From Plans to Pivots

Have you ever beat yourself up when things don’t play out like you planned? 

Oftentimes, we become so obsessed with our expectations, we feel disappointed or give up when things don’t go perfectly. Even though we logically know that life rarely goes as planned.

In today’s episode I’m sharing with you the behind the scenes of my life and business on how “plans” have evolved in little AND big ways over the last 6 months.  Fom selling our home in a difficult market, the surprising twist of merging two brands only to untangle them 6 months later, to the super specific tech decision I had to make this month (plus answering the big question about my surprise third pregnancy: was it planned?!)

Change isn’t easy and sometimes it’s downright scary! But when you learn to pivot and adapt with purpose, you’ll become even stronger.

Tune in for an episode packed with real-life experiences, actionable strategies and tips that will help you navigate life's unexpected twists (and of course I weave this into how to embrace unexpected challenges when speaking live). Ignite your hustle with a fresh perspective on the importance of flexibility in business and life!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What happens when you tend to get tied to an exact plan or become obsessed with your process 
• How can you be more flexible and embrace change not only in your business but also when it comes to speaking (hello tech snafus or unexpected disturbances)
• Reflection questions to help you cut the clutter and simplify things in your business
• Why your ability to make swift decision is more important than what you decide
• Plus exciting updates for what’s next with Team Heather Sager

Enjoyed this episode? You also might love: 

• Ep #187 - Hot Take: I Failed, Publicly and Here’s What I Learned
• Ep #161 - I launched a new business
• Ep #55 - How to handle tech surprises when virtually speaking
• Ep #44 - Make Fear Your Homeboy with Judi Holler

EPISODE  SHOW NOTES👇
https://heathersager.com/episode208/

Chapters

• 0:00 Embracing Flexibility in Business
• 10:37 Embracing Flexibility and Spontaneity in Business
• 16:18 Embracing Flexibility in Business and Planning
• 26:52 Flexibility in Business and Personal Life
• 36:05 Swift Decisions and Embracing Change
• 43:50 Utilizing Your Voice for Marketing Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Whatever it is in these scenarios that I described to you, it can be really emotional and frustrating and debilitating.

Speaker 1: 0:09

It can be flat-out freaking, annoying when things do not turn out the way you plan.

Speaker 1: 0:17

And today, what I want to do is have a conversation with you about embracing flexibility in your business and being committed to the outcome and the vision that you have, whether it's let's let go of the need for the plan to be right and be more focused on getting to that end outcome, which is what you're after in business, for you and for your audience, and for, potentially, the client who hired you.

Speaker 1: 0:44

If that's the case, this is the podcast for the entrepreneur who wants to make a big impact, who doesn't shy away from hard work but also wants to enjoy life along the way. Hi, I'm Heather Sager, former executive turned entrepreneur, and I've spent the last 20 years working with premium brands on sales, marketing and communication, and I've learned that when you become a magnet with your message, you only need a hint of hustle to achieve your goals. Get ready to be inspired and ignited each week with tangible strategies on sales, speaking, marketing and so much more. This is the Hint of Hustle podcast. Let's go Well. Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode. I cannot believe it is how we're having through summer Heck. I saw on Facebook this week people are starting back in school in Arizona, which reminds me that, you know, depending on where you live determines back to school time. Over here in Sager Farm Country we are doing great. We're going to do a little update around what's happening over here, but today's conversation is one I hadn't planned on recording, but I decided that this is something that we need to talk about because so often in business whether you're on stage as a speaker or you're facilitating a webinar or you are just executing on district business strategy a lot of times it can be really frustrating when things don't go according to plan.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Whether that's tech mishaps, whether that's someone not showing up or a client canceling on you or someone being disruptive in your room, or a piece of content that you thought was going to be easy to teach somehow became really sticky and your audience wasn't getting it. Maybe it's a in your business. You had really big plans for a launch of a new program or a new product and it flopped. Or you had these big dreams for having a social media schedule and it didn't quote, unquote work. The outcome wasn't there. There was a lot of effort without a lot of payoff. Whatever it is in these scenarios that I described to you, it can be really emotional and frustrating and debilitating. It can be, flat out, frickin' annoying when things do not turn out the way you planned.

