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Welcome to the Grit Reapers, the podcast for aspiring online entrepreneurs that cut through all the crap in the online business world and dishes out the raw and real truth about what it really takes to have a successful online business.

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No sugar coating, no get rich quick schemes, just honest advice with a healthy dose of humor and hope. We're your hosts, Gayle and Candice, two online entrepreneurs who've been there, done that, and lived together.

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Tell the tale. So if you're looking for straight talk, practical tips, and the occasional reality check to get your online business moving, you're in the right place. Let's get down to business. Welcome back to another episode of the Grit Reapers where we discuss all things reality based.

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And we talk about the stuff, maybe not everybody's talking about the real stuff, the grit, the determination, the resilience that it takes to carry on as an entrepreneur in the online space. Build your online business step by step.

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That's it. How are you doing today? I'm good, thanks. And how are you today? Good, I'm good. So daily we talk about this. We were just speaking about it before we pressed record, but basically the pink clouding, loving laugh.

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Oh my God, I'm like going to be the next success in the online space. To waking up not even 12 hours later thinking this. I'm burning it all to the ground. I hate my life, I can't do this anymore. And I'm gonna go walk dogs for forever.

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Not that there's anything wrong with walking dogs, but you know, just kind of going to something that feels a little less stressful and a bit more enjoyable. So this plague, this curse of the entrepreneurial journey, which is riding high one day and crashing down the next.

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You had some really interesting thoughts and some good practical tips to share maybe with our listeners. Like, what can you do when you're just having one of those, like, I can't do this. You know, maybe they know sales coming in and yeah, just feels like everything's pointless and like, what am I doing with my life?

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Yeah, absolutely. So maybe just to give a little bit of context to everybody, Kens and I were just talking about, you know, we've both had periods and a couple, you know, over the last five years.

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I can't actually believe I've been doing this for five years, but, you know, a couple of periods over the last five years that were really, really quiet. And I, I think that, you know, as business evolves and business in the online space changes, we're seeing it definitely now in 2025.

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You know, more people are having these quieter periods as they are also building their business. Because let's face it, building your business is not something that happens overnight, it's something that happens over years. And so what can you do when things in your business are quieter than you would like or maybe completely dead?

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I mean, there are times when your business is completely dead. And how do you go from, you know, you might have been doing really well having, you know, great man's income coming in and then suddenly, due to whatever reasons, you find yourself in a very quiet place.

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And I was in a group program in the early years where our coach basically said, you Know, she was coaching somebody who was saying, you know, the economy is bad and things are not working and I'm not getting any sales and I'm not booking any calls.

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And the coach said to her, what are you doing to remedy that? And she was kind of like, there was silence and she's like, well, you know, I'm doing what I've always done. And the coach was like, well, this is a time to be doing stuff that you haven't always done because what you always done is, is not working at the moment.

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So I love that. She basically said, you know, you put the control, some of the control back into your own hands. So some of the tips that she just did, and I must say I have implemented a couple of these on a couple of occasions and they really have, you know, helped and you know, didn't bring in huge amounts of money, but definitely like saw me over, got the momentum going again.

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And so, yeah, I'll share a couple of those. So the first one was to basically look back at your offers because, you know, sometimes we do have quite a few offers and look back and see where the most offers have come in into your business.

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So identify where those are coming from and then perhaps, you know, reach out, identify in your email list people who've either taken those offers before or people that are similar to the people you've taken those offers before and actually reach out individually to them an offer and you can do it.

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You know, you could either do it as a flash sale, you could bundle some of your, your things together. That makes sense and actually go out and individually contact and offer, you know, this new service or this bundled service or this flash sale to your.

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A list of warm people. I'm not saying to your whole list, you know, to a list of people that you, you've worked with or who've already used that service. So that one was a really good one that I kind of thought, yes. The next one was actually, it worked really well for me.

