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Stop Copying Other Business Owners

Stop Copying Other Business Owners

by | Sep 13, 2023 | Business model

“Whatever you do, be different — that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.”
~ Anita Roddick

As a business coach and more importantly, as a business owner, I’m pretty obsessed with the importance of having a sustainable business model.

I started out as a brand new coach over a decade ago and between then and now I’ve pretty much made all of the business model mistakes a business owner can make.

Copying other people’s models without knowing the full picture, undercharging and overgiving, overcharging and under delivering and many more besides.

From it all, the greatest lesson I’ve learned regarding business model is the importance of sustainability.

A business that not only sustains you financially but that fulfils you personally. A business that gives you energy, rather than drains you of it.

A business that you actually enjoy showing up for, week after week, month after month, year after year.

So what makes a sustainable business model?

Most newer business owners, trying to figure out how to make money, will jump straight to looking at what combination of products and services they will offer, asking themselves “what can I sell in order to start bringing money into my business?”

And with this question comes a tendency to look around at what others in our field (particularly those who are more successful) are offering and try to copy it even when what they are copying might be totally unsuitable for the individual business owner.

My alternative to this is to take time to consider the following elements in order to create a business model or offering that is unique to you.

What stage of business are you at?

If you are brand new in business, the types of offerings you want to be considering will be significantly different to those for a more established business owner. My recommendation to people early on their business journey is to focus on a simple but impactful 1:1 service (like my subscription model).

When you have a small audience, it’s far easier to get 1 person to sign up for coaching with you, than it is to get 5–10 people into a group program, even if the latter is cheaper for the customer. I’ve seen many newer business owners get burned by trying to do group offerings too soon.

Having said that, there are always exceptions to the rule so the important thing is that you consider your unique situation rather than follow blanket advice.

What would you enjoy to create and deliver?

When you seek to create a new offering, rather than copy what “seems” to be working for others in your field, it’s crucial that you take into account your own gifts and strengths, preferences and tendencies. Are you a gifted speaker, for example, who thrives when teaching a room full of people? Or do you come alive when working 1:1 and going deep with individuals? Are you introverted or extroverted? Does lots of contact with people drain you or sustain you? These and so much more are really important things to consider as you design your next product or service.

What your audience wants (and needs) and would be prepared to pay for?

As business owners we often assume we know best when it comes to what our clients “need” but this isn’t necessarily what they want or what they are willing to pay for. What is key here is doing some research with your people before you create something. Most business owners do little audience research before creating and launching a new offering and the effects of this are few if any sales.

What your audience would be able to bear in terms of marketing?

This comes into play when we consider the product or service we want to create and sell. With a small audience, getting a new 1:1 client a month may still be pretty achievable. A small or stagnant audience, won’t however bear a big group launch 2 or 3 times a year. Here you want to be taking into account not only your audience size but it’s rate of growth. How many new people are getting to know you each month?

What marketing the business owner can bear or afford to do?

This is the one that tripped me up in the early days of my business. I got all excited when I came across a business membership for female entrepreneurs. The founder had hundreds (if not thousands) of members all paying less than £40 a month and I thought it was genius.

I figured I could make a membership for ethical and conscious business owners and I wouldn’t need half the members they had and could even charge less. To begin it was great — I had nearly 20 members sign up from my tiny list but pretty soon I was completely burned out from creating content and trying to retain the members I had (most of whom had paid a super low beta rate). Plus I didn’t have the energy or the desire to do the marketing required to enrol new people. A year later I had to close it down as it wasn’t financially sustainable.

All products and services require different levels and types of marketing to be successful. Make sure you take this into consideration before copying someone else’s business model. If they’ve been in business a while, they may have a whole team and advertising budget to support them (like the business I was seeking to emulate!).

The problem with copying

When you are early on in the business journey, it can take a lot of courage to ditch conventional advice and forge your own path.

