How to Stop Building a Business You Hate (Even When It's Working)

Nobody builds a business they hate on purpose. You build it because everyone says follow me, do it that way. So you do. 

And after a while you realize it is awful. You hate it. Just like the corporate job you left. And at some point you know you cannot do it anymore. If this is you, this episode of The Business Growth Architect Show: Founders of the Future is exactly where you need to be.
 
Copywriter and fractional CMO Rachel Allen built a successful agency because everyone in her industry said that was the right next step. The revenue was there. The clients were there. And she dreaded every morning. When she finally shut it down, she rented a cabin deep in the woods no internet, no cell service  slathered on sunscreen so her pale skin would survive, lay down on a picnic table, and sat with the most important question she had been avoiding: who am I, and what version of success am I actually building?
 
In this conversation with host Beate Chelette, Rachel breaks down exactly how she rebuilt  quintupling her prices overnight, eliminating the work she resented, and creating a business model aligned with who she actually is. You will learn why so many founders unconsciously adopt someone else's business model, how to identify when the voice running your decisions is your inner critic rather than your adult judgment, what it means to stop doing things behind your own back, and why charging more can be an act of alignment rather than arrogance.
 
Rachel also shares the practical tools she uses to soothe the nervous system in moments of fear-based decision making  because knowing the right move and actually making it are two very different things.
 
If you are ready to stop building a business that works for everyone except you, this is the episode to listen to.
 
LINKS & RESOURCES
Website: boltfromthebluecopywriting.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelallenwrites/
 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Why would you be doing something that you hate in a way that feels completely wrong and somehow I expect it to work?

SPEAKER_00 0:08

I reached this very low point in my business. I had these um walls built in my mind around how I had to do things. Even though it felt terrible and even though I didn't like it, and even though it wasn't aligned with who I was. How did you slip into this? I started hearing about these markers of success that weren't actually mine. I didn't really trust myself enough to go for my own markers. The agency was successful, it felt heavy all the time. I had finally realized like I don't want to be unhappy doing this for the rest of my life. I had absolutely no business for about six months. And it was so terrifying. And then I had this like silly little thought. What if I just raised my prices a lot? What if I quintupled my prices? Like, what if I just made it five times more expensive overnight? People happily paid that, and now I get to do what I love.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Today, Rachel Allen from Bolt from the Blue Copywriting Company is with us. And Rachel, you are gonna have to ask this first really tough question. Why would you be doing something that you hate in a way that feels completely wrong and somehow expect it to work?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

That's what I found myself asking myself. A couple years ago, I'm a marketer, and I think there's a lot of dogma about how that job is supposed to be done. There's a lot of dogma about how internet business is supposed to be done. And funny enough, although I felt like I was so sort of a counterintuitive from the beginning, I reached this very low point in my business when I realized I had these um walls built in my mind around how I had to do things, even though it felt terrible and even though I didn't like it, and even though it wasn't aligned with who I was, I just hadn't been able to quite break out of that because it was so pervasive in the culture in which I was living.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

I'm gonna ask you this. How much of this do you see in the people that you work with and the people around us? How how prevalent is this problem?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

I think I know maybe two or three people who have absolutely divested of it, and basically everyone else I know is struggling with it to some degree or another. The main difference is whether they're aware of it or not.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

And I think this is why we, you know, why I wanted you on the show, because I think it's time for us to help people to figure out if they feel that they're trapped in something that makes the money but they dislike. So can we backtrack a little bit? How did you find yourself in a position like that? Because I'm sure, you know, when you were a little girl and when you went to school and you did your thing, you didn't say, Let me find a really terrible job that I absolutely hate and be miserable for the rest of my life. How did you slip into this?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

No, I um well, I fell into the industry completely backwards. I had ended up stranding myself in Hong Kong right after college and had to make rent and sort of found this freelance gig and I loved it for such a long time. But several years in, I, you know, I started working with coaches and I started hearing about these markers of success that weren't actually mine, but I didn't really trust myself enough to go for my own markers. And so back in the mid-2000s, the whole thing was start the start marketing, then do an agency. Scale to an agency so you don't have to do the writing and other people can do it for you. And so I did that. And it turns out I really hated it. I like managing other people's teams, but I don't want to manage a team of my own. And of course that started showing. It was just always an uphill struggle, even though the agency was successful. It felt heavy all the time. And I think that was coming across to clients because they were gradually dropping off. And I would find myself feeling a little bit happy about that, even though that's not what you're supposed to go for. But it was like, oh, I don't have to assign this an asana. That's such a relief. And I had to keep this as this like little secret inside myself until the business had reached a point where I had actually shut the agency down because I had finally realized like I don't want to be unhappy doing this for the rest of my life. Um, and then there was that lull, which I think comes so often with these big decisions or big alignments where it's like, yep, I did the big thing, and then I had absolutely no business for about six months. And it was so terrifying. And it was really a moment of transformation where I had to decide like, do I trust myself enough? I could spin the agency back up, I could do that today, and money would be coming in and it would be stable. Or do I trust this enough? And do I trust life or the universe or however you want to conceive of that enough to say, like, hey, I'm really aligned, I'm ready to receive this new thing. What are we going to do?

