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The Importance of Reconnecting to Your Big Picture

The Importance of Reconnecting to Your Big Picture

by | Sep 16, 2019 | Planning

“Learn to see the big picture. Often times we get tunnel vision and lose sight of the big picture and what we’re really trying to accomplish.”

~ Robert Cheeke

It’s mid-September and it’s precisely this time of year, as we near the end of quarter 3 and the start of 4, that I like to check in with my life and business to see if I’m on track to have the year I set out to have and more importantly to make sure that I am living the life, I want to live.

There are a few reasons I like to do this now. Firstly, the back-to-school vibe that’s in the air gives me renewed energy and excitement for the season ahead and also let’s be honest, trying to do our reviewing and planning in December (along with the holidays and all the stress that can bring) is sort of bonkers.

Instead, starting in September, I like to take my time and spend an hour, here and there, looking at the big picture of my life and business with plenty of time before holiday season hits. That way, when the year ends, writing up my goals and business plan for the year ahead is a pretty quick and simple task.

As I do this work, I thought it might be helpful to share with you what I’ve been up to.

Reviewing my offerings 

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been mapping out some new products and services for 2020. I’m super excited about this because this year, I intentionally didn’t create anything new because I wanted to go deep on what I already had, in order to simplify my life and business.

To make space for these, I will also be retiring some of my existing products and services, which is equally exciting but also a little nerve-wracking as I know that as a result of this I may lose some current customers along the way.

What has informed my thinking here is looking at my business model to figure out what makes most sense from a sustainability point of view. That means looking at my offerings from the point of view of how much time and effort they take versus the income they bring. If the former greatly exceeds the latter, I know that it’s time to make a change.

Getting up to date with my finances

I’m not someone who is on top of my finances on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis. But I am someone who believes that spending and income must be tracked and reviewed if we are to see those finances grow over time. Like anything, our finances thrive when we give them our loving attention and whither when we bury our head in the sand and pretend like they don’t exist.

So every few months or so (at least quarterly) I sit down with my calculator (iPhone) open up my Paypal, Bank Account, Credit Card Account, Stripe Account and my online accounting software, Freshbooks (affiliate link) and I do the work to figure how much I’ve made and how much I’ve spent. This helps me to set future financial goals that are rooted in reality rather than setting pie in the sky targets that I inevitably never reach.

I’ve also been doing the math to figure out what I want to make next year and how many of each of my products and services I would need to sell to make that happen.

Planning my maternity leave

Because I’ll be giving birth to my second son in December, I’ve also been considering when I’ll stop working this year, what my priorities are for the next few months before that happens, how I’ll cover my maternity leave without dropping my clients and my audience and when I’ll start back to work in the New Year.

Having gone through this before in 2016/17, I do feel somewhat prepared although with different circumstances this time around (my partner doesn’t currently work from home, like he did with our first born), I do have to figure out how to manage both motherhood and the running of my business next year. Once this plan is complete you’ll be the first to know, I promise!

Loosely thinking about my vision and goals for 2020

I’ve also been giving myself permission to tap into my goals and dreams for 2020. Not just business but generally. Asking myself questions like: where do I see myself and my family next year? What are my priorities? What didn’t work this year that I would like to change? At the same time as this, me and my love have been having some long and deep conversations about where we see ourselves in 1-3 years time and discussing what our individual and joint priorities need to be in order to get there.

And so far that’s it. I love doing this kind of thinking, nothing gets me more excited than a fresh page in a note book and the intention to make new plans. I do know, however, that not everyone shares my same passion for planning.

With this in mind, if you are someone who typically avoids planning, I would encourage you at the very least to spend some time tapping into what isn’t working for you right now and what needs to change as well as what has worked well over the course of the year and how you can best make the most of that going forward.

Above all I would suggest that you give yourself permission to dream. I truly believe that we are all powerful creators and that when we put our minds to whatever it is that we want to create, magic happens.

Would you love to start next year with your business foundations firmly in place? 

My 1:1 Soulful Starter Coaching Program supports coaches, healers, teachers and other service-based practitioners to get the business foundations in place so that the growth strategies they implement actually lead to sustainable growth.

The first step is a complimentary coaching session with me. If at the end of the session, you’re interested in working with me, I’ll share with you next steps. There is no obligation to proceed with an application just because you’ve booked a session. It is not a sales call – it’s a gift from me to you so that you can experience the impact of my work. To book the initial session, simply hit the button below.

