One month before doctors found a tumor larger than a softball growing in my abdomen, I was in full-blown CEO mode.
I was:
🤍 Booked solid with coaching clients
🤍 Onboarding a new team member
🤍 Launching the third round of The Success Squad
🤍 Growing a business that was just 8 months old
When I went to the doctor that Friday, I thought it would be nothing. I hadn’t given it much thought. But when she placed her hands on my belly, her eyes widened. It was the kind of look that tells you something is definitely not right.
“Is your husband home right now?”
Definitely NOT what you want to hear.
A few hours later, my husband and I were in the ER for a CT scan. They didn’t want us to leave until the radiologist reviewed it.
Within weeks, I was in a 3.5-hour surgery, leaving the hospital with a 9-inch incision and a loooooooong road to recovery.
Thankfully, the mass was benign. But the recovery was not.
I spent 12 weeks recovering – doing very little work. And here’s the wild part:
That quarter ended up being the most profitable, most streamlined, and highest-growth quarter of the year.
No, I’m not a unicorn.
No, I didn’t pull off a miracle.
I just built my business with systems that could carry the weight when I couldn’t.
I used to be a Director of Operations. The things I had done before there was a problem were the very things that carried me through.
Here’s what kept the business going strong while I healed:
1. Workflows that ran without me
I had email sequences in place for just about everything:
– A welcome series for new leads
– Onboarding and off boarding sequences for clients
– Post-purchase emails that delivered resources and built trust
I wasn’t answering emails or scrambling to remember who needed what. My workflows were me when I wasn’t there.
2. Automations that saved HOURS
Triggers and templates aren’t just for tech people. They are a small business owner’s FREE team members!
– My Gmail is loaded with email templates for client responses, follow-ups, and outreach
– I use text replacement shortcuts to write full paragraphs with just a few characters
– Automations inside Flodesk deliver my freebies, welcome sequences, and post-purchase sequences while I’m fast asleep
These tools created margin.
When I couldn’t work, they worked for me.
3. Batching that bought back my time
Before surgery, I used my own proprietary system to batch newsletters. click me to read about it
I also pre-scheduled Instagram posts using Later. Because everything was done ahead of time, my content stayed consistent even when I wasn’t.
I didn’t have to create a single new post during recovery.
My audience was still nurtured, my brand stayed visible, and my sales continued.
This is why batching matters. And it crushes me that so many so-called coaches and experts are telling you “batching doesn’t work.” If I could create a system for my overly-rambuntious-ADHD-brain, then batching can work for you, too.
The truth is, most business owners don’t take systems seriously until life forces them to.
They think:
• Newsletters are optional
• Batching is unrealistic
• Automation is too complicated
But I am a real-life example of how you NEVER know what life is going to throw your way.
So flying by the seat of your pants in business or going through your weeks with no margin, no room for error, is one of the worst things you can do.
Because these things are not just helpful. They’re essential.
They create a business that can withstand real life.
A business that serves your family.
A business that doesn’t fall apart when you need to step away.
I didn’t build Walk Like Warriors to impress anyone. I built it to serve female entrepreneurs so they can have the business of their dreams without sacrificing their personal life to do it.
And I built it so it could withstand the storms of life.
That’s what a business built on systems to scale can do for you.
It makes your business bulletproof.
And that’s what I want for you.
If you want a business that runs on systems, not stress, stick around. My joy is showing you how. 💛
And I hope you’ll follow me over on Instagram where I coach for free in Instagram Stories every day.