I remember myself when decided I wanted to move away from the classic 3 and 6 month coaching package and instead offer a coaching subscription, I was actually terrified, it took me a year and lots of testing behind the scenes with existing clients before I changed my business model and made my coaching subscription the only way people could work with me 1:1. My business took off from there.

Creating something unique

It can be hard to create a unique business model or offering when we see nearly everyone doing the same thing. So I wanted to share some examples of unique (and successful) offerings that demonstrate how it can be done.

My subscription model for 1:1 coaching. When I realised that my clients weren’t able to achieve results in an arbitrary 12 week timeframe, I ditched the traditional 3 month coaching package in favour of a lower priced ongoing subscription and the results have been amazing both for my business (more clients + more income) and for my clients. Because of the lower price point, they’re able to stay with me longer and therefore get better results.

My favourite ethical copywriter Lauren Van Mullem realised that she didn’t only want to do full service copywriting for people and wanted to find something less intensive for her and more affordable for her clients so she created Loom Reviews. Lauren also ditched convention with her freebie. Rather than a “5 ways to make your copy stand out” PDF, she created Craft and Copy hour. A way for her to make time for her love of crafts, a chance to meet Lauren, do some crafting with her and ask her any copy related ideas you have. Talk about unique!

Tad Hargrave found he didn’t want to spend so much time in front of a computer, he wanted a less
cluttered home but resented tidying AND that some of his people couldn’t afford his full 1:1 coaching rate of $300 an hour so he created puttering sessions — a unique solution to all of the above. Lower priced coaching sessions, because Tad will be puttering around his home tidying up while he talks to you! Genius.

All of the above, hopefully demonstrate what’s possible when you create something that is truly unique to you!

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How I Start And Finish My Working Day

How I Start And Finish My Working Day

by | Jul 26, 2023 | Mindset

“Any ritual is an opportunity for transformation. To do a ritual, you must be willing to be transformed in some way. The inner willingness is what makes the ritual come alive and have power. If you aren’t willing to be changed by the ritual, don’t do it.” 

~ Starhawk

In this article, I want to share with you two daily rituals I use to have a more productive and sane working day and to switch off completely after my working day is over. These are my Start of Day Ritual and my Shutdown Ritual. Read on for all the details.

I’ve tried all of the things when it comes to feeling organised and on top of my ever expanding to do list. You name the tool and I’ve tried it, Things, Todoist, Trello, Asana and the list goes on! More recently I reverted back to good old pen and paper in collaboration, of course, with my online calendar. I’ve been using this system for some time now and it’s working well for me.

Start of Day Ritual

Every morning after my morning ritual (which consists of journaling, exercise, breakfast and shower), I sit down at my desk and begin my Start of Day Ritual.

Step 1:

I review my agenda for the day. I use Google Calendar and use colour to differentiate between different entries. For example, red refers to paid offerings like client sessions or group program live calls, purple refers to content creation, orange is lead generation and yellow is breaks. To see an example day in my schedule, see the image below.

As I review, I allow myself to feel positive feelings towards each activity. This might look like expressing gratitude or taking time to consider what I enjoy about each activity.

This is especially important for those things that I don’t feel particularly excited by, like admin or sometimes even my content creation (gasp!). But taking the time to lean into appreciation as well as review what’s on the agenda for the day helps me to feel more connected with the day ahead and avoids any last minute surprises.

Step 2:

Once I’ve completed step 1, I head to my paper planner, which is simply a day per page diary and I write out (or review) my three most important tasks for the day (if I haven’t done it the night before).

The key here is to choose no more than 3 tasks. The reason for this is to avoid overwhelm and to set up my day to have easy wins. I can usually manage 3 tasks each day, as long as they are tasks that have been broken down into manageable chunks, which means a real sense of achievement as I tick each task off.

When we constantly work from a long and overwhelming to do list, we miss out on the sense of achievement or the feeling of pride we feel when we can mark a task complete and know that we did everything we set out to do for the day.

