4 Systems Every Woman with Chronic Illness Needs for a Thriving Business

In this episode of Business with Chronic Illness, we're getting real about the four systems you *must* have in place to build a successful, sustainable business while living with chronic illness. Whether you're just starting out or you're feeling overwhelmed and burnt out, these foundational systems will help you create a business that supports your health and lifestyle—not the other way around.

I'll walk you through how to create a flexible business model that adapts to your unique needs, streamline your client delivery so you can still show up even on tough days, establish a simple, evergreen marketing system that keeps working for you, and build holistic life systems that bring balance to your work and personal life.

Key Takeaways:

• Create a Flexible Business Model for Chronic Illness: Discover how to build a business that adapts to your fluctuating energy levels and health challenges, ensuring sustainability and reducing stress.
• Automate Client Delivery and Marketing for Sustainable Growth: Learn the essential systems to automate your client interactions and create an evergreen marketing strategy that attracts and converts clients even when you need to rest.
• Integrate Holistic Life Systems for Work-Life Balance: Understand how to seamlessly integrate your business and personal life with systems that support your health, boost your productivity, and help you thrive, both personally and professionally.

If you're ready to stop sacrificing your well-being for your business and start thriving, this episode is for you. Let’s get you on the path to building a business that feels as good as it looks.

Chapters

• 0:04 Foundations for Building a Thriving Business
• 7:42 Flexible Business Models for Chronic Illness
• 19:50 Creating a Flexible Business System

Transcript

Nikita Williams: 0:04

Welcome to Business with Chronic Illness, the globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness who want to start and grow a business online. I'm your host. Nikita Williams and I went from living a normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain, with no answers to being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and trying to make a livable income. I faced the challenge of adapting traditional business advice to fit my unique circumstances with chronic illness, feeling frustrated and more burned out than I already was. While managing my chronic illness to becoming an award-winning coach with a flexible, sustainable online coaching business, I found the surprisingly simple steps to starting and growing a profitable business without compromising my health or my peace. Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to create a thriving business that aligns with your lifestyle and well-being, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for women with chronic illness and how we make a living.

Nikita Williams: 1:16

This is Business with Chronic Illness. Okay, so there are four core fundamental systems that you need to have in your business if you're going to have a sustainable, if you're going to have a sustainable, thriving business living with chronic illness. Now I'm sharing these because, honestly, it's taken me it took me a while to figure out, like, why these four systems are so important, and usually when I'm working with clients, whether they are just starting, this is a great place to start, but if I'm working with clients that have been in business for a while and they're feeling burnt out, frustrated, they're feeling like something is missing or not adding up, I usually go back to these four places to see if they're even existing in their business. As far as the foundations, like this lays the brickwork, if you will, for having a fulfilling business, and I was thinking about this recently. Like, I think a lot of people think about business foundations as a thing that you get to after you've made a certain dollar amount, after you've made like 20, 30, 50, 100k, 200k, a million dollars, to be like. Okay, now I've done that and I truly believe that building a strong foundation is absolutely crucial, and there are four steps to doing this and they really are fundamental for any business, and I find that what I see in the world of, like, online businesses a lot of businesses who don't filter their decisions through these foundations specifically those who have varying circumstances in health and life they tend to not last very long. You'll see them do a lot of changing and a lot of shifting, and there's nothing wrong with that, because I had to do that to get to here, but I want to help you not to have to experience this.

