00:00
Andrea Nordling
What if I told you there are only three things that you need to make consistent money as a holistic nutritionist? But most people are over complicating all three of these things. In this video you’re going to meet Debbie, who’s burning out doing everything in her business and not getting the results she wants. And you’re going to meet Courtney, who does a lot less, but she makes a lot more. And you’re going to see exactly how each of these three parts of the simple profit formula plays out in real businesses. And, and by the end you’re going to know if you’re missing any of these three parts, which is super critical because if you’re missing even one of these from the three part formula, you are working way harder than you need to. So let’s fix that.
00:35
Andrea Nordling
So let’s get into the three part profit formula. To illustrate the formula, I’m going to introduce you to Doubtful diy. Debbie. Debbie. Oh, she is not making money consistently in her practice. She’s a holistic nutritionist. She really deeply wants to be working with clients and helping them and she sees the big picture of what is possible in her business and she is so excited about it. So excited in fact, that she does all of the things and she goes in 1 million directions and she’s throwing so much spaghetti at the wall and she’s very frustrated because she’s not making money consistently. She’s always overwhelmed because she has so many good ideas and she knows that they’re good ideas and she knows that she’s such a capable, competent person and that she can do all of the things.
01:21
Andrea Nordling
She has lots of evidence for that in her life. And so her business is no different. Right? So she tackles all of the big projects, she go in head first and as a result she’s super overwhelmed. She also has a lot of drama about making decisions in her business. Okay, so she does take action. She jumps in. But she is second guessing, oh my gosh, do I have the right niche? Is it, Should I have no niche? Should I have a niche? Should it be a more tight niche? Is it specific enough? Is it not? She’s always vacillating back and forth, has a lot of indecision around that. She also has a lot of indecision around her pricing her offer, what she should be selling to people. Is it a 12 week one one? Is it a group program for six weeks?
01:59
Andrea Nordling
Is it an online course? Should it be a membership? She has a lot of indecision around all of these ways that she could help people because she knows that the, like, the time is now to do any of these things and that she could do all of it. So she has a lot of indecision there. All right? Hence, doubtful. Okay. Because she’s like, oh, what should I choose? What should I do? Does any of this sound familiar, by the way? All right. Debbie is not following a process. She is a DIY disaster. Why do I say that? Because she is trying to start everything from scratch. She’s trying to reinvent the wheel on everything she does in her business. And the reason for that is because she has had success with that in other areas of her life. She’s a figure outer. She is.
02:38
Andrea Nordling
And so she thinks, well, business is no different. I’m going to get in there and I’m going to figure it out myself and I’m going to DIY the heck out of this. And so it’s hard for her. Hence why she is overwhelmed. She really feels like after months and like, bordering on years of doing this in her business, she feels like finding clients is hard. And I have finding clients in quotes because Debbie feels like she is a hunter. She feels like she has to be out hunting for these clients. She has to be finding them. She has to be seeking them out. She has to be convincing them to work with her. And that feels like a lot of work. And she tells herself that is hard. Finding paying clients is hard.
03:12
Andrea Nordling
She has a lot of thoughts and a lot of stories that she tells herself about how people don’t really want to pay for help. They just want to pick her brain for free. And that’s why find pain. Finding pain clients is hard. She’s really in a hurry to prove herself. Okay. Because she has had success in other areas of her life. She’s like, I got to do the same thing here. And she is in a rush. All right? So she’s trying to do everything as fast as possible. She’s working really long hours. She’s trying to do all of the things at once. What’s the. What’s the phrase about? How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? Well, Debbie’s trying to eat the entire elephant in week one.
03:48
Andrea Nordling
And that means she’s hustling really, really hard because she wants the results in her business so that she can calm down and feel like she’s proved herself, like she’s successful and that she’s doing a good job. That’s very important. She really wants the shortcuts to do this because she’s in such a Hurry. All right, so she wants people to tell her, give me the scripts. Tell me exactly what to say. Tell me what’s worked for you. She’s really looking at other people. What social media posts have they sent? She wants to copy and paste because she wants the shortcuts. She wants to go faster. She just wants to get going all the way. Okay. She’s super, like, urgent. She’s very hustle. Can you feel my energy? This is Debbie. All right. Also takes one to no one.
04:25
Andrea Nordling
I’ve been Debbie many times, so I get that she is surrounded by other people that are struggling. This is a big thing you need to know about Debbie is that she’s spending a lot of time in. In free Facebook groups. And she’s trying because she’s trying to get other people shortcuts, right? So she’s like, well, what do you do? You go into groups of people and you ask them what’s working, and you get. You crowdsource. You get other people’s tactics and strategies. And the bottom line is this. People that are successful in their business are not hanging out in free Facebook groups. Therefore, the people that Debbie is getting feedback from and that she’s commiserating with basically about their business and how finding clients is hard and people don’t actually want to pay for help.
05:01
Andrea Nordling
And all of these stories that she has, she’s finding in these groups of people that are struggling because she’s surrounded by other practitioners that are struggling, and that’s just because of the proximity where she’s put herself. Right. She doesn’t realize it. People have the best of intentions. Of course, they’re trying to help each other, but really, by default, because of where she is in these free Facebook groups, she’s finding a lot of people that are struggling. Successful people aren’t hanging out in those groups. They’re busy working. They’re working with clients. They’re not spending time in there. Okay? So she’s really nervous to invest in her business because she feels like it has to work first. She’s like, I got to get some traction. I got to get some momentum. I got to prove to myself. Remember, she’s very anxious to prove herself to herself.
05:41
Andrea Nordling
So she’s like, I got to do that first before I put more money into this. She’s already spent a lot of money on certifications. She’s got all of the letters behind her name. Okay? She knows how to help the people. She has so many advanced certifications. She’s very well qualified because that is her familiar zone. That’s where she loves to spend time. It’s like, how do I have all of the tools to help all of the people? She’s got all of them. But investing in her business feels very different. Okay? So she’s not doing that. She’s like, I got to see some success first before I can invest money into this.
