Business Clarity when the next step doesn’t feel clear

Everyone that joins my Blueprint to Business Program wants one of two things – Clarity or Accountability.

Now accountability comes once you know what you are trying to achieve, but Clarity is the kicker. Without clarity, it is impossible to achieve the results you want. And this is the point I start with my clients. What do you actually want, in life, in business?

When I started my business I thought I knew what I wanted, and it left me in burnout almost losing my business. And in a way I did lose a business, maybe not legally, but everything changed in the way I run the business, deal with clients and show up to the world. And I want to share the changes with you. Step by step to help you move through the same process. Now I got to this point through a number of unconscious decisions, which is what made it so dangerous, and is why you will likely be heading the same direction I was!

So the key things we need to look at:

• Clarity in the life you want to live
• Relating that life back into your business
• Making the money work for you
• Understanding the steps you needs to take
• Getting accountable

Clarity in life

So many people go about life in the wrong order, they set up work (either employed or self-employed) and then make their life fit around that. I want to ask you to do it the other way around. Think about the life you want to live and then build a business to suit that exactly.

So what does that actually mean? Well in the simplest terms it is figuring out what is most important to you, and then making sure your business allows you to do those things. So if you want a business that works school times or one that allows you a 10 am morning run every day, or maybe it is on weekends, or 3 day weeks, or the ability to work anywhere you have a wifi signal. Everyone will have a different answer but you have to be clear on yours.

So to get clear I want you to think about what would the perfect life look like? What would you do with your time, where would you live, what would your house be like, would you have a team, how much would you want to earn to live this life?

If you want to really take this to the next level, create a vision board of what your ideal life would look like, what is most important to you? What would you love to put first with no exceptions?

Relating that back to business

Ok so now you have the answers to those questions, you know what you are aiming for, we can look at how to relate this back to your business. There are some really simple things to do here. One is blocking out time. If you said 3 day weeks, block out your none working days. If you said school time, block out non-working hours. This might seem simple, but it is a highly effective way to stop your unconscious booking things into the time you don’t want to work. It will also give you a real idea of working time. This means you can start to plan properly.

In order to create the life you want, your business needs to work in a certain way. So now is the time to look at this. What ways of working will support or hinder the dream life? As an example, my dream life was meant to have freedom, instead, I built a business where I was traveling 305 out of 365 days a year for work. Making a note of what you need to stop and start doing is a great idea here.

For most of my clients it is freedom and security that they want to create, so building a consistent sales process is important. But first, you have to understand the money you need to earn.

Making the money work

How much do you need to earn? And how much do you want to earn? These are 2 questions people normally don’t know the exact answer to. I always tell clients to work out exactly how much they need to earn to live the life? This means doing a detailed budget for the year, with everything that is expected, and build in some “fat” for the unexpected. Say your life costs £50k, now you need to look at where that money comes from? Is it all on you to make it, will you spilt it with a partner, do you have investments, rental incomes? You work backward until you have an exact figure of what you need to pay yourself.

Then you work out how much to costs to run your business. All the business expenses, people you need to help you. Software or systems. Subscriptions, memberships, insurances, equipment. This can be done on a cashflow document. In this cashflow document, you can include the amount that you need to pay yourself. And this will give you an overall amount of what you need to earn. Let’s say it is £75k a year.

Now you need to figure out what you have to offer (products, services, etc) and how many you have to sell to hit that amount. Drop me an email if you want a template to help with this!

Understanding the steps

So you should have created a stop and start list to achieve your dream life. You should also have an idea of what you need to offer and how many clients you need to serve. These few areas will help you massively to set out some next steps in your business.

These might include new ways to package and sell what you do. Getting some help to do the things that take the most time. Or saying no more to things that don’t achieve your goals.

In this new world where things are happening more online, a lot of my clients are looking to build their business in an online friendly way. Being scared of tech can hold back so many opportunities. I really believe the path of least resistance is important in starting a business. And that is why I share my 7 core containers for business in the 12-week program. This is about having a repeatable business model that sells your core product, service, or program. If you want to know more about the containers I run a webinar and you can catch the replay here.

But at a basic level, you are creating a free element that draws your ideal customers to the front of the room. This could be a video, download, live, template, checklist. Anything that is really valuable for them. Then you are talking to that person through emails to help them get to know, like, and trust you. This will help them see value in what you do. Then you offer your value add product/service to this customer and proceed to work with them to add value. The best idea is to automate this process to give you more freedom.

Getting Accountable

The key to anything is you taking the action to make it happen. Without directed action, nothing will change. I always tell my clients “we are done being busy, we are now going to be productive”. And the same applies to you. Without direction, goals, and someone to keep you accountable, the whole business journey becomes much more difficult.

Accountability can be from a paid coach, it can be from a business partner, a friend, someone in your network. The key is to have someone that is really going to do the job of keeping you on track. You want someone to challenge you when you are stalling, support you when you need to take the hard steps. But most importantly give you space for thinking and processing. Many business owners spend all their time working in their business without focusing on working on their business strategy.

So who keeps you accountable, do you have a good community or person?

How else can I help?

Free access to my eBook – 7 secrets to success

This eBook is a game changer it covers 7 key elements to building your own business plan in more detail. It will extend on the information in this blog and help you gain clarity to move forward. Enjoy reading it.