3 Tips for Building a Burnout-Proof Business with Maegan Megginson
Branding with Friends | Episode 22
Featuring Expert Guest: Maegan Megginson, Business Coach & Licensed Psychotherapist
Watch or listen to the video interview below or scroll down to read the transcription.
Meet Maegan Megginson, Business Coach & Licensed Psychotherapist
Annie: Maegan is a business coach, licensed therapist, group practice owner, and self-diagnosed business-building addict, who helps overwhelmed service providers create unique, burnout-proof businesses that honor their needs and bankroll their lifestyle. As an ambitious introvert and highly sensitive person, Maegan is intimately familiar with the struggle that arises when your energetic limitations conflict with your desire to build the business you know you’re capable of creating. She is passionate about helping other sensitive entrepreneurs create businesses that make tons of cash without sacrificing their sanity. Oh, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much for joining.
Maegan: Yeah, Annie, I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.
Annie: Yes. And we recently met through another Branding with Friends, guest, the very first Andrea Jones, who runs onlinedrea and is a social media expert. And we just hit it up once. And as soon as I heard that you helped build burnout-proof businesses, I was like, you've got to come on Branding with Friends and talk about this.
Maegan: This is my favorite topic.
Annie: Well, and I also love that in your bio, it says, you know, you say you're you are a licensed therapist, and that's not you know, a cleverness thing. It's you. That's part of what you do. And I know how you got into this. But you know, that's a useful skillset. As a business coach, I'm sure that I could actually be a trained therapist.
Maegan: It's extremely useful. You know, when I became a licensed therapist over 10 years ago, I, you know, didn't anticipate that I would ever become a business coach. But now that I'm here, and I look back on the trajectory of my career so far, it feels so incredibly purposeful, because I do feel like my 10 years of boots on the ground work in the psychotherapy space has given me a very unique lens through which I view my work with my business coaching clients. And yeah, like finding the way that these two pieces fit together is really thrilling to me.
Annie: It is so awesome. I often joke that I feel like I'm a counselor half the time and you actually are one. So there’s actually a lot of coaches and consultants watching this going, yes. But I'm so glad you're here and this unique topic of building a burnout-proof business. I think we all want one of those. I wanted you to come on and share what are those three things that someone could do to move the needle to get closer to having a burnout proof business, if they feel like they're burning out, if you feel like you're struggling to grow as a coach or consultant, that's what Maegan's here to share with us today.
If you've never watched an episode of Branding with Friends, I'll just go ahead and tell you we're going to share three tips today, she's got three awesome tips and something special just for you. We're going to share that third tip right at the end. So make sure to listen all the way through to make sure you get as much value from Maegan as you can. And she has brought a ton. And you may not realize how much branding has to do with having a burnout-proof business.
So absolutely jump into that first tip. Maegan, just tell me a little bit more about how you stumbled. I love that, you know, you will have been in so much of your own style of being an introvert and making space in your own business to have a burnout-proof business. Tell me a little bit more about how you got into business coaching.
Maegan: I've been a therapist for 10 plus years. And I learned early in my career as a therapist that I really loved the business building side of being a therapist, I was in private practice early. I did that for several years. And then I expanded into the group practice model where, I still have my group practice. I'm here right now, the Center for couples and sex therapy in Portland, Oregon. We're a seven-figure group practice and, and it's beautiful. I love it. But what I discovered was I kind of maxed out how much business building, you know, growth I could achieve as a therapist, but I was hungry for more.
