#205 - The Power of Pause : 5 Questions That Could Transform Your Business
With the first quarter rush easing, this time of year gives us a moment that's rare in business - a natural pause. Personally, I take this time of year as an opportunity to look at my business with fresh eyes by asking myself 5 powerful questions.
I encourage my clients to ask themselves these same questions to gain a sense of clarity on where their business is at. So before we dive back into the daily rhythm of client calls and content creation, let's use this breather to ask ourselves five questions that could shift not just how we work, but why we work the way we do.
1. Am I Doing the Work I Love? And is it profitable?
Let's be honest - not every client project makes your heart sing, but there should be a spark in most of what you do. Take a look at your current projects. Do they energise you, or are you dragging yourself to your desk each morning? The sweet spot is where your passion meets your clients' needs - and yes, your bank account's needs too.
Speaking of bank accounts - passion projects are great, but they need to pay the bills. Look at your revenue streams with clear eyes. Which services are actually making you money and which ones are you holding onto because you "should" offer them? Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for your business is to let go of what's not working.
2. Are My Client Agreements Up to Date?
Your client agreements are like the foundation of your house. You don't think about them until something starts creaking. Take a quick look at yours. Do they still reflect how you actually work? If not, it’s time for a chat with your business lawyer to update them.
3. Is the Business's Profitability Where It Needs to Be?
This goes deeper than just checking your revenue. Look at those sneaky subscriptions you signed up for last year. Review your pricing - are you still charging what you did when you started, even though your expertise has grown? Sometimes the smallest tweaks can make the biggest difference to your bottom line.
4. Have I Documented All Handshake Agreements?
We all love those exciting conversations that end with a handshake and a "let's do this!" But here's the thing - memories fade, and expectations can shift. Take those verbal agreements and get them in writing. It's not about trust; it's about clarity.
5. Have I Got Policies in Place for the Biggest Risks in My Industry
It’s crucial to assess risk management within your business. Do you have policies in place for the biggest risk areas, such as cybersecurity? As vulnerabilities grow, having clear policies and secure contract terms with your contractors becomes essential.
I encourage you to use this natural pause to realign, readjust, and maybe even reimagine what's possible for your business in the months ahead.
QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK
Does a contract need to be signed to be legally binding?
Not necessarily—it depends on the type of contract and ensuring the correct wording is used when sent out.Do you need a client to sign a renewal letter to acknowledge its terms?
It hinges on the clarity of your communication. If you've asked for a signature, insist upon it. If not, make sure that continued engagement explicitly signals agreement.
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[00:00:00] Tracey: Welcome back to the podcast everyone. Thank you for joining me for another episode. I wanna talk to you today about a favorite theme of mine, which is front and center at this time of year, and that is the power of the pause slowing down.
[00:00:34] I'm recording this just before Easter, which means you'll be listening to this just after Easter, and I don't know about you, but we've hit quarter two for the year. It's been such a rapid start to the year for so many business owners, including myself, and one of the things I always love about the Easter period is that it offers us an opportunity to slow down, to reflect, to look after ourselves,
[00:01:04] to really reconsider how the year has started and whether it's in alignment for us both on a personal and a business perspective. There just doesn't seem to be the pressure around Easter that there is at Christmas, and I know Christmas is lovely and we all love Christmas and me included, but there's so much intensity and expectation on us that I just don't feel at Easter and several of the business owners I've been speaking to share that view and it's just lovely.
[00:01:30] One of my favorite topics around this time of year is the power of the pause, and I've been having this conversation a lot with my clients and new clients too, and it's really front and center in my mind at the moment because I'm working on.
[00:01:45] Content delivery for a new initiative, a mentoring initiative that I launched with my very good friend and business coach, Emma McQueen. We launched that just before International Women's Day, a mentoring program for women in business that we're going to run several [00:02:00] times a year. And I.Our first session with our fabulous women is next week, so around the time you'll be listening to this, and so I've been deep in considering how it is I want to deliver that and the impact I want that to make and what I want the women to get out of it.
[00:02:16] It all starts with the question around what does success look like, and that's why I wanted to dive on and share this episode with you because the power of the pause at this time of year, whether it's before Easter or after Easter, or just sometime in April, which is a great time to pause, reflect on quarter one.
[00:02:36] How did it go? Where are we at? What's the plan for moving through quarter two and quarter three into quarter four? Strength and clarity. And the first part of that is, well, what does success look like? And I know that that seems to be a very generic motherhood question almost, but it's just so powerful because we need to think about it from a business perspective and a personal perspective what does success look like?
[00:03:02] And I've talked about my version of success in my business and my personal life. I've talked about that on the podcast previously. It's not set and forget success for us as business owners, as parents, as husbands and wives, and doing all the things success needs attention. It needs to be constantly revisited, recalibrated adjusted, redirected, whatever it needs to stay on track for us to be working towards our version of success.
[00:03:30] So. I'm gonna take you through the questions that I've been working through myself personally and that I've been talking to some of my clients about, to help us identify whether we are on track to work towards, our version of success. Are we on track?
