Gone are the days when it took a 100-page business plan and 3 years to build a profitable business. I spent 3 years building my service-based business and I want to share with you what I learned about how to start a business from doing it the ‘slow’ way and the ‘fast’ way.
There are 2 main reasons why it is now possible to build a service-based business on the fast-track:
1. People are searching for solutions to their problems more than ever; and
2. The speed and flexibility of the internet enables us to leverage our time and money more than ever.
Here’s how to start a business with 3 key principles, quickly from scratch.
1. Know Yourself, Be Yourself
When I first started my business, I was passionate but my self-awareness wasn’t where it needed to be. I wasn’t clear about how I was different to anyone else, which meant that as a service professional, I lacked clarity about where I was placed in my market, compared to my competitors.
A common mistake service entrepreneurs make when starting out is thinking that their product or the TYPE of service they provide is their primary point of difference.
To understand how you stand out in your market, you need to be clear on who you are as a person and what makes you unique. Here are some clues:
- Fun is your greatest success tool! Doing what is fun for you in your business means you are flowing with your natural gifts. This also means outsourcing the things are NOT fun for you.
- Be true to your values! Prioritise what is important to you in everything that you do in your business, from how you interact with your clients, how you market yourself, your internal operations, to how you treat yourself on a daily basis.
For example, one of my top values is simplicity. This means that I keep all aspects of my business and my daily life simple. I don’t overcomplicate things for myself or in what I teach to my clients.
- Follow your intuition! There is endless advice out there online and offline for business owners so you need to be clear on what options feel good and which ones don’t. If something feels off to you about something you’re doing in your business or something you’ve invested in for help, don’t ignore it and try to put off making any major commitments until you are clear.
The more connected you are to yourself, the more easily you can use your intuition to guide you in your business… and save much time and energy.
2. Offer BIG Value
It seems obvious – you need to offer excellent value for money to your clients. But do you really know what is valuable to them?
Your idea of what your clients want could be completely different to what they really want deep down. And often, either they don’t even know themselves, or they can’t articulate it.
So what do you do?
- Get to know your ideal clients better than they know themselves! Dig deep into their psyche and find out what drives them. Then, translate this into what their everyday reality would look like if they had what they wanted. Be specific.
For example, my clients are driven by freedom, connection, contribution to the bigger picture and they want to make $100K in their first year of business.
- Get results! Find out what outcome your ideal clients truly want and then do whatever it takes to get them there. To get results, you need to make sure you choose who you work with based on their equal commitment to reaching this outcome.
- Always over-deliver! Give your clients everything they need to reach their desired outcome and more. Exceed their expectations and you will have loyal clients who refer you to their friends.
3. Have A Strategy
Yes, this is the pointy end of business – numbers! Not knowing your numbers – your financial targets, your income and your expenses – can be disempowering if you are avoiding them out of fear (It can also be empowering NOT knowing them, but that’s for another blog!). Here’s what I mean by strategy:
- Know your goal! Have a clear goal in mind, a dollar figure AND an outcome. For example, your goal might be to earn $10K in one month and the outcome is to run your first online program.
- Follow A-B-C! A strategy is a specific plan that gets you from A to B. Determine what your ‘B’ is, and then make a step by step plan to get there.
For example, if I need to make 5 sales in a month to meet my revenue target, I need a specific plan that will allow me to source and connect with around 10 people who are my ideal clients every month.
- Leverage your time and money! This means for every dollar you spend, you get a 10 times (or more) return on your investment and for every minute you spend in your business, you save 10 minutes.
Have a strategy to earn money, but don’t make it your sole focus. Always focus on delivering high value to your clients as a priority.
The bottom line?
The fast way to building your business is having clarity about these 3 things, then allowing your intuition to guide you each step of the way. Never underestimate the power of clarity in manifesting what you want in your life or your business!
It helps to have help…
I specialise in connecting people with themselves so they can clearly identify their soul gifts and monetize them through business. Find out more about my Sacred Business Blueprint program here.