Top 10 Time Challenges as a Female Entrepreneur

Discover the transformative power of finding harmony over balance, tune in as we unveil the strategies that have empowered me and countless other female entrepreneurs to conquer the top 10 time management challenges. In a candid conversation, we tackle the misconceptions surrounding work-life balance, advocating for a more attainable and fulfilling pursuit of harmony. As a business growth strategist with the dual experience of being a former salon owner, I bring to light the necessity of prioritizing and aligning our personal and professional goals, carving out a path towards a more productive and satisfying life.

 By sharing real-life applications and heart-to-heart advice, this episode stands as your guiding light toward financial prosperity with less stress.

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Are you ready to say goodbye to fear, frustration, and overwhelm when it comes to growing and scaling your business? You’re in the right place. Welcome to  Beyond Common Business Secrets Podcast I’m your host, Tracey Watts Cirino

Chapters

• 1:10 Overcoming Time Challenges for Female Entrepreneurs
• 12:58 Strategies for Female Business Owners
• 26:54 Efficient Systems for Financial Gain

Transcript

Tracey Watts Cirino: 1:10

Hello, hello, welcome to Beyond Common Business Secrets, where we uncover all of the juicy strategies and secrets of successful female entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Tracey Watts Cirino, and today we're diving into the top 10 time tongue twister right. We're diving into the top 10 time challenges that female entrepreneurs face and how to overcome them. In today's episode, we're really going to dive into what it really is like to have these time challenges on the day-to-day. I work as a business growth strategist and I am also a former salon owner. I know firsthand what it's like to be overrun with time challenges and things that just zap your time and feel like sometimes you have no control over your own time, which is exactly the opposite reason why most of you got into business in the first place. The number one reason most females get into a place where they want to be in business is because they want time and freedom. That is why it's so important that we're going to go over this list today and really dive in. On this episode of Beyond Common Business Secrets, we're going to explore the top 10 challenges that you may be facing as a female entrepreneur and business owner. It's almost like most female business owners are going to encounter these on your journey to success in some way shape or form. They look like balancing work and family responsibilities, overcoming overwhelm and staying focused. We're even going to dive into some practical strategies and actionable tips that will help you reclaim control over your time. You can achieve greater productivity and have that feeling of fulfillment in both your business and in your life. Does that sound good? By a show of hands, can I get it? Can I get a yes-yes? Amazing, because I work often in the capacity that I'm either speaking at big industry events where I am with a lot of female CEOs, business owners or even just female leaders, and I work as a business growth strategist.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 4:02

I hear all the time that I just need to get balance in my work and family life. I hear that all the time. I have a saying that I just believe oftentimes that we're set up to fail as females in this way because we have been fed this BS version that balance exists. To me, it never does. I think step one is release that notion that you have to achieve balance, because it's almost unattainable. What I mean by that is that we can seek harmony. We can seek to have a harmony between our business responsibilities and our home life responsibilities You're raising kids, you're taking care of aging parents, you have volunteer responsibilities, you have community involvement the list is endless. I understand that. The thing is that I think the idea in this area of seeking balance just sets us up to fail, because it never can truly be balanced. There's always one spoke on that wheel that's out of alignment.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 5:22

My take on this is seek for harmony. Understand that to be in alignment, sometimes you are going to have to ask your family to pick up some responsibilities at home. That is okay. It's setting them up to be better humans as they grow up. So that is step one, and oftentimes I coach female entrepreneurs that have never even thought of asking their husband or partner for help. So we have to get over this notion that we have to do it all. Yes, we can have it all, but we do not have to do it all. So I want you to kind of release the pressure that thinking you have to achieve this balance puts on us and realize that we can really look at this through the lens of where can you seek harmony? Where can you feel like you're more in alignment? What else happens is that when you look at it through this lens, you understand that sometimes, when it comes to the idea of living in harmony, that you realize sometimes you are in a season of growth in your business where that is gonna have a lot more priorities. You maybe have to work a couple of weekends, you maybe have to work evenings, but then typically you don't do that and you are home with your family, so that's okay. And then there are other times when family might have a problem, an emergency or something and you have to spend more time there. So the point is that when we focus on where can we be more in harmony and where can we live in more alignment with what our hopes and dreams truly are, that gets us out of that balance trap.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 7:17

