Burned Out on Client Work? I Recorded This Episode for You

So I have been fully booked out with clients in my business for eight years now and I am truly so grateful to be able to say that.

The work I do with my clients is one of the greatest privileges of my life and also being booked out so consistently is how I’ve been able to stabilise my income, be the breadwinner for my family, and have the freedom to live and work on my own terms each day too.

And, also, the messy truth is that I’ve also experienced burnout many times over the years in my business too.

Because client work, whatever your industry, is a massive energetic exchange. If you’re doing work you love it’s also a huge joy and filled with purpose too but I’ve never met or worked with a client based business owner who hasn’t experienced some level of burnout in their work at some point.

And sometimes it’s not even about the clients, it’s about your life and the messiness of balancing it alongside the energetic demands of client work. I know for me the seasons of burnout I’ve navigated have always coincided with a challenging flare of my chronic illness and balancing my health and a full client workload can feel so impossible some days and I’ve made it work during those challenging seasons but that wasn’t how I wanted to live and work in the long run.

And then especially after having my son and figuring out the juggle of work and parenthood and my health and trying to be a human in the middle of it all too was a big fork in the road for me where it became undeniable that I could no longer continue to run a business with the same client schedule as before.

And I’ve seen so many of my clients go on their own journey of client burnout too.

Sometimes it’s because the demands of their client work isn’t aligned with how they live and work best, or because they just have far too much work on the books or they’re not longer fulfilled by the work.

If you’ve clicked to listen to this episode I’m going to assume that you’re a client business who may be navigating some burnout in your work right now and the main thing I want to encourage you with is that you’re not alone and you’re not stuck in this.

And I know how it feels to feel like you are stuck, to look at your schedule and have no idea first how to pivot your business and second how to even make the time to pivot your business too.

But that stuck feeling you have can be channeled into determination instead.

Determination to reshape your business to work better for you, to pivot your business model into something more spacious and aligned with how you want to be living and working each day.

That’s what it did for me and what I’ve seen it do for so many of my clients too.

I now work with half of the amount of clients I used to even just a few years ago and continue to make a stable and thriving income so that I can be the breadwinner for my family.

And for me there have been two key factors to making this possible.

First is that I reshaped my client offering to be more spacious and aligned with how I want to be working in this season of my life - episode 14 will walk you through the specifics of this.

And second is that I have been committed to building 1-to-many income into my business model that is capable of being a substantial part of my income each year.

For example so far this year I have actually made more of my sales and income through 1-to-many income than I have client work which is exactly what I had hoped for and worked towards this year and is why I’m really able to scale back my client workload further this year and make more space in my schedule for my 1-to-many offers.

Because I don’t actually want to stop working with clients, I really do adore this work I just no longer have the capacity to take on as much 1-to-many work as I once did and also I love delivering group offerings and that’s something I really want to be able to pour more energy into in my work. So I’ve been really focused on shifting to a hybrid business model where I make a substantial percent of my income through 1-to-many offerings but also still take on some clients throughout the year too.

A hybrid model may be what you desire too, or perhaps you want to shift entirely to 1-to-many offers or perhaps you just want to diversify your income a little bit just to create some breathing room in your client schedule.

Either way I haven’t seen a client based business bring the spaciousness and intentional growth they desire into their business be made possible without diversifying their income streams with 1-to-many offers.

And the good news is that the options are endless for the type of 1-to-many income you can create so you really get to experiment with this in whatever way feels most aligned for you.

And if you’re really burned out right now the thought of building something new into your business might be feel exhausting and I get it I’ve been there and sometimes we just need some space to show up and do our work and then switch off and rest and recharge and put building in new offerings into our workload down the road.

But if right now you’re ready to start making these changes and exploring how to intentionally build 1-to-many income into your business model so you can find more space and ease and intentional growth in your work I have 2 things for you:

First is a free workshop diving into the biggest lessons I’ve learned about creating 1-to-many income and a workbook to go with it sharing ten 1-to-many offerings blueprints to help spark your next idea too.

And if you’d really love to dive deep into creating a 1-to-many offering and have my guidance and support every step of the way I have a new program launching in July called Choose More that will give you exactly that. The link is in my show notes to find out more.

And more than anything what I want to encourage you with today is this: it’s okay if you’re feeling burned out on client work.

It doesn’t mean you’re failing or bad at what you do. It just means you’re human and that your business is no longer sustainable for you. It’s an invitation to reshape your work in a way that truly works best for you, even if you need to go slowly and eat the elephant one bite at a time.

Know that you’re not alone, listen to episode 14 if you want to focus on simplifying your client work and dive into my free workshop and workbook if you want to explore your next steps to building 1-to-many offerings into your business.

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Jen Carrington23 June 2022