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So towards the end of last year I needed a quick injection of income because I was traveling overseas and I wasn't going to be earning for a couple of months. And I spoke to a coach and she was like, well, what service? What service? That's, that's not going to take you a whole long time to create landing pages and do a launch and do warm ups.

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She's like, what's one service that, that you could offer current clients that's like a step above but you know that they really, really need? And she's like, Let it be service based so that it's just your time. You've got the time, so it's just your time.

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There's nothing to really create other than your checkout page, obviously, your deliverables. So what is something that you could do? And for me, I came up with a half VIP day. Being in South Africa, our time zones don't link for a full VIP day.

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Although at the time I could have done like it wouldn't, maybe wouldn't happen all together. I could have a meeting with the person, do the VIP day the next day. But for me, the half VIP day worked well. I worked out the deliverables and I offered it to a select group of my, of my clients and two people took it up.

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So, like, that was a quick injection. It covered me for the time that I was traveling and I think it's definitely something that we can do. You just have to think about what your audience needs, you know, you know, because you've been giving them certain offers and they've been taking them up.

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So what is it that you can give them? That's a slightly new offer, but you know, that they need. And so for my audience that, that intensive day, I pitched it to them as, let's get that project done, let's get that launch done, let's get that big thing done together over that time and you'll walk away by the end of it and it's done.

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So that, that worked well. And then the other thing was literally just doubling down. So instead of feeling like, oh my gosh, nothing's working, my business isn't working and kind of withdrawing at the beginning of this year, things again required.

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I just doubled down. I doubled down on what I normally do. I started posting content every day, which I don't normally do, but I've actually, I've got it to the stage where it's so easy for me to do it now that I've kept it up. And I've actually decided this week to be posting two or three times a day, believe it or not, but I'm seeing the rewards.

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I'm seeing the growth in my group. I'm seeing the replies on my emails, I'm seeing the engagement. I've. I sent out a, you know, March Madness offer and I had people buying it, some who don't really know me at all, but well, that are, that are not in my immediate circle, but obviously are picking up from my content, from the engagement in my Facebook group.

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So doubling down when things are quiet rather than saying, you know, Wringing your hands and being like, oh, it's not working. What shall I do? You know, that's been a, a big one for me. I've seen a huge growth in terms of engagement and members and, yeah, email list growth just by doing that.

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So then when things get busy again, you know, then you've, you've, you've got some momentum going. So those would be, those are the things that I found that's worked. It's not easy, definitely not easy to keep going even when you feel like you're shouting at a brick wall.

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But, yeah, just believe in the process, believe in yourself and just keep going. You building this business for a reason, so you've got to really dig into that reason. Yeah, those are really nice. I like that they like really practical, you know, because I think what, I think what your coach might have been trying to get that person in the hot seat to see was like, you don't have to be a passive victim of this.

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It's not, you don't just take it like, oh, things are so bad and I can't do anything. She was trying to, I think, like, ignited to say, well, so what are you doing about that? You know, what can you do? Because there are things, there are so many things you can't control.

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You can't control the economy, you can't control the political climate, which a lot of my clients are seeing at the moment. You know, the US Is going through these huge changes, and I think a lot of people are kind of holding their breaths and waiting and maybe not doing as much as they were doing, or that's just my take.

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So there's so much you can't control, but what is it that you can control? And so I love that because I'm definitely that type of person. If I, if I feel like things are going wrong, I look at what I can control and I work on those.

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Yeah, that's, that's an amazing quality, I must say. I, I, I'm a little bit the opposite. So, like, I think I sometimes fall into that. I feel quite helpless. Like, this is happening to me and, oh my God, what can I do? I think, yeah, like, like some, some people may know, some may not.

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But last year I had a surgery to my knee and things up until that point, I mean, like, literally I was laughing with girl. Like, up until the day I was actually in hospital, I was like, emailing and replying to clients. Like, my business had really felt like it was booming, like business was booming last year.