So then number two would be juggling multiple roles within their business. This is something I hear all the time from CEOs. That is, they have to go from CEO to marketer or customer service representative to lead sales consultant and like all the things, and that is super true, right, that is super true. And until you can grow your revenue to the point that you can hire for those positions, this is the point that you have to juggle these multiple roles. But the cloud, the cloud that hangs over with this. The silver lining through that cloud is that it's not forever and the more strategic you are with utilizing your strengths and doubling down on what you're truly good at and minimizing those sort of like time-sucking tasks that you may not be good at, the quicker you're going to get out of it. So don't think that you just have to stay here forever and it's just going to be this endless cycle.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 8:28

Prioritize I even suggest a lot of my clients write this down. Write down all the roles you currently have, even if it's just you and a small team, even if it's just you. It's good to see that org chart with you on everything, because visually seeing it allows you to get clear on where you will want to hire someone first. When you start putting that energy out there, it's almost like the clients in the sales. They automatically find you. This is a huge area that we dig into. When I first start working with clients, understand that the juggling of multiple roles. We can make this more fun than stressful. I really encourage you to look at that through a different lens.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 9:18

Then number three is difficulty prioritizing tasks and knowing what to do first. So when we're really clear on what we do in our business, why we do it and our long-term vision. It is much easier If you have not taken the time to really think through why do you do what you do? What are your long-term goals and visions? When those are clear, it's so much easier to choose what takes priority. So go back to the beginning. Even if you've been in business 10 years, if you feel that this is off and things are out of alignment in this way, I strongly encourage you to go back and carve out an afternoon that you can really go through all of this by really setting up your mission statement, your vision, your values and really getting clear on that. It helps eliminate a lot of the day-to-day stress.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 10:19

This is one of the primary things that we do inside of the CEO power code, which is our course. That's all about female CEOs taking control of your day and really mastering your time. This is one of the areas I think we really dive into this in module one and two. We really dive into this because the more you're clear on all of this, the difficulty that we have with prioritizing and delegating it it just all falls away when we do that front-end work. Oftentimes, maybe you got into business just because you wanted to make more money and that was it. That was the extent of it, but over time it's grown into other things. It's really great to take a step back and reevaluate and reassess where you are now. You can never go wrong with doing this. It will always free up more time, even though it seems counterintuitive.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 11:16

Number four is feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work that needs to be done. This again, this is for a season. This is why, if we're chasing balance, it totally stresses us out. It makes us like whoa. It's like over cortisol in our body. The idea is to take a step back and look at from the lens of prioritizing, what your long-term vision, what's the real, true mission of your business and why you're in business. When those are clear, this is much easier to prioritize. You will be surprised when you go through a lens like this. When you look at it through a lens like this, you can get rid of a lot of wasted, time-sucking tasks that maybe are not even delivering anything to you. It's scary, but so fulfilling and rewarding when you see the benefit. This is often something. If you hire an accountability partner or a coach or something like that, they can help you through this because it's almost like our mindset will sometimes play tricks on us. It's really wonderful to have a support person or support system in place to get through this, but if you are in this state of knowing it needs to be done, then I strongly encourage you to really go through and pick out just the necessities and remove everything that's like, oh, it's a nice to have, but it's taking up so much time and not delivering any results. It won't hurt you, I promise. Let it go. It's all good. It's like let it go, goodbye.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 12:58

Number five is struggling to find uninterrupted time for deep work and strategic planning. Oh my goodness, this was such a game changer in my life and business. I think I'm going back about 12 years. Yeah, probably like 12 years ago, I had no clue the sheer volume of what would take over and how. I didn't have my own thoughts, because people were coming at me every which way, and then you add children into the mix and my head was going to pop off its body. So what I did was I started getting up really early and realizing that I have never been an early bird. I was always more of a night owl. I never wanted to get up and work out, I would hit snooze, I would do all the things. I had a coach that said to me Tracy, you are never going to want to do it, you need to do it anyway. I was like, okay, it was taking the action. Taking an action gave me the inspiration that I needed, but I was waiting for inspiration to strike and it never did. If any of you that are multi-tasking right now come back to me and hear that Taking action gave me the inspiration that I needed, where I was waiting to be, I'm going to feel like one day I'm just going to be inspired to do this.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 14:27