But I was hungry for more in a different way and my own sort of entrepreneurial journey almost ended in a major way, an episode that I had about four, four and a half years ago, I burned out really hard and kind of arrived at this moment in time when I had to ask myself, why am I feeling this way? Because I'm not cut out for this. And you know, as an introvert, as a highly sensitive, easily overwhelmed human being building businesses isn't for me, or have I just not found the right person yet have I not found the right community that are teaching entrepreneurs how to build businesses in more sustainable ways. I chose to follow that path because I was not ready to surrender my ambition and kind of give up on my entrepreneurial ambitions. And that's what I've done. That's what I've been doing over the last, you know, four or five years is really focusing on how do I build highly profitable businesses without, you know, drilling myself into the ground. And as I started to do that, and figuring out how to do it, well, organically, people wanted to work with me, other business owners wanted me to teach them what I was doing. So it evolved in a really natural way. And as I did more and more business coaching, I realized, whoa, like, this is my work on the planet like this, you know, I feel even more passionate about business coaching than I had felt about doing therapy with my clients. So here I am now, like, fully immersed in the business building worlds and feeling very committed to this mission of helping people become highly profitable and incredibly well-rested.
Annie: I love that. So that's the thing, I think everyone should be highly profitable. And I think it's going to come with hustle right after it. And then when you say rested, I know you say a lot of things about how great naps are. And you and I share that we have shared values around naps, I don't get enough. I think I love that that's a business value. And I think that's a perfect way into your first tip. So, you know, as I heard that Maegan's got three great tips for us today. What's that first thing if you're a coach or consultant? What do we need to do to build a burnout-proof practice?
#1 Action TIP
Get really clear on who you are and give yourself permission to build a business that caters around your personality
Maegan: So building a burnout-proof business starts with getting really clear on who you are, and giving yourself permission to build a business that caters around your personality. And it does all start with branding. And it starts with branding, when I'm working with my business coaching clients, just like let's look at your business. And let's look at what it looks like from the outside. Does it look like you? You know, when I look at any branding business? Does it look like any other? And if the answer's no, I can guarantee you you're probably struggling with burnout and overwhelm more so than an entrepreneur who has given themselves permission to fully express who they are in their business. Because the more you show up as yourself, the less likely you are to feel pressured to show up in ways that don't align with your core needs as a human. If that makes sense,
Annie: It makes so much sense. And I'm really glad that you brought that up because I think often this first tip has a lot to do with who's your ideal client? And that has a lot to do with it. But you've come on and said how much it is, how valuable it is for your business to reflect who you are. And I think not only reflect who you are, but to add to what you're saying, like the incredible value you have to offer to your ideal clients being sort of on display in a comfortable way, something that makes you feel proud that you're telling your story like that I often tell my clients that I'm not there to invent anything about them the way I think a lot of marketing agencies do, you know, brand agencies, they're like, you should do this, you should say that. I want to be a translator, I'm here to sort of translate your value into client-facing material, because you're not meant to be you know, if you're an incredible therapist, you maybe aren't a great copywriter or graphic designer, and you don't have the need for that. I love the permission. You know, obviously, I wrote a book called Permission to Try.
Maegan: Something you're saying here about the ideal client and the why, you know, one of my favorite conversations to have with my business coaching clients is what's your why? And when I asked that question, I am not asking in any way shape or form, why you're doing the work that you're doing, why you're serving the people that you're serving, who your ideal client is, that's important. But for me, it comes later, the more important why is why are you doing this? Why are you running your own business? What vision do you have for your life that you want this, this business to bring to life for you. Because if you don't know your own, if you're not really clear on your own, why as a human and as a person who is making this really hard decision to be a small business owner, because it's hard, it's not for the faint of heart. If you're not really clear on why you're doing this and how it's serving the broader vision you have for your life, you're going to have a much harder time making it through when things feel overwhelming or when you do smack face-first into a wall of burnout than someone who knows exactly why they're doing this. So I think that's all part of the same equation. You know, as you're giving yourself permission to let your personality take center stage, and your brand and your business, and you're getting really clear on who you are and why you're doing this. You are already laying a foundation that is going to protect you from so much chaos and hardship down the line.
