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E#235 3 Proven Strategies to Grow and Scale Your Business

3 Proven Strategies to Grow and Scale Your Business

In this current podcast series dedicated to business and revenue growth, let’s talk about three proven strategies you can use to grow and scale your business – even if you’re relatively new to the business and have a few paying clients. Two of these methods discussed today do NOT require you to find new clients – which is often the most costly and time-consuming way of building your business. That means you can improve revenue immediately!

Background

When your business reaches a certain size, you might find yourself working at full capacity in terms of the hours you can physically work or the clients you can physically service in your business.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* Upgrading Your Systems
* Changing Your Prices
* Increasing the Offers

You may reach an upper limit of income or find that your start-up business systems (e.g. manual invoicing) are inadequate and time-consuming to manage.

While there are no immediate problems with either scenario, a business that relies solely on you presents a level of ‘risk’.

What happens to the business if you get sick? What if you want time off? And how can you outgrow your expenses and start making a real profit?

These are just three of many considerations that might inspire you to grow or at least improve efficiencies in your business.

There is a saying that goes, ‘If your business isn’t growing, it’s shrinking.’

If you want to grow your business and revenue, there are several options.

Here are three of the easiest options for businesses in the early stages of growth (‘seed’) who have some customers and are ready to expand their reach, sales and profit.

Upgrading Your Systems

Upgrading your systems becomes a relevant growth strategy if you have reached a limit as to how many clients you can see, and therefore how much money you can earn.

Before you consider upgrading, you’d want to make sure you have regular cashflow and enough profit margin to cover the costs you will incur via systems upgrades.

Two ways of upgrading your systems include:

– Getting specialist help (outsourcing) and

– moving away from manual systems into more automated ones.

Either or both of these can free you up to service more clients. Let’s look at each in turn.

Upgrading by Outsourcing

Thinking about the outsourcing, hiring specialist contractors is an easy way to get qualified help when you are busy or need help in a specific area. This is known as a ‘business to business’ arrangement whereby you engage another business to complete specific work or tasks within your business.

It is also helpful if you don’t want the burden of buying and setting up software (e.g. accounting software) and just want someone to do it for you.

If you are considering outsourcing, you might not have the workload or cash flow to employ someone permanently, but they could do some monotonous but important tasks for you, or cope with irregular busy periods, so that your time is freed up to service more clients.

For example:

· Hiring independent contract coaches can be helpful for irregular work e.g.

  • busy periods
  • when you go on holiday.

· Alternatively, outsourcing allows you to hand over specific tasks or regular roles to an expert e.g.

  • virtual assistant
  • bookkeeper
  • accountant
  • marketing consultant
  • IT professional.

I will be talking more specifically about VA’s in the next episode of this podcast.

If you do any outsourcing, you would need to have a formal signed agreement in place before work commences, which clearly outlines the scope of work, specific duties and payment arrangements.

You’d need to have some clear policies in place about privacy, conduct and other things that state your expectations around quality of work and expected behaviour, and procedures to help hand over specific tasks.

Upgrading by Automating Tasks

When you start a business, you’re often doing a lot of things manually. For example:

  • Creating invoices in Microsoft Word.
  • Keeping track of clients in a log book, or an Excel worksheet.
  • Posting your social media posts one at a time on each platform.
  • Manually writing individual, separate emails to your customers, before, during and after programs.

When you switch these manual systems to automated processes and/or use software, you can save yourself a lot of time and mistakes, which frees you up to coach more clients.

Examples include:

  • Using dedicated financial software like WaveApps (free), Quickbooks, or Xero
  • Using a social media scheduling tool instead of manually posting (e.g. RecurPost, HootSuite)
  • Using an email system like Mailchimp or Mailerlite
  • Using a booking system like Calendly or Acuity Scheduling. For more info on these, you can listen to episode #105 Best Essential Business Systems or episode #106 Best Advanced Business Systems.

Increasing Your Prices

When your business reaches a certain level, a very simple strategy to grow your income without any cost to you, or without working extra hours, is to repackage services and/or raise prices.

For example, you might decide to:

  • raise prices by 10% and may also offer a bonus downloadable training course with your program – which raises the tangible value of your services and makes the increase more palatable with only a one-off labour cost, or
  • raise prices by 15% and re-position yourself as a highly experienced specialist in one area of coaching –raising your tangible value, or
  • creating a group coaching model to increase ROI
  • develop a premium (high-priced) specialty service.

There are many pricing strategies to choose from.

Pick the one that best suits your niche, your level of expertise and your business and lifestyle (working hours) goals. Work with a business coach to create the right strategy for you. You might also be interested in my podcast episode #202 Should I show pricing on my website?

Increasing the Options

When you start out in business, you’re often just focusing on doing one or two things well, becoming known, and getting a good reputation.

As you start to get more customers, you will start to see more opportunities to work with people in different ways.