That was not the case for me. I started getting up at 5 am not a morning person at all, but I started getting up at 5 am and meditating and then just going on a walk with a neighbor. Then, over time, it evolved into I really like getting up that early because I love the quiet time where I get to be alone with my own thoughts and really have this uninterrupted time. These are the hours in the morning where I would write my books, and write content for new programs, and now it's evolved into this entire morning routine. Now I am not at all saying that that's the only end-all be-all. You could carve out a two o'clock time slot for you If you need to go, mark your schedule that at two o'clock you are leaving for coffee and time alone. You can literally put a client on your schedule that you're going to meet, and maybe it's just you and your notebook and you are going to take time to think it's so important to carve out time for yourself during your most inspirational hours of the day.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 15:38

I'm sharing with you what worked for me, even though it was a struggle for me to get there. It is something I so look forward to now and I just can't get enough of it. I have to start my day that way. It just makes me feel like all is right and well in the world when I have my morning time to myself. That is how you find that uninterrupted time for your deep work and your strategic thinking. You have to schedule for it. It's like a no fly zone. I have to have that scheduled uninterrupted time, so you have to be that diligent to give it to yourself in any way, shape or form. Now it could be in the evening for you.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 16:21

There's nothing that says you have to listen to every guru that says to do something at a specific time. Do what works best for you, but give yourself the time by taking it. You've got to own that. That's one of the ways you become the CEO of your day of your life. You just take that time for you. The next is a number six. This is that I constantly hear this from so many female business owners and CEOs that they are constantly having to put out fires and dealing with unexpected emergencies. Now, that is normal that we're going to have some of that. That is normal that we're going to have some of that.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 17:02

The way through this is to create systems like your standard operating procedures and strategies within your business that you delegate to your team. There, of course, are things that only you can do, but if you are living in a constant state of fight or flight, that everything's an emergency, then nothing is actually really an emergency. You have to create some boundaries around what an actual emergency is and what an emergency is not. When you're clear with yourself and your team about that, you will put out about 75% of the fires immediately. That way, it also empowers your team to take ownership and make decisions, which feels really good when you train people to be problem solvers and understand that their job is to make the company better, and when you do it collectively, together, everybody wins. That is when this will stop. It's one of those things that you've got to plan.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 18:15

If you've done something more than twice, you need to create a standard operating procedure, because at one point you're going to give it away. I have always done a practice where I write out all the steps to do something, even if I'm the one doing it, because sometimes I don't have to do it that often. I would always forget the steps. I felt like I would spend two hours looking to find what was the process for this or how did I do this before. I would be getting distracted and interrupted all the time. Then it would take me longer. When you create a simple checklist, a simple strategy, this will save a lot of time in that way.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 18:57

Then we're going to move on to number seven, which is difficulty saying no to additional commitments or opportunities. You want to say yes to everything. Right, of course, but if that is not in alignment with your vision of where you're going, then sometimes saying yes is going to send you on this sort of goose chase of all the things that are maybe they're okay, they're good, but it's never going to give you the great results that you're looking for. So being really clear and really strategic with what deserves an actual yes is going to help. You. Say no to all the good so you can say yes to the great there's. I think Jim Collin's wrote a book called Good to Great It was good to great, and I read it years ago. It's such an amazing book. The other thing is that you have to trust that there's always going to be opportunities. Now, if something's a lifetime opportunity, then by all means grab it and don't feel bad about saying no to the things that are not as good. It's okay, people will understand. So when you decide to take the step back and really get clear of your long-term vision and mission, this makes this stuff a lot easier too. Then it brings us to number eight. This is a huge one Feeling guilty when taking time for self-care and personal pursuits.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 20:30