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And I was just going in for this, like, procedure. I knew there would be downtime and recovery, but I was like, I work from home anyway. Like, I. My mind just saw like things were just going to kind of have this like maybe 10 day little like, yeah, downtime. And then I'd slowly start getting back into it, you know, and then, you know how life is.

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It's just totally unpredictable and there are blind sides coming and I just couldn't foresee that. I had a complication after my surgery and my life just came to an absolute, like, grinding halt. Everything literally stopped in its tracks.

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I couldn't work, couldn't move. I was out of action, really, for. For three months. Completely out of action. And this incredible momentum. You know, when you, like, in that groove and you just feel all my hard works are paying off and all the years of sticking with this and, oh, my God, I'm pink clouding, like, this is it.

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This is it just literally dried up, you know, And I kind of came out of that experience and then hit another blind side where a couple things happened with clients like that were still with me in inverted commas that I also didn't see coming.

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And I think contextually a lot was going on and I started off this year actually in a really, like, just did not see this happening. Went from being the busiest, what I would consider most like successful, financially successful phase of my entrepreneurial journey to almost chalk and cheese, like, everything drying up and just feeling like I'd lost all this momentum.

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Like all this momentum was literally just dried up. And I think the thing that is different in how I've dealt with it is I have had. Oh, my God, poor Gail. Poor Gail has had me.

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Gail, I can't do this. I'm done. You know, she's had me like many times over the last. The first three months of this year voting and just really, I think, Gail, you know, it's been hard, but what's different is, number one, you have to have people that you can actually be honest with.

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You cannot keep that inside without speaking to, like a support network. Yeah. Unless you want to do something stupid, you know, like burn it all down. Right. So the first thing is I've. I'm lucky to have one or two people that I can be completely transparent with and really support me to say, like, I hear you.

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Like, I hear you, and it's okay to just like, vomit it all out, but, you know, you're not going to give up. And have you thought of this? Or maybe you could try this. So the first thing I think is when we're having periods that are quiet, dead scary confusing.

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Like you've. It's really helpful to have like support people that you can completely transparent with that you don't have to fudge numbers. You don't have to tell them, I did a live and 10 people came when no one came. You know, you can just be honest with them.

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Yeah. The other thing is I think that also having a level of self awareness really helps because, you know, just this morning I was like catching myself thinking, okay, so like one or two people have reached out. Maybe I'm gonna put some quotes in on proposals and stuff.

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And like for a split second I was like, oh my God, there's no ways I can charge like what I was charging last year. And I. I realized that actually it's because I feel like my confidence took a big hit. Like I had this thing happen which literally put me out of action and then had another experience with clients which left me emotionally, like not so stable.

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And then contextually understanding, like my confidence has taken a bit of a knock and I'm just like, literally, I mean, especially with a knee up, literally, like finding my feet again, you know? And so when I was able to actually explain to myself.

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Hold on. The reason you thinking you can't charge that is because you are feeling X, Y, Z. You feeling like you're not confident anymore. Okay. And you doubting yourself. Because I was able to have that conversation with myself, I was able to actually just put what I was going through, like into.

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Into a context. Right. And then think about like, okay, so now that you know your confidence took a knock, like you've been out of action for a couple months now, you finding your feet again. Okay, it was crap that you had these experiences with clients, but like, no one saw that coming.

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No one saw what happened with the knee coming. Do you know less now than you knew last year? No infatuation before. Sorry, can you just cutting out there. Oh, and now it says my Internet connection is unstable.

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Sorry. I know you need to do. I don't really know what I need to do because we only have one Internet.

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No. No. Okay. You back? Yeah. So I don't know if it was me that cut you out or you that. Just tell me again. Yeah, I'll just pick up from life. So I think it's because I was able to have that conversation with myself.

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Like, I was able to actually talk myself through. You are thinking this because you're feeling this, Right. I was able to link the two that contextualized for Me. And what I actually wanted to share with our listeners is that is actually a skill.

