In this episode, host Phylicia shares two of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make that prevent them from building sustainable businesses. She highlights the importance of having aligned strategies and operating the business with systems.

About Phylicia

Phylicia Pough, MBA is a wife, mom of 1 daughter and an entrepreneur. For over 10 years, Phylicia has been behind the scenes of businesses and ministries, keeping things organized. Her journey started in Administration and developed into Systems & Automation Consulting/Strategy. 

Her latest venture is The Mom CEO Suite which is a community for the modern day mom in business that curates experiences and safe spaces for mompreneurs. The Mom CEO Suite also automates business and podcasting processes for mompreneur service providers.

Connect with Phylicia

Facebook: Phylicia Pough

Instagram: @PhyliciaPough

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/phyliciapough/

Connect with The Mom CEO Suite

Website: themomceosuite.com

Instagram: @themomceosuite

Join The Mom CEO Suite Facebook Group

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You are now tuned in to the Mom c e O Suite

Podcast. I'm your host, Felicia wife,

mom, and entrepreneur. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my

mompreneur journey along with strategies that will help you build your

online business operations in a sustainable way.

The goal is to help you build a business that fits into your lifestyle as

a mom who values putting family first. We will also hear the

experiences and expertise of other moms with

service-based businesses. You'll get a peek into our journeys, so

you'll know that you are alone. Motherhood gets hard,

entrepreneurship gets hard, but together we can

do hard things. Welcome to this.

Hey friend, welcome to another episode today. We're talking about.

The biggest mistakes. That are preventing

entrepreneurs from building a sustainable business. So I really

have two major things that I want to share on this topic, but I'm going

to break each of them down before I do that. I want

to explain what I mean when I say a

sustainable business. One thing that you guys

can expect from me is that I'm going to give you a definition. I'm going

to break something down, just so we all can have the same understanding. When I'm

talking about a topic. When it comes to

sustainable, what does that really mean? Literally, if you

look it up, it means able to be upheld or able to

maintain. So when it comes to your

business, And we talk about building a sustainable

business. It's building it in a way that you, as the business owner

can upkeep that you can maintain. So do you

have marketing strategies? They are sustainable for

you. And this can look different from person to person and business

to business. What may be sustainable for one person may

not be sustainable for the next. There's a lot of

different factors, but think about you, your

personality. Your capacity. Your

desires, your lifestyle. And really

dig deep and explore what is

sustainable for you and your business.

Okay. Now, why is this topic important?

It's because if you do not build your business in a

sustainable way, you are going to experience burnout.

You're not going to be experiencing the freedom. That you truly

desire in business and you're going to struggle with showing

up. Showing up consistently And showing up in a

way that brings joy to not only yourself. But

also to the people that you are serving. And when we think about moms

in business, All of these things, burnout and struggling to

show up. Not experiencing freedom.

There's a little bit more at stake for moms in business, because

if we are burnt out because of our business, then that is going to translate

into our home lives and how we interact in care.

For our children. As well.

So let's get into these two things. These two

mistakes that I have seen that are preventing entrepreneurs from building a

sustainable business. Number one.

Is implementing strategies that are

not in alignment. With your personal values,

desires, and lifestyle. Okay. What

does this look like? In real life in real time.

So it may be that you are implementing strategies that

drain you. Right. Again, this

goes back to what is sustainable for you?

The internet is very noisy. And

everybody is going to have a different strategy and they're

going to promise that their strategy is it.

If you do this, you'll get that. Now just because

something worked for someone, it does not necessarily

mean that it will work for you. And the exact

same way. You have to take into

consideration. Your capacity. Your

personality. Your lifestyle. Your

desires. What brings you joy? You have to consider

all of those things when you are implementing strategies and your

business. And if you're implementing something that drains you.

That is going to, again, prevent you from. And

building something that is really sustainable and that you are going to be able

to upkeep. Now for me personally, I'll give an

example. Instagram. Had been draining for me.

I just did not like showing up on Instagram. I

love Instagram stories. But posting. On

Instagram and doing reels, it was draining for me. And so

that really prevented me from being able to show up.

consistently or even at all on that platform.

And so what I am actually in the process now of doing. Is

transitioning my profile. To a nine

grid profile. So instead of posting every

day, multiple times of day, My profile will be

static. And you'll be able to get information about me

and my business just from the nine posts. That are on my

profile. For me that is

sustainable. I cannot keep that. I can maintain

that. And it does not drain me.

Okay. What's another example.

Right. So the mistake is implementing strategies that are not in alignment with your

personal values Desires and lifestyles. Another

example of this is receiving coaching from someone who

was not in the same season of life issue. And

this is something that I have. Just recently

recognized the need for. And it's come up in a

couple of conversations that I've had, we're all moms here.