Annie: I think that that's a really good point about, you know, why are you doing the work you're doing? But like, why is it a business? Because you can, a lot of people can do this kind of work. If you work for somebody else, right? You're working for someone else, someone else's business, or you working on your own. But remembering kind of why you're doing this, because being a business owner, as I've become fond of saying, is having two jobs, it's the work you do. And then it's the work of running a business. And that's not for the faint of heart. As she said, it's really exciting. But just as exciting as it can be, it can also burn you out. And I've had seasons in my business like that, too. And so I'm glad I'm just really grateful that there are folks like you out there that are focusing on this because especially in the era of a pandemic, hopefully, we're way into the future way past the pandemic. But if you're not, you know, we're in that was an era to be building burnout-proof businesses. And I think that's just become so much more important, right? We've all realized, what are our breaking points, maybe, right? So I love that you've brought on this other shade of it to come back a couple of steps even farther in further branding, I think comes down to a lot of decision-making about who do you want to be? And why? And that comes a lot from why do you want to get out of this because you can end up down the black hole of marketing, you know, you can't even see straight and you're up for so many webinars, you don't know what you're doing. But I think you've got this returned to rest the return to you making some sense of all this before you step out and do make these other decisions. So I love that. So our first step is to create a business and a brand that is a real representation, a true permission-based representation of who we are, what is the next thing we should consider.
#2 ACTION TIP
Make sure your business aligns with your personal needs and boundaries
Maegan: So the next thing is really an extension of getting clear about who you are and why you're doing this, which is to make sure that your business really aligns with your personal needs and boundaries. Right? So if we could just come to why I'm building this business, what is the vision that I have for my life, when you think about the vision that you have for your life, or what an ideal week would feel like for you or where you want to be in five years or 20 years from now, usually the answer to those questions are rooted in our core values as people and they're rooted in the way that we function most optimally.
So what a lot of people do is they compartmentalize these two pieces, right? They have piece number one over here, which is, you know, how I function and what life would you know, what life would look like, if like, everything was awesome - I would not take client appointments until 11. And I would travel six months out of the year. I would only work 20 hours a week. We have this vision that we then tell ourselves is off-limits because it's way too pie in the sky. And then we build a business that is structured in a way that is totally antithetical to all of those variables that we've just said would be, you know, ideal for us. So we create a business where we see clients for 40 hours a week, and we start seeing people at 7am. And we're only allowed to take two weeks off a year. And anytime these two images conflict, you've got a problem. And you're probably going to really hate yourself. Two months from now or two years from now, I don't know how long it's going to take for you to reach burnout, but you will reach burnout, I guarantee you that this will be one of the core reasons why you're not working in a sustainable way. So permission granted again, to be your own boss, as part of the reason why we start our own companies and run our own small businesses is so that no one can tell us what to do. Only, we still tell ourselves to do shitty things. You know, it's really backwards.
But look, we could I could have a whole conversation about patriarchy and capitalism, and why we make the decisions that we make to treat ourselves so horribly. If you really want to build a burnout-proof business, then the boundaries you have in your business need to be a perfect match for the way you want to live your ideal life. And if you do that you will call your ideal client. So I just want to say a lot of times people will say, but if I set my business up that way, my clients wouldn't be able to work with me. And I just say no, your nonideal clients would not be able to work with you, but you would be making space for your ideal clients to find you and that is just so beautiful. When you have reached that point where you're working the way you want to work, you're serving the clients you love serving. There's no burnout in that, in that lifestyle choice.
Annie: I love that. I think I don't think there's enough discussion around business boundaries. It's something I'm working on in my second book, I know clearly, we have a huge shared value here about how important they are. And you know, that you to your point like this is the reason we create a business is that we can create it all, not just how we do what we do, but how we do it is so incredibly important. And I have found a couple of things. One is, I think two of the most profitable words in business are yes and no. And no is sometimes I'm unavailable. I only meet with clients from this time to this time, etc. I am somewhat known in my circles for taking the month of December off. I don't know if we've talked about this, but I know it's December, it started in 2016. Because I got overwhelmed. I had no systems in my business, but my interest in my business exploded. I said I need to shut things down and get my head around it. That felt really scary to shut down for four whole weeks from client work.
