Europe’s Leading Business Coach Helps You Recession-Proof Your Business Sigrun: Episode #98

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DN98 – Sigrun Recording

Casanova Brooks:  What’s up Dream Nation Back on the line again today, we are bringing you a hot and heavy episode and I’m sure that this is going to be something fire And the reason why I’m sure of that is because we have someone on here who is considered one of the world’s leading business and mentors when it comes to coaching

And so I’m excited to be talking to her today. Without further ado, Ms. Sigrun, do you want to go ahead and say what’s up to dream nation?

Sigrun:  Well, I am excited to be here to share how you can take your passion and turn it into a profitable online business, even in a recession. So I’m excited to talk about that, how you recession-proof your business and how you should always follow your dreams.

Casanova Brooks:  Oh, always. And that’s what we’re here for. That’s why we are called Dream Nation. So I always like to start off with the proper introduction, and I like to consider us as entrepreneurs,  just like superheroes. Why is because we’re constantly flying around, we’re putting on capes and we’re trying to solve different problems for other people and even for ourselves in the world.

So before you being featured in all these major publications, before you being recognized across the world as one of the top mentors and business coaches, let’s take it back to when you were just a young girl and tell me who is

Sigrun:  Sigrun. Well, I was brought up in the belief I could do anything, but I was brought up in Iceland, small country in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.

We’re only 350,000 inhabitants. And even though my parents instilled this belief in me, there were several things that. I did not think were possible like becoming an author or, or you know, even a famous designer or an architect because I just didn’t see those role models. But at the age of nine, we had the first female president of the  whole world, and I thought to myself, well, if she can be precedent.

What’s possible for me. So I started to dream a lot bigger as a young girl to see, she was a single  mother, hee had adopted the child and she had just went through a cancer therapy where one of her breasts had been removed and her political components would either use that against her in the campaign.

And she said, I’m not going to be feeding the nation. I’m going to be leading the nation. Hmm. So, so that’s where kind of the environment that I grew up in seeing a woman become a president was very inspirational to me. And, at the age of 20, I decided, to move to Germany and study architecture. And you know, that’s kind of took me on a different path.

It had been a dream to become an architect. since I was  11 years old, I decided very young age. I don’t know. I had this idea that I had to know what I will become when I grow up. And it was nothing that my parents told me. But I guess you can see parents often ask the kids, what do you want to do? What do you want to be?

And I took it really seriously. And. I had to decide. I said, I have to know what I’m going to study or do or whatever. So at the age of six, I decided to become an author. Then, uhs my parents or maybe some other people, I don’t remember who exactly said, Oh, you can’t live from becoming an author. And the voices we hear at an early age, they stick with us.

You can’t live becoming an author. So I was like, okay, I have to do something else. And I thought I could become a teacher. and you know, the teachers get lots of summer holiday. So I thought, Oh, then I can still be an author. I just do it as a hobby. and then the teachers went on strike when I was 11 years old.

And I  asked my teacher, why are you going in strike? And he said, because they pay us a little. I’m like. Oh, so maybe becoming a teacher is not such a good idea. And then I decided I’m going to be an architect. You know, I liked houses, I liked drawing, and I just took this decision. And then nine years later, I found myself in Germany.

and I learned German first. And then I started architecture. And then, shortly before graduation I said, Oh, I don’t want to be an architect. It’s not so much fun. So I went into IT. and start to work at IT companies and started to study computer science. so I have lots of degrees, but actually the more degrees I got, actually the less helpful it was and figuring out what I wanted.On College Degrees

It actually made me very confused. And it wasn’t until I suddenly found myself in a small software company where suddenly the company was sold.  And I got the crazy idea. I could become the CEO. I had no business degree and no business education, and I got the job. So all the degrees I had before. Well, I always think studying does help you in some way.

You learn structured thinking and you know, but ultimately my degrees did not help me get the job that I got. Then I realized I was good at business, so later on I got a degree in business, but I got all my opportunities without a degree.

