Beware of taking on the “rescuer” role. A big mindset shift that must occur if you’re committed to leveraging your business and gaining your freedom back is to realize that you are responsible to your clients but not for them, or their results. This can be a big pill to swallow at first, because many business owners feel that their role is to save the client.
This is not true. You are not here to rescue your clients. Your role is to give clients what you agreed to give them, and under no circumstances does this include giving them your proverbial first-born child.
Playing the role of the rescuer or superhero leads to exhaustion, burnout or “compassion fatigue” that comes from lack of sleep or anxiety related to the client’s situation. It also leads to enabling your client to not take ownership for their part of the working relationship and sets up a codependent one instead, which ultimately does not serve them.
Yes, playing the “rescuer” role feels good for a while because it makes you feel like a hero. It is tied into the ego feeling significant and that you are here to save the day, continually. But unless you have a done-for-you business, what you’re doing in the process is akin to energetically crippling the client, not allowing them to take personal responsibility for their results or their life. It’s the equivalent of severely over-protecting a child. Doing this doesn’t prepare them for the realities of life in adulthood.
One of the first things I teach in the program is the concept of personal responsibility, that everyone is responsible for their own outcomes, and that you create your life with every action, as well as every inaction.
Imagine hiring a nutritionist who invites you to eat more green vegetables, drink more water, replace packaged and processed foods with organic whole foods and move your body more often. Imaging now that, instead of following their sound advice, you sit on your sofa morning to night, eating buckets of greasy processed food and guzzling soda by the liter. In the end, it is your responsibility, not theirs, if you don’t get the results you initially signed up for, correct?
The same goes with your clients and customers.
Assuming that you set up your products, programs, or offerings with integrity, knowing that you’ve included everything you can to practically “guarantee” results if applied fully, your clients’ outcomes are their personal responsibility, not yours. This means that you are responsible for giving them what you promised, and yet, in the end, the outcome is based on their choices.
This is usually difficult to own if you’re a business owner who’s played the rescuer role for many years and you feel important as a result of doing so. Problem is, this is tiring and not sustainable for the long run. If you want to overcome “compassion fatigue” and gain your time back, a mindset shift around overgiving must be made, along with the appropriate actions of letting the client be more responsible for their own results.
You are likely giving too much access to your clients. Whenever we are working with a new member in the program who is overwhelmed and drowning in their business, we examine their business model and how they actually deliver the work to their clients. Often, the clue is right there: their clients have an unnecessary overabundance of access to the business owner.
Many entrepreneurs in the early stages of their business believe that clients can only get great results if they are holding their hand the whole time. This happened to me too. We worry that without our consistent personal presence, the client will not get what they’re paying for.
This is not true. In fact, if we’re being honest, being available to your clients 24/7 is often driven by fear on the business owner’s part: fear of not being able to control an outcome, of not feeling needed, and, for some, a deeply hidden fear of loss of love or abandonment, often replay- ing itself from childhood.
What we almost always discover with our members experiencing this is that their clients don’t actually need as much time with them as the business owner originally thought. Yes, the client wants it because it’s been made available to them, but they don’t actually require it. An associate or “junior you” can take over after some time, perhaps after the initial meeting. When the proverbial baton has been passed, you are free to spend your time moving your business forward again, rather than babysitting a client.
Here’s what this can look like: a website designer or interior designer can initially be the one to meet with the new client, understand their problem, design the website layout or room decor strategy, and then the junior designer can step in to finish the work, under the designer’s supervision of course.
When the client understands this procedure upfront, and that the junior designer is the person to contact on a daily basis after the initial round of meetings, they feel comfortable with the process. The upside (and you can communicate this to them) is that instead of only working with one person, this arrangement gives them a team of professionals working on their account.
When we do remove access little by little, either by slowly taking it away, replacing your support with that of another team member, or automating it with technology, we notice that the clients still get results.
