CEO Retreat Exclusive: The Oh Shit Kit Revealed

Promote Yourself to CEO Podcast Transcript - March 27, 2025
Special Episode - CEO Retreat Opening Session
Racheal Cook: Hey there, CEOs, Rachel Cook here, founder of the CEO Collective and host of the Promote Yourself to CEO podcast. This week I have a very special episode for you, and it's one that will be up for only one week. I decided I wanted to drop this episode into the podcast feed and put it out there for my entire community.
Because as I've shared on the podcast, a lot of my time, the last few months since the election really has been spent helping my clients to adapt and adjust their business to all of the impacts coming from this current administration. There have been differences between what is specifically impacting what business, but I have gone through everything from clients losing their funding because now the funding they had secured has been considered DEI and is no longer available.
I have had clients who are losing their own clients because they worked with nonprofits or had contracting agreements with different US federal departments that now are no longer there. I've had clients who've had to do a fast turnaround on a rebrand because they were literally told, "We can't pay you. We put ourselves at risk of losing our federal funding if 'women' is included in the name of your business."
So the last few months have been pretty intense as I have been navigating this with my clients. As I was sitting down to get ready for the most recent CEO retreat we just held last week in March 2025, I was really looking through my notes of all my conversations with my clients, with my community, with my colleagues, with my peers, and wanted to make sure that I was adapting and adjusting the way that we run the CEO retreat. Because there's one thing I know for sure, and that is jumping right into goal setting when there has been so much disruption is trying to just go right into goal setting. This doesn't really serve everyone right now, and maybe you have been feeling this. Those goals aren't actually going to be the best thing for you to focus on right now.
I've had a lot of people who've come to me saying, "I feel so far behind. I haven't accomplished my Q1 goals. I had this huge thing I did not expect hit me, and then I had to completely throw my plan out the window." So I wanted to make sure we were kicking off this retreat, really meeting the moment and thinking about how we can best support all of our clients at the CEO Collective.
So what we did was we changed up the beginning of the retreat. I knew goal setting right away wasn't the answer. I knew we had to help everybody do two things. One, we had to help everybody get grounded because you can't make smart, strategic decisions for your business if you are either triggered up into fight or flight, or you're just in that frozen state where you're not sure what to do. You have to get grounded first.
And then we went through what we call the "Oh Shit Kit," and you'll hear all of the backstory behind the Oh Shit Kit. But essentially this is an SOP we have internally that allows us to have contingency plans we've created in advance. Whenever there is a huge disruption in the business, whenever there's something that happens in the economy or in the world that has the potential to massively disrupt your business, it's really helpful to have a pre-written SOP, something that you created before the thing happened when you were clear and you weren't all stressed out and in a panicked state. When you're stressed and in a panicked state, your brain doesn't always think through the most logical next steps. We often jump right into reaction mode, so having the Oh Shit Kit, our contingency planning SOP, really allows you to take stock of what's actually going on in your business.
Get the clarity you need so that you have the information you need. You really understand what's going on in your business in this particular moment and can make better decisions moving forward. Inside of the Oh Shit Kit is also some steps to help you figure out how you're going to shore up your revenue and make sure that you stabilize your business during this time.
Even if your business hasn't been impacted yet, I can pretty much guarantee it's going to feel the effects of all of these massive changes, all of this economic uncertainty. It's going to feel the effects at some point. Now, some of my clients, I would say about 20%, maybe 25% are feeling the effects immediately. And I think a lot of that has to do with just the nature of the type of businesses I work with. Working exclusively with women entrepreneurs and small business owners, working with a lot of people who are tied into the nonprofit space, who are tied into the DEI space. Like we are going to be the canaries in the coal mine.
And a lot of you know this situation, but I can pretty much guarantee that these impacts are going to ripple through the entrepreneurial ecosystem. So I encourage you to listen through this episode while it is available this week only. Listen into the first hour or so of our most recent CEO retreat so that you can get grounded and also go through the Oh Shit Kit on your own for your own business.
And if you are looking for more support, please come check out the CEO Collective. These are the conversations we're having on a regular basis. These are the things I'm helping my clients build their CEO skills and habits so that they can meet the moment in their own businesses and be empowered to make smarter strategic decisions really thoughtfully and intentionally instead of panicking and taking short term action, but hurting their business long term.