SPEAKER_01 4:44

You know, so so there's a couple of interesting things I've heard. So one thing that really sticks out to me is that you said that you went down the road of setting up an agency because everybody else said that's the right thing to do. How did you arrive that the agency was the logical next step?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

So it was two things. One, um, a lot of business coaches at the time were very focused on scaling, especially in service industries. And I think it comes from great intentions, right? Because you don't want people to burn out, but an agency is not for everyone. And the most successful copywriters in the industry that I knew at the time did agencies. And so I thought, well, if they're successful and I want to be successful, I have to do it like they did it.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Okay, so you fell into the what other people do in a little bit of the FOMO. Yes. And you wanted to you you wanted to grow, or you were growing, you just didn't know where to grow to. So you didn't have the plan and then you adapted someone else's plan. Would that be a fair thing to say? Yes, absolutely. All right. So now you're finding yourself hating things because the thing that you like to do, that's the other thing I heard, is you want to be creative. In copywriting, or in positioning statements, or in listening to what people are all about, there's a lot of creativity in it. Not everybody can do that or get to the essence. You let that go. Why?

SPEAKER_00 6:04

I did not trust myself enough to believe that anyone would genuinely pay me for that. Even though I had all this evidence to the contrary. It was just like, oh, well, I'm sure that I've somehow faked these people out, and what they really want is this other version of success.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Oh. So now you are at this point where you say, I hate my life. Anything but this, I'm gonna burn it. Yeah. And now you're sitting there, everything is still smoldering, which I know very well that feeling. What do you do now?

SPEAKER_00 6:40

So I um I tried to wait for about a month and just say, like, okay, my no business has ups and downs, and I really worked on cultivating patience and just trust, which is not my natural strong suit. And when I finally reached the low point, I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna go away in the woods for a while. And so I rented a cabin in North Mississippi of all places and went there. There's no internet, my phone didn't work, it was wonderful. And I just sat there for about five days and I looked at the woods and I walked around and I just cut everything off completely. And by the end of that time, I feel like I was able to just clear my mind enough to say, you know what, I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm willing to make a big move now.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

So very often on this show, this moment is sort of the the rock bottom or the transformational moment. You have no idea what it's going to be. So now you're sitting in discomfort. What do you do next?

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Well, I sunbathed. That's what I did to soothe my nervous system. There was a picnic table outside this cabin, so I slathered on a bunch of sunscreen because I'm super pale, and I was laying out there just kind of letting my mind wander. And then I had this like silly little thought of what if I just raised my prices a lot? And that's something I would have never really thought about. And because again, that's not really what you did at the time. You, you know, scaled up and it was very incremental, and we do 15% increases because that's what the market will bear. And I was like, well, what if I quintupled my prices? Like, what if I just made it five times more expensive overnight? I wonder what would happen. And of course, the the sort of safer part of me was like, well, that's ridiculous. What a silly idea. But I was like, I mean, people already aren't working with me. What are they gonna do? Not work with me even harder? Like, why not try it? And I did, and it didn't happen right away, but it did lead to this next phase of my business where people happily paid that, and now I get to do what I love.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

How did you manage this internal freakout of because the the voice wasn't just like good job, Rachel, or my voice is never that auto girl, or guess what? The voice is like, Are you insane? Yeah, right. So how did you manage doing something that felt so contradictory to your belief system at the time?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

So I'd done some fairly crazy things before. I mean, moving across the world, living, I lived nomadically for about 10 years. I was raised in a really conservative Appalachian society, and I don't have those beliefs. So I was used to making big swings, but never about something that felt so fundamental to my safety as like my job. So I was able to pull on a little bit of the sort of past nervous system soothing that I had been able to do. I also uh read the cards because I wanted to see, like, hey, is there something that I need to like see with myself? Is there a conversation I need to have internally here? So I did that. I did a lot of journaling. And a lot of it is just talking to my brain like it's an upset toddler that's missed nap time because that is how it reacts a lot. It's just not this is bad, nothing's gonna work, how are you doing this? Oh my god, you're so stupid. And I'm like, you know what? Maybe, like really, maybe. I don't know, but you know what? What if we had some cheese and crackers? How about that? And then just soothing myself over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