Some clients of mine worry that 3 things is not enough to keep up with everything they have to do. That’s fine. Once you’ve completed your 3 things for the day, if there is still more time and more things to do simply add them to your list for the day. But remember no more than 3 things at any given time!

See below to see what this looks like in practice.

Step 3:

I schedule anything on my to do list for the day (from the THREE things!) into any free spaces on my google calendar. If there is no space, then I have to adjust my expectations of what I can get done that day. Or move things around, if there is something I absolutely must get done. The key is that what’s on my list and what time and space I have available are aligned.

Once all 3 of those steps are complete, I feel ready and prepared for the day ahead.

Shutdown ritual

At the end of the day I have another ritual to close my working day. I first heard of this concept from a book I love called Deep Work by Cal Newport. Using his suggestion, I’ve created my own shutdown ritual.

Step 1:

Take a final look at my email inbox to ensure that there is nothing requiring an urgent response before the day ends and to file in the relevant folder (or archive) any emails I’ve already dealt with.

Step 2:

Transfer any new tasks that are on my mind into my master to do list in my paper planner. I keep my master to do list on several pages I have allocated at the front of my paper planner. If there is anything that has a specific deadline which isn’t the following day I will create a task in my google calendar with a date and time so that it doesn’t get missed.

Step 3:

Review my task lists and calendar to ensure nothing urgent is coming up that I’ve forgotten about.

Step 4:

If there is anything I absolutely must do the next day I write it in my day planner, in my list of 3 tasks for the next day.

Step 5:

Tidy my desk, shut down my laptop, leave my keyboard/mouse charging and last but not least I lock my office (my three year old likes to sneak in there when nobody is looking to mess with my pens and papers!).

Step 6:

Finish the ritual by saying “shutdown complete” and go to hang out with my family, free from any niggly work concerns.

And there you have it two simple and fairly quick (neither takes more than 20 minutes) rituals I perform on a daily basis to keep myself organised and on top of my workload. Do you have a ritual or routine you use to start or end your working day? If so I’d love to hear from you! Let me know in the comments below.

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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.

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The Number One Business Question I Regularly Ask Myself

The Number One Business Question I Regularly Ask Myself

by | Feb 22, 2023 | Business model

After years of trial and error and navigating periods of burnout, I’m delighted to report that I have a business model that really works for me. Not only does it bring in regular and sustainable income but it does so in a way that allows me to take time off when I need to, not work crazy hours each day and still have an impact on my client’s lives and businesses.

This is not by accident, it’s by design and from keeping my focus firmly on one question and 3 variables.

How can I make the most amount of money, with the greatest amount of ease without sacrificing impact?

What I love about this question is that it’s answer leads me to a business model that is sustainable for me. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

You don’t need me to tell you how important income is. Without income, we don’t have a business (rather an expensive hobby). Without a steady and consistent flow of income that covers our expenses, we struggle. Often living month to month in a state of stress and worry, which then impacts how we show up to our work.

We might even repel would-be clients with a needy, desperate energy because we are so focused on getting the sale that we struggle to stay in a mode of generous service.

Or maybe you are making regular and consistent income and want to grow. You want to go beyond just covering expenses and want to be able to save for the future, travel, buy a home.

Whatever your situation, as a business owner, income is likely to be a priority for you.

If it’s the only priority, that’s when we run into trouble. That’s where we see businesses that prioritise profits before people and we all know how that goes.

As conscious business owners, only focusing on money isn’t enough of a driver for us, so it would be unsustainable over the long term if this was our only priority.

When we seriously consider how easy it is for us to do the work we do, we begin to work smarter instead of harder.

It’s a common mistake to think that if we are going to make a decent living, we must be working hard. I long ago stopped buying into the idea of hard work. Does that mean I slack off all day and do the bare minimum? Hell no!