[00:03:47] What do we need to tweak? What do we need to change? And as always, I have a lens of. Strategy and legal and prevention being better than cure in my questions. That's just [00:04:00] the way my brain works. It's what I do, It's even underpinned in the discussions that I have with my husband so often.
[00:04:06] I can't help it. It's just the way that it is. So let's dive in. The first question that I genuinely think is worth asking at this time is, am I doing the work I love? I'm doing the projects I love. An extension of that is, and is it profitable? the reason this is important, and I have been spending a lot of time on this myself in my business, is
[00:04:30] Sometimes I accept instructions from people because I feel like I should help them because I can. But it's not work that lights me up and.When I ask myself this question, am I doing the work I love? Am I doing the projects I love? It needs to be okay for me to have clarity around what that is and what that isn't.
[00:04:50] And if someone reaches out to me and the work that they're asking for support on is not the work aligned with my business that I wanna be doing. I can do them a fabulous service by connecting them with somebody that can help them with that joy and passion, with that fire, if you like. That's just not present.
[00:05:10] When we take work on that we don't love. The next question we really need to be considering because we're running businesses is, is it profitable? So it's all well and good to be doing all the things that we love, but if it's not gonna be profitable, there's no long-term sustainability in that. And I'm all about working with people to build long-term sustainable businesses.
[00:05:29] When I ask my clients, when they reach out to me to update their legals, the question I ask is, well, what's the direction you wanna go here? Who do you want to be working for? And what I find is a lot of newer businesses take on every piece of work at the beginning.
[00:05:44] Everyone does it. I did it when I started this business. We take on everything we say yes to everything and see where it lands because it's a relatively new business. We need clients, we need revenue. We take it all on. But there comes a point in time, and [00:06:00] this is the majority of clients I work with, the more established businesses.
[00:06:03] There comes a point in time where it's an opportunity to pause and reflect and ask. Now we're an established business. We're not a new business anymore. Let's have a look at where our work is coming from. Let's have a look at what the projects are. Let's have a look at profitability.
[00:06:19] Now is the time to do that. And like I said at the beginning, having clarity around what success looks like for us is the first step, but it's not set and forget and it changes. So we need to revisit it constantly to check in and see what is the direction we're going? Is this the right direction for us?
[00:06:37] What needs to be realigned? And I find that it's just so insightful to be able to pause and think about, huh. Am I really loving what I'm doing and why not? If I'm not, if I'm not, why not?What do I need to say no to? Let's look at profitability. Is this working? So that's where we start. The second question is, once you've got that clarity on.
[00:06:58] Who you want to be working with. And in fact, the answer could be yes, all the work I'm doing, Tracy is exactly the work I want to be doing and it's profitable and I'm so happy. So the second question revolves around the client agreements. when did I review my client agreements last?
[00:07:12] Do they need to be updated? Do they represent the way I work now? Like all things businesses evolve and grow and things change. So do your client agreements or any contract in your business.
[00:07:25] In fact, independent contractor agreements, employment agreements. The point is, do the legals reflect where you're at with your team, with your clients, with your contractors, with your suppliers? Are they an accurate reflection? Are they where they need to be? And if they're not, it's time to make that calendar entry to have a conversation with your business lawyer.
[00:07:44] And if you don't have one, you're welcome to reach out to me. But it's time to have a conversation around what do we need to do to update, to bring this in line with the direction that we're headed. So that's the second thing. The third question I ask is, is the business's profitability where it needs to be?
[00:07:58] And this is [00:08:00] such a fabulous exercise, and I do this often in my own business. First of all, look at pricing. Is it reflective of the value that you're bringing? Is it where it needs to be? And the second thing to look at obviously, is expenses.
[00:08:11] When you review your expenses, is there anything that you can identify that needs adjusting? The biggest one I love working through is the subscriptions, and I think that's all of us. Some business owners I talk to loathe the thought of diving into review their subscriptions because they're going to be horrified just how quickly it adds up.
[00:08:29] And yes, um, that's right. But a good bookkeeper and my very trusty bookkeeping team They always say visibility is key. So you need to open your eyes and have a look. You can't stick your head in the sand.
[00:08:42] It's not going to help you. So taking a moment to pause and just have a look at the revenue and the pricing. Is it reflective? Does it need to be adjusted? That's the first thing. But the second thing, obviously, when it comes to profitability is our expenses. Are there any silent expenses sitting there that we just haven't paid attention to for a while and we can't even remember what they're for?
[00:09:04] I'll put my hand up. That's me. I do that. It's not uncommon for me to come across something. Oh gosh, don't even remember signing up for that. Better get onto that. And it's something that my bookkeeper encourages me to. Review regularly so that there are no surprises, and so there's no wastage in there. So when we're doing this reflection piece, this pausing to reflect, I'm not suggesting that you spend any more than say 30 minutes on this unless you need to deep dive into bigger holistic.