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In my past life I used to be a clinical therapist. But that is a skill from DBT therapy, okay? And the analogy is so powerful and I promise you it is like a game changer. It takes practice, but like what doesn't? And they explain it like if you think about your mind like a double story house, okay, on the bottom floor, they call it your emotional mind.

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Your emotional mind takes up the bottom floor, which actually quite literally, you know, when we act out of instinct, you know, fast or flat, actually comes from like your, your kind of more primal regions of your brain. And then your higher level functioning is actually in your frontal cortex.

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So they say the second level of your mind in that double story house is your rational brain. Now the bottom floor, your emotions. Picture it like there is a rave going on wild and then lots. And it's like, oh my God, the fun and the like where your emotional mind is.

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Because our emotions are often charged. Your rational mind is where all the prim and proper people are having a cup of tea, you know, and they speaking like this. It's all very parat. Okay?

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Now in between those two floors, there's a trap door. And what happens is when we get stuck in our only our emotional mind, like things we doing things driven out of our feelings, the trap door closes and you can't access your higher level thinking functioning, okay?

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And similarly, if you only in your rational mind and you do not feel at all, the trap door also closes, okay? So they in effect become inaccessible. If you are in one of those minds too much, you can't access the other one.

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And what that trapdoor is, is the go between. It's the middleman between the rave and the tea party. And that is called your wise mind. And the way your wise mind works is to try and get the rave people and the tea party people to be speaking some kind of language that's like common.

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So you're going through something. The wise man says, I know you're thinking to pack it all in to burn this down, but it's because you feeling frustrated at your lack of progress, you scared because you have no money coming in, okay?

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So it in effect explains to each of the minds. Yeah, okay. And so this morning that really helped me. It was like, no, you are not going to go back to what you were charging because that would be a purely emotional decision.

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It would be coming out of a place of you feeling shaken, not, you know, and let's just hold on. Even if you don't make up your mind right now, let's just, let's just know that that's where you at. No, no hasty decisions.

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You know, it's like that very maternal kind of like how you would speak to a child. Like, I know you're frustrated and I know things aren't going your way, but you can't throw the chair across the room. That explains it so beautifully.

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Kent really does. So I think having some self awareness, like I know as well, I know I'm physically unwell, like if I get flu, okay, and, and in some way, or if I haven't slept, which I often don't, I know when I'm physically compromised, it really affects me emotionally.

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And so I know that about myself. So I know that if I've had like two nights with very little sleep by the third day, it's probably not the best day to be making big decisions about my business. You know what I mean? So. Absolutely. Yeah. I think, I think yours are like super practical things you can do and mine maybe have been a little more on the.

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On like the. You need support, you need to have self awareness, you need to know yourself, you know, maybe more like the, the more emotional like kind of in a. Inner work stuff. And I must say, Kens, you know, you're in my friendship partnership, whatever has helped me so much as well, because you do, you do speak to the more psychological kind of things.

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I am a very, a very practical. So in my money architects, I am a ruler first and foremost. And that ruler just wants me to work and work and work until I'm like just about dead, you know, and you know, through speaking to you and listening to this.

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I love our chats because I learn so much and I try and put a bit more of the, the, you know, the psychological and the feelings and the kind of like it's okay to feel like this and explain it, you know, it just really works.

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I'm a very practical person. For me, taking control is doing something and I don't always have to do something. Sometimes I can understand something. Yeah, yeah, totally. And likewise, you know, like not even what, two weeks ago, I was just not having a great day and you were like, okay, like let's think about what you can do, you know.

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So I think, I think it works. Well, we have a, we have a great harmony because I think you actually need both. I think you need both in your life. You need both aspects of like the rational thinking, execution style kind of like doing and you need to be you need to just like understand yourself, give yourself space.

