Your calendar is packed, your clients are pros at scope creep and “brief” weekend calls, and the pressure of keeping it together is all on you. This was probably not your vision on day one. And the work you actually enjoy and what you want to do keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the list.
You probably didn’t see or feel it happening. It started with something small. But over time, those small reactive decisions accumulated, and you may have drifted into running a business that looks very different from the one you intended to build.
If you stepped back and looked at how your business operates today, how much of it reflects what you actually wanted on day one?
As business owners, we want a reputation for being flexible, accommodating, and easy to work with. If we’re not careful, we lose sight of what we want from our businesses and get caught up in the pressure of pleasing clients. And sometimes we bring along habits from our previous job where overworking and overachieving were how we got ahead.
Especially in the early years, we make decisions as situations arise. We figure things out as we go, and not every decision gets revisited as the business grows.
What are the signs that you’re drifting?
These changes tend to hang out under the radar until there’s no more room. They come to the surface and suddenly your business is difficult to run. When these small changes start to pile up, they begin to impact how your business operates. And sometimes you're so busy managing the consequences that you don't recognize what's happening.
A longtime client who asks for something outside the original scope, and you agree. You make an exception to your availability because something seems urgent. You keep charging an old price because you have a personal relationship with the client.
Any of these scenarios result in you agreeing to do work you don’t normally offer, in a way you don’t normally work with clients. Little by little, your business suffers because you spend more time on special requests than you do maintaining the initial principles of your business vision.
I was hired by a service-based business owner to establish more structure in her business. She was great at delivering her services and had a constant stream of clients, but much of her business had developed piecemeal, without intention.
Her offers weren’t clear, and she had been inconsistent with her pricing. Many of her clients came through personal relationships and her network, and she often charged different amounts for similar work, sometimes significantly less than she should have.
She found herself in a complicated situation with a client who provided her a significant source of revenue, but had come to expect special treatment - considerable flexibility, last-minute requests, additional work outside of the agreed scope, and availability outside normal business hours.
My client became accustomed to giving in because of the amount of revenue she received from the client - the entrepreneur’s golden handcuffs. By the time we started to work together, she felt she couldn't say no because she was so dependent on the cash flow. Someone else's needs were determining how her own business operated. She was so deep into it that she didn't recognize how big of a problem it had become.
She told me how frustrated she was by the constant interruptions from this demanding client. This one relationship was affecting her schedule, profitability, capacity to take on other work, and her ability to develop new business. It was limiting her availability for other clients, and for her most important client - her own business.
We initially connected to work on other aspects of her business, but this came up as a side issue. It wasn’t until we discussed it that she realized how much power she had given away, and the consequences of that.
How do you regain control when you’ve drifted like this?
Once it was out in the open, she knew it had to be addressed, and it required way more than setting boundaries with her client around her work hours.
We started with the foundation, the underlying structure of the business. I helped her clearly define her offers and what was included in each service. This would help prevent scope creep and reduce the time she spent customizing services and pricing for individual clients. We established clear pricing and a plan for adjusting existing client rates. Then I helped her establish more consistent processes, including proposal and contract templates, clearly defined scopes of work, and project timelines. These changes made her business easier to manage and created a more consistent client experience.
That was just the beginning. I wanted her to be prepared for those clients who asked for extras, to have the confidence to charge accordingly, rather than just including things for free. Then we looked at where she might need support - software, a virtual assistant, bookkeeper, etc. Once she had the operational side of her business under control, she had the breathing room to focus on marketing and networking to attract new clients.
As a business owner, when you make changes to how you run your business, you have to be prepared for the possibility that some existing clients won't like those changes. And some may choose to go elsewhere. But that also creates room for new clients who come into your business knowing your pricing, processes, and expectations from the beginning.
What about the demanding client, you ask? She knew that changing the way she worked might mean losing some clients, including the one she depended on most. She had to become comfortable with that possibility before she could make the changes she needed. In the end, that major client stayed.
Are you giving mixed messages?
If you tell clients you're only available during certain hours, but regularly respond to emails late at night or on weekends, you're sending mixed messages. The same applies to scope of work. If you consistently agree to additional requests without adjusting your fees or timelines, clients may come to expect that flexibility. You have to be consistent with the expectations you set.
My client regained control of her time, made her business more profitable, and created room to grow her business, all on her own terms by getting back to the business she wanted to build in the first place.
Is evolving different than drifting?
We hope our businesses will grow and evolve. Change is good when you consciously and intentionally make changes to offers, deliverables, pricing, deadlines, and client communication. Experience tells us what works or doesn’t work, and we can make changes based on that data. Business evolution involves considering opportunities and making decisions based on what makes sense for the business you're building.
Business drift is based on reactive decisions made based on immediate demands, without considering their longer-term implications. You can end up offering services you never intended to provide, working hours you never wanted to work, or depending on clients who dictate how you spend your time. And because each change happened gradually, you may not realize how far you've moved from your original intentions.
How else does drifting show up?
A demanding client isn’t the only situation that causes drifting. Maybe you offer a popular service that you just don’t get any joy from anymore. Or your pricing doesn’t reflect your experience, value, or education any longer. You have recurring commitments on your calendar you no longer want to participate in. Or maybe you're still doing everything yourself, even though you've reached the point where getting some help would free up your time and allow your business to grow.
Over time, these decisions become the default. What initially seemed like the easiest way to get a client or solve a problem may no longer serve your business.
How do you get back to the business you want?
Not everyone needs an overhaul. Sometimes a few small tweaks have the biggest impact. And everything doesn’t have to be done at once. You can create a plan to achieve your goals, one action at a time. The best strategy is to step back and examine how you’ve been running your business, and ask yourself:
What am I doing today simply because it's what I've always done?
Where have I made an exception that has become a regular expectation?
Are there client relationships, services, or commitments that no longer make sense for my business?
If I were making these decisions today, would I make the same ones?
Then identify just one area of your business that has drifted and decide what needs to change.
Whether it’s through a weekly CEO Hour, an accountability group, or working with a business strategist, building a sustainable business requires periodically examining whether the way you're operating still supports the business - and the life - you want. As I said earlier, change is good if it’s intentional.
One of the reasons I created CEO Momentum was to give business owners a consistent opportunity to step back from the day-to-day demands of running their businesses. During our weekly CEO Hour and quarterly planning sessions, members look at their priorities, examine what's working, and make intentional decisions about what comes next.
That regular practice can help you recognize when something in your business needs to change, before you find yourself wondering how you ended up so far from what you originally wanted.