Now, again, this is the same thing. You cannot keep working yourself into oblivion, thinking , oh yeah, when, if I get this, then I get that. You have to build this self-love and care time in. This is another thing of how the walking in the morning Now my husband and I do it together because we decided that, though this is the time of life when he's really busy with his work, I'm super busy growing our business. I even have a couple extra businesses that I run. I have one that I run with the kids and then other client work that I do for people. The thing is that this is the really busy time that if we did not carve out our morning to go on a walk together and give ourselves it's the best part of ourselves, we had been giving each other the leftover scraps. When we shifted that, everything in our life, like our family life, our marriage and our relationship, shifted for the better. When that shifted for the better, then everything shifted. In my relationship with our children I feel like I became a better mom. My relationships with friends got better. Even the way I show up in my business improved. These are ways that you can look at taking these shifts and not feeling guilty.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 21:53

Whatever you need for your self-love and care or whatever your personal pursuits, you have passions that you want to pursue. Put those on your calendar. Guard and , protect those with as much armor as you do, a client appointment. Make sure you put those on your calendar and you schedule time for them because they're so important to your overall well-being and your long-term success. There is a growing epidemic of female entrepreneurs having high rates of burnout. I recently read a study I think it was Forbes where it is something like 67 percent of female business owners struggle with burnout on a monthly basis, which is a huge number, and 27 percent and this number is rising are struggling on a weekly basis. I strongly empower you to take the time that you need for your personal pursuits and any self-care that aligns with your heart and soul. Do it. It's something that the time you're never getting back. Just do it. Then.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 23:05

Number nine is challenges in delegating tasks and trusting others to handle them efficiently. Now, this is something I hear all the time from female business owners and CEOs. Oftentimes, in a corporate structure, we had felt like, as females, we had to work twice as hard as all the men in the room to achieve the same level of success, so it's really hard to trust that someone's not going to take your idea for their own because that's happened time and time again. So I hear you, I understand and I want you to understand that you are in charge of you. Surround yourself with people that you can trust and delegate, and if there are certain things that only you can do, then only do those things, but you do not have to do everything. The reason you have a team whether you are a business owner that is employing those people or you're a leader that they're on your team in in a bigger company that you work for. The idea is that they are there to support you, so you get to choose what they do, not the other way around. So keep the stuff that you really want to do and what is truly in your zone of genius and delegate and give away everything else. I promise you the the rare occasion that someone takes credit for something is so minor compared to the freedom and ease you will feel, and then you'll just continue to have even better ideas. The more that you're able to embrace this and trust this, the more you will attract more people into your life that you can trust. So it's one of those things you train people because you want everybody to get better. If we kept all the knowledge to ourselves then that's not paying it forward and making the impact that you probably set out to make in your business in the first place, so trust the process, and if there's a person that is on your team that has given you a reason not to trust them, have the difficult conversation. Give them the space to level up or get rid of them. You know, it's that simple.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 25:32

Then, moving on to number 10, which is lack of efficient systems and processes in place to streamline workflow, so we cannot just be all over the place willy-nilly, not having any systems or processes in place. This is true for every type of business, especially creative service businesses. So often when I'm working with salon owners, coaches, authors, people that are course creators, healers, and leaders that are that that mentoring space, they feel like everything's so customized and while that might be true session to session, there are parts of your business that can be systematized and have standard operating procedures. I strongly urge you to write down the systems and procedures, because the more of those you have, the more valuable your business is. If everything lives in your head, at some point your business will be dead because it is not sellable. It is only sellable when you have systems, processes, and things that people can tangibly see, and that is how you're able to 10X and scale things in your business.

Tracey Watts Cirino: 26:54

So it not only gets you out of this time frame, of feeling like this time challenges. It also sets you up for more financial gain, working less in the future, so that is why this lack of efficient systems and processes really takes place on our top 10 list. Out of all the female CEOs and female entrepreneurs that I talk to you on a weekly basis, this is the top 10 list that everybody seems to struggle with when it comes to time. So I strongly encourage you, if you found this helpful and valuable, give us a review on whichever platform wherever you are tuning in to listen to Beyond Common Business Secrets Podcast. Reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook @traceywattscirino. Tell me what you're going to implement first and tag me. Let me know. I love to hear from you and I cannot wait to see what you are going to do to optimize your by by focusing on you and what you need to grow and scale your business. As always, I hope you have the most Beyond amazing day and we will see you on the next one.