83. Why Do You Keep Attracting Difficult Clients?

86. How Well Do You Know Your Customers?

Episode Summary In this episode, we talk about what it means to be obsessed with your customer, why so many skip building a real customer profile, and how the businesses I admire most use that profile as a filter for every decision they make. I share what I learned at the University of Chicago about the unsexy practice of picking up the phone and talking to your customers, why "I sell to women between 30 and 50" is not specific enough to build a business on, and how Anthropologie speaks to one very particular woman without losing anyone else. If you have been feeling like your marketing is not hitting the mark, your clients aren't quite the right fit, or your business has gone stagnant without an obvious reason, this episode will give you a clearer place to start looking. Key Takeaways * Successful businesses are obsessed with their customers. They know how their customers think, what keeps them up at night, what they dream about, and what they are actually trying to solve * Trying to sell to everyone is one of the most expensive mistakes a founder can make. If you talk to everyone, no one listens. If you talk to one person clearly enough, the right people raise their hand and the wrong people self-select out * A real customer profile goes well past demographics. It includes psychographics, buying behavior, media habits, values, fears, and what people want their lives to look like. The deeper you understand the psychology, the better you can speak to it * Anthropologie is a useful study. They design and market for one specific woman with a clear identity, lifestyle, and values, and people outside that profile still buy from them. Specificity does not shrink your audience, it sharpens it * Once you have an ideal customer profile, it becomes a filter for every decision. Hiring, pricing, marketing, partnerships, product, and which clients you say yes to all run through it. Taking on a paying client who is not your ideal client almost always costs more than it earns * Your ideal customer changes over time, and your profile needs to change with them. Revisiting it at least once a year is a strong habit. Markets shift, behavior shifts, and the person who bought from you two years ago may not be the one buying now * Quest Bars assumed their customers were outdoor athletes and launched apparel that did not sell. The actual customer was a busy mom skipping breakfast. Even companies doing hundreds of millions in revenue lose money when they stop checking who is really buying * The second half of the customer relationship matters as much as the first. Eric Yuan saw where customers were headed, left Webex, and built Zoom around simplicity and user happiness. Tony Robbins had to challenge his belief that transformation only happens in a physical room in order to grow his reach online * For small companies, the most reliable growth strategy is to choose one type of customer, solve one meaningful problem better than anyone else, and let those clients tell other people about you Memorable Quotes * "Successful businesses are obsessed with their clients." * "If you talk to everyone, no one will listen. If you talk to one person, your customers will hear you."\  Resources Mentioned * Anthropologie as a case study in ideal customer profile design * Tom Bilyeu and the Quest Bars apparel story * Eric Yuan, Webex, and the founding of Zoom * Tony Robbins and the move to online events during the pandemic * "Cash is king" and "talk to your customers," two lessons from the University of Chicago Booth MBA Connect with Carolina * Website: carozuleta.com * Book a consultation: carozuleta.com/consult * LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/carolinazuletacoaching Subscribe & Review If this episode resonated, please leave a rating and follow the show. It helps other founders find the podcast and allows us to keep creating this content for free.

