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When was the last time you made a change in your business? When was the last time you assessed what was working, what wasn’t, and took intentional action based on your findings?

For many of us, we only assess our businesses, systems, and structures when something isn’t working for us. But what if we made this such a normalized, regular practice that we were able to make subtle changes or intentionally edit before things started to break?

In today’s episode of the BSP, I’m sharing what it really looks like to continually change and pivot over a decade in business. In the 11+ years I’ve grown this brand, I’ve made subtle shifts and monumental pivots more times than I can count. But each time served a purpose in taking my business where it is today.

In this episode, I’m sharing:

• Thoughtful prompts and questions to help you assess what’s working and what could change for the better
• How to determine what goals align with your definition of success (and how to tune out anything else that doesn’t align)
• Normalizing change as part of a healthy business
• A peek at some of the subtle shifts I’ve made over the last year and how it’s impacted my business

And more!

Tune into the podcast via the player above and check out the resources and full transcript below!

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Review the transcript:

Please note this transcript has been auto generated and may contain typos.

Bonnie (00:07):
Hi, friend, and welcome to the Brand Strategy Podcast, a show created to equip you with the inspiration, encouragement, and clarity you need to build a brand of your dreams. I’m your host, Bonnie bti, brand designer, strategist, and founder of the Alum Retreat from sustainable strategy to heartfelt Encouragement. Each episode is designed to equip you with the tools you need to chase after your dreams, because you deserve a brand that empowers you to do what you love, connects with your dream clients, and offers a deep sense of fulfillment along the way. So grab a cup of coffee and join me on this journey, won’t you?

Bonnie (00:44):
Hey, friends. Welcome back to the Brand Strategy Podcast, where today we are having a honest conversation around is it time for a change in your business? Today’s episode is coming from my personal experience of over a decade in the online business space as a creative entrepreneur, all the ways that, you know, change has been a part of my journey. And I want to normalize what it looks like to make some subtle shifts to pivot to completely change course at at times, really whenever it serves you best. So, today’s conversation kind of came from, um, me just reflecting on the season of life and business that I’ve been in for probably the last year or so. You know, looking at, uh, just the journey that I’ve been on over time, I can very clearly see how in this most recent season of probably the last year or so, where I’ve been making some changes to the way that I run my business, the way that my day-to-day and my business looks like.

Bonnie (01:52):
I’ve made some changes, uh, around big picture business schools, and I’ve given myself a lot of permission to shift and to change and to grow. And with that, there comes a little bit of grief because right, we can grieve anything that is a loss of the expectation that we had. We can grieve something if it’s not coming to life, if it’s not coming to fruition the way that you wanted it to or the way that you thought it would. Um, you know, this can feel sometimes like, you know, just disappointment. Sometimes it can be this really raw, heavy, emotional thing. Uh, for me personally, I share that because there was some attitude of grief that I had to kind of come to terms with as I went on this journey of making changes because I needed to release what was no longer working. And in order to honor the fact that I am a living, breathing human with big emotions, I needed to give myself the space to feel all of those feelings.

Bonnie (02:53):
And, um, with that being said, I think that two things can be true at once. That this, these series of changes that I’ve been going through in my business have been for the better. They’ve been good. I would not take them back for anything, but they can also at the same time be challenging, be a little scary, be a little sad, right? Like, because we are incredible human beings before we were ever business owners, we can hold a wide range of emotions at the same time so we can kind of practice this concept of both. And well, with that being said in today’s episode, I wanna kind of not so much focus on what these changes have looked like or felt like for my business, but I wanna kind of point it to over to you really and give you some advice on what it can look like to make some changes with your current business model to assess what is actually working for you and, you know, give you some permission to make some changes when it makes sense.

Bonnie (04:01):
I’m coming to you from a place of, you know, now I, I’m kind of through it. I’ve made the changes, I’ve made the shifts, I’ve cut down on a lot of things, and I’ve seen how that’s worked for me, and I’ve given myself some time to live with it before deciding this was great and this was worth it, or this was, you know, just nothing but a big mistake. And I’m full of regret. I’ve given myself time to look at the impact of these changes. And, you know, some of them were more subtle, some of them were bigger. Um, for example, over the last six months specifically, I’ve restructured my team and that was a big change for me. Um, and as a result, I was able to refine my core offer, which then skyrocketed my profit margins and also then dramatically cut down on my working hours each week.

