People always laugh at me when my brain starts to explode about how their businesses could work. I can’t help it! I was born with a brain that sees puzzles and natural progression. Using this with clients to help them grow their income without having to put in more time is what I love doing!
Twice last week I had calls with people in my network – they always go something like this:
“Because we do X we couldn’t use your Blueprint…..” I then say, tell me about your business and get them to answer 3 simple questions – once I have these answers I give them the top 3 ideas that have pop into my head about growing their businesses.
Most people leave those calls buzzing, so excited to get a move on and do something bigger and better. Here is an example of the feedback I got after one of these calls!
So what are the three questions? Well first let me give you some context.
When I left employment and started my own business I thought I had it made, in my first year I made £200k right off the bat. I developed and delivered large scale strategic change programs for global clients. Then life hit me for one, we had 18 months of 3 weddings and 4 funnels (I know it sounds like a movie, but it wasn’t). As the stress built up I hit a wall, productivity tanked and by year three of my business I was struggling to turn over 5 figures and I had to figure out how to survive for the first time in my own business.
But having life hand me such a huge wake-up call was actually a blessing in disguise because I went through the process of creating myself a sustainable business. All my global strategies got tweaked for my small one-man business and then run with local businesses of under 50 people. I learned how to create a business that doesn’t rely solely on my time and received my life back.
Now I can work from anywhere, have time to look after my health, spend with the people close to me but most importantly I do what I absolutely love and help people like me that feel they want to escape the stress and have freedom in their life.
So the questions – theses are always the first questions I help my Blueprint to Business Program clients answer in full detail when they join the program. Once you have nailed these three it makes the process so much easier.
But before you do, grab a piece of paper and write down the questions, then unplug completely while you answer them. Find a quiet space and sit for a few minutes to really dig deep and answer these questions. Not superficially but truly – if you can take this time with no distractions and focus on really understanding the questions and truly seeking the answers you are on the right path. The world is filled with distractions, we have become trained to have really short attention spans, but honestly, we can do better. We have it in us, we just need the awareness and discipline to self-regulate. Ok, here are the 3 questions:
- What is the life you want to create? This is really important, we all need to build businesses that support the exact life we want to live – is it working online while in a remote cabin in the wilderness, it is global dominations talking to thousands of people at large events, is it having your own community of people that you bring together and lead?
- Who do you want to serve? if you could the client that gives you the most joy to work with, the one that is easy to work with, the one that pays you what you should be paid, the one that gets super value from your knowledge or skills. Who is that person? What are they all about?
- What do you want to offer? This one is key – 3 people in my current program have changed their offerings completely because they realized they were out of alignment and would never work with the people they wanted to serve with their current products – this is amazing! Once you know the outcome you want to get for clients, you then need to think about how you can deliver it online.
This last point about online is critical, the world is ever-changing, and as a small business, keeping up with the times is important, but more importantly in order to live the life you describe in question 1 you properly need more money and more freedom.
Creating an online and systemized business will help you deliver that. It will help you create a business model that is all about value = money instead of the age-old time = money model that creates the rat-race.
The likelihood is that as you read this you are at a critical stage in your business journey, you might feel a bit overwhelmed with everything going on in the world, you might feel a bit tired, maybe a bit stuck, wondering why nobody is helping you safe your business. You might be thinking why it’s this easier, why haven’t I made it yet? I am cut out for this, or is this something that I just shouldn’t be doing.
I get it, I have felt all of those things on this journey, I have had to work hard to step away from those thoughts and center myself back into a productive workplace. But it is possible. You have the power within you to create the perfect expression of your life. You just need to build a process that helps you do that.
If you have answered those 3 questions and feel like you want to further develop the thoughts, then jump over to download my eBook – Blueprint to Business Success – A guidebook for entrepreneurs to take control of what they earn