by Gwen Bortner | Marketing, Training & Instruction
Have you reached the upper limit of your productivity in your business? Are you doing all you can, but it still just doesn’t feel like you’ve grown your business to where you want it to be? If you’ve been running things as a CEO who is also the face of your business, there’s only so much growth you can handle on your own. If you’re ready to scale your business, it’s time to make some changes.
What’s Your Level-Up Goal?
The first step in scaling your business is to determine how far you want to take it. You don’t have to scale from where you are today to Amazon-like levels in the next calendar year. You get to determine how far you want your business to go, how big you want it to get, or how much income you want to earn from it. Nobody else can tell you what this goal should be; that privilege is all yours.
Once you have determined what the “next level” of business looks like for you, it’s also time to consider how much you’re willing to change. If you’re doing all you can right now and it isn’t enough to grow your business to the desired level, then something has to be different if you’re going to get over this plateau.
Here are three options for you to consider as potential scale models for your business:
Option 1: Hire More People
One of the easiest changes you can make to scale your business is to clear your own plate of everything that isn’t 100% necessary and essential for you to do. If you ARE the product or service you’re offering your clients, then you need to focus your energy on only the tasks that directly involve providing that product or service. You should spend all of your time consulting, coaching, or teaching – then hire someone else (or several people, more likely) to do everything else. This is an option to scale your business without really having to change anything about the offering; all the changes happen behind the scenes, where your clients and customers won’t even realize they’re occurring.
If you’ve done that and it still isn’t enough, then the other hiring option involves actually outsourcing some of your services to other people. You can bring on more coaches, consultants, or teachers and train them to provide the same services you’ve been providing. This way you can serve more clients and keep the same offering without having to work 70 hours a week to do it. If you go with this option, you may have to change your sales pages and product names to make it clear that not every client will be working with you directly.
Option 2: Change Your Offering
If you’re not comfortable hiring other people to work with your clients, another option is to change the product or service you’re offering. If you’ve been providing 1-on-1 services or custom solutions to every client, you can grow by changing those parameters. Instead of 1-on-1, offer group coaching sessions. If you have already been working with groups, consider booking larger venues or combining more than one group into the same training. This way you can deliver the same information to a larger group of people at once and make more money for each session that you offer.
Another idea is that Instead of delivering your services in person, you can offer them online. Either film yourself and create a free-standing product (like an online class or a self-paced workshop), or still do real-time events but cut down on your travel time and expenses by offering them via Zoom instead of face-to-face.
Option 3: The Best of Both
The third option is to combine options one and two to find the solution that works best for your business. You could hire people to conduct online services while you still travel and offer them in-person for a higher rate. You could let your clients start off by working with an associate, and then they can “graduate” to a higher level and work with you at a higher price point. You could convert your offerings to self-paced, online courses and sell those at a lower price point while still offering in-person, live events for folks who prefer that option and are willing to pay more for it.
Which One is Right for You?
The right solution is the one that feels the most right for you and your business. If one of these options scares you, that doesn’t necessarily make it the wrong one; it may be that it’s time to take a deep breath and take that plunge. On the other hand, if one of these options feels like it isn’t authentic for your business, then that one is definitely wrong. One of the best parts of running your own company is that YOU get to decide what is right for you and your business, and set your goals accordingly.
If you’d like some help figuring out how to scale your business, or which scaling method is best for you, click here to book a call with me. I’d love to help!
by Gwen Bortner | Confidence, Training & Instruction
Confidence is the key to taking on new challenges, meeting your goals, and achieving success. There is no doubt that hard work and perseverance also play a critical role, but confidence is the kick in the pants that we need to get the ball rolling.
During the early years, fearlessness and the ignorance of the challenges ahead often are the tools that get us started on a path to success. But as life continues, the pitfalls or outright failures remind us that we are not indestructible. Experience teaches us that not everything will be “easy.” Ultimately our own doubts, fears and negative self-talk begin to hold us back.
But this doesn’t have to be the case. Confidence to the rescue!!
Confidence Matters
Almost everything we take on without hesitation is a result of confidence. Think of any new, different, or unknown situation or project you took on without a pause – why was that? The answer is simple: you had confidence in your abilities going in.
Everyone has SOMETHING that they are confident about. The more of those things we have, the more confident we appear to the outside world.
Confidence and success go hand-in-hand.
Confidence Is a Skill
Most people believe that confidence is a gift, given out in great quantities to only the chosen few. But confidence is a skill that can be developed and improved for anyone willing to invest in the effort.
Unfortunately, like all skills, greatly improved results are not instantaneous. Instead, it takes focused effort, practice, and a willingness invest time to see significant results. However, if you are willing to make the investment, the results will transform your life in ways you can hardly imagine.
The following are three simple steps to begin developing the skill of confidence:
1. Identify your superpower(s), skills, and other talents you already have. If your first response to this idea is, “I don’t have any superpowers,” I can assure you, you are wrong. Maybe not in the “leap tall buildings” category, but we all have some area in which we are exceptional. The problem is that it comes so naturally and easily, that we don’t think of it as unique. (If you still need help figuring this one out, get our Superpower Identification Worksheet here!)
List all of the abilities, skills and talents that you have, including the areas that you already have confidence. This is not a time to be modest. You don’t have to be the “best” or the “most” for it to be on the list. If someone else appreciates it, then it should probably be on the list. The list also doesn’t have to be complete, just give yourself 15 minutes and put as many things down as come to mind.
2. Own everything that is on the list. This sounds simple enough, but it is often the point where we struggle. True confidence is belief in yourself. Not just words, but deep heartfelt belief. If you aren’t comfortable stating your ability to another person without feeling like an impostor, then you don’t own it.
Make a notation on the list of which powers you truly own and which are works in progress. For those still in progress, ask yourself why you were able to list it, but not own it. What would it take for you to fully own that particular skill or talent?
3. Add or fully own one new skill or talent every week. This step takes intention, but only requires a few minutes every day.
If you are trying to fully own an item from the list, identify it at the beginning of the week. Pay attention to any time it you utilize it within your day or someone else acknowledges it in the course of conversation. How can that activity help you more fully own this particular skill or talent? At the end of the week, test it as we did initially in step #2 until it changes status to “fully owned.”
If you fully own everything on your list, look to add something new. We often have many more skills and talents than we can initially list in the 15 minute exercise in step #1. Make the goal to note just one new item within the week. If you can fully own it, great. If not, go through the “ownership” process until it has been fully embraced.
As the list grows, so will your confidence. With confidence you will see how you can leverage the skill and talents you already possess to solve problems and achieve success in areas in which you are less familiar.
With each win your confidence will continue to grow and the process continues.
When is a time that starting with confidence ultimately led to success for you?
by Gwen Bortner | Abundance
When I was first starting out as a consultant I would often hear the “wiser” consultants say that the reason a business failed was that they were under-capitalized.
That made sense – having enough funds to get started is important. But in this age of $100 start-ups, is under-capitalization still a problem? Always … it just depends on what type of business capital you are actually talking about!
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by Gwen Bortner | Tips & Tricks
Everyone wants to be successful in business; it is the nature of the beast. Although there are plenty of business books, blogs and resources available on the topic, sometimes we miss the key points to achieving success.
[featured-image single-newwindow=”false” id=”MonstersIncposter.jpg” alt=”Poster from Monsters, Inc.”]
Look closely and you will find we can learn a lot from some of our favorite monsters from the wonderful Pixar movie, Monsters, Inc. And the great thing is that their guidelines work for not only for business success, but personal life success as well. Let’s see what Monsters Inc teaches us about success.
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