We want to make sure we're being really smart and strategic as we're making these adjustments in our business right now, and we don't want to be making short term decisions that actually hurt our businesses in the long run. So if you're looking for that kind of support, I encourage you to come check out the CEO Collective. All the details for joining this cohort are available at theceocollective.com/join. We would love, love, love to support you.
All right. With that, let's get into this segment on the CEO Retreat, Getting Grounded and the Oh Shit Kit.
So as we get into our retreat, I'm gonna ask Erica to go ahead and get us grounded. And if you haven't met Erica, how do I even introduce you? Erica is one of my favorite people on the planet. She's a mentor here at the CEO Collective, and she's a long time entrepreneur for her entire career, and just one of my favorite people. So Erica, I'm gonna ask you to go ahead and get us grounded this morning.
Erica Courdae: I can do that. Thank you, Rachel. Good morning, everyone. For anyone again that doesn't know me, I am here to support you in the best ways possible. So if there's anything that you have questions about or you need assistance, let me know. If you are part of the collective, and you, even if you're not one of my mentees, we're all here to support you.
When we get grounded, this is an opportunity for you to kind of just take a moment to ease into what it is that we're going to do so that you can be present for it. You can get the most that you can out of this, but you can also continue to take that energy with you. So in this moment, I would love if it feels accessible and comfortable for you to go ahead, have your feet on the ground, if you would like to have your palms in your lap or facing up in order to receive. And if you feel comfortable, please close your eyes.
Today is a day where we gather to be reminded of our values and our why. This is what goes into any and all planning that we ever do. Our planning is about being reminded that we are safe, secure, resourced, and protected. The energies that we bring into our planning needs to embody this so that this is what we radiate down on the world around us.
We do not have to show up with scarcity, worry, or uncertainty because preparation is what we can do to be present right now for everything that matters. Which is this moment. This is how we make sure to sow the seeds for what we need in the future for ourselves as well as those that we support, so that we have more than enough for ourselves as well as more than enough for those that we share with.
The goal is to be reminded that perfection is not everything that we actually stand for, perfection tells us that it is impossible to get it right when getting it right is getting it right for right now. You are exactly where you need to be. You have access to exactly what you need, even if you're not sure what that is yet, trust your intuition, your higher self, the support of those that are here to see you win. Know that you've got this. When you're ready, open your eyes. Stay open, be prepared, and let's do this.
Racheal Cook: How is everyone feeling now that Erica got to share some of her magic with us? I always feel like whenever she gives us this space to just settle in, it feels so good. It feels so good. Thank you my love. I appreciate you so much.
Erica Courdae: Thanks.
Racheal Cook: I wanted to start today with especially getting grounded and landing and feeling we've got this, we can do this. There is a lot happening in the world and uncertainty can bring up feelings of fear. Feelings of things are out of our control. But also whenever there's a lot happening and shifts happening, paradigm shifting, there is so much opportunity. And that's what I want everyone to stay focused on as we get going today.
So as we're getting grounded even more, I have a prompt for everyone that we're gonna get to. And before we get to the prompt, this is a little journaling prompt before we officially start planning. My definition of leadership is really based in this quote that Erica James, who's the Dean of the Wharton Business School, shared on a podcast, a Brene Brown podcast, where she was doing a two-part interview series about leadership.
And she mentioned this, she said this in the podcast interview, that leadership is about managing the energy first in yourself and then in others. It's about being able to face what is coming up, being able to handle whatever is coming your way and not react instantaneously, which is what a lot of people do, unfortunately. But instead, to be able to process that and respond thoughtfully and intentionally, and this is so crucially important right now because we've all experienced getting triggered into fight or flight where we feel the anxiety, we feel the fear, we feel anger and hyper vigilance.
And that flooding of, just like someone said to me the other day, it's like when I was a server in a restaurant and suddenly I was just overloaded with all the tables, all the things all at the same time. It's just a really overwhelming feeling. Right. And that's a really hard place to make good decisions for our businesses and our lives from. And the opposite side of that is freezing, right? We get triggered and we just check out. We just bury our head in the sand.
So our goal is to help us have the capacity as small business owners, as entrepreneurs to face whatever is coming our way. And when we are emotionally regulated, when we are feeling more clear, calm, in control, we're able to function and move through our days and take whatever life throws our way. That is where we feel the most empowered, right? Where we feel like we can do anything, where we can handle this.