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How To Prioritise Your Day-To-Day Business Activities

How To Prioritise Your Day-To-Day Business Activities

by | Sep 6, 2019 | Productivity

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When we have, what feels like, a million things to do and not enough time to get them all done, we often find it hard to see the wood for the trees. Add to this a lack of understanding of what our priorities are and we’re on a sure path to procrastination. Nothing is more frustrating than having SO much to do that you don’t know where to start and so you don’t really do anything. Precisely when we need to take action the most, we become paralysed by indecision.

To avoid this, I have a super simple system that helps me to prioritize in situations like these:

1. Coaching Clients

First and foremost I deal with all client communication and work. My 1:1 clients are the people who have invested the greatest amount of money in my business and as such get the lion’s share of my time. So, before I consider doing anything else, I check what emails and work I have outstanding for my 1:1 clients and I go do that.

2. Other paying customers

Once I’ve handled all the requests from my 1:1 coaching clients, I move on to any messages or work that I need to do for any of my other paying customers, such as members of my Female Business Academy, OBM Clients and people who have bought other online courses and digital products.

3. Subscribers 

With those handled, I turn next to my subscribers. Which essentially means either getting my newsletter out if I haven’t already or dealing with any emails I’ve had from subscribers that I haven’t yet answered.

4. Wider audience 

With those dealt with, I then turn my attention to my wider audience, which means answering any questions or comments on my social media channels or blog and making sure my content is up to date.

5. All other tasks 

Only once I’ve done everything I need to for my people; my clients, my customers, my subscribers and my audience, do I turn my attention to any other outstanding tasks.

This simple system stops me from feeling overwhelmed and keeps me focused on what really matters in my business. PEOPLE. Because without the people who engage with my business, I wouldn’t have a business, I would just have an expensive hobby.

But this is not what I see most people do. In fact, I often see quite the opposite. Many people, when suffering from a mounting pile of to-dos, are more likely to waste time on the little things rather than the important things because they feel easier to handle.

Ticking 10 little things off your list (like dealing with emails, posting on social media, making changes to your website etc), for example, can in the moment feel more productive but it’s actually far less important than spending an hour or two directly serving your clients and customers. 

Another mistake I see a lot of people making is prioritising the attraction of new clients over the serving of existing clients. Something I’m grateful my business coach taught me over 5 years ago, is the idea that my next client is right in front of me. Meaning it’s usually somebody I’m already serving, not some unknown person I might reach with a well crafted social media post.

So what does that look like exactly? Well it’s the person, I’ve already served powerfully through a complimentary coaching session or a well-delivered product or service, it’s the person who I already have a relationship with rather than the masses out there who I’m trying to reach.

It’s for this reason, and because I value most the people who have already invested in my business, that I always focus on my current clients and customers before anything else. It’s those businesses that do this that become well known for their high level of service and client care.

If you don’t yet have any clients or customers, you might need to tweak the system. In this case, I would wholly recommend that your number one priority becomes connection. Maybe you don’t have clients but you do have some subscribers and/or people who have liked or commented on your content. If so what could you do to deepen the relationship? Take a look at these posts for some inspiration on how to prioritise connection:

10 Practical Ways to Activate Your Business Network
An Interview on The Art of Connection With Eli Trier
Authentic Outreach: What It Is and Why It’s Important 

Whether you have existing clients or not the priority remains the same: people. When you prioritise people in your business, magic happens. A simple way to remember this is next time you’re feeling overwhelmed and tempted to tinker with your website or make pretty images for social media, stop and ask yourself this:

Who are the people I most need to serve or connect with right now?

And once you have your answer, let that become your top priority.

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The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

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5 Simple Ways to Conduct Audience Research

5 Simple Ways to Conduct Audience Research

by | Sep 2, 2019 | Research

“One who never asks either knows everything or nothing.”

~ Malcom Forbes

Too often we’re so focused on trying to present a polished image to our people that we forget to ask them what it is they really need. In this post I talk about the importance of conducting audience research in your business and share 5 simple ways to do so in your business.

Let’s start with why research with your audience and ideal clients is SO important.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen brilliant and creative business owners pour their heart and soul into creating a new product or service only to see it flop when they launch it.

Why does this happen? Because they haven’t done enough market research to truly know and understand what their people want and need.

Doing market research is essential on several levels:

  • It cultivates a closer relationship with your audience because they feel as though you care what they think and that you want to create resources that will truly help them.
  • It gives you invaluable information about what your audience are struggling with and what kind of solutions they are seeking and prepared to spend money on.
  • It raises the profile of your business and what you offer. Doing market research doesn’t just give you important information, it also gives your audience important information about the kind of work you do, which is a wonderful way to market your business without feeling like you are marketing.

