I recently had a call with an amazing business owner who reached out to me looking for support around what’s next in her business.
This is someone whose business is in the mid 6-figure range, she takes home half of that personally as her CEO pay and is working only 10ish hours per week. <-- Pretty dreamy yes?
She started the call thinking that she wanted to keep growing the business and was looking for ways to do so. It came clear through our conversation that she'd already worked with other coaches and had some great strategies around how to keep growing her business.... but she didn't feel motivated to do any of those things. So she wasn't taking action on them.
And my response to her was "You don't have to keep growing your business if you don't want to".
<< Silence >> I could see it in her eyes that this had literally never even occurred to her before.
“I don’t have to keep growing my business if I don’t want to? I thought I had to keep grow grow growing and it’s never even occurred to me before that not growing is an option!” Her eyes lit up at this prospect.
I get it. So much of our world is about growing our business. We are supposed to hit 6-figures, then 7, then 8 and so on. And if we aren’t growing then something must be wrong. “If you aren’t growing you are dying” <-- ugh, one of my least favorite success cliches.
Yes, growth can be a good thing! BUT it's not the only thing.
When we hit a place where our clients love us, we are making money, and we aren't working ourselves to the bone.... the default question we are told to ask ourselves is:
"How can I keep growing?"
Whereas I would challenge you instead to ask yourself:
"What is the business I really want now?"
There is nothing wrong with wanting to keep things stable and sturdy - to enjoy the space you are already in without the additional pressure to "keep growing".
It's your business. You get to decide what success is (and isn't!). Even if that means not growing...
So here’s the thing – if you want to get yourself out of delivery you need to have a framework.
A clearly laid out path for how you create results for your clients. Your own methodology. Your process. Your “way to make it all happen.”
Without a framework one of two things will happen as you try to grow:
#1 – Delivery stays all on your shoulders. I know many a business owner who has an awesome team around them taking care of admin, tech, ops, sales, marketing and all the day-to-day running of the business BUT the delivery is still on them. They are the main ones leading their coaching groups, delivering their training or working directly with clients. If they don’t show up their clients aren’t getting full value.
#2 – You try to hire folks to “do what you do” in the business – team members for your agency or associate coaches for your programs – but it doesn’t work out. They aren’t able to deliver to your expectations OR they are delivering based on their own process & methodology (which may not match with yours!)
Your framework is the key to freedom – and a business that doesn’t rest solely on your shoulders.
It’s the key to creating a certification program. To training effective associate coaches for your programs. To building the team for your agency. Or to offering a combination of all of the above! (I had a call this week with a woman who is upleveling her agency to work with a certain type of business owner, and she is now looking to add a certification based on her framework so she has folks to refer the clients that she no longer wants to work with. )
It’s a way to have your work go beyond ‘just you’ and have it reach so many more folks than you could ever reach on your own.
It’s a beautiful expression of who you are and what you are meant to bring to the world through your work. <3
Not to be morose about it… but your business will come to an end at some point. Or at the least, your role in your business will come to an end at some point.
This is inevitable but it’s not something we talk about often… and I think we are doing ourselves – and our businesses! – a disservice when we don’t talk about and consider this.
There are essentially two ways for things to come to an end:
The business could be shut down (either by choice or circumstance).
Or we look for ways for the business – and our body of work – to continue without us.
Either option can be an aligned and empowered choice when we are willing to consider all the aspects and plan ahead.
It’s easy to think “I’ll just sell my business!”… and yes, there are many things that make this an appealing option. But this is also something you have to plan for and work towards many years in advance to make it sellable. (I have a local friend who is a business broker and one of her biggest challenges is telling someone who wants to sell the business they’ve built for years that’s it’s not ready to be sold… )
Or you might decide that when you are done with it you shut the business down. For some folks this might feel like a failure (because we should all be able to sell our business right?!) but I actually think it can be a beautiful thing to end a business when we plan accordingly for it. Not all businesses are meant to last forever.
We want to consider our own needs and goals in all of this. What do we want from our business – financially and otherwise – to be able to retire or move onto other things?
But there is also another aspect of this to consider – have you created something bigger than yourself that should continue beyond your working years?
I always hesitate to use the word ‘should’ but in some cases it really does apply. When you have created something that changes lives – your own framework and way of working with folks – it SHOULD continue on.
I have clients who are very purposeful about this – they KNOW that what they have created is much bigger than themselves and should live on. And part of our work together is exploring the ways to make sure that the torch can be passed onto whoever is meant to carry it next. They are many ways to do this but it does have to be planned ahead and purposeful.
What is your plan for ‘the end’? I know this is an easy thing to put off, but I encourage you to spend some time here in contemplation and consideration.
Let’s honor our businesses – and ourselves! – by planning as much for the end as we do for the upcoming quarter or year.
When you are tired of doing what you are doing – change your role, not your offer.
I see so many folks reach the space where they are ready to do something new – so they start looking to create a brand new offer.
Now it’s not to say that creating something new is never the answer – it very well could be! But there are some considerations…
First and foremost, creating something new is a lot of work. It takes a lot more work to start something from scratch than it does to ‘tweak’ something you are doing already.