06:09
Andrea Nordling
Now, the irony is she’s already investing so much time and so much effort in her business that putting a little money into it and actually making the process easy for herself would be a great investment. But she doesn’t see that, right? Because she’s a DIYer and she’s doubtful. And we love her and we love Debbie, but she’s making this way harder than it needs to be. Then we have Courtney. All right? Courtney is making money consistently. Courtney has the exact same certification as Debbie, by the way. They were colleagues in the same certification program. They have exactly the same credentials. And Courtney is getting after it, all right? She’s working well. So is Debbie. To be fair, so is Debbie. But they have different priorities, and they’re spending their time in different places, which shall become clear. So Courtney is thinking simplicity and focus.
06:55
Andrea Nordling
This is what I have to do, okay? This is top of mind for her. She’s like, I gotta keep it simple, and I just have to focus, and I don’t need to do it all today, but I have to do a few very important things on a daily and weekly basis. And that’s what she does. And she keeps her focus, and she’s not throwing all the spaghetti at the wall. That is not what Courtney is doing. And as a result, she feels calm, whereas Debbie is super overwhelmed because she has all of the ideas and she has all of the inputs coming in, and she’s trying to do all of it at once and eat the whole elephant. Courtney’s not doing that. She’s showing constraint. She’s giving her brain a break. She feels calm, okay? And you know what happens when you do that?
07:29
Andrea Nordling
You have more clients. You get better results, which will also become clear. So Courtney is coachable. She’s willing to question her own ideas. Here’s a big thing you need to know about Courtney is that she loves personal development. She absolutely loves it. She loves questioning her own brain and her own beliefs, and she loves seeing, oh, my goodness, this is why I do these habits, and I don’t do these, and this is what I can change. And she’s, like, in personal development heaven. She loves that. So she’s coachable, and she’s willing to question herself. And when she’s not getting the results that she wants in her business, she is willing to question why that is and how she’s creating that result, which means that she can change those beliefs and she can change those habits and she gets better results faster. Okay?
08:13
Andrea Nordling
She does not have a niche, by the way. She just works with the humans. If anybody comes to her and she can help them, she confidently says, I can help you, and she helps them. And in the future, she’s going to have a group program and she is going to solidify a little bit tighter niche. But right now, it’s working for her not to have a niche, and she doesn’t have any drama about it. Whereas Debbie is constantly looping on, oh, my goodness, do I not have enough clients because I don’t have the right niche? Should I change my niche? Should it be more specific niche? Should it be less specific? And she’s always vacillating on all those decisions.
08:44
Andrea Nordling
Courtney just decided, nope, for right now, I don’t have a niche, and I’m not going to second guess, and it’s not a big deal, okay? So she has no drama about it. Again, calm. And she is also different than Debbie in the sense that she makes strategic business investments so that her business is sustainable. Okay? She’s not afraid to put a little money into her business so that she has processes and so that she has frameworks to follow to make it easier on herself. She does not want to reinvent the wheel. She does not want to DIY everything. She just wants a process that works and she’s going to make it her own, and she’s going to put a little money behind that, which makes her feel a lot better. It also makes her feel a lot more confident.
09:19
Andrea Nordling
Something you should know about Courtney is that she laughs at herself a lot, and there’s a lot of things that flop, okay? And she laughs about it. And she isn’t so attached to making everything perfect, to proving to herself that she is successful. She is. She’s detached from that. Like, I have my business and I have me as a human, and one of them doesn’t have to prove that the other can exist. She’s. She’s. She’s very. Just confident is the word here. She’s confident about that, okay? And so she’s like, you know, I know a lot of stuff that I’m doing in this business is not working and is not going to work, and that’s just the way it is.
09:54
Andrea Nordling
And I’m going to laugh when I have these failures and I’m going to laugh when conversations don’t go the way that I wanted them to, and I’m going to laugh when I do a video and there’s no sound or whatever it is. And she’s willing to just kind of laugh at herself and not take things so seriously. And when she doesn’t take it as seriously as Debbie does, she has a lot more fun. She’s not having so much pressure. Whereas Debbie feels like this is do or die, Courtney does not. Courtney gets good results. Like, don’t. Don’t get me wrong. She’s serious about her business, but also she gives herself a lot of grace. Okay? She also surrounds herself with successful peers. She’s not hanging out in free Facebook groups. She’s not.
10:31
Andrea Nordling
She is putting herself intentionally into rooms with people that are successful that she can learn from. She takes it very seriously that you are the sum of the five people that you surround yourself with or whatever that quote is. I think that we all know that quote. And so she’s like, perfect. I’m going to get into a room of people that are successful. I’m going to learn from them. All right. Great strategy, by the way. Very different than Debbie’s, though. And she knows that uncertainty is okay. Here’s something you need to know about Courtney. She is all right not having all of the answers. Where Debbie is really in a hurry to make herself feel like she has it all figured out and to map out the next five years and to know she’s doing everything right and that she has a plan, plan.
11:13
Andrea Nordling
Courtney’s like, I’m okay being a little bit uncertain. I think that’s part of the deal when you’re a business owner. I just think it’s part of it. And it’s not my favorite feeling, but I don’t think I’m going to die if I’m uncertain, so it’s okay. Which also translates to her clients having way better results, by the way, because she models that it’s okay to be uncertain. She models that it’s okay to not have all the answers and to not have the exact plan figured out, because it’s going to change along the way, and so they feel more calm. And we’ll get to that. On why Courtney’s clients get better results as well. All that to say, the clients are coming to her. All right? Debbie thinks I have to hunt for the clients. It’s hard. Getting clients is hard.