Our goal right now is to make sure that we are expanding that capacity, we're expanding that window of tolerance. We've all been in those moments where that window of tolerance is just like anything could set me off. Anything could trigger me. Right now, I just am so limited in my emotional capacity and it's really, really frustrating to be in that position.
So I want to help us all remember that right now is a season where you actually need to pour into yourself before you can pour into others. When we were at the in-person retreat I talked about, we all often hear that you have to fill your own cup before you pour into other people. Make sure you're filling your own cup right now. I don't want you to pour from your cup at all because we need such a huge capacity. What I want you to do is constantly be pouring into your own cup so that you are pouring into others from the overflow, right?
Your cup remains as full as possible. Your cup is always being poured into. And the way we do that is by making sure we're taking great care of ourselves. We're prioritizing ourselves, we're prioritizing our rest, prioritizing, giving ourselves mental and emotional breaks, leaning into the things that help us feel like our best self.
And this is where we're getting into our prompt today. Two questions for you and we're gonna take a little bit of time so everybody can journal a few thoughts for yourself. And if you feel like sharing in the chat, I would love to hear what comes up for you all.
So the first prompt for you is how would CEOU show up in this season of your life and business? So to me, CEOU is the wisest, most clearheaded, most grounded in my highest version of myself when I am being my absolutely best self. That's who I want to be thinking of right now. How would that version of me show up right now? So I'll go ahead and give you all a few moments to journal, and if you feel like sharing, you can definitely do that.
Racheal Cook: If you're still working on that question, it's all good. Take your time. There's a part two of this question. What do you need to show up as this version of CEOU? Okay. I'd love to hear any thoughts or insights about this.
If anyone wants to share, you can go ahead and unmute and share, or you can pop something in the chat. I wanna make sure we're resourcing ourselves with what we need to have the capacity and ability to face what we all need to face over the next few months.
Elise Arsenault: I could share if that's,
Racheal Cook: Go ahead Elise.
Elise Arsenault: Hi everyone. Thank you so much. This is so cool. Alright. CEO me would show up with daily intentions, journaling, alignment movement. Empowering my team and saying what I need to say with kindness and without fear, because honesty is ultimate right now.
Prioritizing blank space in my calendar multiple times a week. Connection with friends and community, including here, if not daily, I'm gonna aim for daily actually, 'cause that would be, I've never done that before. Giving my feelings space to express and deep commitment to intentional creation. And what I need to show up for that is, a lot of that is what I need, but also, deep commitment and accountability to show up for the big boss moves, the game changer actions and lots of rest.
Yes, good nourishment and I just started like cooking again and I just wanna do that, like, have fun cooking and connecting and just feeding creation.
Racheal Cook: Who else feels like creativity is part of how you're gonna fuel that CEO version of yourself? For me, I find that is such a huge outlet. So I love that whatever that creativity looks like, maybe it's trying new recipes, maybe it's creating something with your hands or like, I've been playing with flowers a lot. I love it. Anyone else wanna share?
Jennifer Serr: I can share. That's okay. Good?
Racheal Cook: Yeah.
Jennifer Serr: Yeah. So, I just started with just, I call all my angels and spirit guides to help me show up for my show up as my highest self. Grounded, confident, nurturing, accepting and receiving kindness, and expressing what I need to without fear. I got that from someone else.
And then what I need to show up as this version of myself is lots of sewing and creative time, time in the garden, good sleep, daily exercise, and lots of chocolate.
Racheal Cook: Amen to lots of chocolate. I feel like this is the time where we get yourself a little treat. You know what I'm saying? Like we all need the little treat right now. I love it. I'll take one more share if anyone else wants to share. Amy, go ahead.
Amy Hayes: Yeah, I'm really focused on the season, like taking care of the asset because that got very much on the back burner, I feel like, through the busy holiday season and travels and all of that. So that looks like getting up in the morning, getting my exercise done, doing as much as I can, not on a screen and getting out and interacting in the real world and really operating from decisions that feel good to me, not what some Instagram post or whatever told me was the right strategy or like what I should be doing.
So, and then the way that I'm gonna do that is like really focusing on fitness and getting back outside and moving and like, 'cause it feels like when I physically move then, like the all the energy gets motion and momentum and it shows up. Like, for example, I exercise every day last week and I got three new client inquiries. I didn't do anything online, but it's like once I get movement it shows up in all these unexpected places. So that's all I'm focusing on right now.