Certainly, an education process is needed if a client has been used to working with you a certain way; an education process that involves you teaching your clients how to get results without you being available at all times of day or night. Instead of handing them a fish, you support them to fish by themselves or get the fish from your assistant, rather than from you. This will serve them much better going forward, especially if you are already difficult to reach.
What you must realize in removing access is that you will be more resistant to it than the client will be. It’s more about you being okay with letting go and not being as available for daily handholding.
If you aren’t yet comfortable removing 24/7 type support from your clients, save this “unlimited access” option for those who pay a hefty premium for it, with some sort of VIP program. Even then, access must be kept to a reasonable amount if you want to leverage your business further.
A business that requires you (especially 24/7) is not a leveraged business. Embracing this concept and actually reducing your availability, or providing a replacement for you, is another important aspect of leveraging your time so that you can focus it on building your business.
What’s the impact of applying the Time Activator in your business? Alan explains it to you in his own words: “We own a brand design company where we help clients dissect who they are and rebuild their brand from their core values and purpose, so they can be remarkable and attract the appropriate clients.
“I was struggling, both internally and externally, with finding a purpose and knowing what I wanted to do with my business and my life. I had extreme ups and downs with my business and I could never seem to get beyond a certain level. It was extremely frustrating.
“I sensed that there was something more out there that I just wasn’t understanding. One day, I said, ‘I just want enlightenment. Give me something.’ The next day, I got the weekly email newsletter from Fabienne about a three-day event she was hosting. I attended that event and in the middle of the first day, I called my wife and said, ‘Oh my gosh, I think this is everything I’ve been looking for.’ Pieces started falling into place.
“I thought I was a failure, and I thought of money as a bad thing from my childhood. I realized that I wasn’t alone in that thinking, and that if you flip that thinking, you can start creating your life and your business. You get a completely different approach to life.
“I had hit quite a low in my life. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I was so desperate. I hated my journey and I hated my life. To be quite honest, if I hadn’t found this program, things would be much, much different.
“Today, I love my journey. I get up at 4:30 every morning because I’m excited about what will happen that day. I don’t resist things. If I expect a certain thing to happen that day and it doesn’t happen, I don’t get upset. I go with the flow, and I’ve got a bigger vision than I’ve ever had for my business. If something doesn’t quite work out, I don’t freak out like I used to.
“I’ve got things in perspective. I know what I’m doing. I’m very focused. My time is used very wisely. I can prioritize things. I used to be overwhelmed all the time but I’m not anymore. I’m very intentional with what I do. I used to work sixty-plus hours per week, but now, I get up early because I want to.
“I go meet my daughter at the bus at 4:00 p.m., and that’s the end of my day. I work Monday through Friday, and, actually, now I’m taking Fridays as my self-care and clarity break day. I’m still getting everything done. I’m not overwhelmed and my business is thriving, though we’ve still got a lot of things we want to accomplish.
“I feel like I’m back in high school when I was excited about life and the potential of things.
“Your thoughts can become things. You have to have a vision. Then you have to believe in your vision, and then take action. I used to have ideas and I might have taken sporadic actions, but I didn’t believe in myself. I’d get really excited, and then when I wouldn’t get what I thought I would get, I would crash and get upset.
“Now, it’s the thought, the belief, and the action, trusting in my journey and just being able to dissect differently than what I did before. I create a framework around the vision now. I let the ‘how it’s going to get done’ work itself out. I focus on the moment each day.
“I now have the framework and the big vision, and I just let things happen. As long as I’m always moving forward with intention, I can see the opportunities along the way. Before, I wouldn’t really see them. I’d think I would see them, or I’d know how it would need to be, but that wasn’t the right way.
“I’m now leveraging my unique brilliance and having other people do the things that I really am not the best at. I’ve learned to give things up and let people help. I used to do everything myself, but by only doing what I do best, and allowing others to do things to help me do what I do best, my business infrastructure has come to life, along with my mind.
“I have a better relationship with my family and I feel better about myself as a result of it. I dream bigger for my business, and I’m hitting bigger goals as a result of it as well. It’s been life changing for me.” — Alan Wallner