Casanova Brooks:  So first off, I want to go back and I want to ask, you wrote a book at six.

What was this book on?

Sigrun:  Well it was actually just a story that was read on national radio. I think it was one assignment at school, and then they would send in our stories and then they pick a few kids’ stories. And my story was about a cat, which is really weird because I’m a dog person. but it, it, it gave me such a boost.

You know, get confidence boosts,  that my story was read on national radio, so I thought, I’m going to be an author. But of course that you know, that has not materialized yet. I haven’t written my book yet.

Casanova Brooks:  Got it. And so the thing that I love about what you said and the big takeaway that I have from that is you have to protect your mindset because at a young age, it was tough for you to do that.

And you’re thinking like, Oh man. Everybody’s telling me that authors don’t make any money, but yet if someone wants to tell your kids that, and we all, a lot of us have younger people who look up to us. It’s so important to protect that mindset to say, you can do whatever you want to do, because now you’ve said, Hey, you know, you haven’t wrote your first book yet.

But if you would’ve started at that journey at the age of six and you would have had the right circle around you that said, Hey, this is just one story, but keep writing, keep writing, and then by the age of maybe eight or nine, you may have been a full blown published author. Then by the age of, you know, 15-17 you’re talking about, who  knows?

So that’s why it’s so important to protect your mindset, and it’s unfortunate that that happened, but now hopefully that gives you room to be able to, you know. I guess educate other people on why it’s so important that at a young age you do go after whatever it is your dream is. Cause it sounds like that you still have that in your heart as a passion project.

Sigrun:  Absolutely. I was 16 years old when, I had this. Epifany about like we have to make our dreams come through. I was doing my, I’m making my own clothes since the age of 12 and by the age of 16, I wanted to make, learn how to make patterns. So I did a course with a dressmaker evening course after school, and all the other participants were women were like in the forties and fifties.

So, in the breaks, I would just keep quiet and listen to them and all of them had dreams and they had not made them come  through. And I got very frustrated, angry, upset, not at the women, but more like, society. Like why do these women not believe in themselves? Why are they using excuses? Like having children, being married, not having the money, time, skills.

We know the typical excuses that we still hear today, but for me, this was like, I am not going to be one of those women. I’m going to make sure that in this age range, you know, forties, fifties, I’m getting 50 soon, that I will actually be like, Hey, I always make my dreams come true. So I took a decision at the age of 16 that I would be the person to say that, and I can stand in front of you today and say, yes, I did.

I have always made my dreams come true, but it was a decision, right? And I was just, I decided not to use excuses. Because you know,  it’s, it’s a fact. If we want something, we’ll figure it out. We’ll find the money. We’ll find the time. We realized that you actually do not need all the skills to do something and you know, using kids or, or being married as an excuse.

That’s just sad. You know? Imagine a child hearing a mother saying, I can’t do this because of you. It should rather be a reason to do it. Right? Because all of us have the opportunity to be a role model for the next generation. So I took this as a guiding light for me. So every time I was confronted with, even in a relationship or some other circumstances where I felt I couldn’t make my dream come true, I took the decision for the dream.

Casanova Brooks:  I love it. I love it. That’s what we’re all about here at Dream Nation. Now you said the last thing that you left off of was that you became a CEO. You had no business degree or anything, but you use your skillset that you had already acquired, and then  obviously building relationships with those who are hiring for it.

And that was a combination to allow you to get that position. So talk to me about how do you transition, because now you’re in the corporate world and your mindset is always structured on schools and getting degrees and working at small companies for other people. How do you transition from that to then becoming, Hey, I can do my own thing?

Some people are born entrepreneursSigrun:  Well, some people are. Born entrepreneurs, you know, like from a young age, they’re trying to sell you something. We hear these stories from Richard Branson and other famous entrepreneurs, and when I read those books, I thought to myself, I’m not an entrepreneur because I never tried to sell my, you know, my kids from school.