I spent 160 hours consecutive time on my business, put down systems, put down boundaries, put down office hours, this is how I'm going to do it. You know, let's see what happens. And that was, you know, years and years ago, and every year since then I've taken a sabbatical, I take the entire month of December off. And you would think well, what if people won't work with you. And what I have found is that people not only love it, they started saying, How do I do that? Teach me how to take December off. She's not going to get my brand until January because she's taking her sabbatical. And she needs to be.
Maegan: With the right clients when you take time off because I take a lot of time off. And when you're working with the right clients, they actually are fierce supporters of you taking time off, as I have before emailed clients when I've been off and have gotten responses back from them. Like, you're not supposed to be emailing me right now. What are you doing, you know, you practice what you preach, go away. And I'm like, Oh, this is great. You know that. You're really, I mean, I think this is what I call the ripple effect. Right? When you especially as woman, when as a woman, you model for other women, you don't have to be available all the time. You don't have to be productive all the time. You don't have to work all the time. It's really powerful to see how that shifts their relationship with themself. And before you know it, you have created an entire community of people who are supporting a life that is anti-hustle and grinds and over productivity. There's a lot of power in that a lot of power that expands far beyond the walls of our small businesses.
Annie: It's been really eye-opening to me, because I think I grew up, like many of us, and maybe you grew up this way, where it's like the American idea that the harder you work, the more successful you are. Yeah, the more likely you are to burn out the more money you make. I never hustled more when I made less.
It's strategy more than it's hard work, more than three hours in your business so much as it's how you spend those hours, how many hours you spend is not as important as the quality of what you're doing. Right? And so that I've seen that pay off and I find business boundaries really addicting. They're really scary at first, but the more I have them, the more I love what I do. It makes me a better partner to people, it inspires other people to have good boundaries. Like it's such a healthy thing to do. And it's something that feels really scary until you do it. And then you're like, oh, why do this?
Maegan: And it never stops feeling scary. So I'm going to put my therapist hat on here for a second. You know, the expectation isn't that you don't feel fear, right? Because fear is just a signal that you're doing something new. And you need to pay attention, right?
Fear is just an emotion that says, hey, pay attention to what's going on here. You know, just be mindful, as you move through this transition, it doesn't mean stop. It means keep going with caution. And I think it's just so important that we learn to make friends with fear. We can do the hard things like set boundaries in our business. And another thing just as an extra bonus that I'll weave into the mix for your listeners is the more you make these transformations in your business, the more you're actually healing yourself, right, because so much of the funky stuff that we do in our business is rooted in our own traumas, in our own family of origin stories, in our own just junk that we carry with us, you know, from childhood adolescence into adulthood. And when you start transforming some of these dysfunctional patterns in your business, you are actually healing a lot of that stuff from way earlier in your life. So get a therapist, I actually am a firm believer that all business owners should be in therapy because the work that you're doing in your business can be so evocative and so activating for all of the stuff that you've done in your life to date. But the space for healing and transformation is just, it's expansive. And there's no better like two birds one stone scenario than like, setting a boundary in your business, making more money than you've ever made before. And healing your past trauma like yes, sign me up for that, please and thank you.
Annie: That's like the awesome triangle. That's like we want to find out. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say that business owners need therapists. But I love that you said it. And I think I joke with a lot of my friends like I'm in my 30s. And we say I say like, you know, like in France, you get a nanny for a year when you have a baby. Like, I think when you turn 30 in the United States, you should just be assigned to therapists. You need it after your teens, your childhood, we all need it. Oh, absolutely. Many of my friends were all in counseling, the people we think should be in counseling, we're in counseling to deal with how to manage.
Maegan: That's right. If the people who really needed therapy, whether it be the rest of us wouldn't have to be we don't release. That's what we'd like to tell ourselves.
