and think about how you felt at the end of last year when you kind of put everything down for the year. So for some people that might've been like the 20th of December, For other people, there was still pushing on like the 28th, 29th. What I was hearing a lot at the end of last year was. Exhausted burnt out. Need a holiday. Thank goodness. It's the holidays making. Take a break. So I'm sure you can relate to some of that feeling. You probably felt it yourself. Maybe you felt it before you went off on your summer holidays. Now it's the end of summer. How are you feeling? You probably went on vacation and you felt super inspired. You've come back with a whole bunch of new, exciting ideas. You feel ready to dive into fall launch season? If that's in your plans. You're just you're ready and probably quite excited to get back to work. So here's my question. Assuming you felt pretty similar to how you feel now. In August last year. How did we get from those end of summer vibes? To feeling completely burned out. And exhausted. Just four months later. How hard could Q4 really has been. Now, I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, oh, but Diane, we were launching and we were busy and we were implementing, we had this new idea and that new idea, and I'm just going to call BS on that. All of that stuff was pending while you were on vacation. And you were still creative and you were still inspired. I think we have a different problem here. And because this happens year after year after year, it's one that we need to sort out. And that problem is. That when we come back inspired and we have all those new ideas that we want to dive into. We dive into what I call the external facing parts of those business. We [00:02:00] start to think about how will I market this? How do I write a sales page for it? How do I explain it? How will I price it? What do I name it? And then we start to think, how will I sell it? Do I want to do sales calls. Do I want to go straight to cart? Do I want to just tell my network and they can tell people, do I just send an email to my list? We start to think about. How we can quote unquote, implement the idea. By thinking about how we will sell the idea. We don't actually think enough about how we will implement the idea. We're not asking ourselves number one, will it be profitable? Have I actually thought about if it brings in this much revenue it's going to cost me this much? What is it adding to my bottom line? Number two. We don't think about, can my team handle this? It's important to be able to assess not only how much time you think your team has to handle this. I notice, I said think, but also how are they feeling mentally, emotionally? In a genetically. Did they get a summer break or were they covering while you were on a summer break? Is there anything going on in their personal lives that you're not aware of? Because you've been a bit more distant as expected over summer. Even if you think they have the time. What I often see CEO's doing. Is forgetting the 20 things they've already given the team to do that. They're still working on. When they come back with the new, big, shiny idea. When you have a team that doesn't work so well, that starts to give them whiplash. They get frustrated that starts to lead to that overwhelm and that burnout on their side. So I really want you to ask your team. What they've got on their plates. It doesn't have to be judgmental. You can just be. What's going on and then you can prioritize for them. You can be like, okay, great, new, big, exciting idea for the fall launch. Let's park. This piece of work that we were doing on this longer [00:04:00] term idea. Okay. So all your team able to handle it. And finally, I want you to think about whether or not your systems. Are set up to cope with it. All you duct taping and super gluing of systems together at the moment. If things are already feeling like they could. Fall apart at any minute. If you are starting to add extra strain to that, something is going to break. And that's okay. As we grow, we expect our systems to break, but if you can see they're already straining and then you push them to break. That's irresponsible. So taking a step back while you have the energy, you are not going to have the energy to do this. Off to full launch. So taking a step back now, while you have the energy. To think about where could your business systems, your operations? The processes. I do what a little tender, loving care from you. How do you know where to look? Where are the places that, you know, you need to check. Every single time that it's actually worked. And don't just think about your marketing systems. Think about your delivery systems. The systems that take. What you built and give it to your clients. Those are the systems that get you referrals. That mean you don't need to think so much about the marketing systems. And if you're not in the weeds and you think, okay, well maybe there isn't anything you need to ask, ask your team where they're doing manual workarounds, ask your team where they have to apply duct-tape Oscar team, what they hate implementing the most. And it's probably because the process or the operations around that. All rubbish. So actually looking at whether or not the back end of your business, can cope. With current levels of business with potential new business that you're planning on bringing in with full launch. With. The new idea that you had over summer. Is really going to help you. To keep this, I feel light and inspired and excited to come to work vibe that we come in with in August. And help us maintain that for as long as possible as we reach [00:06:00] through to December. So that hopefully this year we don't end on this exhausted, overwhelmed, burnt out vibes. And I want you to remember. This is a check-in you should be doing on the regular basis. Not just because I have pointed out that it's a really good time to give it a think. So put something in your calendar. So that once a quarter you ask yourself is what I'm doing profitable. How is my team doing? And where do we have some sticking points in our processes and systems? This is going to give you a business that feels lighter. Instead of always asking. How do I market my business better? And how do I sell more things?