Here are 5 simple ways you can start to get to know your audience on a whole new level.

1. Ask Questions on Social Media 

This is super simple to do and can be done in a variety of places. On your Facebook page, in an Instagram story, inside relevant FB groups – yours or others. What you want to do is ask simple, relatively easy to answer questions that give you greater insight into what problem or struggle your ideal clients are dealing with.

So examples to give you a better idea:

If you’re a business coach, you might ask:

What about growing your business do you most struggle with? 

If you’re a life coach, you might ask:

What do you think the number one thing that gets in your way of making progress towards your big dream is? 

If you’re a Health Coach you might ask:

What is your number one health struggle? 

If you’re a VA you might ask:

If you had the money to outsource one thing in your business, what would it be and why? 

To make it even easier for people to respond you can create finish this sentence posts, a few example of mine include:

My number one wish for my business this year is…

To grow my business, what I most need to learn is…

People actually love these types of posts and you can often get some really great information from just a simple question.

2. Conduct Polls (FB, Email)

Once you have a better idea of what your audience / ideal clients are struggling with you can use polls to find out more. You can take a number of different answers you might have received from asking simple questions and then ask people to vote on the which option they most would love to have help with. Or you can narrow down the options to those which you feel qualified and want to help with and then ask people to choose the most important to them.

You can also find out more information about where your audience are at by giving them options to choose from.

So for example, I always ask people what stage of business are they at

  1. just starting out and not making any money
  2. making some money but not enough or
  3. making consistent income but ready to take things to the next level.

Knowing where the majority of my audience land on this business journey, helps me to tailor my content, products and services to the right level.

Facebook is a great place to do polls, but you can also do them in newsletters and other places. I recently discovered that you can even do them during a Facebook Live!

3. Run Audience Surveys

This is more detailed and requires a bit more thinking and also some incentive for your audience to complete as it requires more time from them. I like to do an annual audience survey and I offer an incentive such as a complimentary session for completing it.

You don’t want to make it too onerous or long-winded so I’d aim for no more than 10 questions. You want to give enough space for people to answer in their own words because it’s here that you’ll get the very language and specificity you need from your people.

To give you an idea of what kinds of questions you might ask, take a look at the one I sent out at the start of this year here, which you are more than welcome to complete, if you haven’t already! (There is a complimentary, pitch-free coaching session in it if you do!)

If you are offering an incentive (gift), be sure to give a deadline so that people know they have to complete it in a certain timeframe in order to qualify for the gift. You can see how I did that in my survey.

It’s here that you’ll want to ask questions that get to the heart of what your audience would like to see more of from you. What content would they love to see you create? What new products or services would they like to see from you? What is it that they most need help with etc.

4. Schedule Market Research Calls/Interviews 

This is what I would call premium market research and that’s actually getting on 1:1 calls with people in your audience who you would consider to be ideal clients.

You can do these at any time although I’m more likely to do them when I’m in the process of creating a new product or service so that I can ask more specific questions about the problem, I’m hoping my offering will help to solve.

I like to do 60 minute calls where I dedicate 30 minutes of the call to asking them market research questions and then as a way to say thanks, I dedicate the remaining 30 minutes to coaching them on any issue they need help with (hint: this is also a form of market research!).

5. Regularly Issue Feedback Questionnaires 

Gathering feedback from your clients and customers is also a form of audience research and an important one. It’s something you’ll want to integrate into your business in various ways.

You might send out a feedback survey after someone has completed a program with you. You might send 2 or 3 questions to someone after they’ve had a session with you. I like to do mid-program reviews half way through my coaching programs to make sure that we’re on track and the client is getting what they need from our work together.

The thing with getting feedback is that it’s not always so easy, so you want to automate it as much as possible. Have your feedback surveys or questions ready to send as soon as someone has worked with you. If you can automate it, even better. Keep your feedback questions super simple and easy to answer to ensure you get more responses.

You may even offer incentives for completion, such as a 10% discount on future purchases should they fill it in.

So there you have it, five simple ways to conduct research with your audience to help you make your offerings more aligned and tailored to your client and customer needs.

The most important thing to remember with this is to use the information you gather to inform what you put out for your people whether that be content or free and paid for offerings. Whilst it might seem like a lot of work to do ALL of this research, it will save you a hell of a lot of time and effort down the road, because you’ll have a much clearer picture of what your people want from you and your business allowing you to create truly impactful products and services that people want to buy.

To watch a video of me running through these 5 types of research, see below.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.