11:49
Andrea Nordling
Finding the clients is hard. Courtney is attracting the clients. They’re coming to her. Very different experience. Why Is that such a different experience, you might ask? Well, it’s because of this phenomenon that your clients will always be a mirror for your beliefs. That sounds really woo, doesn’t it? That sounds really energetic. And maybe it is, but I think it’s a little bit more tactical. I think it’s more. What’s the word I want to use? Tangible. I think it’s more tangible. And here’s why. Debbie attracts other Debbies and Courtney attracts other Courtneys because of the things that they say and that they don’t say. If they think, Debbie, I’m looking at you. If they think that getting clients is hard, they’re going to say things that make getting clients hard. They’re going to make it sound complicated. They’re going to.
12:39
Andrea Nordling
When people ask about their business, Debbie is going to say things that make their her business sound really complicated and hard because her thought is, this is hard. Then the clients that come to her have an expectation that it is hard, that it’s going to be hard for them too. So everybody’s ready for it to be really hard. No surprise that those clients of Debbie’s are going to mirror her beliefs. Courtney’s same thing. She thinks this is simple. It’s okay to be uncertain. It’s okay, we have a plan. But if the plan doesn’t go exactly according to plan because it never does, that’s also okay. And we can laugh at ourselves. And because Courtney believes that she says things such as, this is really going to be simple. Okay, this is very simple. And also I’m going to help you make a great plan.
13:20
Andrea Nordling
But the plan probably isn’t going to go according to plan because we know it never does. Ha ha. These are literally the things that Courtney says to her clients in her marketing and in her selling, which sets them up for success later because we know that the plan never goes according to plan. All right. So Debbie is super stressed about having the perfect plan and about how hard it is to follow the plan and that people don’t want to follow the plan. So she says things to that effect and attracts people that have that same belief and then they get that result. It is hard. You can see what I’m saying here. Very different experience for Courtney. So let’s get into our three parts here, starting with simple step number one.
13:59
Andrea Nordling
Because now that you can see where Courtney and Debbie have very different experiences in their business, we’re going to break down why that is. Because there’s a three part profit formula here that’s very simple. Starting with Number one, and that’s deciding. Step one is just to decide. You have to make some decisions and then you have to go act on them, which is step two. But first we have to make the decisions. And Courtney and Debbie approach this part of it very differently. When I say decide, we have micro decisions and we have macro decisions. By the way, in your business, here are some of the macro ones, some of the big ones. Do you have a niche or no niche? Do you have to just decide niche or no niche?
14:40
Andrea Nordling
I help anybody who comes to me or I help a very specific type of person solve a very specific problem. That’s what I mean by niche. Both of them work, by the way. There’s no right or wrong. The only wrong is not deciding. Courtney just decided. Debbie always is indecision about this, so she doesn’t really follow through with any of those decisions because she’s second guessing them and thinking, oh, I don’t know if this was the right one. I don’t know if this is the right one. You’ll see what I mean in a second. Another thing, decision that needs to happen is what to offer. What are you actually selling to people? This is huge. Okay. And then how are you pricing it? These are the big decisions that need to get made for all business owners.
15:18
Andrea Nordling
Debbie thinks that her success depends on making the right decisions. Okay. It has to be the right niche, like I said, has to be the right offer, has to be the right price. There’s a Goldilocks price in Debbie’s mind. There’s a Goldilocks offer. There’s it’s not too hot, it’s not too cold, it’s just right in the middle. And she’s constantly trying to crowdsource and figure out what is that. So she’s asking all of the people, what works for you? What works for you? What works for you? She gets so many inputs that she’s much more confused and it feeds the indecision because she’s trying to find the right one. And she thinks if I just do enough research, if I just ask enough people, I’ll get the right one. Right, right. Big air quotes. Can you see where I’m going with this?
15:58
Andrea Nordling
There is no right one. But Debbie thinks that there is. And she’s so scared of making the wrong decisions because she knows that’s going to put her further behind. And her constant thought is, I have to get this right so I don’t waste time. And ironically, she’s wasting so much time being an indecision okay, so how does this indecision show up for Debbie? Well, let’s go through. She’s not talking about her business and having a lot of conversations about it because, honestly, she hasn’t decided that she has one yet. She’s still getting ready to get ready. Okay. She’s like, oh, gosh, I got to do a little bit more before I really feel ready to talk about my business. Business. And she does sometimes, but then she backs off, and she’s in and she’s out.
16:36
Andrea Nordling
And you can tell by my body language, this is Debbie all the time. The open sign is on. Just kidding. It’s off. It’s on. Just kidding. It’s off. I have to get a few things situated first, and now it’s on. And she’s back and forth. So really very inconsistent here because she hasn’t decided, this is my business. I am open for business. Here is my offer. Here’s the type of person I work with, and here’s the price. Let’s go. She hasn’t really land it. Okay. She’s looking into her next certification program as a way to calm down her brain, because her thought is, you know what? If I just got this next certification, if I just had this advanced level next thing that I’ve been thinking about, then I would really feel ready. Then I would be able to do some more testing.
17:18
Andrea Nordling
Then I would be able to do whatever that is. Then I would feel much more ready to go. Help me. I would have a better offer. I would, you know, fill in the blank here on whatever the excuse is. And so she thinks that then she’s going to be qualified. That’s going to make her feel better to go talk about her business spoiler. It’s not. So what does she do? She reached. She researches to death. It feels very productive. But Debbie’s always in research mode, okay? She’s listening to all of the podcasts. She’s watching all of the YouTube videos. She’s reading books. She’s asking ChatGPT all of the questions. She’s in the feedback free Facebook groups researching with other peers on what they’re doing and what they’re not doing. And she has information overload all the time researching.
17:59
Andrea Nordling
And so she spends so much time getting. Getting more information. And that tells her, I’m in business, I’m doing the things because I’m spending time. So it calms down her brain to think, I am spending a lot of time. I’m being productive, really. She’s not being productive. We’re going to get to that in a second. But that’s what she’s doing, researching to death. As a result of all of this research, she has purchased programs. She’s purchased courses on making courses and making programs and making memberships. And she has. Those are half finished, hasn’t executed on them, but she has spent some time and money on some resources and has some half finished programs to execute some of these ideas.