Racheal Cook: I love that. I think that's so good. And I think again, I love that you said take care of the asset. You all hear me say all the time, take care of the asset. The asset is you, you are the MVP of your business. And if you're not being taken care of, how are you gonna take care of your clients? How are you gonna take care of your team? Right?
We don't wanna be pouring from the empty cup out of death gripping, white knuckling our way through this. We wanna make sure we're really, really taking care of ourselves in this process, so I love that. Thank you all, everyone for sharing and for thinking through this because I think this is one of my first steps.
Whenever it feels like things are a little out of control, maybe you all do have these little things. When things feel out of control for me, my default is to just work harder, grind harder, lock in on my laptop. But really what I need is to give myself permission to take care of myself first. Then I can come from a much more grounded place. It also allows your nervous system to calm down, right? So you're not acting out of that fear and anxiety, and instead you're allowing your nervous system to get grounded so that you can be clearheaded, so that you can make the best strategic decisions.
So whenever you're feeling stressed, I want you to come back to CEOU. Who is CEOU? Who is she? What does she need? Remind yourself of that.
Okay, now we're gonna get into some practical stuff, and this came up in our last in-person retreat last week. And I'm gonna share this little story because Erica was here in Richmond with me, and we were talking about, I, of course, have a checklist for what to do when things go sideways. When things aren't going as I thought they would go, when there's uncertainty, when there's economic uncertainty or a lot happening in the news, a lot of things out of my control, but they're impacting my business. I've always had like this checklist that I run through of things I need to do to make sure I've got a handle on my business.
Erica, can you share how you came up with the name, the Oh Shit Kit?
Erica Courdae: Yes. So, for those that don't know, I've also been in the beauty industry for almost 30 years and for a long part of that, we did weddings and so when you get there on the day of, there's inevitably something that gets forgotten. And you know, the blister blocker deodorant, the mini sewing kit, safety pins.
And I created a little checklist of this and I would give it out to clients and at bridal shows, and we would call this the Oh Shit Kit, 'cause it was the thing that you would be there on the day of and you're like, "oh shit, I forgot." And so this was the list to help people to remember. There's so many things to remember, and so let's get it out of our head. Let's actually create a list to go through, especially knowing that you're gonna kind of have the same things that are gonna come up. So let's go ahead and create this and give people a resource.
And last week when it was said, Rachel was like, "wait. I love the name."
Racheal Cook: Well, the name just brings a little levity to, you know, when things aren't going the way you had wanted. It can just feel very down. But this just made us all laugh. So I was like, this is the name we're going with. We're not gonna call it the crisis checklist. We're going to call it something that makes us laugh, and make sure that we are going through what are the things we need to handle when things aren't going as planned, when there's uncertainty?
So I'm gonna walk you all through this. I don't have this in the workbook because I literally just added this to the slide deck yesterday, but feel free to, I will share the slide deck in the recording. But these are things I want everyone to do, and that's because right now, we do have to make some strategic decisions, and the CEOs that are gonna thrive right now are the ones who really have a handle on their business and are making decisions quickly enough that they have the most opportunities in front of them.
The CEOs who are gonna struggle right now are the ones who are waiting and seeing, they're panicking, they're making knee jerk reactions, but they don't have this line of sight on their business. So here's a few things we wanna go through to make sure we're really clear about what's actually happening in our business, and we're making informed strategic decisions, not knee jerk fear-based reactions.
So the first thing we wanna do is make sure that everybody is stabilizing your finances. And that means we've actually gotta look at it, which I know isn't everybody's favorite thing to do other than the CPAs and bookkeepers here. But this is one of those simple things that if you sit down for like an hour or two, you can get all of these answers and have so much more clarity around what is happening in your business.
So the first place I always wanna start is what revenue is already coming in the door. Already coming in the door. We wanna know this month, next month, the month after, what revenue is coming in. Maybe you have retainer clients, maybe you have recurring payments, maybe you have invoices with deadlines coming up. We actually wanna know what is already planned revenue coming in that you have in your business.
This is one of those things that's really easy to not look at it, but we're gonna look at our expenses, our ongoing expenses. This is one that I really do this and I try to remind myself to look at my ongoing expenses probably every six months or so, because right now it's actually gonna be easier to reduce expenses than to increase revenue. And we'll talk about that a little more in a second.
