Uncomplicate Your Business

Imagine going from working with 40 private clients, 6 days a week to streamlining your entire business so you can work just 3 ½ days a week so you can finally have your dream business with your dream lifestyle to match.

Imagine putting hours into creating an online membership program – only to launch and only earn $60 in that first month. Catherine Middlebrooks shares how she recovered from such a rough start to 5-figure freedom.

Tami was spinning her wheels trying to figure out how to really get her business as a yoga teacher/life coach/self-care advocate off the ground. With the right Q&A, Tami got the help she needed to take off, and the insight into her unique brand.

Recently, I did a free training along with my operations manager and my community manager to talk about a topic that I think is just so incredibly important for any entrepreneur:: Are You The Employee, The Manager, or The CEO? With so many tasks - great and small - necessary to run a business, we entrepreneurs can end up spending just as much time on the little things as on the big picture. In this episode, I share the Entrepreneur Scorecard, so that you can learn how to track your time in your business, put a value metric on the to-dos in your business, and move forward with a plan to spend more time on the $10,000 an hour type work! RachealCook.com/entrepreneur-scorecard

Listen in to learn:: ➳ The key differences between working in your own business as The Employee, The Manager, and The CEO (and how not knowing this difference is keeping you stuck in a rut!) ➳ How to make the shift from employee to CEO - even if you're just getting started and don't have a team to support you. ➳ Why the most successful CEOs prioritize stepping out of the day-to-day of their business to dream big and plan the next stage of their business growth I'm so excited that my team is joining me for this live mini-training because they will share the real behind-the-scenes of how it's not always easy for me to stay in the role of CEO! Want to join me for the CEO Retreat in DC? All the details and registration are here: http://www.rachealcook.com/ceo-retreat/ Enjoy! Racheal

It's no secret that I'm an AVID reader... so today I thought it would be fun to share my 5 MUST READ books for entrepreneurs (and I'm giving them away to one lucky person)! http://www.rachealcook.com/books-every-entrepreneur-should-read/

Nearly 20,000 entrepreneurs have participated in the Fired Up & Focused challenge over the years. I’ve noticed that one of the biggest struggles for most entrepreneurs isn’t that they don’t have amazing ideas to grow their businesses… it’s that they don’t have the TIME to work on the big picture! I get it. The day to day of running any business is full of things to do. Working with clients. Answering emails. Posting on social media. But all these tasks that fill most of our work days fall under the category of IN your business. What about working ON your business? Do you have time to… Write that book that you’ve been thinking about for years? Create the group or online program that synthesizes everything you’ve learned working with your clients… and finally allow you to scale beyond your 1×1 work? Implement the systems in your business that would automate or allow you to easily outsource everything from attracting new clients to making regular consistent sales of your products, programs, or services? Yo

Last week I dove in with a pretty epic episode about the 6 lessons I have learned on this journey to becoming a multiple six-figure CEO of my business. These are lessons that I see a lot of my peers and clients learning as they start making that transition from being a high five-figure entrepreneur to hitting six-figures and then trending towards multiple six-figures. $150,000-$200,000 is a professional salary that replaces a lot of our former corporate salaries and then some. And that's really exciting, right? But there are a few mindset shifts we need to go through in order to accomplish that. Most of us start this business because we want to do work we love with people we love and be well-paid for it. But when you break down the hours, you realize you might be getting to spend 50% of your time doing the actual work that you love and the rest of the time is spent running a business. What happens to a lot of us is we start off doing all the things in our business and we get to a point where we just cann

Do you get frustrated when people say that you need to work smarter not harder? This is one of those concepts that used to frustrate me so much. I was raised by entrepreneurial parents who worked so incredibly hard to grow their business. The idea of hard work was drilled into me from such a young age that it was essential to have a strong work ethic. We have been taught with the idea that to create success, to have a successful career, to build a successful business, you have to work hard. However, some point we've all looked up to a hardworking man or women and noticed they only were able to reach a certain level. BUT, at some point working harder creates a bottleneck in your business. It creates this area where you can no longer grow, and you limit, you put a ceiling on how much growth you can experience in your business. We all have the same 168 hours a week, and there is just a point where working more is not the answer. How do you get to that next level in your business? http://www.rachealcook.com/

Do you feel like you're on track for your 2018 goals? This is such a challenging time of year. Especially if you are like me, summer is upon us. If you have children and schools are being let out. Our schedules are being shaken up. Things start to slow down and as an entrepreneur it can be one of those times where if you're not paying attention, then you might find yourself in that summer slow down where suddenly your business takes a back seat for the next two or three months. By the time fall rolls around and you're ready to really go after those goals you've lost out on this amazing opportunity in front of you to just make it happen. I know that for myself, sometimes those goals that you set at the beginning of the year shift. Sometimes you write down something at the beginning of the year and it changes as you go through the next few months. I've already experienced this in my own business. So every time I get to June I go through this process that I call a mid year review. I thin

  Let me know if this sounds familiar to you. Have you ever said: I'm not ready to take that step. I'm not ready to sign up to work with a coach. I'm not ready to put my website out there. I'm not ready to do a Facebook Live. I'm not ready to charge that much. I'm not ready to attract that type of client. I know I've had every single one of those thoughts. Here's what I just want to share with you if you have been letting the "I'm not ready" run the show. "I'm not ready" is just your brain trying to keep you playing small and safe. Saying "I'm not ready, I'm not ready to charge. I'm not ready to do a huge rebrand of my website. I'm not ready to work with a business coach. I'm not ready to hire a virtual assistant". If that is the default that you're going to is "I'm not ready yet", that is a fear-based response. http://www.rachealcook.com/im-not-ready/