Likewise, starting something new might put a damper – or even a halt! – on what you are doing already. I’ve seen people drop a successful offer out of boredom to focus on creating something new… and then later find themselves in a bind because the new thing is taking longer to gear up or isn’t what they thought it would be.
New can be overrated.
Instead, what if you look first to change your role in what you are currently offering?
For some of you this might mean hiring folks who can take on some of your current workload and free you up to focus on other things.
Or this might mean looking at your current offer and seeing where/how you might be able to tweak some things to make it more exciting and joyful again.
This is one of the drivers for the leaders who work with me on creating their certification program… they have reached a point in their business where they are tired of being the practitioner. A part of them wishes they didn’t have to ‘keep doing what they are doing’ and they dream of doing something different BUT they are also very aware that they don’t want to burn down what they have already created.
Training and certifying folks to ‘do what you do’ can be a beautiful way to shift yourself into a leadership role and bring excitement back into your business. Not to mention that it can be an awesome way to expand your vision and your income.
Here’s to finding joy and excitement in our businesses again!
Can we please stop poo-pooing on offering done for you (DFY) 1-1 services?
Iāve seen a few too many posts and ads lately talking about how DFY and working 1-1 with clients is such a terrible thing. About being at the mercy of your clients, getting paid so little and itās no better than having a job.
First of all, those problems stem from how things are being run and not the DFY model itself. All of those problems can be solved with an aligned offer, clear expectations and strong boundaries (but thatās a convo for another day.)
And second, there are MANY benefits to doing DFY work:
#1 – It will ALWAYS be in high demand. Folks always need to hire people to āget things doneā or to work directly with them in the business. Whether itās tech, marketing, ops, admin, design, copywriting, bookkeeping, etcā¦ the need for these services doesnāt go away. I daresay that some coaches and consultants could benefit from adding DFY services into the mix.
#2 – It is the fastest path to cash. All it takes is one conversation and BAM – you could have a client. No fancy launches, marketing funnels or social media strategies are requiredā¦ those things all take time and are a lot of work to create. Not to mention some of us donāt like all the fancy marketing stuff (sheepishly raises my own hand)
#3 – It is the best way to develop and test your own stuff! If you do have a desire to offer training, create a membership or a coaching/consulting program, one of the best ways to prepare yourself and develop your own stuff is through 1-1 work. I worked 1-1 with clients for nearly 10 years before I launched my own training programs. (Not to say it has to take that long! But the experience of working directly with clients is invaluable when it comes to developing your own IP).
#4 – You can make a great personal income by offering 1-1 services! As my friend Keldie Jamieson said so beautifully in a recent interview – retainers are the ultimate form of recurring revenue. Long-term clients who pay you reliably month after month is a pretty dreamy thing. And all the money you make essentially lands in your pocketā¦ you donāt need to pay for team, tools and all the fancy marketing stuff that other models require. (There are times I miss those days when most of the money I made landed in my pocket. )
The bottom line is this – there is nothing wrong with offering DFY 1-1 services so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You can create an amazing business, work with great clients and make good money. And you can do it for many, many years successfully.
And yes, if you want to evolve into offering other things such as training, memberships, consulting and the like then great! Thatās been my own journey over the years and I totally get itā¦ BUT donāt do it just because someone is telling you that āyou should because DFY is deadā or is dangling a carrot of āeverything is so much better when you offer trainings /memberships /coaching /consulting instead.ā I can tell you from experience – the challenges when you offer these things are different but they are still very much there.
There are so many ways to build a successful business. The world needs DFY and if that’s up your alley then bring it on.
“You mean I don’t have to keep growing my business?”Ā
I just got off a call with an amazing business owner who reached out to me looking for support around what’s next in her business.
This is someone whose business is in the mid 6-figure range, she takes home half of that personally as her CEO pay and is working only 10ish hours per week.
She started the call thinking that she wanted to keep growing the business and was looking for ways to do so. It came clear through our conversation that she’d already worked with other coaches and had some great strategies around how to keep growing her business…. but she didn’t feel motivated to do any of those things. So she wasn’t taking action on them.
And my response to her was “You don’t have to keep growing your business if you don’t want to”.
<< Silence >> I could see it in her eyes that this had literally never even occurred to her before.
“You mean I don’t have to keep growing my business if I don’t want to? I thought I had to keep grow grow growing and it’s never even occurred to me before that not growing is an option!” Ā Her eyes lit up at this prospect.
I get it. So much of our world is about growing our business. We are supposed to hit 6-figures, then 7, then 8 and so on. And if we aren’t growing then something must be wrong.
Yes, growth can be a good thing! BUT it’s not the only thing.
When we hit a place where our clients love us, we are making money, and we aren’t working ourselves to the bone…. the default question we are told to ask ourselves is:
“How can I keep growing?”
Whereas I would challenge you instead to ask yourself:
“What is the business I really want now?”
There is nothing wrong with wanting to keep things stable and sturdy – to enjoy the space you are already in without the additional pressure to “keep growing”.
It’s your business. You get to decide what success is (and isn’t!). Even if that means not growing…