18:36
Andrea Nordling
But then she goes back and researches something else and starts something else again because she hears about the next latest, greatest thing in these free Facebook groups where she’s at, you know, what’s happening here. She’s planning, planning. Always researching, always planning, always looking for more ideas. And again, she’s asking in those free groups, what do you think about this? Has anybody had any experience with this? And the way that she asked the questions and the group that she’s asking the question to gives her more confusion because people chime in with the best of intentions, but they’re not necessarily successful. And as a rule, they’re not successful. We’ll just leave it at that. So here’s why this doesn’t work. Because all of this research introduces more opinions and more options and more imposter syndrome and more confusion for Debbie. All right?
19:20
Andrea Nordling
So then she’s down more rabbit holes and she’s doing even more planning and more researching and buying more programs that she doesn’t execute on. And it feels very productive to Debbie because she’s spending so much time on it and she’s thinking about it so much, but it’s actually not producing the results that she wants in her business. So the solution here is to just decide. It’s just to decide. You can’t do it wrong. There’s no decision that you’re going to make that’s going to be wrong. But what you need to do is just decide and then make that right. This is what we always say. It’s like you make the decision and then you make that decision, right?
19:51
Andrea Nordling
Spend all of your time and all of your brain power making the decision right, Instead of wondering should I made a better decision or a different decision. We don’t do that. We just decide. We stick with it. And you realize you can’t do it wrong because your business is like cooking. It’s not like baking. What does that mean? Well, if you’re a cook, you know that there’s a little of this, a salt here. Adjust to taste, you know, more or less. And it’s subject to the chef’s taste, right? It’s cooking. There’s not necessarily a recipe that you have to follow. Baking, on the other hand, very specific recipe must be followed or you shall not get the results that you intended. Can you tell? I don’t like to bake? I do like to cook. I don’t like having so many rules.
20:35
Andrea Nordling
My husband just constantly reminds me, you need to follow the recipe if you’re baking. And I’m like, oh, who could be bothered, right? No. Well, lucky for us, your business is like cooking. It’s not like baking. You can adjust it, you can change it. You can always add more salt, basically, which means you can’t do it wrong. And indecision really is the only way to do it wrong. You’re failing in advance, which Debbie is soon to find out, which when you don’t make decisions because you then waste so much time. And remember, the irony here is that Debbie is so afraid of wasting time on the wrong decision that she spends months and years not making the decision. Which is a huge bummer, by the way, because there are so many people that want Debbie’s help. Now.
21:18
Andrea Nordling
Courtney does it differently, as you can imagine. She just decides, yep, she’s following a process. She’s not DIYing it. So she knows what decisions she needs to make and which ones she doesn’t even need to worry about right now because she’s following a process that frees up all of her bandwidth. She’s not ruminating on these decisions. She’s not second guessing them. She’s not. She’s just like, yep, okay, I’m following a process. These were the decisions I need to make, made them moving forward, going to go execute. Perfect. So in less than a week, she decided she’s not going to have a niche for now. She’s going to reevaluate that later. And she knows when she’s going to reevaluate it. But for right now, she’s not. She’s taking one one clients, working with them for six months at a time. She’s charging a premium price.
21:55
Andrea Nordling
She used math, by the way, to decide what her price is. She didn’t go into free Facebook groups and ask what other people are charging because they’re not making any money anyway. So she just used math. She had a process she was following for figuring out her price and now her brain is full of ideas for how to go get those clients to serve them better and to help all of the people. Instead of worrying about making the wrong decisions and just circling the drain there, her brain is full of Ideas on how to execute on the decisions that she made, which means she goes fast. She trusts herself to make the decisions right instead of thinking there is a right decision and a wrong one, and I hope I don’t pick the wrong one.
22:31
Andrea Nordling
She trusts herself to know what the right decision is and make it. Make it be. So it wasn’t right to begin with, but it’s the decision she made, so she’s going to make it right. The big picture results of this, by the way, is that Debbie’s people don’t commit. They’re shopping around. They’re scared to invest in their DIYers because, remember, your clients will always be a mirror of your beliefs because of the things that you say and that you don’t say to them. The actual words that come out of your mouth or the things that you don’t say that doesn’t come out of your mouth. So Debbie’s people are DIYers. They’re shopping around, they’re researching all the time. They’re planning, they’re planning. And then they’re thinking, maybe I made the wrong decision. And then they’re in and they’re out.
23:14
Andrea Nordling
And just like Debbie is in her business, and that’s how her people are. They are scared to commit. They are scared to invest. They want the DIY solution. They want to prove to themselves that they can, that they’re smart enough and that they’re capable enough to get the results first before they invest in getting the results, which doesn’t make any sense. Like, I’m going to go and I’m going to heal my gut so that I can prove to myself that I can hire you to heal my gut. Doesn’t make any sense. But that is what’s happening with Debbie’s clients, because that’s what’s happening to her. So those are the people that are attracted to her. Courtney, on the other hand, has a very different experience. Her clients are decisive, all right? They are sold before she even talks to them. They’re decisive.
23:51
Andrea Nordling
They know I don’t want a diy. I want to process, and I want you to help me. I’m willing to invest in this solution because I don’t want to waste time. I just want to get the results. And that is a decision that calm, confident Courtney inspires in her people because that is what she models in her business and in the way that she lives her life. Okay? So bottom line is this. When you keep step one simple, so will your clients just decide. You make a decision and you stick with it. Which leads us to the second part in the three part profit framework. This is simple. Step number two. Remember we had decide. And then step number two is you take imperfect action. Not perfect action, not. You take action when all the stars align. Nope, that’s not that way.
