Welcome to the Be Bold in Business podcast. My name's Matt the Hern and I'm the host of this amazing channel. I wanted to bring you a place where you hear from myself and other amazing inspirational business people on their journey to the success they created. I wanted to bring you the offline journeys to the online successes that we see on social media.
I want to create a place where you hear the struggles people have in mind, the challenges, the lessons they've learned, the mistakes they've made, so that you know that ordinary people can create extraordinary things every single day and that it's totally possible for you to. The Be Bold in Business podcast is a place where you are going to hear real, genuine, what's all stories from some of the most exceptional people in business and how they succeed in any way. If you are ready to show up in your business, if you are ready to be bold, if you are ready to learn from your mistakes, if you are ready to bounce back and become more resilient, this is the podcast for you. And me, Matt the Hern, I cannot wait to welcome you, support you, empower and inspire you, and share with you the stories that sometimes don't get shared online and give you this real refreshing approach on how building a business sometimes can be hard, sometimes involves failing, sometimes involves struggle, but you can still succeed anyway.
So welcome to the Be Bold in Business podcast and I cannot wait for you to take your invitation to be bold in your business too. What to do when business feels tough? And I'm recording this episode because I've had conversations with so many incredible women recently around the changes of business, how business is innovated, are your clients are buying differently, people are saying yes and then saying no, people are ghosting, etc. And it seems to be more prevalent than ever before.
It seems to be that people are finding the way business used to be versus the way business is now is different, is harder, is creating more blocks than it is opportunities. And I wanted to record an episode because I think it's so important that we have honest conversations and actually what I never want to do is create toxic communication. I never want to have marketing messages that feed into a toxic environment of, almost gaslighting people to say, you know, just think positively and, you know, everything will change and what I always try and do with my clients, but also with this type of conversation is acknowledge and recognise where you might be, whether that is a client, whether that is someone that drops into my DMs and also whether that is someone that is behaving away that is feeding into this narrative, saying yes and then saying no, changing their mind, not paying invoices, defaulting, making payments late, etc. And I really want to talk to this for you.
And I can just envisage you either in your car, doing dinner time, about to get in the bath, taking the kids to school, setting us up for the day and just really knowing that this will make a difference, this will make a difference for you. And I know it will make a difference for you because it's a conversation that I know is needed to be had. And what I thought I would share is, I've got a few things to say, actually, but what I really want to share is the level of transparency that's needed to make this different. So the first thing I want to say is I experienced this as well.
I have people that say they want to work with me and then disappear. I have clients, default payments. I have clients make payments late. I have clients needing to adjust their payments.
I have clients that say yes and then don't sign their contracts. Now, when I say all of this, yes, it's few and far between now and yes, it's infrequent, but it does happen. I have people that reach out into my DMs and then they never apply again. I have people that reach out into my DMs asking to work with me, find out everything, and then just never apply and just send me a love heart.
So I see it and I'm in it. And I think there are a few things that I really want to talk to when it comes to this. So the first thing is, in order for businesses to evolve, in order for business development to truly transform, in order for online businesses to really get the recognition they deserve, every single person that is in an online business is going to have to start acting accordingly. And that's why this needs to be an open conversation because, you know, there will be people that you know and maybe you have done this and you haven't been an ideal client.
You haven't made a payment or you've said yes and then backed out or whatever you've done. And here's the thing, of course, anyone can change their mind. Anyone can make their own decisions and you have every right to do that. But what this is about is there is a difference here between personal and professional.
There is a difference here between a contractual relationship and a personal relationship. And so often, and I think this is going to be really helpful for you. So often these two get mixed up and people, and I've had ideal clients in this situation, I've had clients in this situation where they feel guilty by holding a contract. They feel like, you know, I want to support this person and I don't want them to think I'm being a bitch and I don't want to seem like I'm being greedy.
And, you know, maybe I do need to let them out their contract because they're in a really big bind and they shared X, Y and Z with me and they told me about this and they told me about that and I feel guilty, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the bottom line here is there is a difference between a personal relationship and a contractual one. And this is also for you to really think about this with your ideal clients, but also the way that you're behaving in your business. Now, understanding wanting to support someone because you care is who you are.
It's who you are. I know you're listening to this, you have values and you have a positive ethos and you have integrity and you're running your business with all of those things. That might never change you because of the person you are running your business with your values at the forefront. You are running your business as a good person.
But the second part of that is contractual agreements have nothing to do with who you are as an individual. Contractionary agreements are there to protect your business, to protect your family, to protect your bills, to protect your commitments and to protect your contract. And this is the same for your clients. If you have clients that are reaching out to you in your personal relationship, wanting to change their contractual one, that is the first breach that is taking place here.
And that's the first blurred line that we need to readdress. So you having a good personal relationship with your clients is something I would expect you to have because you care. But I would also expect you to have good contractual agreements. And I would also expect you to uphold those because if you don't, then this cycle continues.