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And it works best when they linked, you know, through that like wise mind, like DBT says, you know. Yeah, absolutely. I will say that. You know, it is, it's hard. It's hard. It's like incredibly rewarding. Oh, my word. Like last year was just, it was a really good year.

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And it's great when you start feeling like all your work and hard and sweat and tears and it's all paying off. But I think this is kind of comes with the territory, you know, I think like being an entrepreneur, that feast, famine, up, down, it's, it's like the nature of the beast.

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What I, what I kind of hope is that the, the, that the peaks and the drops are just not as severe anymore. They kind of start shortening. So you kind of do this as opposed to like these big spots. Absolutely.

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Just more like a wave than big sparks in mood and in states, you know, 100%. Yeah. But we've always said you have to have rhino skin. You have to have like real grit and real resilience to, to keep at it.

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Yeah. And the thing is, is that as I think I said, you've got to just keep remembering the why you started this business for a reason. You have an audience who you can help. You know, you might not realize just how much you are impacting on them.

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So don't give up. Keep going. You've got to just, you've just got to be okay with the fact that everything is a test. You are going to have, you know, really good times and the bad times are also going to happen. It's just life, but it's the way that you deal with them.

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And, you know, it might, you might have to give yourself grace and be like, okay, today I'm just not going to work because I just don't feel like it. And then the next day you're just going to pick yourself up and you're just going to carry on. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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I mean, I mean, I, you know, I was like, what, four weeks ago thinking, like, okay, I'm going to see this as an opportunity. You know, I don't have a lot of client work, so I put all this time on my hands. And the stuff that I do for clients in their businesses, like the method that I help them organize and think through and I've never done on my own business, you know, so.

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Okay, I'm going to use this as an opportunity. And I managed to do a whole lot of stuff that for the last three years I just haven't had time to do. And. And then I was like, you know what? What have I got at my fingertips? Like, what have I got that doesn't require.

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Like, I loved when you said that the, that the coach was like, what could you put together that doesn't require hours of building out, landing pages? Like, what have you got? I thought the same thing. What have I got that doesn't require me to now grow an audience of strangers?

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And I thought, well, everyone in my personal life, people that are like the, the moms at the school and, and people like family, friends, and are always asking me, what do you do? And, oh, God, that sounds so interesting. And I said, and I knew that. And I thought, well, you know what I'm gonna do?

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I'm just gonna, like, put it out then. So I'm thinking about doing like a morning in person, like at my home and just talking about, like, how to advertise, how to market yourself online, and would you be interested in something like this?

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You know, and within two hours I had. I said, I can only have 10 people. And within two hours I had 10 people. So, you know, when you. And I think, again, it might not be what you want it to be. It's not your top tier, highest offer, okay?

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But it doesn't mean you can't do anything, you know, stuff that other people don't know. So it is about sometimes getting creative. So many people on our podcast, like specifically in this kasha, they speak about how you can see these things as opportunities rather than feeling like a victim of, like, bad circumstance, you know.

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So, yes, you've got to be a little bit creative, reach out to past clients. Like, is there anything you need help with? Do you know anyone that could use xyz? Let's work out a referral partner agreement. You know, there are definitely things you can do that you don't have to be like this passive victim feeling like you.

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There's nothing you can do. You don't have any control. Absolutely hundreds. I love that. Kansas. Yeah. So keep going, guys. Keep tracking. And if you don't have anyone that you can speak to honestly about what's going on, Gail and I can be those people for you.

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Yes, 100%. You can always reach out to us. Let us know. And I'm just going to. We'll end off by saying to our listeners, Gail and I would love to make content. You want to listen to stuff you find helpful and useful.

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So if it's funnels or content or conversion stats, if it's a tools, like, what is it that you are interested in learning about? Let us know and we will put it together for you. Absolutely.

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We love putting content together. Yeah. Cool, guys, we'll catch you next week. Thanks for listening and we'll see you soon. Catch you next week. Have a good week. Bye.