But in times of uncertainty of any sort of uncertainty, all of our clients, all of our potential clients and customers, are usually gonna look for safety and security, and they're gonna be a little more discerning in their spending. So that means we're gonna see sales slow down. We might see people, sales behavior is a little bit different, so we wanna make sure we're tightening up our expenses as much as possible.
I always find money. It's like I'm looking under the couch cushions, right? I always find money in subscriptions. I don't know about y'all, but I have like a dozen or more tech subscriptions that I use to run my business. And I'm always surprised that the prices go up and I don't always check what is happening with it. But often you'll sign up for one thing and they don't have a feature, so you'll go sign up for another thing just to get that feature, and then the original thing will roll out that feature. So suddenly you're paying twice for the same thing.
So looking at your subscriptions, looking at your tech stack, looking at anything that's like an ongoing expense in your business. You wanna tighten that up. We wanna have really lean businesses right now. You also might wanna be looking at other expenses. Like if you happen to have a team right now, make sure that all makes sense for what's going on currently in your business. There's nothing worse than being in the situation where you're worried you can't pay people.
There's also nothing worse than realizing, "oh, I have been paying for this. I've been paying this agency, or I've been paying this team to do X, Y, Z, but it really isn't getting the results I want." So I do think it's important to review all of your expenses, look under those couch cushions, see where you can save a little bit, and we wanna do that because we wanna know over the next few months, are you cashflow positive or negative?
Do you already have booked revenue coming in that covers your expenses or is there a gap? And this is such crucial information, we can go ahead and do this and then check it every single month, but we wanna know if there's a gap, right? If we are short of the money we need to cover our expenses, then we need to know what is that gap so that we can figure out how are we gonna close that gap.
There's a big difference between I have a few hundred dollars gap based on the income I already have coming in, or I have like a $10,000 gap, right? So it's really gonna drastically impact what you do over the next few months.
Then finally, I wanna make sure that everyone has or is gonna go get some cash reserves. This is one of those things a lot of small businesses don't prioritize, and then when they have one or two slow months, they start really, really struggling. So my goal for everybody is we wanna make sure you have like three to six months of cash reserves for your business.
Probably also wanna have that personally because unless you happen to have like a trust fund or you're independently wealthy, like a lot of us don't have a huge financial safety net. As small business owners, I know I'm the breadwinner for my family. My husband doesn't have an extra paycheck coming in the door. We both work in the business now, so if we have a few slow months, it's not gonna take long before that impacts our personal finances too.
So we wanna make sure you have cash reserves, both for your business and personally, but aim for at least three to six months. If you are cutting some expenses, you can start diverting those funds to building up a cash reserve. But I always tell women entrepreneurs it's faster to go get a cash reserve than to build it very quickly. And if you do not have a relationship with like your bank or your credit union, going out and getting a line of credit is one of the simplest, easiest ways you can give yourself a little bit of peace of mind.
And that's the thing I'm looking for for everybody. I want you to feel like you have more options. And the best way to have options is to have your finger on the pulse of the finances of your business and to have some reserves so that if you have a few slower months, if you have a client or two who drops off, you can ride that out, right?
So go out and look at, do you need to go get a line of credit? I love working with a local bank or a local credit union. If you don't have those relationships, it's so worth investing in. I know there's a lot of other ways to do it, but you want to secure that now before you actually need it, because when you need it, when things slow down, when your sales slow down, that's when they are less likely to give it to you.
So I always encourage women to have that, not because I want you to go spend like crazy or rack up a bunch of debt. That is not what we're talking about. We're talking about making sure that if you have a slow month or two, you have options and you can take care of yourself. So that's step one of the Oh Shit Kit. Is anyone noticing where they might want to take a peek at this and look at what is the gap? April, May, June, so that you can make better decisions. You can let me know in the chat.
So the next part of the Oh Shit Kit is how do we increase revenue, right? How do we increase revenue? Now, this is one of those things that I always have in my back pocket is like how can I make sure I am increasing the revenue so that I can meet that gap as quickly and easily as possible?
And what I often see small business owners go to is they feel like if they need to bring in more revenue, they feel like they need to go out and get brand new clients, or they need to launch something new. That's usually the hardest way to increase revenue in a lot of our businesses.
So I want you to, once you know that revenue gap that you need to close each month, the first place I always go to increase revenue is gonna be looking at my current or past clients. Why are they the first ones I look at? 'cause they already know I can trust me. I've already had a relationship built with them and I truly believe in the season that we are in right now, it is those relationships that are going to keep a lot of our businesses going through this season.