85. Why Hitting Your Goals Never Feels Like Enough

MAY 18TH - 30TH, JOIN ME FOR MY FREE DAILY MINI-WORKSHOP SERIES ON ESSENTIALISM AND HOW TO THINK ABOUT YOUR CALENDAR. IF YOU CAN'T MAKE IT LIVE, YOU CAN STILL ENROLL THROUGH MAY 22ND TO RECEIVE ALL RECORDINGS AND PDFS. LINK TO SAVE YOUR SEAT BELOW: HTTPS://WWW.CAROZULETA.COM/10X [https://www.carozuleta.com/10x] EPISODE SUMMARY I've been fascinated by the idea of potential since my late teens. For me, it has always been motivating, a possibility of what I could learn, develop, and become. But over the years, talking with friends and clients, I've heard a very different version of that word. Many people grew up hearing "you're wasting your potential," and they reference it as proof that who they are right now isn't enough. In this episode, I want to reset that. I talk about why potential should come from desire rather than lack, why we get to choose which potential we develop instead of treating it as an obligation, and why some of our potential will go undeveloped and that's perfectly okay. I draw on the concept of the gap and the gain from 10X Is Easier Than 2X and share a story about an ultra-high achieving client who almost abandoned her vision two weeks in because of the way she was looking at her goals. Be sure to tune in, this one is a goodie. Key Takeaways * Potential is a possibility, not a finish line. There will always be more we could learn or achieve, and that fact doesn't mean where we are today is wrong or that we are not good enough * The potential worth developing comes from desire, from what genuinely excites and matters to you, rather than from a place of lack or what others think you should be doing with your natural abilities * The gap and the gain describe two ways of measuring progress. Focusing on the gap, on how far you still are from the vision, breeds anxiety and a sense of falling short. Focusing on the gain, on how much you've already learned and become, builds motivation, confidence, and gratitude * Life is 50/50. No amount of revenue, freedom, or achievement makes the human experience permanently happy, and recognizing that takes the urgency and pressure out of chasing the next goal * The destination is rarely better than where you are. What makes ambition worth it is the journey and what you discover about your own strength, creativity, and capacity along the way * You can be fully content and proud of who you are today and still want to grow, not because here isn't enough, but because you get to keep exploring what you're capable of Memorable Quotes "To fulfill our potential is not a place we all need to get to. It's not an end line." "Potential cannot be this rigid thing that we think we should be. It really has to come from our true desires." "That is the secret to sustain our ambition, to be able to dream bigger and to not collapse because we're just focused on the gap." Resources Mentioned * 10X Is Easier Than 2X by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy, and the concept of the gap and the gain * Brooke Castillo and the Life Coach School, and the idea that life is 50/50 Connect with Carolina Website: carozuleta.com

84. Your Lack of Time is A Leadership Problem

The Self-Led CEO: a FREE 5-day Workshop May 18th - 22nd for business founders who think, behave and lead like a CEO.  Go here to enroll: https://www.carozuleta.com/10x [https://www.carozuleta.com/10x] Episode Summary A mentor once told me that if you are working more than 40 hours a week, you do not have a time problem, you have a leadership problem. In this episode I get into why your calendar is actually a mirror reflecting your current level of leadership, how many decisions still run through you, and how much of your business still depends on your personal capacity. Drawing from Dan Sullivan's and Benjamin Hardy's ,10X Is Easier Than 2X I explore the difference between a 2X mindset that asks, "How do I do more?" and a 10X mindset that asks, "What can I remove, delegate, or upgrade?" I also introduce the concept of over-functioning, which is the pattern most visionary CEOs fall into without realizing it, and the identity work required to lead at a higher level without giving your business every waking hour. This episode is the philosophy behind my brand new free mini course, The Self-Led CEO, which starts Monday. Key Takeaways * Working long hours is rarely a time management problem. It is a leadership problem, and underneath that, an identity problem. Your calendar is a mirror reflecting how much your business still depends on your personal capacity * The 2X mindset asks, "How can I do more, faster, with less waste?" The 10X mindset asks, "What needs to be removed, delegated, or upgraded?" 10X growth rarely comes from working ten times harder. It comes from doing less of the wrong things and more of the right ones at a higher level * Over-functioning is the pattern where your business borrows from your energy and speed instead of building the structures, team, and decision-making muscles it needs to grow on its own. It is not about doing everything. It is about doing things you are capable of doing but should not be doing anymore * Many CEOs over-function because they can. They are fast, they know the business deeply, and they can execute well. The same bias for action that built the business can become the very thing that caps its growth * There is a meaningful difference between hiring for relief and hiring for ownership. Hiring for relief often creates more work in the short term. Hiring for ownership brings in someone who can do the job better than you and frees you to lead at a higher level * The identity shift can happen in a single conversation. The operational shift takes longer. Expect cognitive dissonance as your old identity tries to pull you back into familiar patterns of overworking, over-controlling, and over-delivering * Recovery is a leadership strategy, not a reward for working hard enough. Building a business that can grow beyond your personal capacity requires you to value rest, thinking time, and empty space on the calendar as much as you value execution Memorable Quotes * "Your calendar is the mirror reflecting back to you your level of leadership." * "10X mindset is about removing things off your plate. 2X mindset is about adding things to your plate." * "Over-functioning is when your business borrows from your energy and capacity instead of building the structure to grow on its own." * "The most important thing you can do for your business is use your brain." * "The mindset shift can happen in a moment. The operational shift takes time, and that distinction matters." Resources Mentioned * 10X Is Easier Than 2X by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy * The Self-Led CEO, a free five-day mini course starting Monday, twenty minutes per day, enroll through the link in the episode description Connect with Carolina * Website: carozuleta.com * Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts * Interested in working together? Book a discovery call to learn more about the Visionary Mindset Program, where founders go from winging it to CEO over six months of group coaching