24:37
Andrea Nordling
It’s imperfect action. To nobody’s shock. Debbie does not like this, okay? She actually hates it because Debbie likes perfect. Welcome to the party, Debbie. Don’t we all. Again, takes one to no one. Debbie likes perfect case. She likes everything to be polished. She always wants to be prepared with her clients, with her business, she always wants to be prepared, okay? She wants to feel professional. These are all the things she tells herself. All right, well, yes, don’t we all have a preference for perfect and for being prepared? But the thing about Debbie is that she lets it stop her from taking action. Because if things aren’t perfect or if she doesn’t feel 100% prepared, she stops in her tracks. So that’s why that’s a problem. Debbie wants to know all of the answers, okay? And that makes her a really good practitioner.
25:23
Andrea Nordling
But as far as being a business owner, it slows her down considerably and actually stops her in her tracks. She wants to feel like she’s in the flow, and she waits for that. She uses this as an excuse sometimes she’s like, oh, I have to feel like I’m in alignment before I can take action. She wants to feel motivated. If she doesn’t feel innately motivated, then that is also a reason that she uses to step back. And she says things like, I’m not in the flow. And she uses her own energy against herself is what Debbie does. She thinks discomfort or uncertainty means to stop. We’ve talked about that a little bit. But it’s important to really belabor this point when she doesn’t feel 100% motivated and she doesn’t feel 100% confident, which is pretty much most of the time, she just stops.
26:05
Andrea Nordling
She freezes. She goes back and remakes a decision. She goes into research mode. She listens to some podcasts. She goes and she pulls up the website of that advanced certification once again that she’s been looking at, and she does things like that instead because she feels like if this isn’t exactly right, if I’m uncomfortable, if I’m putting myself out there, and that is giving me pause, I gotta stop. She doesn’t want anyone to see her fail. And that’s really the reason that this is happening. It’s really what it comes down to. She doesn’t want anyone to see her fail. She doesn’t want to fail. She doesn’t want to have anybody judging her whatsoever because she so harshly judges herself for any failures. And so this huge fear of failure is really stopping her from doing anything that isn’t perfect and from not feeling prepared.
26:50
Andrea Nordling
The spoiler here is that it’s never going to be perfect and we don’t usually feel prepared right away. So Debbie fills up her time with the safe stuff. Safe stuff. The passive action is what we call this. When you’re doing the passive actions, if you’re pulling a Debbie, you are not risking any judgment or failure because the actions are passive. Nobody is seeing them. It’s just happening behind the scenes. It’s setting up shop, it’s working on a website, it’s working on your brand colors and tweaking your logo for the one millionth time and researching domain names and cutesy brand names and a new name for a new program that you decided last week that you’re going to launch. Whatever that is. It’s the setting up shop. It’s trying to perfect your elevator speech, your one liner. People spend a lot of time on that.
27:36
Andrea Nordling
It’s setting up backend systems because you want to be prepared. Remember, Debbie wants to be very prepared. She wants it to be perfect, she wants it to be uber professional. She doesn’t have any clients really coming in, but she needs to feel like it’s going to be uber professional for them. So she’s spending a lot of time on this. Feels productive, but it’s very passive. How do we know it is not productive? Because nothing is produced. No clients are produced to speak of, no money is produced to speak of. So this is passive. Okay? She is researching more, she’s learning, she’s verifying, crowdsourcing, she’s planning, doing all the planning, validating, outlining, she’s engaging, whatever that means on social media. Very passive. Feels, feels like she’s putting in the time, feels like she’s doing the things, but really nothing is produced.
28:17
Andrea Nordling
No money, no clients, no data. We’ll get to that. Here’s why it doesn’t work. Debbie doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. Remember, she’s not getting any data, she’s not getting any feedback on what’s working and what isn’t working. Because she’s setting up shop in the background and she’s researching and she’s planning and she’s perfecting. She’s trying to think, plan her way to a profitable business is what she’s Trying to do it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. Oh, how we wish it did. Oh, how we wish it did. But sorry, Debbie, it doesn’t work. The solution is actually to make a profitable business. You can’t think your way there, you can’t plan your way there. You can’t canvo your way there. You have to make it happen. You have to get messy and you have to do that early. This is uncomfortable getting messy.
29:00
Andrea Nordling
Having things be imperfect, having them be a little unpolished and a little uncertain because you have never done it before or you haven’t done it that many times before feels messy. It does. But clarity comes from action. Clarity on how to make it not messy comes from doing it a little bit messy. And when you’re not ready at first so that you can figure out what to perfect and what to polish and what to change for next time, that’s the data that’s needed. Debbie’s not getting that data. Okay. So she doesn’t actually know what to fix and what to make better in her back end systems. She just knows she keeps making systems. Right. My grandpa used to say this, and I love this so much because it is so true in business, it is so true in life.
29:41
Andrea Nordling
I know it is so true. As a mother, I say things like this all the time, but he used to say, do something even if it’s wrong. Like, do something. Yes, thousand percent. Do something. Get some data. Okay. Courtney knows that a lot of things that she tries don’t get results right away, but she gets data on what those things are, which is what it’s all about. Courtney learns by doing. Okay. She’s taking massive action where Debbie is taking passive action. She’s setting up shop. She’s doing behind the scenes stuff that nobody can actually judge her on that she can’t really fail with. It’s not putting her out there amongst the rest of the herd where she could be subject to ridicule. No, no. She is just doing it all behind the scenes. Courtney’s doing it different. She’s taking massive action.
30:22
Andrea Nordling
She’s doing it before she feels ready. It is messy at first. Not necessarily messy to her clients, not necessarily messy to the world, but to her, she knows it is not the super perfected version that she sees in the future. And so to her, it feels a little messy. It also feels messy behind the scenes to not know exactly how everything is going to work, especially in the beginning of your business. But this shows up at every stage of growth in business. I’ve been in business for over 20 years in three different industries. And I know this to be true. Every level of growth feels messy at first. You’ve never done it before. You’ve never been at this stage. New level, new devil, right? So Courtney understands that.