Over the last few weeks I have been sharing the Path to Predictable Profits, it has been an epic seven part Facebook Live series. It's been so much fun to share these lessons with you, things that will help you to grow your business to getting that consistent $5,000 a month or that consistent $10,000 a month. After we covered all of that, now it's time for an Ask Me Anything! Listen in as we cover: "I'm interested to know more about how you mesh in-person trainings with online business. We do both and it's not always easy!" Answer at 4:30 "I would love tips to fill retreats and in-person events." Answer at 10:30 "As a locally based business with a 1x1 offering, I'm still struggling to figure out where to put more energy to build my practice. Where should I put my focus to get more peeps in the door?" Answer at 15:27 "Do you constantly monitor your analytics to see where you can make improvements? What processes do you have in place to make sure your

Listen in as we cover: How do you create a model calendar or a 90 day plan when time can be so unpredictable? (answer at 1:10) What is your process of creating content upgrades as DIYer? (answer at 8:27) How do you deliver your content once you've created it? (answer at 11:20) What are some strategies when you're tired, feeling distant with your business and just don't feel like selling or promoting anything? (answer at 15:33) What are your tips for writing a great sales page for an online course? (answer at 26:16) What are your tips for growing your tribe or warming up a new audience? (answer at 29:25) Is the CEO retreat only for coaches? (answer at 32:25) What are your tips for time management? Where do I even begin with prioritizing tasks? (answer at 35:02) I started a blog a few years ago and I have neglected it a bit since. Do you recommend picking up where I left off or scrapping it and starting fresh? (answer at 38:26)

Us entrepreneurs - we are idea generating machines. We see opportunities everywhere. We discover new solutions to old problems. On a daily basis we're inspired to create something new that could change the world. Our biggest strength is can also be our biggest weakness. Those new ideas all too easily become shiny objects that hold us back from gaining the momentum we need to build a profitable, sustainable business. http://www.rachealcook.com/shiny-object-syndrome/

I'm so excited for today's show because the last few weeks for Uncomplicate Your Business, I have been sharing a lot about how you can design the life you love while you grow your dream business. This is something that I feel like we leave out of the whole business building equation. We end up finding ourselves completely burned out, realizing that we haven't been taking care of our health, we haven't been spending quality time with our families, we haven't been having a life as we grow our business because we feel like we just have to hustle, hustle, hustle nonstop instead of finding that balance. The last few weeks, we've been talking about how you can design your dream life while you grow your business. Today is an ask me anything, an ask me anything about how I manage to find that balance. http://www.rachealcook.com/birthday-lessons-rach/

After working with hundreds of heart-centered entrepreneurs… I’ve seen a pattern that many of us buy into {that’s actually setting us up for insane amounts of stress and anxiety in our businesses}. While we all want to create a business and life we love, I see many of us DELAYING the life we love because we believe that FIRST we’ve gotta work our fingers to the bone to create a successful business. The result? Burnout. Resentment. And a nagging feeling that we aren’t ENOUGH. Even if you absolutely love the work that you’re doing and adore your clients… if you’re life is all work and no play, it’s only a matter of time before you hit a limit to how much success, happiness, and freedom you’ll really be able to experience in your biz. As a recovering workaholic, this is a pattern I know all too well. http://www.rachealcook.com/why-lifestyle-design-matters/

Today, I’m getting a little controversial by saying MORE HUSTLE isn’t the answer to sustainable business growth. Here’s the challenge and the issue that I really have with this hustle mentality. First of all, we don’t all have 12-18 hours a day to work. We just don’t. For so many of us, there are other things that require our time and our attention. The idea that you could work 12-18 hours a day, like some sort of machine, is just not realistic. http://www.rachealcook.com/why-more-hustle-isnt-the-answer/

Have you ever had that moment where you think you’re doing the right things to grow your business...but you feel like a kid wearing your mom’s high heels, pretending to be a grown-up? This is a pretty prevalent way to feel for most business owners especially in your first few years in business. We're surrounded by all the incredible success stories of $10,000 months and 6-figure launches... but when we don't see the same results using the same strategies, we wonder what we're doing wrong. It comes down to this one simple question:: Is your business ready for growth? http://www.rachealcook.com/stages-of-business/

I have been working on today's podcast episode for so many months now. I've been thinking about it and planning it and now I'm just so excited to share this new strategy that I've been developing to help you plan your best week ever. But before I dive into it, this week's content is based on something I have been using in my business and it's actually something I started developing because I realized a lot of my private clients were struggling with very specific things in their business. What I started to see over and over again as I had conversations with them and sessions with them was the biggest reason they were struggling in these areas of business was because talking with me was the only time during their week that they had those things front and center in their mind. The rest of the week it was really easy to forget about their big priorities. About what they needed to be focused on in their business. This is something that I understand. I get it. If you don't have a

New Year is when we all dream big dreams and make big plans for our lives and business… but then LIFE gets in the way and that little list of dreams and goals is covered by all the other to-dos clamoring for your attention. You need more than a post it of goals… you need a real plan to say NO to shiny objects and YES to strategic action steps that move you closer to your dream business and life each and every day. Get Fired Up & Focused When You Plan Your Best Year Ever! In just 5 days… I’ll walk you through a strategic planning process to help you design your year ahead. You’ll walk away with real clarity and an action plan you can start implementing immediately! http://www.rachealcook.com/best-year-ever/