Nikita Williams: 3:14

Then I also think, if you're first starting, or even if you started your business with the mentality or the intention of I'm just going to throw spaghetti at the walls and figure it out, because that's what everyone says will work and to some degree, there is some truth to that where you do kind of have to test things out and see what works, but, foundation wise, there are things that have to be in place, no matter what you throw up against the wall, that, as people living with chronic illness, we have to have, and I want to share those things with you here and also know, like, whether you're working with me on a one-to-one as a private client, which I tend to work with clients who are in business or have been in business for like three years or longer, who are newly diagnosed with chronic illness or have been running their business in the very traditional manner, but of finding it difficult to be sustainable, or finding that they're having like they've plateaued or they've gotten stuck in one specific area and they're wanting like some more support from the lens of like I don't know if I have any more capacity to do anything more, living with my current circumstances, and you feel like you need to do something differently than what you have been doing. You've invested in other things, you've invested in other coaches and things like that, and it just hasn't quite helped you. Then usually this is when one-on-one clients come to me. Now, if you are a person who is like I am just getting started in this game, I'm just trying to figure out what it is that I need to do in order to maybe, if you're in a full-time job, you're doing a nine to five you're trying to do a side hustle or some kind of thing in order to at some point transition out of or to go from full-time to part-time and have your side business be like the more generator for your income and you're also trying to find ways to add more support to taking care of your health holistically. That's not covered by insurance, then this person usually works with me in a group container or it's mini offers or something like that, and no matter where you are in the spectrum, if you're listening to this, these foundations are still where I'm going to bring you Like. This is ultimately where I'm going to bring you, because nine times out of 10, you have been following advice and business advice without this filter of foundational necessariness, living with credit, guiltless Okay.

Nikita Williams: 5:46

So if it didn't work before, if you said I tried it, if you didn't come to it with the thought of I'm living with chronic illness and this is what's going to have to work with me from get go there's no part of me that I'm discounting. There's no circumstances that I'm discounting. There's no part of me that I'm discounting. There's no circumstances that I'm discounting. There's no part of me that I'm just going to have to sacrifice through. Then you want to come back to this episode, right, and come back to this place, and it's so important I have had to do this.

Nikita Williams: 6:17

The reason why I know this is so important is because when I first started my business, obviously I had someone as a soldier of like I need a flexible business model, I need to do some things that you know they're easy. But I also fell in the trap of being like well, I'm a new person in the industry, I'm a new person online, and everyone's telling me that in order for me to do this or do that, I have to like sacrifice certain things before I can get to a thing, and that I won't really know what's going to work for me until I actually try it. And I found that that just led to more flare ups, more frustration, more hustle mindset, more like um, just trying to like make some money and don't care how I did it and what it costs me to some degree, and that lasts at you guys, for real, like to be honest, like really short, like that didn't last that maybe three or four months. And I was like okay, this is not going to work. What am I thinking? Like I don't, I can't afford, I don't have the capacity to live in that kind of mindset. I have to shift my filter. And this is where I have found I have shifted my filter. And I was talking with a friend recently and she's like how are you even doing this currently, right now with how you're feeling.

Nikita Williams: 7:42

So for anybody who's just new listening here, the last year has been a little bit more challenging. I had kind of found my rhythm with my health and stuff like that, and then something shifted and then I got COVID and ever since then everything's kind of been in the wind, if you will. So right now I'm in the middle of like an allergy tsunami, if you will. I don't know what's going on. I have hives. I have, you know I might sound stuffy right now, I might sound yucky. Right now I'm extremely exhausted. My fatigue, my chronic fatigue, is out of this world and just pain, my fibromyalgia has been really intense.

Nikita Williams: 8:24

So anyway, going back to what I was talking about here, if I hadn't created or decided to do these things with my foundation of things, I wouldn't have been able to get to where I'm at right now. I wouldn't have been able to support other people to get where they are right now. So here are the things that I want you guys to think about. There are four foundations. You can use this as like your guide to creating a business that fits your life living with chronic illness, and it will change and shift over, like you will adjust this as you scale, like when I say scale, I mean you start going from maybe one offer you know, two to three clients to 10 to 20 or however however your business model is going to look. But this is going to look a little bit different as you scale, but the core principles of these foundations are going to be always there. And what I find ironic and interesting about this, when I had really come to this, is, like this is kind of like the CEO millionaire foundation, like this is stuff that people who are making millions of dollars are thinking about.