By increasing the number of service options you have, you can grow your business and revenue.

For example:

– A short, DIY program with email support provides a low-cost entry point for people who are interested in working on one small problem they have (e.g. establishing a bedtime ritual for better sleep).

This means you are getting some income for very little live client time and gives them a step into your main program. This equates to more money for less time and effort (note: you would still need to promote this program regularly in order to sell it).

– A 1:1 program is now available as a small group program

This means you are earning more money per session, and also building a community of like-minded people who work with you and connect with each other. They are more likely to want to stay connected.

– Your initial 8-week program is now followed up with a 6-month maintenance program (VIP high-end pricing for individuals or mastermind, or moderate price for groups) or a membership.

This means you are keeping customers longer, earning more money and/or over a longer period, and helping your clients get next-level results after their initial program has finished.

– A higher value program where you add specific resources, a welcome pack, or package up other services or products such as meditation playlists, or a recipe book.

This means you can earn more money in the same amount of time.

One important caveat is this – keep your number of available services to 3 or 4, maximum. Otherwise, you risk entering the paradox of choice, where customers walk away without making a decision as there are too many options or difficulties in making the best choice.

Summary 

When you are coaching enough clients that you hit a ceiling of available time or income, or if you notice opportunities to help clients more or for longer, there are a few strategies you can do to take your business to the next level.

We talked about just three of the options today, including

  • Upgrading your systems
  • Increasing your pricing, and
  • Creating more options for working with you (but not too many).

If you need help developing business and revenue growth strategies to suit your business and niche, contact me to join my private coaching waitlist, which runs for five months in February and June of each year.

My private coaching programs usually sell out within a week of advertising, and you need to qualify to be a part of them. To enquire or join the waitlist, hit up my contact page and I’ll get back to you!

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

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E#155 The Value of (Pilot) Program Content + Emails

The Value of (Pilot) Program Content + Emails

Program content and emails are important program resources that help your clients to know what to do, grow into their new identity and make positive, lasting change. The right amount and type of content and emails can make your clients’ ‘know, grow and change’ journey more impactful, therefore adding incredible, tangible value to an intangible service – at least initially, before clients truly experience the value of coaching itself. 

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* Getting started guide
* What are the monitoring tools that can really help?
* How your personal experience can help you come up with great content?

When creating content and emails, it’s essential to consider the customer journey and user experience so that you can meet clients where they’re at and meet their needs and wants.  

Simply listening to and addressing needs is another great way to add value!

I like to call content and emails ‘assets’ – the definition being ‘things that you own (e.g. your IP) that have an economic or other value. 

Content Assets

Here are some of the content assets that you can create and use in your pilot and completed programs.

Getting Started Guide

This is a program road map and welcome guide for your clients, all in one. It explains briefly how the program works and includes housekeeping items like how to book appointments, log in, whitelist your email, etc. 

Written and Verbal Quizzes

Everybody loves to learn more about themselves. Everybody!

And as coaches, we know that self-awareness is the first step to making change. It’s an essential pre-requisite for creating a compelling vision (where I am now, vs where I want to be).

Quizzes, questionnaires and reflective worksheets are effective tools for raising self-awareness and/or changing perspective and negative thinking patterns that keep us stuck. They are fun and interesting methods of bringing curiosity and attention to who we are, what we like, and what we are capable of.

As clients become aware of the symptoms, thoughts, feelings, behaviours and situations that they experience, and identify those which affect their motivation and habits, they will start to really ‘get it’ – that they have unique lifestyle challenges that they must master on their own terms. 

In coaching programs, we tend to use quizzes more in the pre-work and first 2 – 3 weeks of a program (in the awareness phase), but they are also useful going forward for ongoing discovery.

Quizzes can be sourced externally or you can create your own (Word doc, quiz software, Microsoft forms, Google forms).

Examples include:

any sort of personality quiz (e.g. here is a simple Myers Briggs type test).

Monitoring Tools

We know that recognising success makes you feel like you are getting somewhere, and achieving a result – and that creates a sense of value.

Yet so few of us take the time to recognise our efforts, our progress, and our incremental results.

We live with ourselves every day, so the subtle changes that occur may be hard to see and acknowledge.

Monitoring tools offer a powerful way to help your clients recognize some of the more subtle but important changes they are creating in life, body and/or mind.

You can use monitoring tools from the first week of your program to help your client feel good and see hard data to show that your program gives specific benefits and results. 

Useful tools include:

  • Weekly, in-session monitoring tools like a rating of 1 – 10 in any area, like energy, stress, hunger, sleep etc. Discuss and get the client to write them down.
  • Weekly goal review, including % success
  • Goal review (mid-program & final week) to give a big-picture view of change.
  • Wellness wheels (good ‘before and after’ visuals)
  • Reflective journals
  • Blank meal plans or other schedules
  • Checklists
  •  Progress charts or spreadsheets (e.g. for workouts done, glasses of water etc)
  • Anything else that helps a client ‘tick things off’.