What it means is that I consider each and every task and service I offer in my business and ask myself, how can I make this easier for me to do? How can I work smarter instead of harder?

Over the years that has looked like simplifying my services so that I still serve my people but without overstretching myself to do so. Why? Because overgiving and overextending ourselves is not sustainable in the long term.

For the conscious business owner, having a positive impact is a key driver in everything you do. It’s why you do the work you do, it’s what motivated you to start your own business in the first place.

When impact is focused on above all else, we start to see overgiving. We tell ourselves that in order to have a meaningful impact we must be doing all of the things for all of the people, all of the time.

When impact is prioritised over income, I hear business owners saying things like “the money isn’t important to me” and this is where I despair.

When we only focus on impact and ignore the importance of both income and ease, we deplete ourselves in the name of giving. We give everything to our clients and don’t get enough in return. We live in a state of unsustainable struggle and over time, this inevitably becomes unsustainable.

When making the most money in the easiest way possible becomes the goal, without any consideration of impact then the end user or client can suffer because the impact of the service is not being prioritised.

Maintaining a healthy balance between all three of these variables (income, ease and impact) is crucial and ultimately leads to the most sustainable way to do business.

What this looks like in practice

Allow me to give you an example of how this has played out in my own business.

When I first launched the Conscious Business Mastermind back in 2020, I had the price low — 100€ a month. I gave a lot for that. Weekly calls all year round, new classes every month and 1:1 sessions for every member, every quarter. The number of participants that first year was also low. The result being a yearlong group program that wasn’t profitable and that took an enormous amount of time to deliver. Low income, high impact, low ease. Not sustainable.

Over the years, asking myself the question, how can I make the most money, with the greatest amount of ease, without sacrificing impact? has led to many changes which have resulted in the Mastermind becoming a hugely important revenue generator in my business. It’s also where I see many of my clients really soar. Those changes have included: Putting the price up from 100€ to 135€ a month, removing the free 1:1 sessions and instead offering these at a discounted rate and focusing on getting the numbers of participants up. Given that I repeat much of the teaching, every year it gets easier to deliver.

I’m regularly told by participants that I could charge more for what’s on offer but I don’t because I think that on this service, I’ve got the balance of Income, Ease and Impact just right. But this didn’t happen by accident. It happened because I thought long and hard about these 3 variables and made sure that all were taken into account as I tweaked and redesigned my offer. High income, high impact and high ease = sustainable over the long-term which is why I’ve offered it for 4 years running.

So how about you? Is your business model working for you? Could you use some support. See below for details of a low-cost workshop I’m running on this very topic.

On Friday 24th February, I’m hosting a Create Your Sustainable Workshop in which I’ll share what it takes to create a business model that can sustain you financially and energetically. To register head here.

What To Do If You’ve Lost Your Business Mojo

What To Do If You’ve Lost Your Business Mojo

by | Jan 11, 2023 | Mindset, Uncategorized

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
– Maya Angelou

I’d like to talk to you about something that came up in a client session and how to make sense of it. What to do when we lose our business mojo or feel like we’ve fallen out of love with our business. Having been through this myself and coached countless others through it, I wanted to share the 4 main reasons behind this feeling and what to do about it.

This is the one I think is the least common but ironically it’s where many business owners go first. You might have experienced the “burn it all to the ground” feeling yourself. You know the one, when you just feel so sick of your business that you find yourself daydreaming about doing something completely different, like a whole other niche or even giving up on being a business owner altogether and getting a job. I think we’ve all been there at some point or another.

Rather than burning your business to the ground, however, I’m going to suggest that we can usually rekindle our love for our business by making one of three changes. Perhaps, there is a change you need to make regarding what you are doing in your business, or there is a change you need to make regarding how you are doing things in your business or maybe you’re feeling disillusioned and beaten down by a lack of tangible results and a change of thinking about what that means is all that is needed.

