6 Tricks to Get Out of a Business Slump

Hey Friend!

Are you experiencing a business slump? By that, I mean a period of either boredom or not feeling motivated. Maybe it’s a period of not making money in your business or maybe your downloads are stagnant. Basically, it’s a slumpy period where you are not feeling it. 

Read on to discover the 6 tricks I have for you to break free from your business slump.

Get out of a business slump with these 6 tricks

The hardest business slump I have experienced was from April ‘21 to August ‘22 when my podcast was stagnant. I felt frustrated and kept questioning why my podcast was not growing. I started to second-guess myself, and I felt I shouldn’t be a podcast coach. It put lies into my heart around the quality of my content and who I was speaking to. It created this swirl of inefficiency in my life. 

I’d sit down to work and the little whisper of ‘you’re not good enough’ and ‘this podcast stinks’ kept creeping up. Friend, this is going to happen in your life. And it will happen again. Spiritual warfare is real! (If you’re feeling these spiritual attacks from the Enemy, download my Spiritual Battle Plan to encourage you as you fight through those attacks!)

Hopefully, these 5 tricks can be applied to other areas of life where you are experiencing a slump.

Ignore the lies about the business slump!

We are daughters of the King doing anointed work and the easiest way to take us out is to come at us with these lies and thoughts that we’re not good enough, this isn’t working and we should try something else. That we are unmotivated and unworthy, not enough, and have nothing good to say. All lies, my friend!

Keep pushing through. Never give up. Continue to fill your mind with God’s word and continue to persevere. We are often 3 feet from gold when we feel like nothing is working. We are inches from that breakthrough. I was too, but this has a happy ending in that I was able to hit the highest download month that we had ever hit. By the end of 2022, we passed over a million downloads and we are hitting some of the highest download days.

If you would have asked me a year ago if this was possible I would have probably said no because I was in my slump.

How to get out of your business slump

1. Take a break

You need to get away from it. One of the things we think will fix a business slump, either internal or external, is the thought that we should do more. External things could be to create this thing and do this thing to make more money. Or something internal like you are unmotivated, you don’t feel like doing this anymore, maybe you should go and get a different job. 

And so we do nothing. We circle and circle allowing our minds to stay in that place for far too long. Just take a break.

Sometimes this looks like a day where you maybe go and take a hike, a swim, or a drive. Maybe you need to get away on an overnight with your husband, yourself, or a girlfriend. Maybe you just need to be alone. One of my favorite ‘take a break’ moments is when I get to take a day or two to myself where I force myself to do stuff I wouldn’t normally do like take a nap, sit outside and watch the sunrise/ sunset, take a bike ride by myself, take a hot bubble bath with no agenda. Leave my phone and lose it for hours. Your greatest clarity will come in moments when you’ve surrendered your time. God speaks to you when you stop moving. 

2. Do Market Research

Often when I have been in a slump, I continue to turn back to myself and what I know and what I’ve been through. I think I need to create more content offers around me and what I think people want. 

That’s the worst thing I could do as I no longer sit where my listener sits. It’s skewed. It’s coming from a position of being on the other side of the mountain. So my messaging is off, my marketing is off, and often my offers are even off. 
Stop and talk to people. Get on a phone call with someone. Get on Zoom or a Voxer and ask questions. Don’t coach and don’t teach – just listen. The secret sauce for getting out of your business slump is to hear from your people. It will re-invigorate you to serve them and it’s gonna give you the knowledge, the copy, and the content that you need to hit them right where they are hurting. They are hurting and you have the solution that they need.

3. Invest in a Coach or join a Mastermind

You are the lid in your business because you only know what you know and there is a whole lot of stuff that you don’t know.

In the past 12 months, I have really been humbled in this area. I’ve learned that it is priceless to learn from other people who have walked before me and other people who are doing things that I wanna be doing in this business and even in my life. I don’t have all the answers, I don’t even have half the answers. 

Having a willing heart to learn takes investing in yourself. I understand that your business slump may be financial – that’s normal. It often takes a lot of courage and surrender to say even though I’m in a financial slump right now, I’m going to go ahead and trust that God is a provider. He is my shepherd and all I have to do is trust Him. 

Make this big, incredible, audacious leap of faith in whatever that coach, mastermind, or program is that is going to reinvigorate you. It will blow the lid off where you are stuck. When I have invested in myself and my business, there has been an exponential ROI. There has been revenue that follows not long after that investment that I make.

4. Find a New Passion Project or Creative Outlet

When we are in a business slump, we tend to focus solely on that one problem or we focus solely on everything but that problem in complete avoidance. Often it’s not a healthy avoidance, so we numb out. By that, I mean socials, TV, food, whatever it might be for you.

Instead of that, maybe you need to find a new passion project. Maybe there is something at your local church that you have been feeling called to do. Or maybe volunteering somewhere. Maybe it’s a new creative outlet like singing, playing an instrument, or drawing. Or maybe you want to get out into nature. What is the new thing in your life that is going to bring some of that passion and that energy back that you need to bring into your business? 

This could look like a one-time thing. This could look like a new hobby. It’s something new, exciting, and different in your life. Or it could be a way of serving in a new capacity. It’s gonna spark something inside of you that is going to translates not just in that one area, but it bleeds over to every single area of your life. 

5. Create a Gratitude List

This is specific to the area you feel your slump is in. If it’s in your business and you’re down because you haven’t had any clients. Maybe you’ve put an offer out there and the response has been crickets. All the doubts come your way because you haven’t had a bite on your offer. 

I want you to sit down with a sheet of paper and write out all the things that you’re grateful for that have to do with where you are. For example, I’m so grateful that I get to help people in this area with their mindset, their fitness, etc. Or I get to serve people by providing them with this devotional. Pour out your thanks and gratitude.

6. Create an Accomplishment List

At the same time as crafting your gratitude list, take a moment and sit on the things you have done. It’s so easy to get distracted by the things we don’t have, what hasn’t worked, and what isn’t going the way we thought. None of that matters because all we are called to do is focus on today, the calling that is over our lives and our businesses, and trust that God is going to make a way through all of it. 

When you write down your accomplishment list, think about what you have done. With the offer example, celebrate that you actually created an offer and that you pitched the offer on your podcast. Oh and yeah, that you started your own podcast.

So you can partner the gratitude with the accomplishments and watch how God will work through that. 
Go and Google some scriptures around the things you wrote down to see what God has to say to you about where you are. God is good all the time and His timing is perfect we just have to trust in that.

My prayer to you

Friend, I pray that you find encouragement today to keep on going and break through your business slump. That these tricks will help you stay the course because the course that God has for you is infinitely better than any course that the world might be leading you to take.

I pray that you have your eyes fixed on Him, nothing else, and that you would have a fresh wind of encouragement and inspiration to serve in the business you have been called to start and grow. 

I pray that God would give you everything you need to believe that He has a way for you. To find that level of service and success, income and impact that He has for you. And that He would amplify your belief here and now. 

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

P.S. Also, listen to podcast episode 557 for the full training on 6 Tricks to Get Out of a Business Slump.

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Before you go, be sure to watch the free workshop!

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