Something. But I think actually many entrepreneurs just materialize later because of some life changes. So what happens for me is that I had this dream of starting my own thing, but I felt like never ready for it.  My perfectionism kicks in and maybe I didn’t have the funds like really on the side. Then I was like, yeah, this is too much risk.

I guess being a little bit risk adverse. But then in 2010, I got sick. I had moved to Switzerland, after being in Germany and the UK and in Iceland, where I’m originally from, I had moved to Switzerland. Be with my new love and I my hand, I got sick and I got pain in my neck.

And, you know, kind of like, just couldn’t work for seven months. And my brain was full on though. So it was not a burnout. It was more like a body out, the whatever we call it. and I couldn’t work for seven months and it gave me a lot of time to think. And I started to think about like, I do have this dream of starting my business.

Why aren’t you doing anything about it? So. Self talk, a lot of self talk. I still took another job because that felt safer. but I could work in home office. And I think a lot of people have gotten a taste for how that  looks like today. And I loved it. I loved having the time and the flexibility to just work whenever I want to.

But this job, again, didn’t last so long, so I lost my job twice in two years. I was sick for seven months, and if people are looking for a sign. To do something new. I think that would be a typical sign. Like if things are not going your way and things tend to fall apart, there is something, there’s a message in there.

And I knew this was the time for me to go after my dream of starting a business. And so I finally, did that after basically the universe giving me lots of signs to do it. Got

Signs From The Universe to Start Your Own BusinessCasanova Brooks:  How many signs within that same period did you have a lot of signs of don’t do it as well, cause you already said, you know, it was the security of the job, but was there something else?

Was, was there a confliction? Or was it all the way, you  know, everything pointed to do it.

Sigrun:  I think everything pointed to do it. The only thing where I was still struggling is that I didn’t have the business idea. Like I said, what is my business about? And even though I had been a CEO for 10 years, I had also gotten the business degree.

I still didn’t see business coaching as my path. So I don’t know if any of you have read the book. Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It is really a little adventure book. It’s really almost written for kids and it’s very nice story of someone looking for a treasure and they go around the world looking for the treasure and ended up, it’s a spoiler, spoiler alert.

finding the treasure in the backyard. And the same thing was with me. I was, I was looking at all these entrepreneurs and I said, Oh, what can I sell online? You know, can I have eCommerce store, Amazon drop shipping, which is very popular, or can I write travel books  or can I take pictures? I’m a serious hobby photographer.

And then, it took me a while, probably 12, 18 months wondering what it is that I should be doing until I realized it’s right in front of me. I should be a business coach.

Wow. And

Casanova Brooks:  what was the sign that told you that when you said is right in front of you? Like what? Cause some, there’s a lot of people out there with knowledge.

Right. And they don’t, and they’re doing the exact same thing of what you were saying there. They’re seeing all of these Facebook ads, and nowadays it’s more than ever because we are at home, just like you said, and we’re just constantly scrolling through our phones. So they’re hearing about all of these, you know, rags to riches stories with this, but then how do they identify what their gift is?

I guess, was there a formula for you? Was there one thing. That you recommend for any, anyone who’s looking to take your Samba or any of that? How Do You Get Your Business Idea?

Sigrun:  You just got to get started. I think you do not figure it out by  thinking about it, and that’s what’s my failure. Like I thought the idea would just fall on my head in the shower, or I would be walking and figuring out, or I would, you know.

Oh, but that’s not how it works. You just got to start. and, I started doing actually the eCommerce thing. I set up a little shop on Shopify website. I wanted to export, a design from Iceland. And I set it up nicely. I talked to a few Vendors. I realized the whole thing with the shipping and returns would be very complicated because it was not a dropship thing.

Like they actually kind of all had to do this individually and you know, I would have to have stock and it started to get complicated and I realized. This is starting to annoy me, like I don’t like this part about it, like the shipping and returns. And then I went on Google and use Google keywords to see how many people are looking for design from Iceland.