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

This is where we need to consider what we are doing in our business. This could be within our business model (the products and services we offer) or it could be within the back end of the business (how we administrate and manage our business). Perhaps we are offering long-term 1:1 coaching packages when our sweet spot would be one off single sessions. Perhaps we’re offering a group program when our sweet spot would be getting creative with online courses. Perhaps we love delivering our services but hate the marketing and admin involved in running our business.

Whatever it is, there’s a chance that you could easily reignite your passion for your business if you just make some changes to what you are doing. Given we’re nearing the end of the year, it’s the perfect time to to review what you do in your business and what you could do differently in 2023.

Suggested action:

Open up a blank page on your computer or in a notebook and write at the top of it the following question: What am I doing in my business that I really don’t enjoy? Then go ahead and list out everything that you DO in your business that feels heavy or drains you of energy. Once you have your list go though it line by line and write one of the following options: Stop, Change, Delegate or Automate.

You essentially want to assess each item on your list and ask yourself can I stop doing this altogether? Can I change what I am doing here (For example, changing long-term coaching programs to short-term or single sessions) or is this a task I can delegate to someone else or automate with a piece of software or a process?

This is one that came up for me many years ago when I started to fall out of love with my 1:1 coaching service. It was back when I was life coaching and I had reached a point in my business where things were going really well, my prices were at an all time high and I had more clients saying yes to working together than ever before.

The odd thing was I started to dread going to work on my business on a daily basis and I couldn’t for the life of me work out why. I was so confused that I should feel this way, just as I was starting to see real success with my coaching. A few months later after several conversations with coaches and mentors of my own, I finally worked out that the success I had been experiencing had changed how I was showing up to my client calls.

Because of the higher price and higher numbers of clients, I had unconsciously started to worry about losing it all, this had made me less bold in my coaching and had brought the people pleaser out in me. Instead of challenging my clients, I was appeasing them. Of course, this felt awful and once I rectified it, I started to enjoy my clients sessions once again.

I share this example as a way to illustrate the idea that how we are showing up our work can really affect how we feel about our work. This is just one example. For you, it might be how you’re doing your marketing. See here for more on that.

Suggested action:

Open up a blank page on your computer or in a notebook and write at the top of it the following question:
Is there anything in the way I am delivering my offerings that could be contributing to the funk I am feeling?
Journal on this question until you’ve explored everything about the way in which you are showing up to and delivering your work. Given that there might be things here that you are unaware of, you might also want to consider talking it through with a business colleague, coach or mentor.

This is a big one. I see business owners dealing with some version of this on a regular basis. In response, I often talk about the business journey, which takes us from point A — starting our business to point B — succeeding in our business and the fact that during any time in between those 2 points, we’re likely to experience phases where we feel disillusioned or frustrated that we’re not where we want to be yet.

One antidote to this is to manage our expectations. Many of us are operating in a toxic online marketplace, where the predominant narrative is one of fast and exponential success. What I’ve realised from over 10 years of working for myself and over 6 years of supporting other business owners to succeed is that slow, incremental success is not only more realistic, but it’s also more fulfilling and long-lasting.

Suggested action:

Read this article I wrote on the pains of business growth and this article on the stages of business growth.

Next take some time to think about and question your inner dialogue about your progress. I talk to business owners all the time who are seeing results, but, because they are not as big as they want or expect, they dismiss them.

Next open up a blank page on your computer or in a notebook and write at the top of it the following question: What can I celebrate today about my business growth journey? Write down all your wins, the small and big ones — you’ll be surprised how easily we forget what is actually working when we are so focused on what is not.

So I’m curious, for those of you feeling in a funk with your business, has this helped shed any light? If so, please let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you.

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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.

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Five Things I’m Doing To Start The Year Off Well

Five Things I’m Doing To Start The Year Off Well

by | Jan 4, 2023 | Mindset, Uncategorized

“If you believe you can change — if you make it a habit — the change becomes real.”
~ Charles Duhigge

I want to share with you five things that I’m doing to start the year off well. My hope is that they may inspire your own list of things that can support you to start the year on the right foot.