Bonnie (04:59):
But, you know, these are some good things in the sense of, you know, yay, we love bigger profit margins, we love working fewer hours each week. But, you know, there are also some challenging things. Anytime you’re restructuring, say, the support that you have access to in your business, that can be, that can be hard, that can be sad, that can be heavy. Um, but what I’m noticing is, even though I’ve gone through some changes in my business that I believe needed to happen, I’m noticing that I’m feeling less stress in my day-to-day in my business. I’m overall happier and I’m more focused on living my life than I am running my business. And that works for me. That feels gentle and filled with this quality of ease that I have been craving over the last couple of months. But, um, honestly, I would not have made any of these shifts in my business unless I took inventory of what my day-to-day felt like over a year ago.

Bonnie (06:02):
So here’s where you can look at how this might show up in your life and in your business. What does your day-to-day in your business look like? And more than just the to-do lists and all the things that are on your plate and kind of those boxes that you’re checking off day after day, what does it feel like energetically? What does it feel like to live through the day-to-day in your business? If you’re being honest with yourself, is it working for you? So are you seeing proportional results from the time that you’re investing in your business versus the revenue that you are generating here on the podcast? In the past, I have talked a lot about how I have built a multiple six figure business working less than 20 hours a week. I’ve talked about, you know, how to generate the revenue that you want on demand, not just as a designer, but as a service provider.

Bonnie (07:04):
And, you know, all of that is well in good, but your ideal business, your ideal work week, your ideal revenue goals, they might look different from what works for me. And one is not better than the other. There’s no right and there’s no wrong. As with everything that I share on the podcast, it is up to you to decide what you take action on and what works for you and what supports you. I’m sharing my personal experiences, I’m sharing lessons and strategies and experiences from, uh, you know, working with my clients or my brand strategy school students, or even my coaching students in the past. But ultimately, you are the one in charge of how you run your business. And so I trust that you are checking in with yourself before you are making any changes in the way that you’re running things. But when we’re looking at the kind of results that you’re seeing from the way that you’re running your business, we’re looking at things like, you know, the amount of time that you’re putting in, the amount of reward or ROI that you’re seeing.

Bonnie (08:17):
So that could look like revenue or that could look like fulfillment, that could look like a certain number of clients that could look like, you know, a certain amount of freedom that you’re creating in your life. Um, that being said, revenue is important, right? Because this is a business that you’re running. So we wanna make sure that it’s profitable, it’s self-sustaining, and there is profit left over for you to pour back into the business and for you to pay yourself and pour into your personal life. So with that being said, an additional question for you to think about, if you look at your business right now, if you kind of look at this snapshot of business, are you making what you wanna be making? Are you feeling how you want to feel as you do it? Where I started to realize this disconnect, uh, probably over a year ago when, you know, before I started making some changes to the way that I was running my business.

Bonnie (09:15):
And honestly, a lot of these changes, they weren’t massive dramatic, like life-changing things on the surface. They were smaller shifts that have had a really big impact on my mental health, on the productivity of my business, the profitability of my business, even. But even things like, you know, looking at the boundaries that I was having with myself around my business, the time that I was spending, you know, being available to people, whether that’s clients or students or my team, uh, the time that I was spending on things like social media, right? These are simple shifts that show up in different ways for every person. But what kind of tipped me off personally that I needed to look at some of these things was, um, looking at how I had structured my business at that point and asking myself, is this business structured in a way that aligns with my definition of success?

Bonnie (10:22):
Or have I unintentionally structured my business to emulate someone else’s definition of success? And wow, that can show up in such sneaky ways, right? Because as a creative in the online business space, we have access to so much information. We are constantly exposed to how people are running their businesses, what, you know, a a day in the life looks like. We can see their profit reports, we can see how many followers they have, we can see, you know, the front end of their launches and all of these things that are fantastic. But with taking in that information, it can be easy for us to change the way that our businesses are operating day in and day out in order to emulate or copy what someone else is doing. We’re doing that because we see that it’s working for them, and we think, oh, that’s gonna work for me too.