30:58
Andrea Nordling
She knows it’s going to feel a little bit messy, but that’s okay because she’s making money, she’s getting clients, she’s selling consistently, and she’s most of all getting a lot of data on what’s working and what isn’t working. So she can do more of the stuff that works and less of the stuff that doesn’t. And it’s actually super simple. But she has to get that data. She’s got to get in there and roll up her sleeves and get messy and do it. So she’s writing emails, for example, to her email list of 19 people. She’s getting messy early. What is getting messy early mean? It means she’s getting some emails out there that probably aren’t that perfect. They’re probably not that great. But she’s doing it early with just 19 people so that she can get better at sending marketing emails, for example.
31:39
Andrea Nordling
Why do I use this specific example? Because I had 19 people on my email list when I started. I doubled down and I started writing emails for my holistic nutrition business. I distinctly remember there were 19 people on the list. And I decided I’m going to figure out how to get good at emails. And it’s a good thing that there’s only 19 people on the list right now, because I don’t think I’m very good at it right now. Now, I’ve written thousands of emails to hundreds of thousands of people by this point. But I had to get messy early. Courtney knows that. So the big picture results that are created here is that once again, Debbie’s people want perfect. They want perfect meal plans that they’re going to follow perfectly.
32:20
Andrea Nordling
If they have a cookie, they quit because it wasn’t perfect and they cannot handle it. It has to be perfect. They need to be perfect. Everything they do needs to be perfect. The plan needs to be perfect. The timing needs to be perfect. There can be no holidays coming up. There could be no birthdays. There could be no vacations. It’s not the perfect time to get started. These are the things they tell themselves because they expect everything to be perfect. And it’s no surprise because Debbie does too. So she talks about things in that way. She expects that from other people because that’s her experience. So it’s logical to her when somebody tells her, you know, Debbie, I would love to work with you, I think you could really help me.
32:57
Andrea Nordling
But I have three trips coming up over the next three months, so I can’t get started. I’m going to get back to you or when those vacations are over, because then I know I can really commit. That makes sense in Debbie’s brain because that’s how she feels. So she doesn’t question it. She doesn’t offer that there’s another scenario to that potential client where they could get started right now and feel amazing on those vacations. And that maybe, since we will always have vacations coming up in our life and we will always have social gatherings, wouldn’t it be incredible for you to know how to be successful when you have vacations that you’re on and when you have social gatherings? Because that’s what I’m going to teach you so that for the rest of your life you know how to handle that.
33:37
Andrea Nordling
Because there’s never going to be a time when you don’t have social gatherings on the calendar. Wouldn’t that be a better suggestion that Debbie could make, for example, in that moment? But she doesn’t because she believes, yes, there is a perfect time and this is not a perfect time for you. So she doesn’t give any alternative scenarios. Do you see what I mean about how the things that you actually say and don’t say are going to bring in the people that work with you or don’t work with you? Courtney’s experience is very similar. Her clients, they don’t wait until Monday, they don’t wait until three months from now. They get started, okay? And then they get results and they send lots of referrals to her because they’re getting results.
34:15
Andrea Nordling
Because from the very beginning, she didn’t set up the expectation that if they had a cookie, it was the end of the world. I’m not saying Debbie explicitly sets that expectation with her clients, but it’s kind of implied because of her perfectionism. Courtney doesn’t operate that way, though. And she doesn’t set those expectations. She doesn’t have those conversations. And therefore her clients don’t either. She keeps it really simple for them. They then keep it simple for themselves. They have more compliance, they have more results, they celebrate together. And because they are talking about these mind blowing results with all the people they know, they’re sending lots of referrals her way. So imperfect action breeds imperfect action in your clients. It’s a pretty good thing. Let’s talk about step number Three of the three part profit framework. You ready? Decide. Take imperfect action.
35:06
Andrea Nordling
Remember, do something even if it’s wrong. And then we’re going to evaluate. How will we know if it was wrong or if it was right? Well, we’re going to evaluate. Debbie does not evaluate, by the way. She assumes that nothing is working. Her default thought is just like, nothing is working. This is a disaster. I gotta start over. Gotta burn it all down and start over. And so because of that, she gets really overwhelmed and she avoids her business. She often will just ghost her business for a month because she’s super overwhelmed. And that’s just her word. And I’ve said it about 10 times in this whole teaching, because overwhelm, overwhelm is her default. That is, that is how she feels. That is her experience in her business is overwhelmed. She’s not evaluating anything. She just thinks nothing is working.
35:52
Andrea Nordling
Let’s start over from scratch. She also does a lot of compare and despair on social media, Instagram in particular. She’s watching her colleagues that are successful, that are out there taking imperfect action, by the way. And she thinks they know something I don’t know. She’s like, they have a shortcut. They’ve figured something out that I haven’t figured out. So she’s comparing herself to them. And then she feels very inadequate, like even more of a failure than she did before. And she makes excuses and she ghosts her business. And this is a cycle that happens over and over again. Then she gets back in the game and she’s like, no, I can do this. And she starts over from scratch with a new offer, with a new price, with a new marketing strategy, whatever that is. She starts over and the cycle repeats and repeats.
36:32
Andrea Nordling
So there’s lots of inconsistency, by the way. Her niche is constantly changing. Her offers are constantly changing. What she talks about, how she talks about it, her website, her, all of the things are very inconsistent. So the people that are paying attention are having whiplash. They don’t know what Debbie does or what she doesn’t do. It’s always changing. Her inconsistency makes them very inconsistent. They’re very confused. She’s confused about what the heck she’s doing, they’re confused about what the heck she’s doing. But her remedy to that is to just do more. Do, do, do, do. Take all the action, try to eat the whole elephant, get exhausted, ghost and start the process over and over again. And it always starts with more researching, by the way.
37:09
Andrea Nordling
So she always Feels like she’s at the beginning and she’s just throwing spaghetti at the wall because she is always at the beginning, she’s always starting over. The reason it doesn’t work is because of this. Ready? Remember, this is a three part process. Decide, take imperfect action and evaluate. But Debbie doesn’t do this part. She doesn’t evaluate because she’s in such a hurry, which is costing her a lot of time. But she’s in such a hurry, she’s like, I, I couldn’t possibly take time to evaluate. I couldn’t slow down for that again. Ask me how I know this, I oof. Left to my own devices, I’m not a good evaluator. I’ve had to change that over the years. So this is what Debbie does. She decides kind of she’s wishy washy on that. She takes action.
37:54
Andrea Nordling
Not a ton because she wants it all to be perfect and it’s not. So to no surprise, she doesn’t get a lot of results there. And instead of evaluating, she just goes back and makes a different decision, burns it all down, starts over, makes a different decision, takes some, then she goes down to the next step. She takes some half hearted action there, doesn’t get the results she wants, goes back, makes a different decision and the cycle continues, continues. It’s exhausting. That’s why she’s overwhelmed. The solution to that is to do this, decide, take imperfect action and then evaluate. And after the evaluation we don’t go back and make the decision over again. We go back and take different imperfect actions based on the data that we evaluated. What? We don’t go make the decision again?
38:43
Andrea Nordling
No, we don’t do that because that means you are always starting over. Courtney knows this. So she makes a decision once she takes action on it, she evaluates what isn’t working with that decision making and then she reevaluates the actions to take and takes different action. She does not remake the decision. Okay, this three step evaluation process that she follows in the third part of that works. She just has a process for how to evaluate. People are not taught how to evaluate. This is a skill. It’s actually a pretty simple skill, but it is one that most business owners I have found and I’m totally guilty of this. Like I said, if left to my own devices, it’s one that people don’t do because it seems frivolous. It’s like, oh, I’ll get to that later.
39:25
Andrea Nordling
Couldn’t possibly slow down if you’re a high achieving action taker. You don’t want to slow down to evaluate. I know that’s a story I’ve told myself many times, but that’s where the gold is. And it’s a process that works. When you evaluate, you get data that you can make better decisions with and take better actions with and not burn yourself out all the time, not feel overwhelmed in your business all the time. And then the magic is you teach this exact same process to your clients, they get better results, they don’t feel so overwhelmed. And you always have data coming in from your clients on what to do next with them. So whereas Debbie is so stressed about working with clients and not being able to help them, Courtney is not because she has a tried and true evaluation process.
40:04
Andrea Nordling
She always knows that she can be nimble in her process and figure out what to do next based on this evaluation that also works with her clients. Okay, so 80% of the results and anything come from 20% of the inputs. That’s what the 8020 principle is. Courtney knows this. She knows 20% of what I’m doing is getting me most of the results. I just got to figure out what this 20% is and do more of that. That’s what the evaluation process that she goes through helps her to decipher using actual data. So her brain is calm. She keeps it simple. She does not go back and make her decisions and change everything. She doesn’t have a new niche every day. She doesn’t have a new offer every day. She’s not selling something else and discounting it. She’s not. She does. She never discounts.
40:42
Andrea Nordling
By the way, something you should know about Courtney. She never discounts because that doesn’t work. Because money is usually not the reason that people don’t buy. So discounts don’t work anyway. So she doesn’t do that. Her motto is just, I’m going to tweak and repeat. I’m going to tweak and do it a little bit better and repeat what I did last time and I’m going to tweak it and make it a little bit better and I’m going to repeat it again. And that’s why she isn’t overwhelmed. Okay? She gets plenty of no’s. By the way, I needed to put this on here and tell you that Courtney’s business is not flawless, meaning she doesn’t hear yes all the time. Everything she tries is not like having fairy dust magic where she’s just blessed and it’s perfect. Not at all. She hears no a lot.
41:20
Andrea Nordling
She tries things and they don’t work. She tweaks it. She tries it again. They work a little bit better. She tries. You know what I’m saying? She gets the no’s, but she evaluates those nos so that she gets more yeses. And so more of the things that she does on a daily, weekly basis actually do get the results that she wants. But it’s not that it’s perfect. It’s not that she never has a cringy conversation or she doesn’t do something that totally fails, and she’s like, well, okay, then let’s evaluate that. No, that does happen. She just isn’t so hard on herself about it, okay? She’s never starting over. She’s not overwhelmed. Whereas Debbie changes her decisions instead of her approach, and she’s exhausted and she’s doubtful because of that. Courtney, she’s in personal development heaven.
42:02
Andrea Nordling
She has realized that being a business owner is the fastest track to personal development that anybody could ever have. It will bring up all of your insecurities that you’ve ever had, any doubts that you’ve ever had about yourself or your capabilities will all quickly come to the surface. And then you have the opportunity to deal with them and to address them and to question them a little bit. That is what personal development is. Courtney loves that. She also loves being able to model that for her clients because the same thing is happening to them when they embark on a health journey and they have big goals in their health that they are going after. There’s going to be uncertainty. There’s going to be some doubts that come up.
42:38
Andrea Nordling
There’s going to be some imposter syndrome that comes up, and she’s able to coach them through that because she’s in it herself. She has the tools, and she thinks it’s not a big deal. It’s actually pretty cool when you come out on the other side. She’s changing her brain and she’s changing her mindset, not her decisions. Big picture results that come from that, by the way, is that Debbie’s people start over with a new quick fix every single week, every single month, every year. They don’t have sustainable results. They think it is hard and complicated, and they make it hard and complicated to get their health results. And Debbie doesn’t do them any favors because she believes that is true. She thinks it is hard and complicated for her, for them.
43:15
Andrea Nordling
And so everything she says and doesn’t say reinforces that for all parties, which is a huge bummer because Courtney does it different. Her clients think that it’s simple and sustainable. They’re not overwhelmed because they have a tried and true three step evaluation process. And so what they do is they renew with Courtney. They keep paying her, they send her all of the referrals. They love working with her, they love how, yes, their health is changing, but also they are in personal development heaven right along with her. They’re learning things about their brain and their mindset and their habits and their patterns and their beliefs. They think it’s just the best thing that ever happened. So they send all the referrals her way. And they don’t think it’s hard and complicated because it isn’t. It actually is pretty simple. So poor Debbie. Doubtful. DIY Debbie.
