Pick Your Business Model Carefully
Let’s get real about building a successful, satisfying, and sustainable business and the biggest mistakes I see coaches consultants, and service providers making that are keeping them from getting there.
Are you using someone else’s business model
You’ve done all the things you’re supposed to do but it’s still not living up to those “my business changed my whole life and its totes amazeballs” Facebook posts and hero-worshipping testimonials that first tempted you into starting a business. But you’ve followed the steps and those testimonials and that guru have convinced you it must be you right?
Right!
But not in the way you’ve been led to believe – it’s probably not your mindset, blocks or beliefs. It’s just the wrong business model for you! But if you carry on blaming yourself and believing the BS, soon any trust you have in your ability to change things for the better will be gone and then you really will have a mindset, block, or belief problem.
Nothing like a self-fulfilling prophecy to keep you trapped.
The 3 common types of biz models you’ve been taught to build
The Hype Model
Work Life Balance was floated as a concept in the 80s and, as much as I am 80s music superfan, the rest of the 80s has definitely not aged well and this concept meant the set women free with flexible work schedules has instead trapped us in a quest for the impossible.
Depending on your overall goals and strategy sometimes the focus is money and sometimes you can take more time off. Trying to actually balance them is a continuous context switching situation. You're not going to get anywhere and you're going to be left feeling frustrated.
The Hustle Model
Next up is the hustle model where we were taught that if we just do what we love, if we do the thing we're passionate about, if our vocation is our job, then we'll never work a day in our lives.
When you're so excited that you can make money doing something that you love, that you don't notice it's creating a culture of hard work and long hours, it’s going to lead you down the path to burnout.
The Hobby Model
So maybe money is the problem in those two models. Instead, let’s do something we’re passionate about and in the time available. Congratulations you have a hobby. Usually adopted by those with a big mission who are will to sacrifice their needs and lifestyle for the bigger goal.
But if you’re not making money, you don’t have a business and that’s ok, but is that what you want?
The New Model – the Superpower Factor
Making Money
What makes people pay us?
In the simplest terms, people will pay us if they think they are getting something worth more than the cash they are handing over. And the greater the difference the more easily or quickly that money will move.
So what increases the value of what you sell in your business?
What makes it easy for people to pay you?
Hint: It’s not that bonus stack you added.
Our clients buy from us because they trust us to consistently deliver that same level of results over and over and over. If trust is what creates value, then it follows that increasing trust will create even more value and get more money flowing to you more quickly and get you on that path to your money goals.
How do you increase trust?
Sell what you can consistently deliver. How do you show up at your best to consistently get results…. Sell your SUPERPOWER!
The thing that you are innately brilliant at is going to make people trust you more. You're going to be more valued for that.
Using Time Effectively
Time is our greatest resource, because no matter how much value you create, how trusted you are, if you don't have the capacity to take on the client, money cannot flow.
The traditional solution here is to consider other ways to leverage your time with group work instead of one-to-one, courses instead of done for you services.
What if instead your increase in capacity came from your ability to not lose steam in your work day?
When you’re in your superpower, you can keep going and going without even noticing the time, let alone needing a break. So staying in your superpower creates leverage because you don't need to recover so we can do more in less time.
The Superpower Factor
The value we create and the capacity we have to deliver creates our results. And your superpower increases both so your business needs to be built to keep you in that superpower instead of fighting it.
The three elements of the Superpower Factor TM work in a specific order
- Spot Your Superpower – if you don’t know what your superpower, how can you harness it
- Sell Your Superpower – delivery to clients is the most time and energy intensive work we do so slipping out of your superpower here will have the most impact
- Support Your Superpower – Only when you know what your superpower is and how to sell it for the best results is can you built the systems and team you need to support it
Your first step is to find your superpower.
Here's the pickle. When I speak to people about their superpowers in business, a lot of the time I hear is what they're highly competent at, what they're incredibly skilled at. And this is something different. We have an abundance of knowledge and skill that we have accumulated over the years.
And we also have those innate talents or superpowers.
Those skills or competencies still require work for us to show up. They're still draining to us. So they're cutting our leverage. We may be trusted to deliver on them, but are we showing up at the absolute best for our clients?
Finding that thing that you are innately good at, that lights you up is going to enable you to easily show up for your clients in the best way possible creating more value while also taking less effort from you – creating more leverage.