You know, I spoke to my granddaughter this morning who is definitely a toddler, and uh sometimes a princess dress just fixes it.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Yeah, sometimes it does. I think that's such a good way of describing it. Sometimes you just need to like take a shower with some nice lotion afterwards, or eat some cheese and crackers, or have a really pretty coffee or something. And it's just enough, I think, to break out of that loop where it's like, oh, but like maybe what if? And I think that's where things open up from.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

So would you say that this is like a a hack or a way you found or uh to soothe your nervous system? Because we we hear this a lot on this show as well that it's it's your neurons are firing, uh, you're in panic mode, everything you're up against from your childhood uh teachings and and and trauma and the safety. So you're up against that. What was your awareness that that was what was happening, or was it kind of like you were just in the moment? And how did you find your way through this?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Uh, I'd done just decades of therapy, so I was pretty aware uh by that point that that's what was going on. I hadn't really, I would say maybe refined my relationship with myself enough to be as steady as I feel now with it. But I knew that that's where it was coming from. And I what sort of started me down that line was a friend of mine that I did some leadership development work with um has this saying, which is, you know, I don't let kids tell me what to do, even if it's the child inside of me. Which is very true, you know. Like I'm not gonna let so good. I'm not gonna let a kindergartner direct me. Oh god. I love it as much as I love them, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yeah, we're not having a temp and tantrum right now. Um you found a way to control or to to understand. It's not even so much control because that's the one I'm hearing from you, but it's almost like you you acknowledged that this portion of your thought process or your decision making was flawed for the lack of better words. How would you describe that?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

I would say outdated might be a better word. Because it would be if I were a kindergartner in that moment, it would be absolutely true. I would have no idea how to make money. And, you know, that would be an absolutely overwhelming task because that wouldn't be developmentally appropriate. But I'm not that. I'm an adult, I can control many more factors about my life, I've got much more experience. And so I think then my job becomes to cultivate a relationship with that younger part of me and and do what it takes to make her okay so that I've got the open-mindedness or the resources or the alignment to make decisions from my adult brain.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Uh is this like a push-pull thing for you? Because this not a chance in hell that you're gonna logically look at this and you see these emotions and the temper tantrum you want to throw, and then you go back to this all-knowledgeable adult, because even adults need alcohol and other modalities, or take a deep breath or go for a walk when the temper tantrum is happening. How long did that take for you to manage this internally? Because this is your livelihood. This is your ability to pay rent, there's your ability to make money, there's your ability to whatever, feed the cats, the dogs, the partner, the the the the kids, whatever whatever there might be, the lifestyle, the trips, the taking your parents out for a dinner. How did you manage that?

SPEAKER_00 13:37

I think honestly, it's an ongoing process. I think it's something I'm gonna be doing till the day I die because that's a part of me. And I think for a really long time, particularly throughout my 20s, I thought that maybe if I could get rid of it or I could control it, or I could somehow make it separate from me, I could silence it. And uh shockingly, didn't work. It just sort of fed this inner separation within me. And eventually I realized in the middle of one of these sort of temper tantra moments, I was like, oh, you know what? I am stuck with this for the rest of my whole entire life, and I was so mad about it. And then I thought, oh wait, this part is stuck with me for the rest of its life too. And I've got a lot of control in that relationship. And so that was really a turning point for me there. And I mean, I think things get louder and quieter as they go, but it's been generally quieter over time, just the more time that I spend really being congruent with myself and being where I am.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Well, I I you know I see this with myself. I mean, my house burned, and then a year later I'm in the hospital with emergency surgery, and my ability to, you know, even store anger has been, you know, taken out literally. Yeah. And and now you you sit there and you have this moment where you go, what does this all mean? Why is this not not so much why is this happening? I mean, life is life, but I think you you wonder, what is it that I am supposed to learn out of this that I am here to bring to the world, which is a much better, much better way to do. But then you still have these other pressures. So I love this, what you said, that this never goes away. In my experience, it never goes away because you've got to go and up level to the next level. And that goes until the day you go where people consciously make a choice to retire and to not have any new information come in because they're just simply burned out with all these this up-leveling their entire lives, and then they have a heart attack and die because they somehow lost the purpose in life. So let's shift gears over here. How did you now take this knowledge and make this work for yourself and your clients? Because this is now an experience, a knowledge, an inside that you have that you can monetize with a spiritual component, which is what this show is all about. So tell us about how did you figure out how to monetize it and make it work and be in spiritual alignment.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