So business grows at the speed of relationships is one of my favorite quotes that I say on a regular basis. So I'm always looking for, if I have a revenue gap, how can I serve my current and my past clients?
So there's a few things you might wanna ask yourself there. One, how can I make sure I'm retaining my current clients? If you haven't had something going out to check in with your current clients, now's a great time to put a little personal touch, a little check in with everybody. How are you doing? What's coming up for you? How can I support you right now?
I remember during the pandemic, one of the things that absolutely made me love my CPA is he sat down every week just to send out a quick little video he made on Loom saying, "Hey, here's what I'm seeing. Here's what I'm reading, here's what I'm keeping track of for you." And it just put me at ease, you know? 'cause I knew that he wasn't hiding from talking to his clients. He was actually reaching out and saying, "Hey, here's what's going on. Here's what I want you to know. I've got you, I've got this. If you have questions, here's how we can talk through it."
So think about what you might wanna do to make sure you're retaining those clients, especially if you have higher end clients. You want them to stick around. You don't want them to drop, you don't want them to cancel contracts, so how can you retain them?
I also want you to think about how you can renew clients. If you have people who are currently working with you, what's the next step? What's the next step for those people? Do they repeat whatever they've been doing, whatever program or product or service, can they renew working with you in some way?
Repeat clients are so much easier to bring back in the door than going out and getting new clients. I just talked to a client of mine this morning who asked me to come up to Baltimore to speak at their group and they worked with me, I wanna say like five years ago, one-on-one, and then worked with me in the CEO Collective. And they keep coming back. And this happens to me on a regular basis, and it's often just because I'm keeping up with people and checking in with people.
So where can you invite people to come back to work with you? Maybe it's been a little while. How can they come back to work with you? Is there an incentive for them to come back to you to work with you? Is there something you're creating for those people who previously worked for you?
And the other thing I think of often is upgrading their level of service. And this isn't about just making people buy a million things from you, but especially those of you who are service providers, if you really are a strategic partner with your clients, there's often additional things you can offer them that they don't even know you can do.
So really think about what else could I offer them right now? If they're currently doing program A with you, is there another thing you could offer that will help get them better results, that'll make things easier, that'll make things more convenient? Do you see other ways you can take care of them?
All of my clients who are service providers, if you're not reviewing your client docket on a regular basis. I usually like to review at least once or twice a year and go through and think, okay, we've been doing this. We've achieved these goals. I see these other things I could help them with. Tell them how you can help them.
So that's usually my first place to go to increase revenue, not to create something brand new, not to try to bring brand new people in the door. It's always gonna be going back to people who I have established relationships with and basically saying, how else can I help you? How else can I provide support to you? What do you need right now that I can offer you help with?
Then I want you to think about your current community, and this is a big one. When the business environment changes, when the global environment changes, when the world is changing, the needs of our communities change. So I know every single person here has done like an ideal client exercise in some way, shape, or form. Here's what I want you to know. That is like a snapshot in time and it changes depending on what's happening in the world.
So a few years ago, your clients might have been coming to you with these very aspirational goals. These very, you know, this is what I wanna do. This is what I wanna achieve. This is what I wanna build or create, and everything was very aspirational, very desire driven, very goal oriented. Well, maybe now they're not as aspirational. They're actually like "I just need this thing to be sustainable. I just need to keep up with this thing. I just need things to calm down a little bit."
So really tap into what does your community need right now. If you're not talking with them, whether it's actually talking with them or communicating via email or messaging, like you wanna be tapped in to what they are saying and what they are feeling and what they need. Because then you can more clearly figure out, do I need to adapt or adjust my offers right now?
You might need to tweak an offer or two, and that's okay, but you wanna make the tweak sooner rather than later. So what I often see is when there's any level of uncertainty, again, most people shift from aspirational, goal oriented to safety and security. Yes, I am still aspirational and have all those big goals, but right now I just wanna make sure that I'm okay. I just wanna make sure that everything's gonna be all right.
So I'm gonna lean into safety and security, and that means I might not spend as much, I might take a little bit more time with my buying decisions. It might mean instead of signing up for your highest level package, I'm signing up for something a little smaller so I can really see if this is a fit before I go all in.
And sometimes that means what they're looking to do is reduce their risk. Whatever that perceived risk is. So if they're investing in your products, programs, or services, that's a risk, right? It, I'm gonna spend this much money and the risk is I might not get an ROI or the risk is I might not like working with them. So they might have a little bit lower risk tolerance than they had in the past.