And I would also expect you as the client to uphold your contractual agreements and not try to use your personal relationship with the person you're in that contractual agreement with to leverage your way out of that contractual agreement. And I would really hope that in the industry, anyone that's listening to this or is being shared this information and insight within their communities through the person that is listening to this really understands this. You are holding your contractual agreement is separate to the personal relationship you build with the person you have it with. And expecting the personal relationship to allow you to get out of the contractual agreement is not okay.
And it's really important that this conversation continues. It's also really important that this conversation becomes something that is being spoken about way more than potentially you might expect. Now, what I really want for you, what I really want for you is for you to not feel like your business is constantly being built on quicksand. What I really want for you is for your business not to be built on quicksand.
And what I also really want for you is for you as a client to not be treating that like it's an online dating site where we can just disappear or ghost. And this is how the industry will improve. So if you feel like you are in a tough spot in your business, the first thing I would look at is what are you doing to hold your boundaries and raise your standards higher than ever before rather than lower them. And this is key.
When business feels tough or things are changing or being thrown at us, there is a tendency for people to put out of those make discounts, bond bonuses, et cetera, et cetera. And when we do that, what we're actually doing is lowering our own expectation of what we want from our ideal clients and from our business. And the other thing that we're also doing is making it easier for this cycle to continue because we're making it about money. And it's not about money.
It's not about money. Money is a byproduct of this conversation. It's about energy. And it's also about mutual respect and it's also about upholding business agreements.
Money might be the reason that people become scared or panicked or want to change their mind. But ultimately, the bigger picture than that, the bigger picture outside of money is who we conduct ourselves as business owners. And if we make it about money, money continues to be the problem. Does this make sense?
If we make it about money, money continues to be the reason that people find us a block. Whereas if we make it about standards, if we make it about expectations, if we make it about boundaries, if we make it about what it actually should be about, which is the service, the value, the experience, the expectation of this commitment, the price is one element. It's not the only. And the price is one factor.
It's not the deciding. And this is the thing. If you are trying to attract people now at lower price point because you need to make money, then what's going to continue? This, the lack of boundaries, the breach of contracts, because they will continue, you're continually now attracting a lower caliber of client.
You're actually attracting a lower frequency of a client that you want to be attracting. And that's not what we're trying to achieve. That defeats the point. And if we continue to do that, then the cycle continues.
Right? And hopefully you can see, you can see what I mean when I share this with you, because the more that this continues, the more that people think it's okay to do and it's not. So I really want you to start thinking about what can you be doing in your business when things feel hard to make them better from an expectation and a standard point of view, not just a cost, not just lowering the cost. And if you are the client and you're going through a difficult time, the first thing I want you to do is have clear communication with the person you're in that relationship with, who's building a website, coaching your mindset, coaching your sales, doing your TED talk, whatever it is.
This is where I'm at, what do I need? What do I need to work on? Because the time that you need the most support is when things are hard, not when they're easy. And this is the cycle that people go in.
They know they need help, so they get help. And then when they're getting the help, things are challenging them and they think, oh, I can't have the help anymore. But then what happens is you focus on a very short-sighted, okay, let's fix this problem. Now you don't have the help.
And then essentially what you do is you almost barricade yourself in to that experience. You barricade yourself into this experience. Okay. So this didn't work.
So I'll stop getting help. Then something will change and then you think, right, okay, but then when you need the help again, you know, I don't have it. And that, again, like I said, that defeats the, that defeats the entire process of what we're trying to build here for you, but also as an ideal client. And this is why, this is why it's really important that you give yourself the chance to ask yourself, what is my expectation here?
What is my expectation of my ideal clients? What is my expectation as me as a client? What is my expectation? What is my expectation?
This is really important for you to look at. It's really important for you to actually take the time. And also you might need to share this with your ideal clients because, and you might need to share this with your clients because here's the thing, if everyone continues to back down when things get hard and back out when things get hard, we end up with a massive proportion of buyers who now have not upheld commitments. And then when they rebuy again, that's a behavior and a pattern that they bring into a new contract and a new relationship.
And then what happens, we continually repeat the process. So if you are going to uphold contracts with your clients, you are actually doing them the best service and you are also doing them the best because this cycle won't continue and you're helping the industry by not then creating a mass market of buyers who then back out when things are hard and then we don't build resilience, we don't create tenacity and we do not create contractual agreements that are mutually respected. And that is not what we want to continue. So in a roundabout way, if you are finding a hard in your business right now, the first thing I want you to do is think about how you can actually raise your standards, not lower them, how you can protect your boundaries and not break them, and how you can actually elevate yourself outside of the problem into where you want to go, where do you want to be?
That really does matter. And if you have clients that are going through a difficult time in their businesses, first of all, business isn't always easy. I have been there. It's so hard and sometimes it's harder than other times and the mental load of it, let the line of things are working, you don't have the mental capacity to think about auditing, delegating team, staffing, bills, expectations, commitment, tax.