So I would say the process took about five years and it's still sort of coalescing. But where I'm at now is I've really taken to heart this idea that nothing is welded into the rebar of the universe. And I think we look at things and say, well, that's how it is. It has to be done like that. That's just how how the world is. And I'm like, well, is it? And that's the question that I always try to bring to my own work, to my work with clients, any assumptions we have about limitations, about what may or may not be true, any worldview frames we come in with. I try to start and say, like, okay, maybe, but what if? And somehow just opening that door of possibility lets so many more options come in. Um, and so for instance, my a very practical example is with my own marketing, the the way we're supposed to do it is you send a newsletter once a month or twice a month. You do LinkedIn posts three times a week. You know, I'm bored just saying it. But I've started really thinking about what if these things are just the medium, the media through which I do this, and it's just me having a conversation with people, because that's what business has always been about for me. That's certainly what marketing really is at the core of it. It's forming relationships with people. And coming at it from that standpoint is completely different than saying, Oh, I need to coerce you into giving you my giving me your money. You know, it's completely different.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah, I I think that's where we are in general, because the uh whole internet marketing thing's not working. And I think to your point, is that is it a fair statement to say that sometimes we just need to drop this act or drop this, I don't even know what it is, the expectation of how we need to show up and become ourselves. But isn't it the most difficult thing? So, how did you become yourself?

SPEAKER_00 18:01

I mean, I'll let you know when I die if I if I made it all the way, but yeah, I'm working on it. I had a friend say to me, because I was I felt very blocked on this for a really long time because I could do it for other people, but then with my own stuff, I'm like, no, but I I I need to be a professional. And a friend said to me, she said, I see you doing so many things behind your own back. What if you just did them? Yeah, straight out. And I was like, I know that was my motion.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

So you're doing things behind your own back. Oh, that is so good. Okay, tell them about that.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Oh, it's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And so I had that same response where I was like, okay, I'm sorry, just let me integrate that for a moment. And I it was one of those wonderful moments where once you see something and once you have it articulated, you're like, well, that's dumb. I don't want to do that anymore. And then it becomes easy to make the change and switch. And so that's what I'm continuously working on. Anytime I feel a should about how I should show up, or anytime I find myself falling back into the like, well, I have to do it because that's what the internet said. I'm like, I'm a grown-up. I don't have to do anything. I pay my own bills, you know. The internet's not gonna burn my house down if I don't post on it. And so I I keep thinking about how I can make things an act of just joyful co-creation as opposed to this adversarial transactional relationship.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

That's beautiful. It's really beautiful. So let's talk about your business. Yeah. How that how has this transformed how you work? And how do you work with clients now? And who is your ideal client?

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yeah. So I work alone right now. I manage other people's teams as a fractional CMO. Most of my work is marketing strategy. And so I like to say that I work with founders who have impossible dreams and unsolvable problems. So they come to me when they're like, oh, I have this idea. And the team around them is like, well, we couldn't possibly, how could we possibly do such a thing? And they've usually been kind of poo-pooed for about three years, but they keep the holding on to this thing. And they finally come to me and I'm like, oh yeah, we'll do this in six months. No problem. Like, of course we can do this. So I work with them. Same thing with impossible problems. They come to me and they're like, I don't know what's wrong, but I can't, we've everything we've thrown at this doesn't work. And they want me to come in and untie the knot. So I really love that.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

And your process then is really from what I've heard on on in in this interview, is that you use a lot of your your your intuition and your your spiritual approach. How do you how do you bring that in? And do they know you do that, or is it sort of a secret?

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Uh it depends on the client. So I don't, it's I don't exactly hide it. I mean, I talk about it when I email people. Anyone who's ever done an intensive with me, I'll, you know, I'll read a card, I'll read the spread before we go in. I do a lot of sort of low-key kitchen witchy type things that people might just think, like, oh, it's lighting a nice candle. And I'm like, sure, you know, it's Palo Santo, making sure things are nice. And it is a very intuitive process. And the way that I've described it to people, which seems to get across to both the the woo and the non-woo, is when I'm listening to someone, I feel like when you're running your thumb along the outside of an apple and you can feel where there's a soft spot, even if you can't see it. That's what I do when I'm listening. I'm kind of running my thumb along the outside, and then I'll feel the spot and be like, wait, tell me more about that. Say more about that. And that's usually when people start crying.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

I relate to this so much. I've had a a client over on Friday where we did some very intensive work, and then I felt on Saturday that she was in distress. And sure, and sure enough, she is. I think when we are allowing ourselves to make it less about the click through and the conversion rate. But when we really, really, really are connected to our clients and the work that we do, maybe we don't do so many of them. But the ones that we do do are such a much, much richer experience. I mean, that's at least what what what what I have found. And are you seeing that when you lean into that quality and the quantity of the work increase?