Bonnie (11:25):
And I can’t tell you how many books, how many courses, how many programs that I have purchased or invested in that have, you know, shared, Hey, this is how you should run your business. This is what your day-to-day should look like. These are the hours that you should work, right? There’s a lot of well-intentioned advice out there, but I wanna remind you that the only person who’s gonna be implementing that advice and living with the results, whether they are good or not so good, is you. And so, while you might be taking in all this information and structuring your business and your team and the day-to-day like someone else that you look up to, I do still believe that there comes a time when it’s important to regularly check in with yourself and say, is this still working for me? Do I still like this?

Bonnie (12:17):
Is this giving me the results that I wanna see? Is this generating the profit that I wanna have? Is this giving me the quality of life that I wanna experience as a business owner? And sometimes you might find, oh no, this actually is not feeling so align for me anymore, so I need to make some changes. And this is where it can be so beautiful to give yourself that permission. And that’s just kind of like how it always is. Like you have this, this, you know, constant evergreen, always available permission slip from you to you that says you have all the permission you ever need to change, whenever you need to change. So asking yourself, are you building a business based on what you want to build? Or are you building a business based on what the girl bosses and the bro marketers online are telling you?

Bonnie (13:11):
And that is a no shame conversation to have with yourself. Everything that I’m sharing in today’s episode is designed to be kind of this, this conversation or maybe some questions that you journal through . I would love it if you had the space to kind of take yourself on a little, a little date maybe, um, you know, give yourself however much time you can spare in the morning, or, um, really whatever time of day works best for you, but curl up with a, a beverage that makes you happy, that feels, you know, cozy and satisfying in a space that really nurtures you and gives you the opportunity to go inward and ask yourself, Hey, is this actually working for me? This is something that, um, I like to look at personally on at least bare minimum a yearly basis, sometimes more frequently, sometimes quarterly. Um, this doesn’t need to be like this big process that you go through, but it is really just normalizing the, the act of checking in with yourself.

Bonnie (14:24):
In my experience, um, it can be shockingly easy to be so captivated by a goal that you forget that there’s a journey that you need to walk in order to reach that goal. So it can be so easy to focus on booking a certain number of clients in a quarter, or launching your first or next course or program or offer. And you get so wrapped up in that that you, you kind of normalize to yourself what is required of you to create that outcome. And it’s important, in my opinion, to be pursuing these goals in a way that works for you and in a way that actually genuinely feels sustainable for you. And of course, you know, running a business is hard work. It’s not always gonna be sunshine and rainbows and just super fun things. There’s going to be sacrifice, there’s going to be mistakes.

Bonnie (15:27):
There’s going to be, you know, some struggle with it. But that doesn’t mean that every day in your business for years and years on end needs to feel like it’s hard and feels like it’s a struggle. I I want to remind you that every business owner, every creative goes through different seasons in business. So it’s easy to look online and think that everyone is in this like, constant exponential season of growth. Like year after year. We are making like wild amounts of money and we are scaling these massive teams, and we are doing it all while working like 10 hours a week or less, um, by a poolside in Cabo. And if that’s your reality, I I love that for you, but for most of us, that’s not what it looks like because every creative goes through seasons in business. So we have seasons of growth, seasons of maintenance, and even seasons of intentional pruning.

Bonnie (16:38):
Although, you know, like I said, online, we think that everybody’s , everybody’s on this like nonstop upward trend of exponential growth. Um, that’s just not the case, right? There are gonna be seasons of growth in your business, and there are gonna be seasons of maintaining where you are. And in the maintenance, in the, those years of just being where you are, maybe that’s a beautiful time to check back in and assess what’s working and what could actually improve so that you can prune what is no longer serving you. I know that I’ve shared a little bit about some of the shifts and some of the changes that I’ve made in my own business, and I’m doing that with the intention of encouraging you and reminding you that if it’s just been kind of like same old same for you for quite a while and it’s not working so much anymore, , then maybe it’s time for some thoughtful pruning to take place.