[00:09:31] Thoughts in relation to the business' direction, but for thisis the profitability where it needs to be? It should be, a quick answer, yes or no. Dive into your zero file if that's what you use or QuickBooks. And take a look and see. You'll be able to identify fairly quickly whether things need to be,
[00:09:47] Adjusted at all. The fourth question that I encourage you to ask, and this one is really good Because I'm always surprised by the number of people that say, oh gosh, yes, that's me. And it's, have you documented all of your [00:10:00] handshake agreements with your collaborators, with your contractors, with whoever you are working with clients?
[00:10:07] You know, we are busy, people are time pressed, and so yes, I'll do that for you. Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's do it. And then for whatever reason, we just don't seem to find the time to come back to firm it up in documentation. So a really important quick question for you right now is have you documented all your handshake agreements?
[00:10:25] If you haven't calendar entry time to take care of that. And the last question, less exciting, I think less sexy, but really important is have you got policies in place for the biggest risks in your industry? what I mean by that is where are you exposed in your industry, in your business, what is really important that you have documented by way of a policy?
[00:10:48] So everybody knows the process, and the biggest one that I'm talking to people about at the moment is cybersecurity. And I'm having the conversation a lot where people are asking, should I take out cyber insurance? Should I talk to a broker? What do I do? my contractor agreements need to be updated, Tracy, because we don't.
[00:11:05] Have cyber security requirements in there. We don't have anything in there, which requires our contractors to treat information in a certain way, not to save it to their desktop, not to save it to their home system, to only do things the way we need it done. So cyber security, it's probably something that everybody listening to this would be nodding along, thinking, yes, that's me.
[00:11:26] I need to reach out and have a conversation about that. Cybersecurity is big, so it's not going away. These risks in cyber are not going away. So it is something that I think we should all be addressing, turning our mind to what is our cybersecurity policy? How do we reduce and manage our risk? And have we conveyed that to our team?
[00:11:48] Does it make its way into our contractor agreements? They're the big ones in relation to cyber. There are other policies that your business will need and that will depend on what your business [00:12:00] does, how it runs, how it's structured, who you've got in your team and what your industry is. But you'll know right now as I'm talking about this, and as you're listening, what the risks are in your industry, and have you got them covered?
[00:12:13] if cyber is something that you are thinking, oh yes, I'm gonna put that in the too hard basket and come back to it later. Stay tuned because I'm working on something. At the moment, which goes to addressing this cybersecurity and policy issue, and I will keep you updated in a little while, but I'm working on a solution for all small business owners to make it really easy to get that one ticked off.
[00:12:35] So stay tuned more on that in an episode or two. So there you have it in my short and sharp episode today, which I'm hoping inspires you in some way or another to take a moment. sometime soon, to pause and reflect and ask yourself the questions that I think are such powerful questions. And with little changes, we can really move the needle in our business and. Increase the trajectory of the business moving through quarter two and into quarter three and four.
[00:13:05] The questions are, am I doing the work I love? Is it profitable? When did I last review my client agreements or contracts for that matter? Does anything need updating? Is the business profitability where it needs to be? have a look at your revenue and have a look at your expenses.
[00:13:23] Have I documented all handshake agreements with collaborators, suppliers, partners, clients, whoever. And the last one is, do I have policies in place for the three biggest risk areas in my industry. As with all episodes in this season of the podcast, I have two client questions to answer for you.
[00:13:41] first is short and sharp. Does a contract need to be signed to be legally binding? The answer is no, it doesn't, but it does depend on. What type of contract it is. If we're talking general client contracts that I talk about here all the time, your T's and C's and things like that, then no, that doesn't need to be signed.
[00:13:58] It comes down to the wording [00:14:00] you include when you send it to the client. That needs to be right. But if we're talking contracts for buying or selling land and contracts that are regulated by legislation, those types of things will need to be signed. For our purposes, Ts and Cs with clients, proposals, scope of works, things like that.
[00:14:18] It doesn't need to be signed, but we do need to get the wording right if we want it to be legally binding once the other party accepts. And the second, very excellent question is if you are a business that sends out client renewal letters every year. Does your client need to sign the renewal letter to indicate acceptance, or is it enough if they continue to give you instructions and continue to pay your invoices?
[00:14:44] Great question. The answer is, it depends on the wording you include when you're sending out your renewal letter. The rule of thumb, if you ask for a signature, you must get a signature. It's not okay to ask for a signature, and then the person doesn't sign, but they say, yeah, that's agreed, and they keep giving you instructions.
[00:15:04] That's still not good enough because you've asked for the signature. Get the signature. You don't wanna be exposed to a tricky situation later where the client says, well, I didn't sign it because I didn't agree to all of it. So you wanna just remove that risk. That's the first thing.
[00:15:18] If you ask for a signature, get a signature. But if you don't require a signature, you need to make it really plain that by continuing to give you instructions after they've received the renewal letter, that that will be treated as their agreement to the terms of the renewal.
[00:15:35] So the devil's in the detail with all of these things, but that's the answer to those two questions. If you have questions that you would like me to answer on the podcast, please feel free to reach out and share those. I would love to hear from you. [00:16:00]
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