The key to all of these things is that mainly they are not specifically “business” related. They are things that are key to improving my personal life, which I know will, in turn, have a positive impact on my business.

1. Clearing my space

I spent several hours cleaning and organising my office. I’m so grateful to have a dedicated room from which to run my business, however, when we moved into the new house, my office was a hot mess of boxes, piles of paper and uncared for plants. Not a space I really enjoyed spending time in.

I got ruthless and threw a lot of old papers into the recycling, found a home for everything that needed one, watered and pruned my plants and cleaned the floor and surfaces. It felt sooo good.

It was so wonderful to start the day in this space and I know that keeping it clean and organised is going to be essential for my mental wellbeing over the year. Clutter and chaos in my external environment definitely has a negative impact on how I feel on the inside so I’m excited to cultivate more calm by keeping my office tidy and organised.

2. Getting more sleep

I typically don’t get enough sleep. Period. On a daily basis, by the time my partner and I have got our two boys to bed, tidied up and washed the dishes, it usually close to 10pm. Given that we need and want some time to relax, decompress and connect with each other before bed, this means we often go to bed way too late. We were often getting to sleep as late as midnight, only for our alarm to go off at 6.30am! Cue exhaustion.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how to fix this, including getting better at meal-planning so that we can eat earlier and thus start the boys bedtime routine earlier, so that we can be ready to start winding down at 9pm instead of 10pm. We’ve made a promising start on this.

We’re also committed to having less screen time in the evenings and reading more before bed so that we sleep better.

3. Daily meditation

My mind, body and soul has been craving more mindfulness in my day to day for months (if not years!) now. Having small children and a busy business to look after has meant that some of my spiritual practices have taken a back seat in recent years. I’m also not one who does well with typical, silent, sitting meditation and so for many years my meditative practice was running. However, since having children, as a result of a compromised pelvic floor and related lower back pain, running hasn’t been on the agenda for me.

A while ago my partner bought me some virtual reality goggles for my birthday so that I could use them for fitness classes when weather or workload prevented me from getting outside to exercise. What I’ve discovered recently is that they are also great for meditation.

I’ve found an amazing app called Tripp, which I’ve been using morning and night to meditate. The interactive, immersive nature of the guided meditations really works for me and I’m already feeling so much calmer and less stressed out.

4. Daily exercise

This one is huge for me. I know that a lack of exercise in recent years has left me low on energy and feeling disconnected from my body. Working online means I’m sitting down for much of the day and a lack of movement over time leaves me feeling sore and achy and less inclined to move my body. It’s a negative cycle.

I’m now doing a combination of walks in nature and boxing and dance classes on my virtual reality goggles to make sure I spend some time each day moving my body.

We also dusted off our bicycles at the weekend and went on a lovely family bike ride in nature which is something we’re committed to doing more of as a family. Being more active gives me heaps more energy.

5. Drinking more water

For years I’ve been in the bad habit of making myself a cup of coffee to drink on my client calls. Given that I can often have as many as 3 or 4 sessions a day, my caffeine intake has definitely contributed to low-level feelings of stress a feeling of being wired. And given that my go-to drink is coffee, I’m aware that I’m in no way drinking enough water and that doing so has a negative impact on my energy levels and overall sense of well being.

I’ve committed to drinking more water each day so that I avoid the effects of low-level dehydration and reap the benefits of drinking enough water each day.

And that’s it, five new habits (not resolutions) that I’m committed to implementing in my life this year.

I appreciate that none of the things on this list are particularly groundbreaking, but it’s been really helpful for me to think about the key habits I want to put in place that will have a ripple effect on both my personal and professional life. How about you? What new habits might support you in 2023? Feel free to let me know in the comments.

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.