Speaker 1: 3:43

And today what I want to do is have a conversation with you about embracing flexibility in your business and being committed to the outcome and the vision that you have. Whether it's the outcome of having a successful webinar, meaning people come and they have a great experience and also let you sell your program, or maybe it's doing a keynote on stage and wowing your client and really helping the audience have some ah-has. Whether that's a you rolling out a new shop online for your business to sell digital products, let's let go of the need for the plan to be right and be more focused on getting to that end outcome, which is what you're after in business, for you and for your audience and for, potentially, the client who hired you. If that's the case, I think so often where I see clients get frustrated also bring in a parenting reference here I see my kids get really frustrated when they have a picture in their mind of how they think things are going to go and it just doesn't. So, for example, towards the end of the year you all know we have had to sell our house in our old town that we lived in to move over to Bend, and part of that wonderful experience selling a house meant that I had to keep the motherfucking house clean for like six weeks while we were living into it, to be open house, ready to be showing, ready to be just ready at all times. And I don't know about you, but I am not a Instagrammable home decor person. My house is very lived in, like. I'm not obsessed with cleaning or decluttering or organization. I want my house to be, yes, clean, but I'm more like interested in having experiences at my home and enjoying my home with my family than spending my time obsessively putting things into copies. Just me All right Side tangent.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Anyways, in the spring we were probably I don't know three to four weeks into having our house in the market and, quite frankly, my husband and I were starting to get really annoyed that this was taking frigging forever. And there was this one day in particular that it was really really hot weather and our realtor had reached out, and for that day there were three showing requests. There was one at like nine o'clock in the morning, another one right around noon and another one at like three o'clock and I'm like mother fricking, seriously. All on the same day. I work from home. How the heck am I supposed to get anything done? So I'm like, whatever, we want to sell the house. We got to make it happen. So we went ahead and said yes, the night before the noon one canceled. So I'm like all right, that's annoying, I plan my day around it, but whatever.

Speaker 1: 6:35

So in the morning I worked, I think, from a coffee shop, but the afternoon one was going to be really tricky because it was at I don't know, say, 2.30 in the afternoon. Well, the tricky part was our oldest son got home from the bus at 2.20, which meant that we had to scoop him up and get the hell out of the house along with our two dogs. We have golden retrievers and we had to get the hell out to be ready. So that turnaround time was really intense. You're probably thinking like Heather, this is the most boring story ever. Where do we go with this? Well, when Owen, my oldest, gets home from school, he walks inside, drops off his stuff like he normally does, and he gets ready to go play with one of his friends and we're like no, no, we have to leave and I'll summarize the conversation for you. But if you have kids or you know an eight-year-old, eight-year-olds could be a little dramatic. Thank you for watching.

Speaker 1: 7:33

What escalated was a very, very frustrated child who. He had a picture in his mind around how the afternoon was gonna go. He's gonna come home. He was gonna grab a beef stick. He was gonna I don't know grab other stack in there. He was gonna head out and go bicycling. I don't know why. Did I say that, like kids don't say bicycling. But whatever, he was gonna ride his bike with his friend. They were gonna head over to the little mini mart thing and buy some warheads.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Like he had this whole plan mapped out in his head. Let's just for a moment realize that none of these things were actually approved, nor did he talk to mom and dad about it, and we had actually hadn't come up with the plan yet. But in his brain this was the plan and the fact that we were taking this plan away from him as a reality and saying we gotta leave. We wanted to go on a walk, we gotta leave. Let's like get out the door. We have literally five minutes to get out into that sweaty, fricking heat and get out so that someone might buy our house.

Speaker 1: 8:32

It was a very dramatic thing and later, when we reflected back on it, I'm like all right, well, we didn't really do a great job as parents managing expectations. I had planned to talk to him about it before the night before and before he went to school, but we did and at the end of the day I can be really fricking annoyed and be like just get with it, kid. But also we all know what it's like to have this picture in our head around what we want and then have someone else interject and create the plans or take our freedom of agency or our freedom of choice or whatever else, and things just change. We don't really love change, just in general, for human behavior. In fact, there's whole organizations and companies around organizational development focused on behavior change, like it's a huge function in HR.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Anyways, this whole idea that we expect one kids to just go with it but two as adults, we fricking hate it. More of the story. I'll just tell you my little annoyance with that whole experience wasn't the kid thing. He was awesome. We ended up on a long journey in a very hot heat. We made some stupid choices trying to go for a walk and then to go pick up the younger child, and we took the dogs and then we ended up safe way, and it was this whole thing. Anyways, the showing was like a total disaster. They literally were in and out of our house in four minutes. So this whole thing could have been avoided had we known that they were only there for a hot second. Not the point of the story, but screw those fricking people.