So how can you reduce that risk tolerance for them? How can you help people get started a little easier? Maybe you, and I'm not saying drop your prices, just to be very clear. Don't drop your prices, but you might take something you already have and make a bite sized, take a piece out of it, and make a bite sized offer. Right?
You might offer a slightly different version instead of signing up with the biggest package, maybe there's a smaller, like getting started level. So that might be something you think about. I know, and I'll share my own example. One thing I'm considering right now is I've been running all these retreats live for so long. I think I'm gonna go ahead and record an on-demand version. I can offer that at a lower price point. It'll be more accessible to a lot of people, but provide a lot of people with something they will need.
So those are the types of things I think about. Like do we need to adapt or adjust our offers to meet the needs of our community where they are right now to reduce the risk and make them feel like they're making decisions that they feel good about in the moment.
And then the other thing is, do you need to tweak your messaging? This is like advanced marketing things to think about. But often if something isn't selling as well right now or it's slowing down, it's because the messaging isn't meeting the needs of our community and our people exactly where they are.
Like I said, if they're looking for more safety and security, but our messaging is highly aspirational, that's gonna feel like a big disconnect. So talk to your people, talk to your community. Do you need to adjust your messaging a little bit to meet them where they are and to make sure they feel seen?
Okay, so that is some things I think about as we are looking at increasing revenue. We wanna make sure we're thinking through what do your people need to feel seen to feel safe and to feel secure? Do we need to change our messaging around that?
I think one of my biggest things around building trust, again, business grows at the speed of relationships right now. We're gonna see some small business owners and service providers who literally bury their head in the sand and aren't proactively reaching out to their community, aren't reaching out to their clients, or they are just gaslighting everybody and acting like, "oh, this is all business as usual."
This is not business as usual for a lot of us. So is there something you can share with them? Can you become a trusted source and continue to build that goodwill with your community and your clients by acknowledging like how maybe what's happening is impacting you and your business, or how it's impacting them?
And I think that's helpful to share. It shows a next level of leadership when you're willing to acknowledge, not in a fearmongering way, but in a, "Hey, this is what we're dealing with and here's how it's impacting our business. Or here's how this is impacting our community."
I just saw a really good, I'm watching of course, so many things right now, but I just reposted the other day Emily Lay, who is a really well known stationary business. She has an amazing stationary business where she has simplified planners and a bunch of books and things like that, and she actually showed up and said, "here's how tariffs are impacting my small business and what you need to know about how that's gonna impact our small business, how we're making decisions around it."
And it just builds trust with people because it feels like you're getting real transparency that's so different than just saying, "Hey, our prices are increasing by this much" without any explanation. So this is where a lot of people will hide, but I'm gonna encourage everyone here. If your people are, especially right now, feeling fear, feeling uncertainty, feeling that kind of like, it's so weird to go outside. Everything seems absolutely normal, but internally, I'm feeling very overwhelmed or scared or whatever.
If you simply meet people where they are and be that trusted person, you will stand out and you will be standing in your leadership, which is what we all need, real leadership, and the next thing we're gonna do is increase your visibility. Again, this is not the time to hide. We actually need to increase our own business visibility. When things slow down, when markets shift, when there's economic uncertainty, then often what a lot of small business owners do is they cut back on their marketing efforts.
But I want you to know these are the times where sales are gonna require a little more effort. It's gonna require showing up more. It's gonna require more follow up, it's gonna require more touch points. And that's just something that is true in any economic downturn, in any recession period. People slow down their spending. People take more time making buying decisions. So we've gotta increase our visibility. We've gotta make sure we're showing up even more.
And where I want you to start with that is asking yourself, where did your last 10 clients come from? This is so important 'cause I don't want you wasting time on things that aren't actually moving the needle in your business. I was just talking to another client the other day, and again, like 75%, 76% of our clients came from either client referrals or professional referrals from other service providers.
And it'd be really easy to think, "oh, I need to focus on social media. I need to focus on SEO, I need to focus on all these other things." But if almost 80% of your clients are coming from referrals, why aren't we doubling down on making sure we're getting more referrals right now?
So we wanna double down on what we know works for you in your business. Don't get hung up on the shoulds. Don't get hung up on, I think, like Amy said, this Instagram expert said I should do this. Think about what actually works for you in your business and how can we double down on that strategy.