Nikita Williams: 9:39

And I have seen how people come back to these foundations and I always just think, like if you just build it from this standpoint from the beginning, maybe you won't get to a point where you feel burnt out or tired or that you've sacrificed too much or lost so much right Just to get to this place, and I think you can do it sustainably. So and this is so important for us living with chronic illness we don't have the time, energy or capacity or the brain space or the circumstances to just like stumble along, and that's the first thing I want you to think about, as much as you're just learning and you're going to test and try different things out in your like business, which is totally normal, because business is more of like an art than a science. You you will find, though, there are things that are fundamental, fundamental that you have to know and have to have, regardless of, like, the trial and error. Okay, and so that's what I really want you to share, and they're fundamental and they're kind of tweaked specifically for those of us living with chronic illness.

Nikita Williams: 10:47

So, number one, if you're going to have a business and you plan on it being a side gig and you want it to be something you are passionate about, you can get behind. It's not just like to fill in the gaps kind of job. So what I mean by this is you can do any kind of business, right, you can. You can do any kind of side hustle, right. You could Uber eat. You could do a cleaning job. You can do all of these different kinds of things you could do. You know buying and selling, like there's so many different kinds of things you can do, know buying and selling, like there's so many different kinds of things you can do, but here is where it happens to be the most important foundation for those of us living with chronic illness. Whatever you choose must be a flexible business model, and what I mean by the word flexible is literally the definition of capable of bending easily without breaking. Again, capable of bending easily without breaking, and that's for you as the person. It's something that can be able to change and adapt to different circumstances.

Nikita Williams: 12:01

Now, this is crucial for those of us living with chronic illness. Right, any given time like if I just take myself, for example, if my business were like cleaning, like I used to help my family back in the day, they had a janitorial business and that's something we did. It required us to be right. It required us to be able to do it regardless. Right, we would take days off, but we would have to find someone to fill in. Right, and then we would have to pay those people and that kind of thing. Right, but ultimately, the brunt of the work fell on our family. And yes, that's so great when you have a body and a life that pretty much operates normal other than the occasional cold.

Nikita Williams: 12:48

But when you're living with chronic illness and you live with something that often is varying, the business model needs to be as flexible as your circumstances bend. Right, and I have found, because I've tried many different things is that business models that require you to deliver on a very specific time and place and it requires you and there isn't a systematized way of you delivering or not always being the person to facilitate it is more challenging in order for you to grow this business and scale it to the place you want to be. So anything can work and it can, but to what extent does it like sacrifice things that are important your time, money and energy and multiple different directions? So, in my personal opinion, based on just the many businesses that I've tried from network marketing, real estate, contract work done for you work, social media management I have found that coaching and consulting of some sort has been one of the most flexible business models that there are. And what I love about this is if you happen to have a business that is more dependent on you being the person that delivers the thing, like no one else can do it, or if someone else has to do it, you have to pay them to do it. There's usually a way to create a offer that is kind of running in the background to give you the capacity to pay that person and still have more of a profit.

Nikita Williams: 14:33

So you want a business. That is your foundation. First and foremost, you want something that is flexible, a business that is flexible, that can bend, that is capable of being altered based on different conditions and circumstances. Because guess what? That's our lives. With chronic illness, that's our lives. So I've had clients come to me who have done for you services. Right, they're offering social media marketing, they're offering, maybe, blogging and writing, and it's required of them, it requires their brain, and they have not built in a flexible business model of a systematized way of being. Like this is how I do what I do, so I can literally hand it off to someone else, or I can just deliver this to a contractor that I subcontract to to deliver exactly the same kind of results I would be getting.

Nikita Williams: 15:29

If you haven't done that, you do not have a flexible business model. If you do not have a business model where you are an offer, where, if you can't show up, you cannot reach out to the client and say, hey, instead of being on video, we're going to do this over email. We're going to do this over the phone, we're going to do this over some kind of audio like walkie talkie kind of app, or, if you can't be like, hey, actually you can find the resources that you need inside of this place or this portal that you can go to. Do you truly have a flexible business model, right? So that is so important, you guys. This alone is where a lot of you guys spend a lot of time thinking about and don't actually start taking action because you're afraid of this big what if, which is, what if I can't deliver? What if I can't show up? What if I can't do something? What if? What if? What if I am not able to? But you build your business from the foundation of the what ifs of like where can it be flexible? Where can I have systems in place that makes it easy for me to deliver, or have someone else deliver it for me, or the client can self deliver it for themselves? Then you do not have a flexible business model, and you definitely need that, living with chronic illness.