Bonnie (17:51):
Some intentional editing, some subtle shifts. I’m certainly not saying that like you need to burn everything to the ground and start from scratch, but, um, in some cases I’ve, I’ve done that and it’s worked, and sometimes we need to take those big steps, but what I am saying is that it’s normal to go through seasons of growth. And what we can forget is that growth can be uncomfortable and growth can require a lot of change. Um, and so keeping that in mind, if you are in a season of change, if you are toying with the idea of entering into a season of change, it’s, it’s okay. It’s, it’s exactly where you’re supposed to be. It is absolutely understandable that it’s comfortable where you are, and you might prefer to stay in that place, but take it from me, that false sense of comfort of just maintaining things in a way that’s not actually working, right?

Bonnie (19:04):
So like, there’s the difference between maintaining the growth that you’ve seen in your business versus telling yourself that you’re maintaining the growth in your business, but your numbers are actually telling you a very different story, or your personal satisfaction and quality of life that you’re experiencing inside your business is declining. So to me, that’s not maintenance. That’s actually, um, that’s actually kind of this, this sense of stagnation where your actions are staying the same, but the results are, are dipping. They’re not telling the same story and it’s not feeling the same anymore. So with that being said, if you are in a season where you are thinking about making some changes, but it’s, it’s intimidating, it’s okay, it’s okay that it feels new and that it might feel a little bit scary. But I want to remind you that as the creative, as the ceo, as the person in the driver’s seat of this business that you have built and are continuing to build, you are the one calling the shots.

Bonnie (20:14):
You are making the decisions, and you have a track record of making good decisions for you and for your business. So when it comes time to go through this process of pruning, of editing, of refining, you’ve got this. Like, I genuinely believe that you can handle this and you can handle anything that comes your way as a result. I chose to start to go through this kind of intentional pruning process in my own business about a year ago, um, maybe more, not because anything was like broken or not, because anything was not, nothing was horribly wrong, honestly. It was, it was more of a, a realization, a sitting down checking in with myself, right? Because we are the kinds of business owners that regularly check in and assess how we’re doing and how things are working or maybe not working. So I sat down and I checked in with myself, and I just kind of realized that this was around, um, I think I was coming up on the 10 year mark in business and, you know, 10 years this like, lovely even number.

Bonnie (21:32):
It’s a decade. That’s wild. And so it’s this big milestone that I’m feeling all sorts of feels about, and I kind of, you know, sit down, check in with myself, and I look at the business that I’ve built and I’m like, would I do this, all of this for the next 10 years? Like, would I do this on repeat what I’m currently doing? And I was like, no, that doesn’t sound fun. That doesn’t sound sustainable, that doesn’t sound life giving. So I was like, it wasn’t this like dramatic like, oh hell no kind of thing. It was just this like, mm, no, thank you. I don’t want that. And that was really telling to me where I was like, okay, so obviously something about the way that things are are looking right now isn’t working that well for me. So what are some changes that I can make?

Bonnie (22:22):
Uh, and that has, like I said earlier, been an incredible, incredible thing where it has completely changed the amount of time that is required of me on a weekly basis. It has dramatically impacted my profit margins so that my business is genuinely more profitable. Um, it has allowed me to go deeper into my signature offers and connect with more and more incredible clients and students who I genuinely feel called to serve and to help. And it’s been, it’s been, I was gonna say incredible, but, um, it’s been humbling actually is what it has been, because it’s easy to think that because you’ve been in business for a certain amount of time or because you’ve worked with a certain number of clients or because you have a certain amount of experience, or maybe you have a certain number of zeros in your bank account, it’s easy to think that, um, you know, everything, or at least you know a lot.

Bonnie (23:30):
But one of the things that I continually on repeat, keep falling in love with about entrepreneurship is constantly being reminded of how little I actually know and how much I have the opportunity to learn. And it’s this attitude of like being a lifelong learner constantly and consistently showing up for myself in this way of learning more. That is beautifully humbling. And it, I, you know, I’m probably gonna sound like a massive nerd and I’m cool with that, but I love that for me, and if that resonates with you, I love that for you too. But all of this being said, I wanted to share a little peak into what I have been experiencing and the results that I’ve seen from it alongside some questions for you to ponder, uh, you know, an invitation, if you will, to explore is it time to make some changes in your business?

Bonnie (24:36):
Is it time to reassess if your current business model is working for you? Are there ways that you could make some tweaks or maybe some big shifts to improve the quality of life that you experience that could buy back your time for you, that could dramatically increase the revenue and the profit then that you’re able to take home? You know, there’s, and even let’s think about, are there changes that you could make that would serve you better and equip you to sustainably do what you do and serve more people and have more impact, right? Like, that’s, that’s incredibly worthwhile, but ultimately you are the only one that can make that call for you. But let’s normalize how much shifting and changing and growing and evolving is required as a creative entrepreneur. Let’s normalize, you know, being almost 10 years and at this point now 11 years into this business and realizing, hey, there’s still so much room for growth and I’m excited about that, that is a good thing.

Bonnie (25:50):
Let’s normalize, giving ourselves the permission to pivot, to refine, to edit what is needed when it is needed. And you don’t have to worry about what other people are gonna think about you. You don’t need to worry about how your way of doing things is measuring up to what other people are doing online. Um, personally, I think that there’s a little too much in the online business space. There’s a little too much, um, replicating and implementing exactly what other people are doing and what their businesses look like, what their offers look like, what their sales pages, what their funnels look like. And that can be helpful for a certain amount of time to give you data to help you try out something new. But it’s always important to remember, and I’ve said this in so many other episodes and so many other ways, I’ve said this for so many years now, that like, y’all are probably really tired of me saying it, but you don’t know what someone else is experiencing on the inside, right?

Bonnie (27:03):
We can see on the outside, thanks to all the socials and, um, you know, the visibility that can come with being online as a business owner. We can see the front end of what that looks like, but we don’t know what the backend actually looks like. So we don’t know, you know, how many people are behind the scenes helping that one person implement that launch. We don’t know how much profit that person is taking home. They’re, they’re talking about how their client calendar is full, and that’s incredible and we’re jealous, but is that all actually, is that going to their bank account or is that going to, you know, pay off expenses? Um, we, we don’t know if someone is, is, you know, saying like, Hey, I am booked and busy and blessed. We don’t know if they’re sacrificing time with their family in order to, you know, fulfill all those projects that have filled their calendar with, you know, those booked and busy , uh, you know, projects.

Bonnie (28:09):
And so we can see what people are doing on the front end, but we don’t actually know what it’s like to be the person that is delivering on the backend. So there’s a lot of this replication that we see, and I’m speaking from personal experience, you know, I have bought the courses, you know, that, that say, Hey, follow my step by step method. I have, um, you know, joined the programs that offered me a recipe and were like, Hey, you know, here’s how you make a million dollars, that kind of thing. And I’m not knocking any of that, all of that at each point in my business. When I chose to invest in that, it was incredibly helpful. It did unlock this kind of next, next stage, next level for me, so to speak. But there has come a point for me when I’ve realized that if you focus too much on replicating what other people are doing, do you run the risk of losing the authenticity of what you can organically build?

Bonnie (29:13):
And for me, yeah, absolutely. So I’m not so much interested in what other people are doing, not because I like think I’m all that in a bag of chips, not because I think that I like know better than other people, but just because I’m personally in a season of life where I care more about how I feel when I’m running my business than what my business looks like when I’m running my business in the sense of I’m the one behind the scenes, you know, working with my clients, supporting my students inside the brand strategy school. I’m the one who is creating the vision, like the big picture vision for the impact that this business is meant to have and will have in the future. And I’m not outsourcing that visionary work to anyone else. I’m also the one who is, you know, day in and day out, like delivering a lot of this behind the scenes.

Bonnie (30:06):
And so I’m choosing to prioritize how that feels. And so that’s not something that I’m interested in, you know, sacrificing in order to replicate someone else’s, you know, uber successful business model. I love that that works for them. But right now I’m focused on what works for me. And maybe you can relate, maybe you too are wanting to go inward and you’re wanting to look at the way that your business operates and you’re wanting to refine it to the point where it feels good. Again, A couple years ago, I had this incredible student inside my group coaching program, the Heartfelt Brand Society that I was offering at the time, and she said something that like, I still think about and I love it so much. She was like, when she joined, she was like, my goal is to make business fun again. And I still love that so much.