Homework Tasks (in Email, or Portal Resources) 

In addition to a client’s own weekly goals, you may like to offer optional homework such as some activity or experiment you determine with the client in their session.

Homework generally falls into the category of skills development (self-efficacy), challenge, or self-awareness.

Here’s an example of each:

  • Skills development – invite a client to create their own tool for monitoring exercise based on their learning style, or to practice reframing negative thoughts.
  • Challenge – invite a client to say no to something, or set a boundary with a person, or themselves at work. Or, in a group setting, create 2 or 3 teams to complete a fun task such as highest total number of exercise minutes. 
  • Stretch – invite a client to complete one of the goals they set, with the option to stretch beyond it and do a little more (e.g. 5 more minutes of exercise.

Other examples of homework tasks for coaching programs include:

  • Complete the VIA strengths inventory and identify one way they have used their #1 strength this week to help them with their goals.
  • Writing down 3 successes every night. This is a quick exercise that reinforces positive change – which is good for the client AND the perceived value around your program.
  • Saying ‘you’re worth it!’ into the mirror each morning.
  • Keeping a gratitude diary.

Coaching tools

Coaching tools are used to help clients get unstuck and/or otherwise facilitate change. 

Like regular quizzes but with more of a coaching flavour, these tools can help to enhance a client’s self-awareness and facilitate a shift in perspective. Both are essential parts of change. 

They may include: 

  • Decisional Balance, 
  • the VIA Strengths Test, 
  • Appreciative Enquiry, 
  • Energy Drains and Boosters, 
  • the ABCDE model, 
  • Reframing
  • Socratic questioning, 
  • a Positivity Rating. 

Emails (or private / video / audio messages)

Used wisely and in the right amount, emails, private messages and/or audio/video messages can add value to coaching programs.

They can make it easier and more convenient for clients to remember to do this, such as:

  • log in to the coaching call each week
  • remember to complete their homework

I once had a program for busy people and many of them wanted to remember to do a small daily task during the program. 

To help them, I created an email autoresponder series was optional for my clients to subscribe to. It sent a simple email at 6am every day for 6 weeks, reminding them to do their activity. 

It finished after 6 weeks, and didn’t sell or subscribe to anything else. They found it extremely useful!

Emails, messages and personal video or audio messages can build connection, rapport and trust, if you use them to:

  • check in with progress on goals
  • let them know that you’re thinking of them or are ready to support them if they’re having trouble.
  • be a cheer leader for them
  • acknowledge their progress.

In short, emails can support a client to deliver content, but also to remember to do things, feel supported in tough times, and feel acknowledged and valued.

Experience Content

Your own experience – what you did, what worked for you, how you felt at the time, and what worked for your client – is super helpful content to share with program members.

It could be delivered as live or recorded videos, audios, blog posts or small snippets.

There needs to be context added, for example, how you overcame a mental hurdle along the way, or a specific tool your client used to finally get out of bed at 6am, or a story of how someone redesigned their environment so they were no longer tempted.

Stories are powerful and they help people imagine themselves in the same position, and succeeding.

Value Adds

Value adds are those unexpected little things that delight and surprise you – and add tangible value to a program, simply because you’re showing that you care.

The goal is to make the client feel personally valued, supported and/or rewarded

A great way to enhance ‘user experience’ (UX)! 

Examples include:

  • A physical welcome gift (goodie bag, book voucher etc)
  • A personalised welcome letter
  • A blank journal and a branded pen (easiest to start) 
  • A beautiful worksheet that you create
  • Recipe booklets
  • Recommended Reading lists
  • Links to relevant Ted talks
  • Offering a private 15 minute chat
  • Links to ‘how to’ or ‘why’ style blogs or podcasts you’ve created (or others)
  • A completion certificate
  • A completion gift
  • A personalised thank you letter
  • A follow up postcard (e.g. 4 weeks after the program)

For value-adds that can be used within a program, getting your clients to use them – in session, and for homework activities – can significantly boosts their self-awareness, achievements and results. 

Value-adds used outside a program help a client to feel heard, acknowledged and valued.

In a pilot program, actively taking on feedback and making changes to a program also demonstrate respect for and acknowledgement of your program clients. This is a way to add ’emotional value’ and to build trust and rapport.

Summary

Content and emails (and other media) aren’t about pushing your story or information on people, or forcing them to do or buy anything. 

Content and emails (and other media) are an opportunity to truly support and help your client on a sometimes-challenging and uncomfortable journey to change and, to demonstrate that their journey and success is your priority.

Best of all, you don’t need reams of stuff. You just need a few pieces of super useful stuff to support the journey to know, grow and change. 

Based on what you know of your ideal clients, what could YOU create that would add the most value to your clients’ journey?

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here: