Why Your Business Feels Stagnant (Even Though You’re Working Nonstop)

• Focus on the right business foundations for real growth

• Use prioritization strategies to stay consistent with your goals

• Create space for mental clarity by doing less

• Let go of hustle culture and embrace sustainable, values-based business decisions

• Design a business that supports your life—not the other way around

“You need to have a business launch and growth system that helped women and men really focus on saying, okay, here I am in this stage, and this is what I need to do.”

“What I really needed wasn’t somebody saying, ‘You got to do this,’ instead, I needed someone to say, ‘Actually, let’s go ahead and take away all these things right now, because they’re not really going to matter.”

“This system is going to help you get to that place where your business is healthy enough so you can really go impact the world, even if it doesn’t relate to your business at all.”

“So the five steps are in a progressional order that when you follow this order and do the work within each one of the stages that you are for sure going to get to the next benchmark, the next stage.”

“You really need to be focused on the right task at the right time to grow your business sustainably.”

ANNE RAJOO

Misaligned success strategies often lead to stress, burnout and inefficiencies. They can distract entrepreneurs from their real, meaningful work. Entrepreneurs often believe that the success formulas or strategies they see others use will work for them, regardless of their unique circumstances or the specific needs of their business, coupled with the belief or even pressure of more is better, we continue to take on more tasks, more projects and more responsibilities. The Internet has us believe that bigger is better, and we aim for bigger launches without even considering whether these actions align with our business’s current stage or long term goals and whether we have the crucial business foundations in place. Today, I’m talking to April Beach about aligning our business strategy with our personal values. Focus on the right task at the right time to grow our business sustainably and creating a clear path towards sustainable success.

Welcome to the peaceful productivity pod. I’m your host, Anne Rajoo, and together we redefine productivity and find your sweet spot where performance meets happiness. 

I was always a bit of a rebel as a child and in adolescence, and when I started my business, I vividly recall diving head first into creating a membership program, despite the advice from seasoned mentors, they warned me that without a considerable audience, success would be tough, but I was determined to prove them wrong, as I had done many times before. Also in hindsight, I realized that I was focused a lot more on what I wanted to sell, rather than what my clients needed. And after three failed launches, I was drained emotionally, financially and creatively, my strategy was totally misaligned with my business stage and my personal circumstances. 

So today’s guest, April Beach has incredible insights in this very topic. April Beach is a content licensing expert, online business strategist and lifelong lifestyle entrepreneur. She’s been consulting coaches to grow and scale online for 28 years. She owns five companies with her husband and travels eight months a year on adventures with three sons. April has created the lifestyle business system, which you will share with us today. So let’s dive in.

APRIL BEACH

I was blessed to be born to parents who were the first wave of what we call lifestyle entrepreneurs. And a lifestyle entrepreneur is basically an entrepreneur that launches and grows a business strategically to live life the way they wanted to. So when I was a kid, my dad was a surfer, and I’m a surfer, and not that great, but I still do it. And so we had surf shops in California and Hawaii, and we were always doing these things so that we could play and we could live the life we wanted. My first like big girl business coaching job I got I was 21 years old. I had been waiting tables and bartending and going to college, and I got this crazy job modeling a corporate I couldn’t believe it. I had no idea what I was doing, to be really honest. But that started my business coaching career, and I’ve been coaching businesses now for 23 years. I am the creator of what’s called the lifestyle business system, or the lifestyle entrepreneur system, and I’m going to teach you guys that today. 

Let me give you some background as to why this is important, and this is important, especially as mothers, because we literally have to multitask all the time, and there’s so much to do. I have three boys myself, and I launched my first company when my young. I had three boys under the age of four, and my fur. My youngest was five months old, and I had no childcare, and I was doing it all by myself, and it was absolutely crazy. Was, you know, up late at night. So I get it, and I think one of the reasons why it was so difficult was because it was just so much to do, and nobody helped me figure out. April, ignore this like instead, I had everybody saying, you got to do this and you got to do this, what I really needed wasn’t going to say, actually, let’s go ahead and take away all these things right now, because they’re not really going to matter right now until we get you to a new level. And so in 2013 it was, it was hindsight that I realized this, of course, I had gotten through that those muddy waters, and I had an international consulting business by that point in time, but I realized, because my heart is for moms, that’s still my life. I still own two business coaching firms. I still have a podcast, and I still have three kids right there on the other side of the wall. This is, this is what we do. 

I realize that, you know, we needed to have a business launch and growth system that helped women and men (I love my girls, you know) really focus on say, okay, here I’m in in this stage, and this is what I need to do, and all these other things are fine and dandy, but if I don’t do these things right now, I’m never going to get there. And so what happens is, I do work with so many women who have kind of put the cart before the horse, and they’ve tried to do all these things, and they just end up being completely overwhelmed and torn in so many directions, and they can’t make decisions, or they’re wasting a lot of time and money. 

So the five steps are in a progressional order that when you follow this order and do the work within each one of the stages that you are for sure going to get to the next benchmark, the next stage, because within each stage, it says you need to complete this. You need to do this. And when we run into problems, as we will as business owners, not everything we try works. Sometimes you have to go and try, try again and modify some things. It’s going to tell you how to go about doing that so you can test it to get to that next level. And I also want you guys to know before I tell you what each one of the stages are is this is not an overnight thing. I have clients that are still in stage three, and they’ve been there for four or five years. The whole five steps of the lifestyle business system are strategically designed to be it’s your whole business life, and what it does when you follow this is the last step is really about impact in giving. As Anne mentioned in the beginning, I’m an environmental nonprofit founder, and the only way I was able to take my time to do that. I’m one of those. I love to make money, to give it away. In my case, it’s for the environment, and is because I had taken those other steps. So I know that, like women, we give, we love to give. You know, whether it’s money or time or whatever, and so it’s this system is going to help you get to that place where your business is healthy enough so you can really go impact to the world, even if it doesn’t relate to your business at all. Environmental work doesn’t relate to my business at all, but it’s what I’m passionate about doing. 

So here they go. 

So step number one, we’re going to dive into each one more detail, but step number one is the planning phase. Step number two is launch. Step number three is scale. Step number four is profit, and step number five is impact. 

Stage one is really the planning stage. So this is for those of you guys that are still working in nine to five, or maybe you’re expecting and you’re still working a job and you want to launch your own business, you’re really just kind of going through the ideas in your mind of, what do I want to do? Do I want to leave my company? And, you know, do I want to own my own business? And if so, what would that look like? And the reason why I include this stage one is because I’m a mom. Because ever, like, if you talk to I mean, I have a lot of great guy business colleagues and friends and clients, but like the guys who just jump into launching the thing right, there are so many things we need to do strategically. And so when you get into my business plan, if you’re in stage one, like one of the checklists is talking to your kids about the fact that you’re about to do this and what it’s going to look like, and life is going to change a little bit. And mommy might be working really late on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, but I’ll be there for bedtime on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And these things are really, important to our family unit. And so it’s all about communication and making sure that you know money is in order as much as possible. The caution about being in stage one is that it’s never gonna be perfect, you guys. So we can go through these things and we can check it off, but don’t ever be perfect, or you will totally never, ever launch your business. Okay? 

And then Step number two is launch. So launch is actually a six to 12 month process, and most people are in launch for up to 18 months. And so the launch phase is all about figuring out what that first offer is going to be, what that first impact offer, we call it a foundational offer, or a signature offer, that could be your first coaching package, or your first digital offer, whatever that first business offer is that you want to present to your market. Inside that stage, to that launch stage, it’s also figuring out who your ideal clients are. If you guys are in business all the time, and you know some of you are totally experts at this and others of you might have term. Heard the term ideal client avatar thrown around. It’s like, what on earth is that you know? And that’s just basically figuring out who you serve and learning how to talk to them. And those are all part of the things we do in that launch stage. Also in the launch stage, that’s when you dive into all the techie stuff, and this is why it takes a long time, because you’re probably really amazing expert at what you do. You know, you’re probably, you know, incredible at coaching people, or you’re a nutritionist, or you’re, you know, a marketing strategist, or whatever it is that you do. But it doesn’t mean you know how to use all the software that we have to know how to use to. An online business. And so that stage two is also about figuring out the tech and making the tech easy, and going through the process of sewing together all the software. So the email marketing manager is talking to the website, and it’s just really about what I call a relationship launch. There are two different launch dates that I preach about. I talk about on the podcast all the time. The first one is really launching your social media handles, but you might not actually be selling anything yet. And it’s about building relationships and starting to talk to people and growing your list. It’s this relationship launch still, while you’re working on kind of ramping up to to start your your new offer in that company. So those are all the things we do in phase two, you guys, and we find that some businesses just kill it, and it’s amazing. They do it right all the first time, and they go through the checklists and the steps, and they’re very, very clear, but they’re also very lucky. I mean, a lot of companies have to go and test. Have what we call testing and traction. And testing and traction, it’s seeing if this works, but it does, of course, take a lot of hard work and strategy. So that’s phase two, and you know, I primarily work with clients in my company, and in phase two, phase three and phase four. So you know, there’s just, it’s a growth, it’s a very natural growth, graduation into each one of the phases, and then you’re ready to go on to that phase three, which is called Scaling, when you have successfully sold your minimum viable product. So we can say you’re out of stage two when you have sold your minimum viable product. That could be the fact that you’re selling your coaching packages and people are loving it, and you’re getting great testimonies. You’ve proven to the market that you have something that people want, and you’re really great at getting people results, then it’s time to move on to stage three. 

Stage three is all about scaling your business online. This is when we work with companies to launch online courses, membership communities, digital summits, in person, and digital masterminds, you know, writing books. It’s really launching podcasts. You know, it’s really about saying, Hey, listen, we know we have something and that we’re good at it and people love it. Now let’s go ahead and serve more people, make more money, but actually not increase our time. So stage three is really when you get into customizing. What do you guys want your life to look like? What do you want your business to look like? This is where the lifestyle side of it comes in. So for example, you know, launching online courses is a really hot thing, and we’ve had online courses since 2008 however, as a mom, the hardest thing for me is those big live launches. It doesn’t work with my life. I have a team, you know, we do them occasionally, but you know, when we see these big, huge launches and these, you know, six and seven figure launches for me, personally, I don’t want to do that. I’m on a plane somewhere with some kids lacrosse tournament or watching somebody dance. That doesn’t fit into my life. But there are other ways that I’ve reached seven figures without having to do that, and those are the ways that you guys have the opportunity when you’re in phase three. You know, just, don’t just look because everybody else is doing that, like what really works with your life? And then phase four is really higher profit. Phase four is when you’ve done a great job in phase three. And now that I explain phase three, you might see why I have clients that have been there for four years. They have multiple courses, they have multiple masterminds, they have multiple retreats in different places of the world for their high end clients, people can. You can stay there. You don’t have to go through all these phases. 

But this phase four is when you have really become, to this point, this leader in your company, where you’ve delegated so well, you can kind of step back and you might want to write a book or another book. You might want to launch a podcast, not for monetary reasons, but just because you like to talk about a certain topic, you know this might be you going and becoming an international keynote speaker. So your business is running on autopilot. Your business is making money. You’ve hit your financial benchmarks for scaling in phase three, but this phase four is about more of the passion projects that we as women, we all know, you know, admit it like you’ve seen yourself speaking on stages somewhere. It’s a big dream, or whatever we all do, I have, and those are the things we want to do. And so phase four is about how to go about executing that while you still know that your company is reaching those financial benchmarks. 

And then the last one is Phase Five, and that’s impact. And impact isn’t for everybody. Impact is really all about giving. It’s all about taking the money that you’ve made and you’re continuing to make through your business or time you freed up for yourself and doing whatever impact work is important to you. You know, whether it’s working in a community garden or launching a nonprofit or maybe it’s just giving more of the percentage of sales to your company. So the majority of women I actually work with are for profit, social entrepreneurs. So we really love to give away. We’re not nonprofit or certainly for profit, but we give away a percentage of our sales to something. And so this Phase Five. Is even a greater step of that. It’s more than just giving away a percentage of your sales. It’s really diving in and doing whatever that passion work is, or whatever that may be.

ANNE RAJOO

Peaceful Productivity emphasizes mindfulness and intentionality in how we approach tasks and goals. It emphasizing aligning daily actions with personal values, focusing on the high-impact activities and fostering emotional well-being so that we can sustain productivity over time. And unfortunately, misaligned strategies need to stress burnout and inefficiency, and so it’s important to focus on the right strategies for your business at the right business stage, and as we wrap up this episode, I would also like to emphasize we’ve got to do the inner work to stay grounded and avoid distractions from shiny objects. Understanding our values and committing to align your actions with your values and long-term goals leads to meaningful and peaceful progress. 

So I would like to invite you today to take five minutes to reflect on one task or project you’ve been working on and ask yourself, Is this aligned with my core values and long term goals? If the answer is no, consider how you can adjust or reprioritize to bring more intention and mindfulness into your daily work and daily routines, and remember Peaceful Productivity starts with focusing on what truly matters. 

So if you would love to have some more insights into your productivity barriers, or create a tailored plan that leads you to time freedom and better work-life balance. I have a wonderful free resource for you. It’s called the Weel of Peaceful Productivity, and it shines light on eight dimensions that help you enhance your work-life harmony. So you will find the link in the show notes, or simply visit my website, annerajoo.com, and you will find it on the homepage, the Wheel of Peaceful Productivity. Download the worksheet and discover those eight dimensions of peaceful productivity. 

And as always, I would love to invite you to share the episode with a friend who might need a little bit more peaceful productivity in her life, and help me spread the word about the podcast. 

And next week, I will host another solo episode, because as this current episode airs, it’s the second of January, so we’re all just entering the new year, and we are going to set goals and make plans and get started with the new year so that we can create an amazing, incredible 2025 but I want to bring mindfulness to traditional goal setting, because I believe this helps aligning our goals with our values, and as mentioned in this episode, this really can unlock more Peaceful Productivity and a more purposeful path to success in 2025. So join me next week. Don’t miss this episode, and until then, be peacefully productive. I’ll catch you next time.