Bonnie (31:08):
Like maybe you too are in a season where you’re wondering, how can I make my business be this intersection of fun and profit? How can my business be this combination of fun and fulfillment and financial freedom? How’s that for alliteration? ? If that’s the case, then this is your sign to figure out what that would look like for you and to take those steps. If that does not resonate, if you have made it all the way into this episode and you’re like, Bonnie, this is fantastic for you, but I’m gonna keep this in my back pocket for a leader because change does not feel like it’s on the horizon for me. That’s great. Okay, here’s, okay, here’s, here’s the message, here’s the tweet, honor where you are. For me, I was in a season where I needed to go through some changes and it has been the best.

Bonnie (32:05):
But if that is not where you are, honor where you are. If that is where you are, honor where you are, it is so easy to be completely captivated by what other people on the internet are doing and what it looks like for them and what kind of success we think they’re experiencing. But at the end of the day, you are the one who’s building this business, who’s putting in your time, your energy, your sweat, in some cases, you know, other things. You’re putting in everything to run this business, to grow this business. And so, although that YouTuber might have a really attractive lifestyle and their business might look really tempting to you, you have to ask yourself, is that something that truly aligns with the way that I wanna show up in my business and the resources that I have available to invest in my business?

Bonnie (33:15):
And in some cases, yes, that’s gonna be aligned, and it’s gonna be like a absolutely, like, you know, everything’s working, let’s go for it, kind of thing. But it also might be you’re looking at what someone else is doing and you’re deciding that like, okay, I can honor and acknowledge that, that that motivates me. That makes me feel a certain way because I want parts of it. But I also acknowledge that like, I don’t want to be working that number of hours, or I don’t want to be making that amount of money because right, even here on the podcast, I’ve shared a lot about how to go after big audacious financial goals and what that can look like. But it’s important to acknowledge that not everyone wants to make the same amount of money. Not everyone wants to reach six figures. Not everyone wants to be a millionaire.

Bonnie (34:04):
Not everyone wants to have, you know, an eight figure business. I know people at all of these different stages of financial success, and I’m using air quotes for that. You know, I know all these different people at these different points and it’s working for them. But what I find so fascinating is, you know, my, the people that I know who have an eight figure business, they’re not any happier necessarily than the person who has a five or six figure business. It’s not this matter of your net worth being your self worth or your net worth determining, you know, what you’re experiencing in terms of like your personal fulfillment. Um, so with that being said, the point here is to look at where you are and honor where you are. And remember that you have the freedom and the flexibility to change whenever and however it suits you.

Bonnie (35:06):
And you also have the freedom to stay exactly where you are and to luxuriate in that space, because at the end of the day, it’s your business. You are pursuing your unique definition of success and you get to call the shots. And I don’t know, I think that’s pretty amazing. So with all that being said, friend, I hope that today’s episode is giving you some food for thought. It’s giving you some questions to ponder, maybe some next steps to take. I recognize that, um, you know, I kind of shared a lot of thoughts in today’s episode. So as always, my dms are open. If you have follow up questions, if you wanna kind of break this down a little bit more and how this looks in your business and whatever season you’re in, feel free to shoot me a message on Instagram at Bonnie Joy Marie. Um, and as always, I’m grateful for you. I’m grateful for you being on this journey with me tuning in, supporting this podcast. And together we are taking thoughtful, intentional, and in some cases, bold action to pursue a business that feels as good as it looks right. So as always, I’m grateful for you. Thanks for showing up, not just here in this space, but for you, right? And as always, I’m cheering you on from Waco.

Bonnie (36:30):
Thank you so much for joining me today. Friend, before you go, I would be so grateful to receive your feedback on the brand strategy podcast. If you enjoyed this episode or the podcast in general has helped you grow your brand, I’d really appreciate it if you left us a review in iTunes. Your positive reviews enable the brand strategy podcast to continue to grow and reach like-minded creatives just like you. Thank you for all your support and encouragement as together we pursue building brands with purpose and intention. Until next time, I’m cheering you on from Waco.