[Transcript starts at 0:40]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of
my favorite online business podcast. If you are tuning in, listening, or watching on the day that
it drops, it is Monday, February 16th. Hope you had a great Valentine's Day, fake holiday.
But in real news, how good was the Bad Bunny Bowl? I've said this a million times. I've recorded
in the past. I put this out in the future.
So I'm recording this the day after the Bad Bunny Bowl. And I am proud AF, proud as fuck, to be
Puerto Rican. That is the culture that I grew up with.
I'm half black, half Puerto Rican. I'm Puerto Rican on my mom's side. My mom's 100% Puerto
Rican.
And that's the culture that I grew up with. And it was so awesome to see it being fully
represented on the screen. And then the incredible reception, you know, on the social media is
like, I know that we're amazing, but it's great to see everybody else be like, yo, that culture,
amazing.
And it just, it captured everything. I've said this before on episodes. The reason I love
Thanksgiving so much is that is the time when my family gets together, everybody.
And that's, it's what Bad Bunny, it's what that concert depicted, right? The dancing, we don't
have any kids sleeping on the chairs because they just stay up and they're crazy. But the
dancing, the music, the food, we don't have any coquis. If you don't know what a coqui is, look
it up.
But we do have coquito, different things, right? And the history, like my grandmother's there.
So we have multiple generations. And I unfortunately am not fluent in Spanish.
I can get by, but my grandmother, that's her first language. My aunt, my grandma, my mom,
fluent. And they'll be speaking to my grandmother.
And it's just like, this is, it's just the best. And it's so welcoming. And it's just come and dance
and be happy.
And just, it's the fucking best. And it was amazing to see it on TV and see everyone's response
to it. And I hope you enjoyed it because it was the best.
But sharp pivot into today's topic, which has nothing to do with that concert. But today we are
talking about the online business exit, right? When, knowing when to shut it down. This episode
is inspired by some recent online business exits from some of my favorites.
I am not going anywhere, but again, some of my, two of my favorite people, they recently shut
it down. And I was like, let me give you a clap because fuck yeah. And now let me make an
episode.
So as in case you don't listen to the podcast intro, which I get, if there's no episodes, like I've
already heard the intro, but I love the intro. I worked really hard. This is the second iteration,
maybe third, but second, like big, big change of it.
But the podcast intro for this specific podcast states, welcome folks to my show on the mic. I'm
your host, Dr. Chanté Caulfield, AKA the maestro. And I believe that your online business should
serve you, not the other way around.
Join me each week to learn how to actually build an online business that fits your values and
helps you live your best life. You get to decide what success looks like. I'm just here to give you
the insights and action items.
And then I say, Dr. J-pop, help me get this thing started. Let me highlight a few important lines
from that intro. Obviously, Dr. J-pop, most important, but next step we have, your online
business should serve you, not the other way around.
The next line, learn how to build an online business that fits your values and helps you live your
best life. Next line, you get to decide what success looks like. I would be hugely, hugely remiss,
given those lines, given what this podcast is about, I'd be hugely remiss if I didn't ever mention
in some way, shape or form on this podcast, that ending your online business, closing it down,
shutting it down, walking away from your online business is absolutely an option.
All right, miss me with that sunk cost fallacy. All I want is for people to live their best lives,
whatever, hitting stuff on my desk, whatever that looks like. Obviously, I have a skillset that
lends itself to, you know, coaching people on what to do if they want an online business to be
part of their best life.
My overall shtick is live your best life, do the thing. And I 100% support if doing the thing looks
like walking away from your online business. So that's what we're talking about today.
And actually, I don't have a ton to say about it, which is good, because if you can't hear, I am a
little bit sick, not from the Bad Bunny concert. I think I got sick on Friday, but I don't have that
much to say on this. We're going to keep it shorter this episode.
And then I'm going to go rest. So one of the wildest things about physical therapists, and if
you're a physical therapist, you probably experienced this at some point in your career. One of
the wildest things is that folks will come in for back pain, and then they will leave without a
husband.
And you're like, what? Right? Bear with me here. Helping people feel what they are capable of.