And it was  so low, the number that I realized, Oh, that’s not a good business then. So I stopped. But. I had to get my feet wet. I had to try it out. And I actually kind of think fondly of this time of like setting up shop on Shopify and if someone is asking me now, Oh, is Shopify easy to use? I’m like, yeah, it’s that easy.

You can just set up a shop in 30 minutes. But it was the rest of it that I didn’t like. The whole idea of having a company with a warehouse or, you know, yes you can do drop shipping, but I realized I need something else. And the way I figured out the business coaching, it was more like. A frustration. I was seeing a lot of people not taking action.

A lot of people asking questions and I’m like, this is so easy. It came easy to me, that’s exactly the thing you should be doing. If something comes super easy to you and you’re like asking yourself, seriously, people would pay me for doing this. That’s exactly what you should be doing.

Casanova Brooks:  There’s a lot of people that say, okay, I could be a business coach or I can be a marketing coach, or something like that. Talk to me about how you got your first clients, like was that a struggle for you?

Sigrun:  Yeah, I did so many mistakes and that’s why I created programs basically for someone like me so that they don’t repeat them.

I had to put a button on my website, “One hour business coaching”. And you know, I had a degree in business. I had been working as a CEO, like why should I be a scared of it? But there was, there’s something that happens when you start a business under your own name. There’s all these demons calming there says limiting beliefs.

It’s all the stuff people told you when you were six years old. It comes back as voices in your head, and then you are like, whew. Nervous about putting a button on your website. But of course then you have to get traffic to the website for a long time. so it happened quite organically.

Somebody just booked  an hour with me and I would ask, Oh, this is cool. But it took me another six months until I actively would say, Hey, you can work with me for, you know, and, and had coaching packages.

Casanova Brooks:  So did you start out, because many people have that same little voice in their head, and I’m so glad that you brought this up.

but did you start out, were you charging, were you giving, offering your service just for free, and then you’d give them like a trial session? What did that look like?

I was helping so much over Facebook groups mainly, and that’s where I got probably my first clients from, like, they saw me being so helpful and then they’d go and check you out.

So absolutely, I recommend people starting for free, but it can go a lot faster. You know, when someone starts with me today and has no business, you know, no email list or nothing, I just tell them, find three test clients. You know, just ask around to someone, have this problem, you know, I want to help you solve it.

And you get them these tests clients and they  don’t pay you anything. But what you are getting in return is first of all, realizing do I like working with these types of people? Do I like, do I like solving this one problem? And assuming you like both, you get testimonials. So it’s absolutely a win-win to start with free clients and then move over to paid.

Sigrun:  Of course.

Got it. And then the second thing that people struggle with is they say, okay, well how do I know how much to charge? How do I know how much I’m worth? What? What do you tell people in that sense.

Pricing is a tricky bit. I also struggled with that. I had done an MBA at a top business school and, I was like, wondering what I should charge, you know, what should be my hourly rates.

And my husband said, do you realize that your colleagues are probably charging like between 800 and thousand dollars per hour, and they’re working for de-load and McKinsey and all that stuff? And I’m like, yes, but me and you don’t, nobody knows me, and dah,  dah, dah. so I was like, what do I pick? And I thought like a hundred dollars $200 like, you know, so I ended up doing $180.

and I got my first clients a hundred hours

Casanova Brooks:  per hour.

Sigrun:  Okay. One hour. But I would prepare for an hour. I would write up the session. I was working three hours. So basically it was $60 an hour. I got my system better into control after several sessions, but in the beginning, it was definitely more like three hours than just selling one hour.

But one of my first clients, Told me to raise my rates. Now, how that happened is that two, three months after I had my first clients just booking one off sessions, I reached out to them and wanted to see if they had implemented what I told them and some of them book the call with me again and I gave them a free 30 minute follow up call, which is a smart thing to do in coaching.

And he told me, Sigrun I hired  four business coaches. I booked an hour with each one of them. You are the cheapest, but you gave me the most value. You are underpricing yourself. You should raise your rates. A client normally doesn’t tell you to raise your rates. Right. And I was a bit scared with like, Oh, I see.