If we know most of your clients are coming from referrals, can we create a referral opportunity? Can we create a client, bring a friend event? Can we create a special incentive for your clients to share your work? Can we send out thank you notes with gift cards to go get coffee on me? Like what can we do to incentivize more referrals?
So we always wanna think about doubling down on what works versus making more work for ourselves. And the biggest piece of this is how can you proactively invite people to work with you? So increasing visibility also means increasing the number of asks that you are making. Okay?
Again, if things are slowing down potentially, then that means we have to do more sales activity. We need to ask people more, and a pattern I often see with women entrepreneurs is we tend to be very hesitant to just make the ask or to just tell people how I can work with you or just tell people about the way that I help people. How can you more proactively ask people to work with you more directly? Ask people to work with you. The fastest thing to manifest what you want is to ask for it. Period. Period, point, blank.
So I wanna take a second before we get into the next section, before we get into goal setting, I wanna check in and see how everybody is, and if you have any questions, let me know. Anything coming up as we went through our Oh Shit Kit. Was that helpful for everybody?
Good. We wanna make sure you have as many options as possible because the longer you wait to make decisions about your business, if you don't have your finger on the pulse of your numbers, if you don't have your finger on the pulse of the revenue and the gap, you will run out of options. And we don't want that, we want you to have as many options as possible.
Elise Arsenault: Rachel, can I just jump in. Really good. I just wanted to thank you so much for saying how important visibility is right now, because when you have us choose a theme for each quarter, last month was visibility for me, so I was like, cool. This month I don't have to, but it probably needs to be visibility again.
Racheal Cook: Yeah. This is a time again, most small business owners that are operating out of fear and stress, they're not pouring into their own cups. They are white knuckling it y'all. They are white knuckling it so hard. They are not going to show up, right? Because that's it. It feels very vulnerable.
This is why you've got to pour into yourself, 'cause it takes a lot of inner resources to show up. Takes a lot of inner resources to make the ask. It feels like a lot right now, but I promise you this is one of the simplest, easiest ways that you're gonna stand out. Okay. I'm glad you all love the kit.
And yes, Adrian, you're exactly right. This is exactly like assessing the Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. Everybody remembers Psych 101. If people don't feel safe, they aren't gonna make self-actualizing choices. This is such a good, this is exactly what I'm trying to say. If people don't feel safe, they're not going after the inspirational stuff, right? They're going after, what do I need right now to get my basic needs met?
Okay. Tricia, did you have a question? I saw you.
Tricia Seil: I do. Is there something that you would recommend? For instance, I have quite a large group of clients that is in one particular demographic area. And every single winter their sales drop. And so we always know to expect that during the winter seasons. But I do wonder if this particular year they're a little bit more concerned than other years. Yeah. Is there some way that you pinpoint, as a service provider to them, to make them feel comfortable or to pinpoint like, is it happening for other reasons or is it happening just because of the weather and the environment?
Racheal Cook: This is where we wanna be tuned into what's going on for our clients and actually talking to them and asking them, right, "Hey, what's going on for you right now? What's on your mind right now? I know historically, the past, these are the seasons that have been a little harder for you. I would love to see what else is coming up for you that you're concerned about, so we can proactively plan and navigate that together."
And sometimes just being the person who holds that space for them is all they need, you know, to feel seen. Like I know traditional, if you are in a business where maybe summer is really, really slow, because your people are going through something, maybe now's the "Hey, I know summer's usually a hard time for you guys. You have a lot going on. How can we address that now? How can we have conversations about what you're gonna need?" So just talking to your people is gonna be really, really important. Okay.
Tricia Seil: Yeah. Thank you.
Racheal Cook: You're welcome. Okay. I'm glad that was helpful for everybody.
Yes. We are going, and this is part of being a strategic partner for your clients, right? If you're a trusted advisor, you're not waiting for stuff to happen. You're someone who's like, and I think we, a lot of us do this anyway. We are tuned into what's happening in our industries. We're tuned into what's happening in the world, and you wanna be the person who's seeing a little further down. You wanna be looking ahead and thinking about how is this gonna impact people? They might not have that insight or clarity on the industry that you're in.
Okay. Well, next I wanna get into 12 month goals, but since we've been sitting for an hour, I'm gonna say let's take a five minute, get up and stretch, break, whatever you need to do, and we'll come right back to get into goals. Sound good?
Okay.