61: 3 ways women can create more ease and reduce overwhelm in your business
Do you ever feel like the pressure to run your business, take care of the house and domestic work, take care of your family, and take care of your health is just… impossible?
That’s because it is impossible, and you’re not alone! The stats and stories of women experiencing burnout at unprecedented rates is well-documented.
So what’s the fix?
I believe the fix is to take the pressure off things you can take the pressure off.
And that’s where I come in!
In this episode of ill communication, I’m sharing 3 simple ways to create more ease in your business today so that you can reduce the overwhelm and find more peace.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
The impossible pressure on women to juggle it all
The easy hack for reducing decision fatigue when it comes to writing
How to take the thinking out of writing with this simple hack
Some of my favorite episodes with writing prompts that can make writing so much easier
Why perfectionism is out, and B- work is in
There you have it! Three ways to add more ease to your business. I hope you’re able to utilize these tips to finally ditch that overwhelm and perfectionism and embrace ease. You deserve it!
Curious about the Joy of Copy Club? Email me or DM me on social to chat!
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[00:00:03] Welcome to Ill Communication, Copywriting, Tips and sales strategies for small Business. I'm your host, Kim Keel. I'm a copy coach, sales strategist and direct response copywriter. It's my mission to help women leaders and change makers amplify their voices through copy. It's why I'm dishing out all the juicy tips, writing prompts and sales formulas to help you generate more leads, book more calls, and get more high value clients on repeat. Sounds pretty good. It's time to ditch the overwhelm you might be feeling and find confidence in your copywriting so you can get your message out there and attract more soulmate clients. Let's get started. I shared a story on Instagram the other day that generated a lot of comments reshares and people reaching out to me. It had [00:01:00] to do with the unrealistic expectations of women, our performance and our outputs in today's world. The original post and quote was from a young adult author named Holly Bourne. The Post reads, okay, so we need to sleep for eight hours a day, work for at least another eight, add in a commute, walk 10,000 steps, meditate, buy food and cook and eat and wash up three times. Shower at least once, Socialize Hoover, clean, tidy laundry. Am I the only one who finds all this impossible? And the comments on the original post were just as enlightened as the post itself. Many commenters noted that the 40 hour workweek is a relic from a time when the male spouse in the family went to work and the female spouse stayed home to manage the household, look after the domestic chores, raise the children and plan the social gatherings.
[00:01:54] Women weren't allowed to buy property or get a bank account without a man's signature until the mid 1960s [00:02:00] in North America and not until 1975 in the UK. It meant women had few options but to stay home and if they could find employment, women had very few options for working and the majority of those roles were lower income compared to their male counterparts. This wage gap still exists today, especially if you're a woman of color or have any other marginalized identities. And even though more women are working full or part time jobs now, numerous studies show women still carry the primary burden of the household and domestic labor. One study I reviewed said globally, women undertake three times more care and domestic work than men, with women in low and middle income countries devoting more time to unpaid work than women in high income countries. Another study I saw noted that 50% of male physicians have a spouse who stays at home to handle the household responsibilities, whereas just 10% of women physicians have an at home spouse, [00:03:00] which means 90% of women physicians manage their patient care and admin needs and carry the burden of the household management as well. So if it feels impossible to stay on top of everything, on top of the laundry, the dishes, the chauffeuring, the kids to and from school, the social schedule, providing care for our aging parents and relatives, It's because it is impossible.
[00:03:23] And if you're running your own business or you're in management or a director role within your organization, you have even more balls to juggle. Finding and managing clients, delivering your services, performing the admin tasks, promoting your business and managing your team. It feels too much because it is, and I want to be fully transparent. I'm very lucky to have a lot of support at home. My spouse cooks a few of the meals every week. We have the financial resources to bring in meal planning kits or housekeeping from time to time. My kids are old [00:04:00] enough to do their own laundry, and we've always had extended family around who helped out a lot with our kids. So I fully admit I'm coming to this conversation already from a place of privilege compared to so many working women out there. But the stats and stories of women experiencing burnout at unprecedented rates is well documented. So what's the fix? Well, I believe the fix is to take pressure off the things that you can take pressure off of. And that's where I come in and how my podcast can help. The snack size episodes and quick strategies you'll hear here can help you create a little more ease and release some of the entrepreneurial and marketing burden. Just as we can outsource some of the decision making and tasks in our life to services like meal planning kits or grocery delivery, you can do the same in your business.
[00:04:54] So here are three ways you can create more ease today in your business. [00:05:00] First tip is to establish a set time. When you sit down and write copy in your business, whether you're the kind of person who will write every morning for an hour or once a week for a couple of hours, set the time in your calendar, decide once when you're going to write, and then let that decision stick. Whatever you have an idea for an email, a social post, or some other kind of messaging, put it into a file or your notes app or a Google doc and know you'll be able to come back to the idea and turn it into a fully fleshed out email or blog during your set writing time. Knowing you have a time set aside for writing and sticking to it will release a little stress and overwhelm and decision fatigue. And I see it all the time with members of the Joy of Copy Club because we have a regular Tuesday meetup. They know they'll get a chance to co-work with me and focus on their writing. If they can't get to write [00:06:00] copy any other time throughout the week, at the very least they know they'll have two hours on Tuesday dedicated to getting shit done. So create a block of time, even if it's just two hours a week, an hour a day, 15 minutes a day.