Speaker 1: 10:01

The thing I wanted to bring up is this whole point about being disappointed that things don't go according to the picture you have in your head is very, very normal. And while you might be thinking, okay, heather, that was an eight year old kid like do-be-do-be-do, what's that gonna do with me? I would bet that you probably create these images in your mind of how you want things to go in your life and your business. I mean, think about it. How do you have an upcoming webinar coming up, or maybe even have an idea for a reel or like on Instagram? Or you have a picture around how you want a workshop to go or how you want a conversation to go with another person.

Speaker 1: 10:37

We all are really good storytellers in our brain, visualizing what's going to happen. Now, some of us have unfortunate dramatic nightmare abilities where the picture we face is like the most dramatic, like destructive version possible because we worry a little too much. I'm trying not to do that anymore, but we do play these little mini movies in our mind, thinking about how things are going to go, and the reality is most often they do not go according to that picture. But when we're so obsessed with it going that certain way, we miss really beautiful opportunities. And that's what I wanna talk about today, which is being open to being flexible, being open to the experience, not the like tied to the exact process.

Speaker 1: 11:31

Now, for some of you, you might be cringing going, heather, I thrive on having a plan. I need to know what's coming, I need to know exactly how this is gonna play out. And to that I tell you, friend, it doesn't matter how much control you think you have, shit's gonna happen. Something is gonna happen and go sideways and your plans are going to be disrupted. Even the most perfectly executed plans, they have flops, they have unexpected things that happen. I think you would agree to that. But so I think in business, what I want you really thinking about is you embrace this next season in your business, really getting clear around? Where are you holding on a little too tight, needing to keep control around what happens next. Maybe that, for you, comes into your revenue. Do you have a chokehold on? I'm not making enough money so I need this whole thing to play out. This launch has to go so perfectly, or I don't know. Do you have this exact thing in your brain of exactly how it needs to happen for it to be successful? Is there opportunity for you to be a little bit more open, a little bit more flexible around what it'll take to get there?

Speaker 1: 12:41

Now, as a speaker, as someone who teaches speakers, my specialty is really facilitating great workshops, facilitating groups, whether that's through a training, like in an actual training, but facilitating the learning in that training, whether that's doing keynotes with Q and as I'm really really good at facilitation and essentially my definition of what I define to fill a facilitation as facilitation is different than just being a presenter or a speaker. Facilitation is really bringing your audience along in the process and embracing their questions, embracing their experience to create a custom experience with the people in the room and it's actually a very it's a finessed skill. Now, back in the day, when I was teaching a lot of corporate workshops well, actually before that, how I really got my start into speaking a lot of it was emceeing events. Now, emceeing which was like welcome to the event, here's where the bathrooms are, here's when we're gonna eat lunch, like that was kind of my role. But a combination of like my job as a facilitator or as a emcee was to ensure that people in the room had what they needed to feel comfortable, to be able to be fully present and not be thinking about, oh my gosh, where do I go next, or when am I gonna get coffee, or who do I go for this, like, when we have all these questions consuming our mind, we're not able to be fully present. So, fast forward.

Speaker 1: 14:11

When I became a speaker, when I started facilitating more live trainings, seminars, two week boot camps, live in person, I was just doing a lot of in-person and virtual, but primarily in person speaking, and what I realized was the more and more I did, the more comfortable and confident I got with facilitation. You see, one of the challenges that I see a lot of people have when it comes to speaking or overall being an instructor, a trainer, a presenter, is we fear what people think about us, what their objections might be. We fear what they might be thinking about our content and there is a level of desire to prove to the audience that what we're teaching is the right or that we are qualified or credible and should be the one teaching it. And I think any experienced facilitator, trainer or speaker would tell you that the best speakers are also the most humble, that they allow space for spontaneity in their presentations. In fact, one of my favorite speakers her name is Judy. She teaches improv. She was actually on the show a couple of years ago, but she literally teaches improv and the ability to allow improvisation in your life playing with fear, playing with conversations, allowing the unexpected and treating as an opportunity for what to do next. I think we can all benefit a little bit more of that spontaneity.

Speaker 1: 15:50

Now. I wanted to make this relevant to business. I also want to share with you around how I'm embracing flexibility and change right now in this season in business. So I'm going to share with you just a couple insider things around what's been going on in my life in business and what's coming down the pike, as they say. But what I for you, what I want you to think about is this is really applicable on twofold. So one, I want you to start thinking about how you can embrace a little bit more spontaneity when you speak.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Now, when you first start doing guest speaking, or if you are delivering a relatively new topic, you want to keep the spontaneity to like a specific thing. So, for example, does not mean that you just overall be like what questions do you have? What are you thinking? You don't just throw out random open into questions to your audience. You make them specific, especially the less experienced. You are facilitating in a group, right, so be more specific with your questions. So, like, point it down laser, ask some questions of your audience in one specific section of your talk. Or, if you're going to answer questions at the end, make those questions relevant to the specific topic or a section of your talk that you talked about. Make your questions clear and you will get better questions from your audience. So that's one thing.

Speaker 1: 17:07

I just wanted to open up this idea of embracing flexibility in your presentations. But I also want to challenge you to embrace a little bit more flexibility when how you're running your business. So is there anything right now where processes or plans that you previously put in place that was a lot of peace plans you previously put in place in your business. Are you feeling stressed out by those plans? Do you find yourself ignoring the plans you put in place? Gosh, this is like lots of peace happening, but you're, you're with me, right. Have you ever had that? Or is that happening right now where you are not delivering on the plan that you thought would be the best idea ever?

Speaker 1: 17:57

I think it's time for you maybe to say there's something wrong with the plan if you're not able to stick with it. This is a chance for you to be flexible and say all right, doesn't matter how much time I put into it, that's a sunk time cost, my friend. It's time for you to adapt and say what can I give in this season If you have a plan that you had and that you are delaying executing? What's the delay? There's something happening there. What do we need to do to be a little bit more flexible? Do you need to flush something down the toilet? Do you need to get out of a commitment that you made because you're not the best person for the job at this season in your life.

Speaker 1: 18:42

Sometimes our prior commitments, we just keep them because we feel guilty or we don't want to be an a-hole or for whatever reason. But part of this being flexible to life, being open for how things happen, is it means that sometimes you need to kind of like cut it out. If you've overcommitted, if you have overplanned, if you are overly stressed around how you're showing up in your business, my friend, what can you do to cut the clutter and simplify? That was kind of cheesy or could really be quote-quart on Instagram to some sort, but that's really what it comes down to. Okay, that's a little bit of my reflections for you, of what comes to mind, and now let me there's kind of the context around what's been going on with me.

Speaker 1: 19:35

So, in quick summation, if you've been a listener for the show for a while, you know that a lot has happened in my life and business this year. So we are. Let's see what year is it? 2018, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. This summer, in fact in September, I am officially celebrating the five-year anniversary of Heather Seger LLC. It is when my filed my business registry. It was when I took my very first check as a paid speaker, an official consultant to get everything in. And here we are five years later and this year has been the biggest year of change and transformation ever. So let's just do a fun little quick recap down memory lane.

Speaker 1: 20:19

A year ago at this time I was announcing a new partnership and a new company, the Speaker Co, which I merged companies with a presentation designer, emily. We share all about that on the podcast. We had a grand old time and about six months into the partnership we realized Mulligan, whoopsie, whoopsie. We are great together, but for where we're going next, we need to independently move back and to be separate organizations and just collaborate. So I've spent the last six months untangling the pieces that I put together. I'm talking offers, I'm talking tech, I'm talking messaging, I'm talking all the things that I had built or that we built together in the one company. I had to detangle that back down.

Speaker 1: 21:01

Now I share that in context is because I am so grateful to that opportunity and going into partnership. There's so much that I learned from that. I do not regret it for a second. And actually being open to that partnership required me to be flexible. Never on earth did I think I would ever get a business partner, but the gift of having one were so many beautiful lessons, so much clarifying around what I want my business to feel like, to look like, what I want my offers to be, and the same, quite frankly, for M, in fact. So I know, at the time I'm recording this, she and I just spent two hours on Zoom earlier. I actually hired her to help me with the project. Our companies were so close to me. Our companies worked together really, really well, so there's no hard feelings and no regrets by any means.

Speaker 1: 21:47

But with it this year has been a lot of change. So, coming out of that partnership, I announced that in the end of January and so I've been working through that. I also talked about how I launched then a new program, the Signature Talk Accelerator, which came out in March, facilitated in April. Side note that's coming up. It's coming up again. The Signature Talk Accelerator is happening October 10th, 11th and 12th. Enrollment is starting in. Let's see it's starting in September. I think. Doors open September 18th, so save the date if you've been waiting. I'm so freaking excited about the next round of that. I'll talk about that later down the road on the podcast. That'll be coming up here soon, but I really have to do a ton of reflection this year to decide. All right, what do I want the next chapter to be? And, as you've probably been following along you've heard me talk about on the podcast on social, I also announced a couple weeks ago months ago, I don't remember at this point that I am pregnant with baby at number three.

Speaker 1: 22:50

So I'm going to answer on this podcast episode because I haven't answered it publicly yet and promised that I would. The question I have gotten more than anything else was was this baby planned, which I know might be a weird question for someone to ask you. You might be thinking that you might have been thinking it yourself. Also, and just for context, if you don't know me and you're relatively new to my world, I am 40 years old next March, so I am not a young mom by any means and I have two older kids, eight and five. So this is a pretty big gap with this baby. So I understand why people ask that question. But for context, this is important for my business. So to give a little just here's a quick answer yes, this baby was planned and very unexpected and what I mean by that. I'm not going to get into the whole personal story here. I'm sure I mean maybe at some point I'll do an episode on that, it's like a bonus, but this just feels like overkill. But let me know. If you want to know the details, I'm fine. I mean I don't mean like the details of like how I made the baby, like that. That's a little too much. I realized how that sounded as I was saying it. Anyways, the point was with my other kids. This might be TMI, but at this point I feel like you know a lot about me. So here we go.

Speaker 1: 24:12

I really struggled to get pregnant with both of my other children my first pregnancy. It took us I don't know seven or eight months to conceive and I had a miscarriage at five weeks and I thought it was my fault because I chose to run in a race. I was a runner at the time. I ran in a race the weekend after a friend on, I was pregnant. Nothing's drowning us, nothing crazy. It took it easy. But I miscarried that next Monday and I blamed myself Fast forward. It took us then almost a year to get pregnant again with my oldest child, owen, and then, when I was trying to conceive with Levi, it took us again almost a year.

Speaker 1: 24:53

Now. What was that from? Was I, did I have fertility issues? I do not know. I just know I had a very high stress, high, very busy life at the time and sure, it was probably not the healthiest in each of those scenarios Not going to really get into that but the point was it was hard for me to get pregnant. I did not have. I did not associate when people talk about, talked about this on the show I had a wonderful guest talk about syncing your cycle to your energetic parts of your business and that's never worked for me because my cycle would be like 70 days at some point. Now since I've started my own business and I left Crazy Corporate and all of the stress that came with that and the travel things have really leveled out for me. But still I just assumed things would be hard.

Speaker 1: 25:44

So when my husband and I started the conversation last fall, to be perfectly honest with you, I have always wanted to have more than two kids. I'm the youngest of six. I wanted a big family but I thought that ship sailed because I started having kids when my mom ended having kids. So I just kind of thought that was over and my husband's always been like two kids max. So I've always teased him about it over the years and I jokingly brought it up in the fall and for the first time ever he entertained the conversation and then I was like WTF, I thought we were done here. So that was kind of funny. But he said the most sweet thing ever to me and I'm so grateful for that. He said Heather, fast forward 10 years from now. I would rather be in chaos mode with three children. Of course I'll love every single one of them, but I would rather have that than living in regret of you resenting the fact that we never tried. And of course I got all teary and I'm like all right, well that now that I actually think about it like that, like whoo, do I want to do that all over again. Like hello, dirty diapers, no sleep, like that's a lot. I mean I got a good thing going on right now.

Speaker 1: 26:52

But we came up with the agreement that we would try and if we were not pregnant by my 39th birthday, that was it. I'm not going to go past that. My husband's a couple of years older than me. I was like you the bull, just call it good and Kid you, not my friend. I Got pregnant the weekend of my birthday. So that might be a little TMI, but the context, if you follow me along at the time I was in like crazy launch mode. It was hilarious. We had a lot going on and I like talking about threading the needle man stallion.

Speaker 1: 27:30

But all this to say this was very Wanted, but I never expected to happen. In fact, I was shocked I found out I was pregnant in urgent care. I had to go to urgent care for a bug bite that got infected on my ankle the next month. So that's how I find out was pregnant. There's a little mini story that you didn't need to know. But now you're like oh, that's now you feel like you know me a little bit more. Slash, you have the insider scoop on my uterus. Slash evidently in my sex life.

Speaker 1: 27:58

So so coming back to the theme, this episode, being committed to the outcome, but being flexible and how we get there. All right, flexible and how we get there. I did not have Having a third child. That was not on my vision board, that was not like a huge thing that I was like debt set on having, but I it was always something that I wanted and because of having the willingness to have that conversation, because of the Lack of stress in my life and me creating a lot of space. I had the environment for it to happen, which is pretty freaking cool.

Speaker 1: 28:33

But also the gift that that has given me now, in this season in my business, is really what I wanted to share with you today. Because you're sitting here, I mean, you're probably not in this exact boat that I'm in, because this is a very unique boat, but very fashionable boat, if I will say. But I'm in a season of going. How do I Embrace this change, not only right now physically with my energy, with myself physically growing, with us moving across the state, with mean Very really needing to take time off this fall and no longer having an employer with maternity leave, right. So there are these big questions I'm happy to ask myself and it's been the biggest gift. I mean it's also been like a lot, it is a lot happening, but the biggest gift because it's forcing me to be really clear and saying Same question I asked you did I have plans that I was so committed to but really were not critical? Was I committed to two tasks or do I have commitments with other people that really were me saying yes, out of have not wanting to be rude or trying to be likable, but they really weren't the best timing for me.

Speaker 1: 29:52

And I have to start thinking about do I have the, the business model, the offer suite? Do I have things set up to really Afford the and I don't mean to afford financially, but essentially lay out the, the type of lifestyle and Business structure I want, moving forward? These are questions that I don't think you have to get knocked up to ask yourself, my friend. So that's what I'm doing today for you, but let me share with you a couple of the really good tactical here. Here's like a couple of the very specific things that we have changed on. My team slash are changing. So number one this is gonna be a really stupid one, but I don't know made this to be interesting to you. I let's websites like let's talk granular website, okay. So one of the changes that I have been delaying making over the last six months is when my, when Emily and I decided to part ways.

Speaker 1: 30:52

The speakerco, the the speakerco brand was a DDA on on my Current LLC, so I maintained that brand name and I had to ask the question of do I want to keep using the speakerco or do I want to go back to the Heather Saker LLC brand and honestly, that was a really hard decision for me to make. So I split it off. I reopened Heather's sacred calm. I simplified the speakerco website but I've had two websites all year to Instagram accounts, like two Brands, if you will, and they've complimented. I slapped logos together to have it say the speakerco by Heather Saker. I mean it's, it's, it's worked. I'm not gonna say it's been Smooth by any nature, but I would imagine from public facing it has been a very smooth Transition. However, it's still two brands.

Speaker 1: 31:44

So I had to make the choice if am I gonna stick with the non-personal brand and go with the speakerco name or am I gonna lead with Heather Saker? And honestly, there are pros and cons of both. This is not a conversation to tell you to go with your personal brand name or go with a company name, but for me, what I decided in the vision of what I have over the next 10, 20 years Going with the Heather Saker brand is the best choice for me. So I made the bold decision to not allow sunk costs and sunk time costs Dictates decision and I've decided the speakerco brand blowing it up. It's gone as of next week. You're going to hear this episode this week, but next week that is completely sunsetting. I'm working on getting all the speaker co-branding removed. There'll be a new HeatherSagercom in place which I'll talk to you about here in a second.

Speaker 1: 32:42

With tech because that's another question I had to answer and that might be super geeky and you might be interested in but I decided the speaker co-brand. It doesn't need to happen, as it's great for so many things, but the end of the day, if I had to be the most simplistic possible, it's got to be sunset Now. Will it ever come back? I don't know. I've learned as a parent never say never. But right now it's going to go away. Heathersager is the sole brand moving forward with all my courses and programs underneath it With.

Speaker 1: 33:14

That brings me that question around tech. Okay, tech and websites. Here's a funny thing. This is a super geeky thing, but I don't know. I like heavy business owner conversations around this. One of the questions I had recently was around tech stacks. Last, a couple of weeks ago, I got to talk to Insight Amy Porterfield's momentum membership and their tech conversations show up different tech tools, which was kind of funny because I'm not an overly techy person. I proficient at tech and I use it very wisely, but I'm not the tech person. I'm not the person that you're going to like. Send me all your questions because I'm going to laugh and be like Senator Dorothy. She's my assistant. She knows she's like amazing at all these things. Anyways. So we had the tech conundrum that we had two different platforms for our websites HeatherSager currently is all built on Kajabi and the Speaker Co.

Speaker 1: 34:08

We built on the platform ShowIt with WordPress blogging plugin and we love the ShowIt site for Speaker Co. Like it's beautiful. I love it. I love this. Wordpress Started using lead pages for all of our opt-ins. I love the data that comes with. I'm just in love and love and love. And the hard time is I had already had HeatherSager completely built on in Kajabi. I already pay for Kajabi. All of my courses are on Kajabi. My checkout system is Kajabi. It's really been hard this year going. I don't need to have both.

Speaker 1: 34:41

So I will tell you six weeks ago, when I made the decision to ask the Speaker Co brand, I also made the decision to put everything back on Kajabi the plan, logical plan. It made sense in an effort to simplify. Great thing about Kajabi is I'm an affiliate. I use it all the time. People tell me hey, what do you ask me, what do you use? Show them how easy it is to be a speaker with courses. Use Kajabi. It's great for everything, wonderful.

Speaker 1: 35:05

Well, here's the curveball. Two weeks ago I decided I need to be flexible on the plan and I changed my mind because you know what's fun, Business owner, you. You're a grown ass person. You too can change your mind. So two weeks ago I made the decision of effort. No, I'm going to build HeatherSagercom on Show it, the beautiful website that I would love to be on.

Speaker 1: 35:32

But I was worried that it would just take too much time to move things over. My worry was we had to move all the blog post articles over. My worry was oh my gosh, like so many things to move over. Well, one logical little fact, two logical little facts, actually deterred me and allowed me to make the decision very swiftly. Number one my amazing assistant reminded me that we had already built pretty much all of the blog posts on the new Show it website because we had already started that transition with SpeakerCo. So those were like 80% done, boom.

Speaker 1: 36:05

Number two the sales page for my super amazing program, the signature talk accelerator, was all built on Show it and, whilst we could build it on Kajabi, I don't want to pay a designer to do that. I already paid that once and it's so pretty. It's so pretty and it's functional and it's wonderful. The time it would take for me to rebuild it on Kajabi would take me forever in a day and it would look ugly AF. So that's the most consuming page on a website anyways.

Speaker 1: 36:39

So that was a very quick decision of it would take me less time to build out the homepage, the about page, the work with me page, like the main functions you need a website. It would take me less time to build that on Show it than it would on building the sales page on Kajabi. That might be shocking to some of you if you don't have long form sales pages, but it just it didn't make sense and ultimately I like the visuals of the show at site better and I would love to be there with WordPress. So that was the decision was just pretty cool. So we made that decision a couple of weeks ago. We've been working on it. The design looks great. I'm excited for that to launch next Thursday.

Speaker 1: 37:14

So on next week's episode, celebrate will officially have show notes, what's greatest, instead of having to go down to the notes under where you listen to podcast. If you ever want to pull show notes for the episode, you'll be able to as of next week not right now, but Heather Sagercom forward slash, whatever the episode number is. So Heather Sagercom forward slash to 10, forward slash, 110 forward slash whatever the number of the episode is, you can always find the fully visualized version of the podcast episode, which I think is freaking awesome. Anyways, I share this with you not because it's like hooray, look at the new website. I share this with you because, as a business owner, our ability to make decisions determines our ability to be successful, and it's not about making the right decision, but it's making swift decision Cause I've said this many times before, the longer you sit in indecision and though like, the longer you're like delaying getting some kind of results that you can take action off of, whether that results you wanted or ones you didn't, that delay is going to screw you over.

Speaker 1: 38:18

So my point of this episode and this like ramble banter here today, is I see far too many business owners feel guilty or feel like they failed when things do not go according to plan. But, my friend, you not only have the right to, you have a necessity to change your mind, as you need, because plans changed, environments change, life changes. There's all these other dynamic factors around you. If you hold yourself to the expectation that you have to stick with the plan because that was the plan, you're missing out on a huge opportunity to move with the opportunities. There are lessons there for you to learn. There are opportunities flying at your mother fricking face that you were ignoring because your eyes are down on the plan.