You might be right. Yeah. Maybe I should. And he gave me the rates of the other business coaches, and I looked at their websites and I was like, she really did research for me. So, about. Five months later, I finally got the courage and I said, okay, I’m going to raise it to $350 and just that weekend, an interview appeared in a newspaper with me.

My photo was on the cover page in the weekend edition. So I thought, what a perfect timing, and the following Monday, two people booked at the new rate. Then I thought, okay, it’s okay. Nothing to worry about,

Casanova Brooks:  Nothing to worry about. And from there you just kept trial and it did you, did you ask any more clients.

Sigrun:  So, I always ask clients, but,  I just needed this first round to happen. After that, I started to work with clients over coaching packages. I don’t offer single sessions, but, you know, my hourly rate today is $1,500, if someone would ask me. So it’s just that. In the beginning, it’s so hard. It’s so hard to understand. Later on, you realize what’s the value of working with you.

So if I work with someone for an hour, I can help them map out a six figure business and I know it will be a six figure business or a seven figure business, whatever it is. And then you have to understand, okay, is it worth then $1500 that hour? So you stop charging by hour, you’re charging for the value of the session.

Recession Proof Your BusinessCasanova Brooks:  Now, one of the things that you specialize in and you’ve been talking about a lot is how to recession proof your business. If you already have a business now, and maybe you just got it off the ground, what are some tips and what are some ways,  is there a formula to recession proof your business?

Sigrun:  Yes, actually, there is a, first of all, I ask people to create a vision of where they want to be. 12 months from now, and maybe some people find that weird. What has it got to do with the recession? But I, you need to know where you’re going. Like what kind of future do you want for yourself? And from there you can backtrack.

And normally I would say, Hey, what’s your passion? And let’s turn your passion into profitable business. But in a recession. I don’t ask that question. I would say, what opportunities do you see right now? And sometimes people are so blocked, they don’t see it. So one of the things I do when I do a bootcamp, a live bootcamp doing this exercises.

I say, okay, what are you willing to pay for yourself right now? And I have everyone in the bootcamp. List all the ideas, all the things they would be willing to pay for. So  some people would say, I would love someone would, teach me how to do my garden. I would love if someone would helped me, you know, with meal planning, I, I have to cook.

Now, every day we can’t go to a restaurant. I would love if someone could do, you know, could send out emails for me or could do social media posts for me or edit my videos. Like. The list is endless, and some of these things already exist. Most of them do, but some don’t. Some are new things. and. Very few people are in the self actualization.The Maslow Pyramid

On the top of the Maslow pyramid, you know, the Maslow pyramid is that you need to have your needs met. Like we need to have food, water, and some people would say wifi as well. Is at the bottom. Otherwise we can’t survive at the top of the pyramid. And the hierarchy of needs is like, who am I? You know, I want to be a better person in a recession.

That  becomes less important. It’s more important, you know, how can I make money? How can I, you know, take care of my home? Actually, people are redecorating their homes and they were wondering like, okay. I spending so much time at home, how can I actually make my living room nicer or my office, home office?

Well, you’re not going to get the architect or the interior designer into your house. No. Virtually. So these are new opportunities like. You can just have a Skype call with a designer, show him or her or some pictures, and they’ll send you over a design. Like, these are new opportunities that are just created in a recession.

So that’s about being recession proof. Instead of saying, okay, I’m a photographer. Nobody’s going to book a photography session with me right now. Well, what can you do instead? Can you teach me to take my own pictures that make them look like they were taking in the studio? Hmm. People would pay for that.

Right. So  I get them, I give them a taste for what’s possible. And then I said, what? What about you? What does your ideal client read now? And some people said, well, my ideal client doesn’t want anything from me right now. Like they are just like, totally, you know, negative about the whole thing, or they’ve lost their income or something like that.

Said, well. Then you can shift, you can shift to a new ideal client that actually wants and needs you right now, and you can shift your offers and you can shift your messaging. So there are three ways how people can. Move about it. Sometimes you have the right offer, but the messaging is off because you haven’t tied it in with what’s happening right now, and sometimes you have to just slightly move.