Right? And many of us, we have younger children.

Someone who was in a different season of motherhood. They may have more

time. Or it could even be that you are a work from

home mom. And someone else may send their child

to daycare or. Their child may be

in school. So they may have a little bit more time where they just don't

have. the same level of responsibilities

throughout the day as it relates to home life.

And so it can be very challenging when you are receiving

coaching from someone. Who was not in the same

season of life is you.

Because they may be giving you strategies again, not saying that their

strategies don't work. But it can create

some friction for you. Because you may get into this space where

you feel like. You're not able to keep up.

Or. They just don't understand where you are in

life. Having someone who understands where

you are. Who is just slightly

removed from where you are or. It's in the

same season as you. It can really help you And

knowing that they get it and it helps you just to be

more comfortable. And. Relatable to the

person that you are receiving coaching from, and you don't feel

like you're falling behind or they, you don't have the

capacity, which then can create those feelings

of. Feeling like you're not doing enough.

Or feeling like a failure. Or just all of these other things.

That stem from receiving coaching from someone who is

not in the same season of life, life issue. Now, I'm not

saying there aren't times where you shouldn't or you

can't, just take the information, there's a saying.

Take the meat spit out the bones, right? I'm not saying that you can't.

But I do believe that it can create a challenge.

When you're trying to keep up with someone. Who is not in the same season

of life issue. And

so again, all of these are just examples of mistakes.

Entrepreneurs make. Related to implementing

strategies that are not in alignment with their personal values,

desires, and lifestyle. Now, the next

mistake that I have seen is that entrepreneurs are operating their

businesses without systems.

Systems are so important to the sustainability

of your business. Now. This is how I

personally define the system. Think he T

P processes. Tools. And

people. All right. So your processes are literally the

step-by-step for how you do anything in your business. You

can think of this in terms of SLPs or standard operating

procedures. And then once you have your processes in

place, You can consider different tools that you can

use. Where you can implement automation

to. Assist with these processes. And then you

can also consider the people who are going to help you

implement these processes. Okay. So your system is

your processes, plus your tools. Kolas your people.

When you think about a system, your system really supports the life of

freedom that you desire. Where I would talk about

having freedom a lot here on the podcast. Your system

supports that. In the book. The E-Myth

by Michael Gerber. It's a great book.

Every entrepreneurship re it's literally my favorite business book.

But he says in the book, he says that. Your systems run the

business and then people run the systems. So your

system is literally just the blueprint. For how your

business operates. And systems give you

space to be creative. As the visionary

as the owner of the business, you want to be able to be creative.

You want to be able to stay in your zone of genius and your

systems. Give you the space to do that

because you are freeing up your brain capacity, right? So

you're not holding all of this information. In your

head. So how you send emails

or your process for your sales?

Or your process for how you onboard our client? Anything that you

do in your business? There should be some documented process for it.

And if it's documented, that means you no longer have to store it in your

brain. And now. You have freed up basing your

brain to be creative, to come up with new ideas.

Four programs and services or new

ideas for connecting with your ideal client

or new ideas for collaborations. You are not stuck

working in the business. You are able to work on the business.

Okay. And the foundation of that are

your processes. Are your SLPs.

This is the documentation. That allows

your business to operate. Without you. So God

forbid you got sick. Or let's just say you want it to go on

vacation for two weeks. Where's your business. Be able to continue to

operate without you. If you had SLPs.

Yes, it would. Because a stranger. The com.

I was going to say, come off the street, but we don't want strangers coming

off the street into our businesses. But somebody could

come in, look at your SLPs. See how you

do X, Y, and Z in your business and keep things going.

If that's all in your head. If you are storing all of that

information in your brain. It is weighing you

down. Your business can't operate

without you. And you will not experience

the freedom that you desire. Because everything is

reliant on you. And so what is the action step for today?

The first thing that I want you to do is think about all of the

strategies that you are implementing in your business. Marketing

sales client experience. Anything that you're

doing in your business and really consider and think

is this sustainable for me, according to my

personal values, my desires and my lifestyle. That's

the first thing. And then secondly, If you do not

have your processes documented, if you do not

have SLPs, I want you to

start thinking about. The different

processes in your business. And how you can begin to

document them. If you're needing support in this area, I look forward to

seeing you in our upcoming SOP sprint. Or

you can always email to find out what are the next best

steps for you? But hope this was helpful. See you in the

next episode. Thank you for listening to the Mom C e O

Suite Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, can you do us a

favor? Leave a review on iTunes and share with other

moms in business like you. Help us spread our message and empower

others who are at this intersection of motherhood and