It's a hell of a drug, right? People are like, holy shit, I'm able to do this.
I can do this. What else can I do? And you know, physically feeling something is again, it's such
a drug, because you can feel it. It's not just someone like, you know, talking to you in your ear
about it.
You're just like, I feel it. I can do, I am capable. What else can I do? To me, this is my whole
shtick.
And this is why I 100% support folks that are like, what else can I do? I'm done with this. I'm
ready to move on to something else. Amazing.
I support it a zillion percent. So I have, you know, I don't have like five tips to know when it's
time to close your business. Like I said, just a few minutes ago, over the past two weeks, two of
my favorite people have closed down their online businesses.
And again, I am happy as hell for them. And both of them simply said, when you know, you
know. Yes.
Lean in. My role here is for, you know, when folks say that they know, I'm like, okay, now do it.
Because when you know, you know, do the thing.
So obviously, just as like a little asterisk here, I am confident of the financial side of things. And
for both of these people, their online business wasn't their primary source of income. Right.
So there's a good chance that you listening to this maybe are in the same boat, but I honestly
have no idea. I have no idea who listens to this podcast, who exactly listens to the podcast.
Unless I have no idea of the percentage of folks who are, you know, all in with online business
versus those who have online business as a supplemental income.
I don't know. I don't know. All that to say the financial side of things, maybe, you know, may
ultimately keep you doing things longer than you wish.
And that goes both ways. Right. And it's reality goes both ways.
We see this for folks who want to get into the online business space, but need to stay with the
job that they currently have. So that, you know, because it pays the bills, right? Or they want to
start their own thing, but they got to stay with this job for longer for a certain amount of time in
order to be able to bridge that gap and pay the bills. I get that.
All I have to say is throwing that like reality piece of like, yeah, I want you to act now and you
know, you know, and I want you to act now. But there's also the reality of like we live in a world,
we had to pay bills, things like that. And so if that's what keeps you doing things that you want
to be doing, I get it.
But I'm here to give you the permission that you don't need, but that I found that many times
people are looking for to do what you know, in your gut is the right, the right thing for you. So,
you know, having, having started and run your own online business is dope as fuck. Pry
yourself on the back, clap for yourself.
And you get to take those skills with you into whatever it is that you decide to do next. Right. I
just feel like I got to throw that out there for one, I gave you the permission and two, I give the
reminder of those skills don't go away.
Take them with you. Right. And I will also say that the like hoarder in me would like to point out
that you can always set your business down and then come back to it.
Like it's your business. You don't need to like get hired again. You don't have to like interview
again.
And it's online. It's not like, you know, in person business, you have to have the place you're
going to do it. That is a friction point online.
You're like, well, I'll just go onto my computer, onto my phone again, and business is open
again. So I actually have someone in my DMs right now sharing her journey of doing this very
same thing, right? She left for a bit to go and work a corporate job and have some guaranteed
income while she raised her kid. And now she's back online, giving it another go.
And I'm like, fuck, yeah, that's awesome. Right. We know running your business is a lot.
It's a lot. I totally get wanting to step back and step away and focus on delivering, just
delivering the service, right? Not have to deal with all the marketing and the customer service
and the tech and the bookkeeping all in taxes and all these things. I get it.
I'm over here ready to become a DJ. If you don't know, Lex got me a DJ controller for my
birthday and it is the most fun thing ever. It's a long hobby though.
That's the problem. I think about how long the song is. And if you're like, Hey, I want to like just
work on transitioning one song to the next, but like at the end, well then you go through the
whole song or you can fast forward through, but still it's a long, you see how it's like a long
process.
And you're like, oh, I want to like just practice for 30 minutes. And then you're like, it's been
three hours. Like it is a real thing, but it is the best.
And stay tuned for more with that. But in the spirit of, of answering the questions and a
question that none of you asked me, which is why now? Why people leaving now? I do want to
take a moment and just offer up some predictions slash what I'm seeing slash what I'm feeling
in the space right now and about the space right now. Right.
Because I do, I just, I like talking about this kind of stuff. I sit back, I watch things, I see what
kinds of things are on threads and I see what's going on with my own clients and when people
in my own ecosystem and I have thoughts around it. So three things that I would like to just
point out, bring up, discuss real quickly.