Annie: I think you've made a really healthy suggestion there. And I love again, coming back to like, both a licensed therapist and a business coach, you know, that sometimes it is like, we don't realize the limiting beliefs we're bringing into our business or our work with clients. I just have found it anecdotally I have a counselor that I deal with personal and business issues. And it really helps me to process things and to not take things so personally and kind of work on some of that stuff. And again, you see the results of it. So I if we can take something away from the website, I just want to be kind of both Maegan and I are just such firm believers in boundaries and burnout-proof businesses that serve us well. Because not only when it serves us, well, we can serve our clients better. We can get better client experiences, we can always take care of families, it's like all wonderful. And we can kind of let go of the narrative that, you know, success means staying up every night till midnight and replying to clients on the weekends and just really not liking what you do. Like it doesn't have to be that way. So I love that. And I know you've got something really special along those lines, to share with Branding with Friends, folks, that what have you brought along that folks can sign up to get from you?
Don’t miss this special opportunity for “Branding with Friends” fans…
Grab Maegan’s 4 Business-Building Mistakes That’ll Leave You Burnt Out and Broke (and how to avoid them) here
Maegan: So as a business coach, I really specialize in helping people who are in the what's next phase of business, you know, so you're ready to take a big step forward. Maybe you've already taken that step forward, and you've kind of made a mess of it or things feel really overwhelming and you need some help fine-tuning, or you're in that stage where you're ready for what's next. And you don't know what what's next is and you want to figure that out, and start moving forward in a way that feels sustainable and not too overwhelming. So I've just created a simple guide to outline the four mistakes for business building mistakes that leave you burnout and broke if you're in the what's next phase. So this is just going to walk you through four really actionable steps that you can take to make sure your foundation is solid so that you're stepping forward in a way that is sustainable and systemized. I hope there will be something in there that is digestible and actionable for you right now at this phase in your business.
Annie: If anything, you want to figure out how to take more naps. You have got to check out this guy,
Maegan: Right. Definitely, if you're a napper or Netflix watcher. You know, sometimes I'm a napper or sometimes I'm a midday Netflix watcher. Sometimes I'm just you know, like turn off the computer and stare at the wall. However you want to use your time, I just want to give you permission and strategies that you need to spend your time however you want to spend it.
Annie: I love it so liberating. Well, and I'm so glad you're here and of this, this episode has gotten you thinking especially about that first tip about does your business really reflect your personality? Is it highlighting the things that are great about you that make you feel really confident? If you're not feeling like it does or you're not sure, you can always set a free time to talk with me head to greateststorycreative.com and you can sign up for 20-minute consult and we can talk privately together. So don't miss that big red button on greateststorycreative.com. And Maegan's got one more tip for you guys. So I hope that you've been learning a lot today. I know I have.
I'm just gaining more permission to go take a nap after this. If I need my raises. That's an investment in me and being a great business owner. So we've been talking about aligning a business to our personality, making sure it's really going to tell that elevated experience. And then we've got the second point and making sure that our business behind the scenes is really set up to have us thrive, right aligned to our values aligned to our boundaries, the things that we need to be successful for our clients. What is that third thing that we really want to keep in mind?
#3 Action Tip
Take a stand about what you believe in
Maegan: The third thing is in alignment with what we've been talking about so far. But it's going a little bit deeper into how do I attract the right clients to work with. Because if you don't have the right clients coming in the door, it doesn't matter what else you do in your business, you're still going to burn out. Right? Right, wrong fit clients will burn you out, even if all of your other systems are in order. So this tip is really about how do you create a brand and a business that attracts the right clients. And one great way to do that is by taking a stand about what you believe in.