[00:06:15] Put it in your calendar and use that time to write. The second tip is to use proven templates and frameworks and I know go on and on about this. And I also feel like I need to state that there is no shame in using a template or formula for writing a piece of copy. Let's take a look at mail planning services. Now I could feel shame about using a meal planning service instead of planning and thinking about my own meal and buying all the groceries and chopping it up and all the stuff. But my meal planning service tells me what and how to cook for dinner, and it makes it easy for me to cook. There's less mess for me to clean up, less stress when I'm thinking about what to make for dinner. And it's [00:07:00] less thinking when I'm at the grocery store. Plus, my kids gobble up the food because it's a proven tested recipe. And it's the same with copy templates and frameworks. They take the decision making and thinking out of writing sales copy. You spend less time writing and rewriting, thinking and overthinking because the framework or writing prompt tells you what and how to write. Once you start following the prompt or the formula, the writing becomes easier and faster. And because it's proven and tested, your audience will probably gobble it up too. When I'm working with a woman inside the Joy of Copy Club, I see a huge transformation. They come in feeling overwhelmed by all the copy and messaging in their business, and when they discover how to use the simple frameworks and formulas, they get faster at writing.
[00:07:54] They get better results and they get more confident in their own voice and messaging. And [00:08:00] if you want to get a taste of this, just keep listening to the podcast. Use the tips, formulas and writing prompts I share. Don't overthink it. Just follow the prompt or formula and get busy. A few of my favorite episodes with frameworks and writing prompts are Episode 32 How to Write a Killer About Page using the Hello Framework. Episode 13 shares my personal favorite sales formula in how to write a compelling sales message without being cheesy or sleazy. So check that one out. And if you go back through the podcast episodes, you'll see a lot of great writing prompts. Last week's episode number 60 is in fact a fabulous writing prompt for sales or nurture copy. I'll drop the links to those three in the show notes, but any time you feel uninspired or uncertain about what to write or how to write, head to the podcast and flip through the episode until something piques your interest [00:09:00] and then sit down and write it. The third way to create a little more ease in your business is something I've worked on a lot and I'm actually getting pretty good at it. It's letting things be imperfect. And yes, I've talked about this before, but it is an incredibly important lesson.
[00:09:21] It comes up a lot in the coaching calls. I have with my own coach, Whitney. Many of us who are socialized as women and particularly good girls and those of us who are high achievers tend to overextend ourselves because our version of perfect is not even realistic or attainable, and our audience isn't expecting perfection either. So Whitney's mantra for us is to be 80% perfect. Other coaches I follow encourage women to do B minus work. The first born high achiever honor student in me kind of cringes at the thought of doing B minus work, but it is incredibly [00:10:00] freeing when you can allow yourself to be imperfect even with this podcast. There are often times where I've said something wrong, but don't go back and edit it because I just have to be okay with being imperfect. So go ahead and send the email before it's perfect. Stop fussing around on your social media graphics in Canva and make that offer even before you have all the pieces perfectly in place. And please leave the dirty dishes in the sink if it means you can give yourself a little extra time to be with your kids, to visit with your mom or your aunt on the phone, or to enjoy a little time to yourself doing whatever is going to bring you a little more peace, ease and joy into your life. Because, sister, you totally deserve it. So those are the three ways you can create a little more ease and reduce overwhelm in your business.
[00:10:56] Establish a set block time in your calendar that becomes your [00:11:00] writing and marketing time. Use copywriting frameworks and writing prompts to stop overthinking and to eliminate decision fatigue and aim for 80% perfect or B minus work. Give yourself the space and grace to be perfectly imperfect. And if you think you might need a little support on that journey, want to let you know I'll be opening the doors to the Joy of Copy Club in a couple of weeks. If you want to join to have access to the time blocking the copywriting frameworks and a container that allows you to show up in your imperfections, please reach out to me directly so we can chat and see if it's a right fit for you. Thanks so much for hanging with me today. I'll chat with you next week. Hey, thanks for joining me for today's episode, but before you go, I want to make sure you've grabbed a new tool to help you assess the effectiveness of your sales copy. It's an easy to use tool that will help you identify what's working well [00:12:00] and what could we improved among all of the copy assets you have in your business? Grab the sales copy scorecard right now to find quick and easy ways to improve your sales copy and boost sales. Get your free scorecard over at Khimki NHL.com Slash Scorecard. I'll be back next week with another quick tip writing prompt or sales hack for you.
[00:12:21] See you then.
Resources Mentioned
Listen to episode 32 - How to write a killer About Page using the HELLO framework
Listen to episode 13 - How to write a compelling sales message without being cheesy or sleazy
Listen to episode 60 - Caution! May cause side effects
Follow Whitney Alexandra on Instagram
Additional Resources
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