Nikita Williams: 16:52

The other thing about this flexible business model is that you need to know what your boundaries are Like. Not all the time are we like feeling horrible and, like you know, dealing with what we're dealing with, but there are some times that we have more capacity and things like that. I truly believe that you should and I say should relatively so please know that I don't mean, like, have to do it this way, but I have found that if you plan your business to operate in your middle season like where you're get your ups and downs it's not great, it's not wonderful you actually give yourself more capacity for when you don't have the capacity and for when you do have the capacity. So, knowing and setting your boundaries around how you will deliver, contact or communicate with clients, what is your working hours? What is your cadence of how you show up for clients or not show up to clients, what is the way you communicate, do you have a flexibility plan? What I mean by this is like, do you have working hours or working days or plan on your calendar that you know that on these days I have space for whatever I have. I don't overbook myself. I don't like try to do all of the things. Like, do you have a flexible business boundaries and calendar space?

Nikita Williams: 18:15

Okay, next, your delivery, your client delivery system. Like honestly, this again like so a flexible business model goes to like what are you doing? Like what is the offer or the service or the business that you're doing? Is that flexible? And then the way you deliver to your client is another aspect of this, like do you have systems in place for this? Do you automate client onboarding? Do you automate the way you communicate with clients? Do you have a support system that allows people to onboard and offboard without necessarily you, or if they if it does require you, there's maybe one or two clicks of a button that you have to have? This is so important. Regardless, if you have an offer you're testing, you still want to automate this process, because automations are really usually duplicatable, easy to tweak once you've set them up once, and to edit them. But this is so important so that when maybe you are unavailable for a week or two or a month, that when clients are ready to work with you or are ready to onboard with you or ready to inquire to work with you, you don't physically have to be the person that clicks the button and you don't have to actually have to hire someone to do that. It's just a system, right. So that is something that's really important. A flexible client delivery system is just a way for you to have support for your clients on different platforms. So for me, I use HoneyBook. I've used Kajabi. I still use Kajabi. I have used other platforms and things like that.

Nikita Williams: 19:50

I personally believe that part of a flexible client delivery system is having a virtual assistant, having a person in your business. This is probably one of the things I will put my stake in the ground in is like from the very beginning of my business, I always knew that one of the safetiness that I would have is trying to saving for having someone to support me in my business, whether there was three hours a week, three hours a month, having someone to be like that fill in for me to do certain things. There's some nuance to this. Obviously, I also think VA should be someone that helps you bring in income, but ultimately they are a safety net and also they are a way to help you deliver to your clients without it always being reliant on you. Also, a flexible client delivery system is creating offers or creating your delivery for clients through the lens of how can I do this if I'm in a flare up? If I'm in a flare up, how would I do this? What would I need to communicate? What automation would I need to have? What other options would have had to communicate prior to the flare up that the client would know and expect. So, for example, in my contracts I let my clients know that in the case of me being unable to deliver on a client call or something like that, that they will have three options that I will give them or my VA will send them and tell them what I will be offering them or how they will be able to get the access or the support that they need for what they're looking for or for their coaching calls.

Nikita Williams: 21:22

That's a flair. I call it the client delivery flair up system. You just have to have it. There's no need not to have it. There's no reason why you don't need to have that in mind. And yes, sometimes you kind of learn a little bit more about this as you grow in your business, depending on how you're doing what you're doing. But if you are going to be client facing or supporting clients in any way in a coaching or consulting basis, you can plan for a flare up plan. You can plan for how you can deliver to clients in a flare-up plan, all right. And you guys and I say these things like these two things between the flexible business model and the client delivery system, they're really not that hard Like you can set them up If you're one of my one-on-one clients, you actually get support in doing this, but if you're in my group program, we like, look at like, is there one or two systems we need to put in place to make this easier for you? And then we look at how you structure your offer. We give you a simple plan on how you structure your offer so it gives you flexibility and still gives your clients results and the things and support that they need. All right.

