Let’s Talk about Four Walls

In the world of personal finance, there’s this thing called Four Walls. When times get tough, you pay for the four walls, and everything else can wait. What are the Four Walls? Food, Shelter, Transportation, Clothing.

• You have to have food to sustain you so that you can go to work (though maybe you drop down to rice & beans for a bit).
• You have to have shelter of some sort to survive the weather (though maybe you downsize for a bit).
• You have to have transportation to get to work (though maybe you start riding the bus instead of that fancy car with the $600 payment).
• You have to put clothing on the growing kids or CPS will be called (though maybe you buy no-brand-name items for a bit).

The Four Walls is all about priorities. Cut the cable. Don’t buy the newest iPhone. Feed the kids.

So when Life’s Storms get really, really, really tough, and you have to drop down to just the Four Walls, it can be easy to look at personal finances and sort out priorities quickly. After all, there are many financial coaches, courses, and even free youtube videos to help you prioritize.

But what about your business? How do you prioritize your activities and money to keep giving your readers what they want, bring in more readers, and not go absolutely insane trying to do too much.

Unfortunately, I can’t flat out tell you what will be best for your business.

I can say with certainty that if you have a newsletter list going, don’t slack off on it (though…maybe you can downsize for a bit). If you’re emailing every week, you might drop down to twice a month.

If you have a super active social media group of readers, then maybe you only check in with them once a week rather than ten times a day.

If you have an ad that’s been running and getting good, steady results, a constant stream of new readers, then don’t turn it off! But maybe stop experimenting with lots of other ads or on other ad platforms.

Again, I can’t tell you what your Four Walls for your business should be. But YOU should know what they are. Evaluate your business:

• What’s been reliably effective
• What moves the needle the most
• What makes the most book sales
• What brings in the most new readers

And keep doing those things. Make the top two to four things your Four Walls for your business.

So that when Life’s Storms hit, you know what you’re going to fall back to. You know what you’ll need to keep doing, and what you can let slide for a little while.

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Oh, and PS: You may have noticed I’ve been in Four Walls mode for a while. First it was covid for an unreasonably long period of time this summer. Then I finally found some answers to my health issues, so I’ve been working to fix those. And the biggest way to fix Adrenal Fatigue…is to slow down and not stress myself out. So newsletters will continue. But everything else for my business has been put on hold since any energy I have goes to actual client work. I’m sorry the book reviews and social media posts have been trickling out, but it’s due to the shift in my focus to fix my health. I know you all understand. This is how we weather the storms.