I get it. I get it. And on top of that, as a woman, you are then dealing with children, childcare, spouses, pets, hormones. So I feel you and I get it with you.
Can we all just please appreciate that and understand that we are all doing this together? No one business has any level of protection than any other business. It's just how they choose to uphold their boundaries and honor them. But what I do want to say to you is if you are also having an experienced clients that are having difficulties, raise the bar, don't lower it, raise the bar.
Okay, what can we do about that? What can we make changes for? We need to set things up, not lower the bar. Because as the person holding that space for them, this is also about you're not taking responsibility for something you're not responsible for.
You're not responsible for business being difficult or a buyer, not buying. You're not responsible for someone ghosting or breaching a contract. That person is. So again, what ends up happening is good business owners, good mentors, good service providers end up paying the price for the people that are not doing what they should be doing in their contracts.
So again, what happens here is you end up with a good business owners suffering because of the people making the decisions in a way that is not contractual and are not professional. And then the people that are making those decisions are allowed to continue to make them because we all then just continue to break our own boundaries and it just completes the cycle. So if you're client is having a hard time, that's not your chance to say, okay, don't worry. I'm back down.
That's your chance to say, look, we're in this contractual agreement. What changes can we make? What changes can you make? Where do you need to raise the bar?
Where does the expectation need to change? Because otherwise, we are then going to create a continual frequency of less than a continual frequency of breaching contracts, making changes, not upholding our agreements. And that is what we then teach each other and ourselves is okay when it's not, it's not okay. That is what I would really love from this conversation.
And I want this to be a conversation. I spoke about this. I've actually done posts on this, you know, and it goes beyond contracts. It goes beyond, it goes beyond when business feels hard.
It goes beyond all of that. It goes beyond that. And it goes towards the irony of the lack of self reflection, the lack of self awareness. For example, you know, you want a business that gives you freedom and flexibility, but you expect your graphic designer web developer coach mentor to be on tap online 24 seven when they're not, you hold that against them.
This is the irony of it. So this just feeds the system. And this is exactly the same. We expect, we pay our invoices on time and then our idle clients don't.
Well, when I say, I don't, they wouldn't be an idle client, they're not, but then your clients don't and we accept that. Well, then that's something we need to look at. We need to change that. That is not how we want to move forward.
That's not how we want commitments to be held and upheld. And that's not how we want commitments to be seen as acceptable because it's not acceptable. So if you are listening to this as the service provider, all you are listening to this with clients that are going through this, I really hope this is a continual conversation. And one that we make changes for together because this has to be something that improves, this has to be something that changes.
There's need to be something that as a collective, we start taking responsibility back. So that's not how we show up in that space. And, you know, I've had clients that go through difficult times. Of course I have.
I've had clients that have difficult business decisions because of other business owners making them saying yes, and then backing out, ghosting, discovery calls, not signing contracts, backing out. I have clients going through that. But that isn't my fault. That isn't my business that should then suffer for that person who has impacted my client, my job is to show up for my client and support them and allow them to really focus on how we get more sales to come in and the right caliber of clients.
Do you see what I mean? We end up with this constant ricochet of negativity based on someone's decision, but then when it happens to you, we don't like it. So if you are the person that has been behaving in this way and ghosting and not paying voices for reaching contracts, you need to look at that because you cannot expect your business to be running a different way than the way you're running yourself. And if you are in the business, in contractual agreement with someone that keeps doing this, start having conversations, whether it's with your team or you do it and say, this is now the way we're going to move forward.
This is how our contractual agreement is going to be upheld. This is what needs to be honored. In order for the entire online service based business industry to start seeing real positive stability and change and contractual avoidance, we need these behaviors to be looked at. So let me know your thoughts.
Let me know your thoughts. I really want to have a conversation about this. And this is one that you know, when you just think, I know you're going to be listening to this and it's going to fire you up and maybe now you're thinking, oh, this isn't the direction I thought this was going in. I'm going to be honest, it wasn't for me either, but we're all and this is where we are and this is what we needed.
And if you're listening to this and now you've cooked, you know, you're eating it, you've dropped the kids off and now you're in the car on your own. You're about to exercise. You've been for your run. You're even on your run, do you?
You're exercising. You're doing the things. You're doing the food prep. Maybe we're about to start your day in journal.
Wherever you are in your journey of your day, I do want you to stop and think, how can I use this message from my business to raise the bar to increase the frequency to really uphold my boundaries and how can I use this message to also support my clients so that we create a collective positive expectation of change and allows all of our businesses to feel a better level of protection from a contractual point of view. I really want you to think about that. So there you are. There you have it, my friends.
I'm looking forward to hearing what comes up for you and I'm really looking forward to having more conversations around this because, yeah, it's something I'm really passionate about and that passion is going to start coming into the podcast, people. So watch this space.