Nikita Williams: 22:28

The third system that you need to have is a simple and evergreen marketing sales system. Y'all. If you aren't marketing and selling in your business, it's really hard to say. You have a business track, clients, right, and that's the way you find people who want to work with you, and I truly believe that you need a simple evergreen, and what I mean by evergreen? It is something that is working for you after you've done the work. It's something that's long form, meaning it's more than two or three minutes. It's something that you could repurpose, it is searchable, it is SEO friendly and I want to say now, like AI friendly. I'm still learning on how, like AI, is becoming more long form SEO. People find you because of this long form content and because of the way people are searching for answers to things very specific and niche. So what I love about the simple and evergreen marketing and sales system for those of us living with chronic illness is that it works for you after you've done the work and it also does another amazing tool, which is build a community and network, because people want to know who you are and what you do and they're searching for what it is that you do, so it's such a great thing.

Nikita Williams: 24:08

You basically just decide on how you want to do this. For me obviously you're listening to it is the podcast. To me, this is the easiest way. You don't have to show your face and if you are not a writer like I'm not podcasting it's easy. Like right now, I'm in bed using like a mic on my on my shirt, recording this episode on a platform called Descript and you guys will get the audio from this in the podcast. Like you're, you're listening to it.

Nikita Williams: 24:33

Now, for some of you, it might be a blog. That's how I started with. My podcast was first a blog where I interviewed people and took the interview and created a blog about it. You could do YouTube. You don't have to do it like me, but I definitely believe a long form content is something you can do with more ease and flexibility without always having to show your face and be dependent on other people. However, the way you make this simple and evergreen marketing sales system work for you the best is when you combine the power of community by having an interviewing guest and being on other people's platforms and sharing different ways in a long form matter, so you can create a content plan here. You can do one or two of these a month and you can take so much from that to repurpose for smaller things, like for social media. And people find you because they're looking for what you're producing, they're looking for the answers, they're looking for the topics that you're sharing when you're specific enough in your evergreen marketing strategy, and there's great ways to automate this.

Nikita Williams: 25:44

I had two sales calls recently, like in the last two weeks, who came from podcast episodes that it did months ago and they just went to link in the podcast and booked a call from podcast episodes that it did months ago and they just went to link in the podcast and book the call. I literally didn't have to lift a finger other than pressing the zoom call to say yes to the person who booked the call with me and that happens to me all of the time. I love that. I recorded those things like months, if not years ago and I consistently do this and this summer, for example, I thought I was going to have more time to produce like multiple episodes a week and with my health and everything, I was like I'm just going to give myself permission not to do that. I went to buy monthly, so just doing two new episodes and I still am getting leads and downloads and you know people joining my email list and things like that and booking sales calls because of this evergreen system.

Nikita Williams: 26:38

So you need a simple, evergreen marketing sales system. And, to me personally, for those of us living with chronic illness, this is long form. So long form meaning 15, 30 minutes if it's audio or video. If it's a blog post, it's maybe 500 to 2000 words, something like that, and it can be written over time. It could be done in one setting. It could be done. It could be several, done on a specific day. It could be done on the day of. It's just about, it's just one of those things that will serve you. It's about getting it done and then letting it serve you for, like forever, the business of your business.

Nikita Williams: 27:13

Okay, number four leverage a holistic life system. You need to have a holistic life system. No more thinking you can operate your business as this thing, that's a separate entity to your life. You having a side hustle or you starting a business is going to affect when and how you show up for your family and when you're going to take time from like just to work on your business and things like that. And so the more support you have in your life like maybe, a personal assistant, like family helping, like getting them in on the plan, you having help with the cleaning in on the plan, you having help with the cleaning, the cooking, you having maybe a advocate to help you with your medical, your Medicare or your medical appointments, having a bestie that really supports you in this, or hiring someone to do this the more you can integrate life systems in your life to give yourself some more time and capacity, the better your life and your business will go, no matter if you're at $0 or a million. You have to, you have to. Can I say this enough? You have to have some holistic life systems in place.