Some people have moved from private individuals to corporate clients or reversed, so there’s always way to recession proof your business. Of course, if you’re a restaurant owner, you could say, Oh, there’s no way for me to do it. Well, I must say I live in a little village outside  Zurich,  Switzerland. I’m very disappointed that none of the restaurants offered takeaway.

Nope. They could have made a lot of money because I am pretty tired of cooking. so there was an opportunity, but they didn’t take it. Now, if you’re a hotel owner. Well, little bit harder, right? So yes, there are businesses that are struggling and, and there’s not an easy solution to their problem, but a lot of people have been able to not just survive, but actually thrive throughout this recession.

Actually, my business is doing better than last year. Because people are seeing the opportunities of online business and people that always met their clients face to face or did offline events. They’re like, okay, I’m going to bring it online because this is not just going to be a few months. I think we’re seeing a forced digitalization.

I think, yeah, I think next year, you know, there could be more events are going to be hold online that previously were only offline and much more  than that. And I actually love it that some countries just like Italy got completely closed off and they’ve been closed the longest of all in terms of people being homed in quarantine.

And this has been such a boost for my Italian clients because finally their online businesses are working.

Casanova Brooks:  Was there ever a book or was there ever a mentor or somebody like that that you first caught wind of that you think changed your mindset when you were first getting started in business?

Favorite BookSigrun:  One of my favorite business books. It’s “Good To Great”. And it’s a typical yes, yes. A typical book, that you recommend when you do an MBA study, but anyone can read it. It’s a pretty easy read and it gives you five principles of what takes a company from good to great. And I love that book. It felt like there was so much research behind it, which I kind of, the nerd in me really  loved that this was research.

This was not just one person’s opinion. This was actually based on data. And then they came up with five reasons why some companies become great. And other don’t. Yes.

Casanova Brooks:  I love it. I love it. This has been a phenomenal episode as I thought that it would be. The one last thing that I always love to ask, is there someone out there just right now that is inspired, right, and, and they’re thinking about how they can take their knowledge and how they could start their own business.

Or maybe how they can even grow their business From Good to Great, but they have that little voice in their head, the one that you spoke about earlier. And then voice maybe tells them that they’re not strong enough, they’re not smart enough, or maybe they just don’t have enough resources. What’s the one thing that you say to them to get them to just take action.

Sigrun:  I think we can all do more than we think we can. Like that’s the thing, like you can do  more than you think you can do, and the first thing you need to do is just take a tiny little step. It could be just getting that book, you know? And. Reading it and getting inspired. Finding role models, I think has really been at crucial to my development.

You know, I mentioned the first female president of Iceland. I have always looked out for role models and made sure that I have them in different stages. So, for instance, Oprah is very inspiring. Yeah. Oh yeah. Now sees too far away. So he’s like, you know, this is like, okay. It feels like unachievable, and many, many people will give up if, if a role model is so far away.

But I think it’s good to have someone who’s super far away and then you have someone closer to you, just two steps ahead of you, and you’re like, well. If she can do it or if he can do it, I can do it too.

Casanova Brooks:  I love it. I  love it. There you have it. Well, for anybody who wants to stay connected with you, where can they find you at?

We will have show notes in the links, but where’s the best way to find you?

Sigrun:  I have a podcast, the Sigrun show. I’m also on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and everywhere. My handle is “Sigruncom” In one word.

Casanova Brooks:  Well, we look forward to having you on the show again so we can get some more knowledge, some more wisdom, but thank you again for coming on.

it’s been a phenomenal. One last thing I want to ask, is there anything that I should have asked that you wished that I would’ve asked.

Sigrun:  I don’t think so. I think we had a great conversation and was a pleasure to be on the show.

Well, thank you again and remember dream nation and the dream we trust, but just as she said, we must take action even if it’s just a little step, because otherwise it will only merely be a fantasy.

We’ll see you on the next one.