Now, this only works if you have first laid the foundation for your business and brand that is a reflection of your personality. So that's like step one is we want the world to see who we really are. Don't be boring. Don't be milk toast, don't be cookie cutter, like you know, whatever phrase you want to use. Don't be like that. We want you to be unapologetically you. And then we want you to take a step further and tell the world what do you believe? What are your values? I think what we've seen a lot of in the last year are white people really taking a step forward and talking about their values around social justice, being anti racist, you know, supporting marginalized communities. And what a lot of people have found is that as they take more of as, as they take a stand, their audience gets smaller. Right, their email list shrinks, they have like a mass exodus of unsubscribes, or they have clients who leave the practice or leave the business. Wow, there is nothing more beautiful to me than people who self select out of your client pool. In response to you saying who you are. I talk a lot about the patriarchy. I talk a lot about capitalism, in my work as a business coach that really turns some people off. I also talk about how I'm very obsessed with Outlander that really turns some people off. And what regardless of what it is, like, I'm going to take a stand for what I love and what I believe in. And I'm going to trust that that is going to turn away, it's going to alienate people that I wouldn't want to work with anyways. And it is going to call to me like a homing beacon, like clients who are going to just be like, whoa, I'm so aligned with who you are, as a human, you're doing the work that I need, you are offering the support that I need as a business owner, here's my credit card number, take all my money, like those are the interactions that I want the board? Absolutely because that again, that's the win win. Right, that's where you're making the money that you need to build a business that allows you to work not too much. And it allows you to show up as the best version of you, which is going to get your clients the best results. I mean, it's like an ecosystem that when it's all working together, everybody wins. You're highly profitable, you're well-rested. It's it's a recipe for success, in my humble opinion. And this is what I'm taking a stand on. So if you're listening to this right now, and you think I'm full of shit, no problem, we're never going to work together. And that's totally fine.
Annie: I love that if you hear anything in that, I want you to hear courage and fearlessness to be who you are. Because the reality is is like, you know, yes, you can sort of dress things up with branding and marketing. But the minute somebody talks to you in a sales conversation, they're going to get a sense of who you are. And that's a really wonderful thing. We want more people to know who you are and what you stand for, and what you believe in because those are the connections you want to make. And to your point, it's, you know, a lot of it is about not getting in the wrong match to begin with, not as much just for you, but for the person that you want to help. Yeah, I often say that bad clients aren't bad people. You know, it's all about fit. It's like dating, right? So you're trying to date the right person. And when you date, the wrong person, things don't go well for either of you. And you're not able to have them be happy. And, you know, and so it's a lot of you want to attract the right clients as much as you want to repel the wrong ones, and make sure that those people get to the folks that they need to work with the people that are going to be better fitted for them. Because, you know, I went through this with like, the political elections and like, I am very, you know, not happy with the 45th President, I want to say his name and dad taught (we grew up in a family business), and he would say don't, you know, don't share politically don't share. And I felt very scared. I didn't do it for many years. And I have clients that don't align with me politically, and that's okay. But again, you know, being who you are on a holiday, we brought in the clients that really wanted to work with me that felt comfortable with me that through shared values, and nothing wrong with that either. Right? So embracing who you are, and I think standing up for the things that you believe in, that's again, part of why you have the business,
I think you've done such a great job of underscoring that. So we learned so much today from you. We talked about our personalities and business. We need to have great boundaries. And then, of course, you know, taking a stand and not being afraid to be ourselves. Thank you so much, Megan, for being here. I learned a ton from you today.
Maegan: Awesome, Annie. Thanks for having me and for making space for this conversation. I really appreciate it.
“Branding with Friends” Episode 22
Show Notes + Resources
Here are 3 key tips on how to build a burnout-proof, service business:
Get really clear on who you are and give yourself permission to build a business that caters around your personality.
Make sure your business aligns with your personal needs and boundaries.
Take a stand about what you believe in.
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To learn more about burnout-proof businesses or to seek Maegan’s help:
• Visit Maegan at maeganmegginson.com
• Follow her on Instagram: @maeganmegginson
• Check out Maegan’s 4 Business-Building Mistakes That'll Leave You Burnt Out and Broke (and how to avoid them) here