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Uh quality for sure. I think it's less but deeper. So I've moved from working with people. I used to do a bunch of one-off projects, which was really fun. But now I normally work in like six to eighteen month engagements with people because we get to go a lot deeper into their business. So that's also just a product of being in business for longer, I think. But there's definitely the more relational alignment element there as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

I think it makes also a better experience because you don't abandon them. You may have these great breakthroughs in these moments, and then they sit with all this information they can implement or integrate it. And then you're done with them, and then they're looking for an integrator, and then they God only knows what that integrator particularly does. So who's your ideal client? So you said it's a founder, uh, somebody who is stuck, somebody who hasn't maybe a spiritual inkling that there must be more, or they don't like the way they work. And then your process is your intake, and you're taking them and then you map out this six to eighteen months engagement. Am I hearing this correctly?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yeah, generally. And most, like you said, their founders, they've been in business at least three to five years, or they've been in like an executive position. So I like to say like they've been doing grown-up business for at least five years. And so they are comfortable enough working with someone at such a high level, um, and they have the trust that goes into that. And as far as industries, I'm industry agnostic. I've worked with everyone from accounter accountants to astrologers, everyone in between. But I really like the complex stuff, the weird stuff where I'm like, oh, I've learned something about this. And yeah, we do intake, we'll put together a plan based on what they need, and I can step in anywhere from the very high-level strategic work down to like, let me actually write the words for you.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Yeah, no, I can see that. I think your process is very similar, similar to mine, you know, but contrary to you, I'm clearly still in this massive transformation of what this looks like. And I want to add that people always think or often think that, you know, somebody like you or somebody like me that we have it all figured out and that we just plugging along.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yeah, I think a lot of conversations among people, you know, working at our level. I see a lot of quiet Voxer conversations, private masterminds, private groups, and everyone is saying, like, wait, you don't know this either, or like you're still figuring it out too. And then I think people have this feeling that they have to present this perfect shell on the outside of like, no, I know what I'm doing. When, you know, we're all talking to ourselves, being like, wait, did that happen to you? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Did you feel that when you let your vulnerability infiltrate the work, that your work got better and your clients got better? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Absolutely. If someone doesn't know you very well, they can't know whether they're a good fit for you. If you're projecting a certain type of alignment that's not really congruent with where you are, other people are gonna align with that, but it'll actually be off with you. And just that's where the weirdoism comes in.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Yeah, I agree with you. I had an interview that was probably about two years ago where somebody on this show said to me that when you really step into your vulnerability, and that was like literally before I went on my first plant journey, uh, he says when you when you step into it, you watch. Uh, you're gonna find better and more clients because people will be relating to you on a whole different level. And I love that we have this conversation, Rachel, about really breaking open open and admitting uh things to yourself. And more is not always the right way.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Yes, absolutely. Despite what the internet will tell you, a lot of times more is just tiring. It's not actually what you want.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Exactly. And so for somebody who now heard something that they want to check out and potentially evaluate working with you, where do we send them? Uh you can go to Bolt from the Blue Copywriting.com or connect with me on LinkedIn. Beautiful. And we'll have all of that in the show notes. Rachel, you've it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. Thank you so much for having me. And that is it for us for today. Interesting conversation, isn't it? I what I love about my conversation with Rachel really is to say that more is not better. And that you have to be very clear to at all times listen to this voice and that up leveling ain't easy. And it is an ongoing process until you make the decision one day that you do not want to up level anymore. But check her out, check out all the resources that we're listing. And if you are in a position right now where you're doing something that you really don't like, maybe this episode was be helpful, was helpful to you. Share this with someone else that's going through the same thing. As always, we're incredibly grateful for your time, for your being here. And we talk to you again next time. And goodbye. That's it for this episode of the Business Growth Architect Joe, Founders of the Future. If you're done playing small and ready to build the future on your terms, subscribe, share, and help us reach more trailblazers like you. And if you're serious about creating, growing, and scaling a business that's aligned with who you are, schedule your uncovery session at uncoverysession.com. Lead with vision. Move with purpose. Create your future.