Nikita Williams: 28:28

For me, that looks like having someone come in my home. I try to have someone come in at least twice a month to help me do a little bit more deeper cleaning. I heavily use Instacart to either if I am like having them deliver or picking it up, because that's just easier for me from a capacity standpoint. Before I had the funds for all of this, I found like I had specific days of the week that I would do such certain things. I would ask for help, I would ask friends, I would plan things out, I would put in my life system of, like these are the days or this is the weekend I'm going to do such and such for myself, whether that was a massage or just breath work or just time for me. I have a morning life system where it's for mindset, body, spiritual routine, grounding routine, to really just help me be really intentional and listen to my body and not hate on my body and love on my body and know what's going on and pace myself.

Nikita Williams: 29:29

Another part of this life system is giving yourself space in your time, which means learning to say no, which means learning to say not this time or yes, and it needs to look like this like advocating for yourself in so many different ways and there's so many different ways you can do this. You need to identify your support systems, your support people, the things that are needed. You need to schedule other self-care that's not just like to take care of yourself living with chronic illness, like self-care that fills your cup, not self-care that helps you just survive. You also need to have an integrated life and work schedule, making sure all of the things are working together, versus you feeling like there is a disconnect. I find for us living with chronic illness, if you are stressed, it is a trigger. It will have a snowball effect on every part of your life and your business. So don't operate them in silos. Look at them together.

Nikita Williams: 30:27

If you find yourself being a little bit more like what's the word? If you find yourself being a little bit more irritated after a certain activity in your business or in your job, make a note of that. Like, do you need more space to decompress? Is there something else you need to put in place? Is there actually an automation or system that can do this for you? Is there someone else that could do that task for you? That doesn't really cost you anything to have someone else do, or, if it does, it's very minimal. There's so many different things, the same thing in your personal life. For me, there's certain things when I'm in a flare I just really cannot do and I don't beat myself up for asking for support and accommodations. It's all important.

Nikita Williams: 31:07

So these four things y'all I know I talked really fast about this important. So these four things y'all I know I talked really fast about this are having a flexible business model. That's huge part number one of your foundation. Number two have a flexible client delivery system, meaning you are able to systemize support for client interactions and different things without always feeling like you are required to facilitate and do the services all of the time. That's number two. Number three have a simple and evergreen marketing and sales system that serves you in the moment and past the moment that you don't have to be doing all of the time over and over again. And then, lastly, make sure you have life systems in place, holistic life system in place that bridges and harmonizes your life and your way of making an income or just providing more support to the family.

Nikita Williams: 32:02

So I hope these four systems are going to help you, guide you in how to look at whatever you're doing in your business now or if you're planning on doing it, and if you want more support on this on a more one-to-one, private level, then please reach out to me in the link in the podcast show notes and if you want to, just like, hey, I think coaching and consulting is the way I want to do this.

Nikita Williams: 32:28

I love how you are talking about this. You can join the wait list in the show notes or book a sales call to learn more about how to join Chronically you and Profitable my group program, where you learn how to create and launch your online coaching business, tailored to your life and business, and leverage ongoing coaching and other resources and holistic strategies to make a livable income and go from surviving to thriving and having better days living with chronic illness. All right, you guys, I hope this was helpful. Always feel free to reach out to me in the DMs on Instagram or leave a note. You can actually leave a voice note now in the podcast show notes. At the end of the podcast show notes, you can actually leave me a message. So I'm just looking forward to hearing from you and I can't wait to share with you, on the next episode, some more things on how you can grow your business or have a business living with chronic illness.

Nikita Williams: 33:25

That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness. If you would like to start and grow an online coaching business with me, head to the show notes to click a link to book a sales call and learn how to make money with chronic illness. You can also check out our website at wwwcraftedtothrivecom for this episode's show notes and join our email list to get exclusive content where I coach you on how to chronically grow a profitable business while living with chronic illness. Until next time, remember, yes, you are crafted to thrive.