Speaker 1: 39:15

Now, what I don't want you to do is get distracted by shiny object syndrome and always be looking for new shit to try. That's not what this is about. But you have to really be focused around. Are there opportunities around me that I am saying yes to, that I maybe shouldn't, or are there opportunities around me that I am ignoring because of my need to do things a certain way? For me, this has meant being open to change my mind. It's being open to let go of things I've already invested a shit ton of money on and spent a lot of time on. It's also been about me not feeling guilty for quote unquote failing. I had a really good episode around that. I think in March that came out. We'll link it to in the show notes. But it's not feeling guilty for past choices, they're all lessons for your future. It's also about you getting out of commitments that are not serving you.

Speaker 1: 40:14

So, yeah, one of the things I've gotten really good at in the last 90 days which I'll tell you doesn't feel good at the time is saying no to people who have very logical requests whether it's a guest speaking request or it's, I don't know, just asking whether it's of my time or my contributions or my services. How to say no. I've had to turn down a lot of one on one clients. How to turn down money because this season in life it doesn't fit in the business model, it doesn't fit in the container I have for my business during the day, when I have kids at home, when I'm planning for my attorney leave and I'm planning for the most epic live program ever that's happening in October. Side note, we have three levels to choose from in the signature talk accelerator. I'm very, very excited.

Speaker 1: 41:04

So, depending on where you're at in your business and what you want to get out of the accelerator, whether you're looking to get paid to speak. You're wanting to sell your service in the back end. You're just wanting to get your messaging and your story down. There are different levels of that. This fricking thing is going to be so like. I'm so fricking proud of it. So proud of it. It's coming.

Speaker 1: 41:21

But because of my commitment to my future, I'm having to say no to things in the present and I really want you thinking about what do you need to say no into? What do you need to? Maybe maybe a commitment that you made that you need to get out of? I don't know. I know you're my like, but I have to follow through. Y'all follow through. It's one of those things. If you're falling through begrudgingly, it's going to serve the other person better. If you gracefully bow out and allow someone else to take that seat, allow yourself to quote, unquote, fail. Allow yourself not to be the perfect. Whatever version that you have in your head, you're going to flop my friend, and you may as well just have fun with it and brace it. That is part of the journey. Нужно ser, native, flexible. That's what a lot of this is about.

Speaker 1: 42:10

Alright, this edition of Sega Rambles for an hour. Is that it's conclusion? I hope you have had an incredible week. I am thinking of you. I am cheering for you. I just realized now, as you wrap this episode, this officially was my first podcast episode in my new studio here in Bend, oregon. I know I've recorded some intros for you for the last few episodes, but this is the first official episode coming to you from Bend. So we're doing great here. We love the farm. We're loving it. I'm so excited to see many of you this fall as we get ready for the Sager Talk accelerator. If you want more information on that, just keep an eye out on your email, if you're on my list or on my Instagram stories.

Speaker 1: 42:52

Full disclosure right now and neither of my websites heathersakercom or the speakerco or actually working because I did a dumb thing and decided to change domain providers and all of my websites shut down. That's an embarrassing thing. You probably shouldn't admit, but also it's whatever. I'm gonna have a new website in a week, so we're gonna call this Heather offline week, but I'm around. You'll see all new website, all new links and everything happening next week. But if you need me in the meantime, comes to me a DM, send me a DM on Instagram. I'd love to hear how you're doing. I'd love to hear how this message hit you today. Most importantly with that, I'd love to hear with what you're gonna do with it. Alright, my friend, I will see you again next week.

Speaker 1: 43:50

Thanks for listening to another episode of the hint of Hustle podcast. If you're in a season of hustle, consider this the permission slip. You didn't need to take a beat. Go on a walk stretch, call a friend, go reheat that coffee for the fourth time and actually drink it, because those big dreams you're chasing, they require the best version of you. And if those goals include expanding your audience, establishing your industry credibility and selling your premium price programs, the best way to tackle this is through speaking. Your voice is your best brand asset. Will teach you how to use it as a marketing tool. Head on over to the speakercocom forward slash, start and I'll see you there.