Simply strategies to help you grow your business

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

So let me start by asking you a question…

What would it feel like to have more time in your business?

… and I don’t mean more time to do more work, I mean free time that you can use to do whatever brings you joy.

Would you spend more time being creative or go for a longer walk in the morning, enjoy an extended lunch  or even reduce your working week to work say 3 days instead of 5.

This is all possible but it needs to be planned for and intentions set.

What’s great is that we are at the start of a brand new year and as it’s the perfect time to set our goals,  we can also set our intentions as well in creating the life and business that we want. Something that I have learnt in business over the past 6 years is that anything is possible and as entrepreneurs we have limitless possibilities available to us. We have the power to create our future. The fact that you are here today, tells me that you are serious about creating a business that ultimately works for you which is really exciting.

If you are currently selling 121 services, I am going to hazard a guess that you are probably caught in the trading-time-for-money-cycle that so many entrepreneurs get trapped in. This is where you have to keep feeding your business with new clients or sales to keep it afloat. Right?

How do I know this?

Because this was me for a long time.

When I started my business, I had a strong vision of what I wanted to achieve and then as I got busier, working with clients I soon realised I had lost focus on why I was doing what i was doing. I felt as though I had replaced my job for another job only this time, I was being pulled in every which way by clients which isn’t ideal. Now of course, we tell ourselves that that’s not the case and it’s our business so we are running it the way we want, but the truth is that if you are a service provider, you are at the mercy of your clients because you need them and their money to keep your business going.

Unfortunately when Covid hit at the beginning of 2020, I lost a significant contract that was lucrative to my business. I also lost various other pieces of work due to budget cuts and the financial constraints of my clients. It’s not surprising after all, we were all in a free fall having been severely hit by a pandemic however the harsh realities of being a service provider really did hit home. I realised that without my clients, my business was going to be hit hard financially. For the first time since starting my business, I realised that I was in a very vulnerable situation and that if I didn’t make changes my business was going to be in severe trouble.

I realised that I was so reliant on my clients that without them, my business wouldn’t be able to survive.

Scary stuff, right?

I am sure I am not the only person having experienced this but what I do know is that it’s not a place I want to find myself in again.

The good news is that there is another way!

A way to create abundance you want in your business so that you can retain control and create the time & financial freedom you truly desire and here’s how.

Firstly, it’s about reframing your mindset.

Just by knowing that there is a different way to generate revenue other than selling services direct to clients can be really powerful. I don’t need to tell you that it all starts with the mind, we can only go where our mind takes us so start to reframe how you see your business and expand your thinking to consider other ways.

Strategy 1 Increase your prices

This is something that it’s easy to say not so easy to do. However, we are living in a time where everything is going up in cost. And therefore what you have to offer has to go up in cost as well. So increasing your prices is going to keep you going.

Now, you might feel a little bit overwhelmed at the prospect of potentially losing clients through increasing your prices. However, what you have to offer is of high value, and it needs to be paid for. It doesn’t have to be increased by a huge amount, you could start with just being a marginal increase. Doing this will start bringing in additional revenue into your business.

Strategy 2 Invest in support

Being an entrepreneur means wearing many hat and juggling lots of balls, it’s all part and parcel of running your own business. This can be great because it means you can be in control, set your own parameters and do things the way you want them to do done. The downside is that it’s easy to get trapped in the act of ‘doing’ all the time rather than focusing on the things that really matter and need your attention.

The Pareto Principle is the 80-20 rule that focuses on the 20% of business activity that generates the most results. This doesn’t mean that the other 80% is wasted time, it just means that if you focus on the areas that generate real results for your business then you can start developing a business that works for you. The other 80% may be activities that are most likely made up stuff that keep you busy but don’t really move the needle in your business which is where investing in support will make a difference.

By investing in a VA, Designer, Social Media Manager etc so that you can stop doing the stuff that absorbs your time and start focusing on the business activities that will help to you to create freedom.

Which brings me on to my final and most important tip….

Strategy 3 Start monetising your expertise

As ambitious entrepreneurs, it’s important that we find a way to create a more robust business that can survive when we’re not at the helm. If the pandemic has taught me anything it’s that anything can happen. No one expected a virus to sweep in and take over the entire world and yet the unthinkable has actually happened. This is evidence enough that we must start thinking differently about how we go about our business.

Now I am not saying that you must stop what you’re doing and change everything in your business, as that wouldn’t make sense. The point is that we all have the opportunity to build our businesses so that they are more solid and robust.

Consider creating a digital product like an online course because you can then start to focus on developing a product that can then be sold over and over whilst you sleep.

In my opinion, this approach is a really smart move as it helps to create passive income. It also diversifies your offering so that you can expand to support a wider audience. It also means that you can make money doesn’t involve you being chained to your desk 24/7!

If you facilitate a transition of any kind then you can create a digital online course to support your business to sell over and over again.

Now you may be thinking… “everyone has a digital course these days so how am I going to sell mine if a course similar to mine already exists?”

The truth is that there is room for everyone because the world is a big place.

How you approach your course topic will be individual because you are individual. We all have our own take on how we talk about what we do and it’s exactly the same with a digital course.

The wonderful thing about it is that everyone learns differently and so everyone will be attracted to different teachers, different courses, and different presentation. The course that you may want to offer may already exist in one form or another, but your delivery will resonate with different people: people who might otherwise have chosen to avoid the subject all together.

Use the skills and knowledge that you have to teach others, create impact and make money on repeat.

Now, who doesn’t want that?

With these 3 very simple strategies, you should be able to trade fewer hours for income while experiencing far more joy!

And believe me when I say that anyone can make this transition — all it takes is a little planning, experimenting, and a willingness to let things unfold naturally.

Passive income takes time so you have to give yourself the freedom to take things slow, learn, study, grow, and experiment!

Enjoyed this article?

Why not listen here to my podcast episode: #4 How to monetise your expertise online