First thing is five-year cycles are very real in my opinion. It's 100% how I like live my life with
things in five years. I'm like, all right, new thing, something else.
But I think that in general, it's like a pretty solid, like feeling for people. And we are six years
post COVID. COVID brought a lot of people online that whole year into the next year.
And I do think we're going to see more people being like, I tried it and I'm ready to be done.
Right. Particularly, I wouldn't be surprised, the folks who did really well early on, both social
media wise and financially.
And now it's not like that, right? Like everyone was online in the beginning, customers as well,
and like wanting to spend money. So there was more eyes and there was, after we came out of
COVID, there was financial, people had money. It wasn't like this crazy financial uncertainty.
It was like, okay, we know what's going on, but we're just stuck inside. It was really good time to
be online. Really, really good time to be online.
Right now, that's not the case. And it's not surprising to me if people are like, I tried it, I did it. I
don't really enjoy it.
I'm done. Second thing, and I kind of alluded to it just then is the political climate, right? Fuck
Trump every single fucking day. Fuck Trump.
I have such hatred for that man in my heart. And I hate that. I don't want to have hate.
And he's the fucking worst, objectively the worst. And he is divisive as fuck. And he is terrible for
the economy.
Do not think that the market and the economy are the same thing because they're not. He's a
terrible leader. But what we're going to see and what we're seeing and experiencing is financial
uncertainty plus the fact that it feels terrible to be online because every time you go online, like
someone's getting shot and someone's dying in the street.
You're just like, this is, I don't want to be online. And they're just like, people arguing, people
are angry, people are on edge. You add those things together.
And when you get people wanting to leave the online space, I get it. You're like, I don't be doing
this. It feels terrible.
I get it. All right. The online space is saturated.
Organic growth is possible, but it's difficult. We have that uncertainty piece. I think we're in the
beginning of things.
I think things are, I'm going to be completely transparent. I only think things are going to
continue to get worse. But when there is financial uncertainty, there can still be money.
People still have money. But if there's uncertainty, what do people do? They hold on to things
and they don't buy things. And so if you're trying to sell things as you're running your business,
you're like, fuck, this is way more difficult.
People aren't buying things. Sales cycles are different or I just want to help people. Majority of
us, what we do, it's considered luxury.
It is a luxury purchase. It is a nice to have, not a need to have. Even physical therapy.
Orthopedic physical therapy is nice to have, not a need to have. You'll fucking get better. Your
back pain's going to go away.
If you just stop doing that shit, your back pain's going to go away. It might come back later. But
physical therapy, let's say it is a grudge purchase for many people and is a luxury purchase as
well, especially if you're going cash based.
So as there becomes more and more financial uncertainty, people hold on to their money and
they're spending less on these things that are nice to have as opposed to need to have. And
suddenly, this is really fucking stressful and I still have bills to pay. So what do people do? They
leave.
They go get another job. I understand it. Third point here, again, tying into this political climate.
This political climate, I believe, is highlighting what matters to people. My contrast creates
clarity. Jill talks about that.
Seeing how terrible everything is can absolutely make you want to lean into things that feel
good and that come with more ease. And there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.
You see all this terrible shit and you're like, that ain't for me. I'm going to lean into this. It's
easier.
It feels good. It's local. It's tangible.
I feel like I'm making a difference. I get it. I get it.
I'm not contributing to meta, being on the worst platforms ever. I get it. It makes sense.
So yeah, I do think that we will continue to see more folks shutting down their online
businesses over the course of the next year and not because they failed or because they
couldn't hack it, but rather because when you know, you know. So if you listening to this, you
watching this are thinking of shutting it down and walking away, please know that I support
you one hundred eleventy billion percent. All right.
I'm going to keep my word. I'm going to keep this episode short. I'm going to wrap it up there
so I can take this little nasal stuff I got going on and go and rest all while all as always.
My words just broke there as always endlessly, endlessly. Give it to me one more time.
Endlessly appreciative for every single one of you.
Until next time, friends. Maestro out.
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