83. Why Do You Keep Attracting Difficult Clients?

Episode Summary I have a theory that may sound a bit harsh... but stick with me. Most of the time, difficult clients are a symptom of bad leadership. Yes, hard people exist in the world. Yes, some clients will push every boundary you have. But when I peek behind the curtain of a business that's drowning in difficult client situations, I almost always find the same three things missing. In this episode, I walk through what those three things are and how to start rebuilding them. If you've been resenting your clients lately, or if you've been tolerating misalignment because you're scared the next client won't come, this one is for you. Key Takeaways * Difficult clients are usually a symptom of three things missing in your leadership: clarity, ownership, and follow-through. Hard people exist, but when difficult clients become the norm, the work is on you * Most founders haven't actually defined their ideal client beyond someone who can pay. Values alignment, communication style, payment behavior, scope clarity, and the energy you feel working with them all belong on that list * Saying yes to clients out of scarcity is one of the most expensive habits in business. You over-accommodate, lose money on scope, and build resentment toward the work you used to love * The manual is a tool I learned at the Life Coach School. It's the unconscious set of expectations we carry for how others should behave. The two problems with it are that we rarely communicate it, and even when we do, people are still going to be people * Even when a client crosses one of your boundaries, you are not a victim to their choices. You get to decide how to respond, whether that's holding the line or extending grace, and that decision needs to come from leadership rather than fear * Follow-through is where most founders break down. They get clear, they communicate the rules, and then they go quiet the moment a client pushes back because they're scared of the difficult conversation * You can fire clients. In 15 years of coaching, I've fired maybe two, and both times it was because I knew the work wasn't serving them. You can hold a hard line and still stay in connection and integrity with the person across from you Connect with Carolina * Book a consultation: carozuleta.com/consult * LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/carolinazuletacoaching * Email: info (at) carolinazuleta (dot) com Subscribe & Review If this episode was helpful, please leave a rating and follow the show. It helps other founders find the podcast and allows us to keep creating this content for free.

82. Guilty at Work, Guilty at Home

Episode Summary This episode is more personal than most. I sat down to share what I've learned about being a mom while running a business. This episode is a lot about how carefully I've thought about how to design a life where parenting and a career can exist without one constantly losing to the other. If you're a parent who works, or someone trying to build a life where ambition and love for the people closest to you don't have to compete, this one is for you. Key Takeaways * The question is not whether to choose career or family, it is how to design a life that holds both. Trade-offs exist, but they rarely look the way we assume they do when fear is making the decision for us * Guilt is information. When you feel it, the work is to ask whether you're out of integrity with your own values or absorbing someone else's idea of who you should be. Those are very different problems with very different responses * There is no single template for a good mother. The most powerful version of motherhood is the one that flows from who you actually are, not from what you've watched other women do well * Being present in your child's life is not measured in hours. It is measured in connection, in knowing what's happening in their world, and in showing up for the moments that matter to them * The same coaching skills that work in business work in parenting. Awareness of your own thoughts, regulation of your own emotions, and intentionality about your impact are life skills that translate to every relationship you have * Children give immediate, honest feedback. When you stop trying to fix their experience and start witnessing it instead, the entire dynamic changes. Most kids do not want their feelings solved, they want their feelings seen * Modeling matters more than instruction. When children watch a parent love their work, take ownership of mistakes, and repair ruptures honestly, they learn to do the same in their own lives * Setting limits and staying connected are not in conflict. You can hold a hard line, give a consequence, or have a difficult conversation while keeping the love completely intact Memorable Quotes * "I think one of my biggest parenting tools is to pay attention." * "There is no way of loving a child in excess. The problem is that we confuse not setting boundaries with love." * "My job is not to fix this. My job is to hold space for her emotions and witness her experience." * "We parent more with our example than our words." Resources Mentioned * The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson * Dr. Becky Kennedy and the Good Inside app (highly recommend for parents) * Elizabeth Gilbert's framing on the three types of mothers Connect with Me * Website: carozuleta.com [https://carozuleta.com] * If this episode resonated, please rate and follow the podcast. It helps more founders find this work and shapes the content we create each week