44:00
Andrea Nordling
She thinks her business is hard. She makes it hard. She feels uncomfortable. And when she does, she stops. Which also means that when her clients feel uncomfortable and they stop, it makes sense to her. And she doesn’t push them on it, she doesn’t question them on it, and she doesn’t coach them out of it, because to her, that makes sense. Failing is her biggest fear, which also means that she lives in fear of her clients failing. It paralyzes her to think of somebody failing when they hire her. And that really keeps her from taking action because this is such a big fear of hers that she imagines that everybody else has the same fear and she doesn’t figure out how to work through it for her clients.
44:35
Andrea Nordling
She thinks that failure is unprofessional for her, by the way, this is a big word that comes up and it feels really. It’s how she dresses up this fear of saying it’s unprofessional. So it feels like it’s prudent, but really it’s just coming from fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of all the things. She’s in a hurry, but she wastes so much time because of trying to DIY and being in a hurry and looking for the shortcuts. And as a result, she attracts hard clients that quit instead of taking imperfect action and failing sometimes, which is so sad because that’s how we get results. So we take imperfect action and we fail sometimes. Courtney, though, she’s following the three simple steps.
45:14
Andrea Nordling
She really is on a micro level, on a day by day, case by case level, she’s making decisions, she’s taking a perfect action, she’s evaluating them. And on the big stuff in her business, she’s making decisions, taking a perfect action and evaluating. That’s what she’s doing. She just models it for her clients. It’s great. Her Business success does not define her success. She really has a good framework for separating the two. She’s not attached to getting a certain outcome in her business so that she feels a certain way about herself. She feels confident as Courtney. With or without her business success. She can separate the two. She’s detached the two. Whereas Debbie feels very attached to both of them being the same.
45:52
Andrea Nordling
So less pressure for Courtney when she realizes that her business success does not define her worth or her success as a human, and that gives her more balance. She’s constantly evaluating and tweaking what’s working, so it works even better. She’s also not afraid of discomfort. She thinks that’s just what happens when you’re learning something new and something worthwhile. It’s going to be uncomfortable. Of course it is. Anytime we do something new, we’re not going to know exactly what we’re doing. We’re uncertain. It’s just the way that it is. I always say it’s like riding a bike. You could watch podcasts or watch YouTube videos on riding a bike. You could listen to podcasts about riding a bike. You could read books about riding a bike. You could.
46:26
Andrea Nordling
You could ask everybody you know about their experience riding a bike and they could tell you all the things and you could learn all about bike riding. But you will still not know how to ride a bike until you sit in the seat and you start pedaling and you wobble and it. You have to figure out your balance. You have to actually pedal on the bike to learn how to ride a bike. You just can’t learn your way intellectually into bike riding. You have to actually do it. Courtney knows that’s true in her business. She’s realized, yep, sometimes it’s wobbly when we first start pedaling, but that’s just part of it. It doesn’t mean we stop. It means we just keep practicing. She also never talks about her business as a side hustle or a hobby. She does not demean it in that way.
47:00
Andrea Nordling
She has a business. She does, and she carries that with confidence. She follows a process for selling to her clients that are already searching for help. And she’s not working with people that want to diy. That isn’t who she calls in. She is not hunting for people. She’s not trying to find clients. Instead, she’s offering a solution to be people that already are looking for the solution. She’s confidently doing it and they are very happy to hire her. This is a really important distinction. She’s offering help and selling it to people that already want the help. So you can become Courtney with this three part profit framework yourself. You make decisions, you take your perfect action on them and you evaluate. Really is simple. That is it, my friend. You can start training your brain to follow this simple framework today.
47:48
Andrea Nordling
To make decisions, to take imperfect action on it and to evaluate. This is what we do in the profitable nutritionist program. In the link in the description you are going to see two things. First of all, you will see an opportunity to book a call where we can get on a short call together. We’ll talk about your business, we’ll talk about maybe the decisions that are being left unmade right now, the imperfect actions you aren’t taking, what to evaluate. We’re going to look at where you’re at right now, where your goal is for the next 12 months and then map out a plan to get there.
48:20
Andrea Nordling
If the profitable nutritionist program framework and everything that we have as far as support and coaching and guidance in the program would help you to get there, you will learn that on the call and we will tell you, hey, I think that this would be a great fit for you. We can definitely help you. Let’s go. And you can start the program immediately. We also have a link to just join the program. You don’t have to do a call if you don’t want to. We will link that up in the description as well so that you can just jump in and start today. Because right now you’re probably wondering what exact decisions do I need to make in my business and have I made them or are they left unmade? What imperfect actions should I be taking?
48:54
Andrea Nordling
We have an entire framework for that too. And how do I evaluate? How do I teach this evaluation process to my clients? Of course we teach you how to build that into your client delivery process and how to do this at scale and consistently and with the light heartedness of knowing that like you’re doing it with people that get what you’re doing and can help you and it isn’t always perfect and it does feel a little bit messy, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t getting results and that it isn’t worthwhile. So all that to say, we would love to support you in the program if you would be a good fit. How do we know if you’re a good fit? Well, you’re going to book a call so that link is in the description.
49:30
Andrea Nordling
All right, friend, I’ve made your dreams come true by showing you this three part profit formula and how calm Courtney is approaching it. How DIY Debbie is still stuck, and she’s overthinking and she’s overwhelmed. Hopefully this was very insightful for you. And you can, I’m sure, see how you are approaching your business as a little Debbie and a little Courtney, depending on the area. I want to just end this by saying, of course, we’re not just Debbie and we’re not just Courtney, and of course we can change, and we do change. And that’s also part of the personal development that comes up through being a business owner. So the question is, which one are you acting like the most? Primarily? Which one do you see yourself as? As Courtney or as Debbie? Now, my friend, after you get your strategy call booked, wink.
50:16
Andrea Nordling
Remember, link in the description. Check out this video next for the next critical piece of building your profitable wellness practice.
