Recently we’ve pivoted, again, in our business. We wanted to quickly tell you about it so that maybe you’ll be able to learn from our mistakes and reach your goals faster!
79% of our clients are small business owners. Today, we’re telling you about how we went from 15 Million Small Businesses to just the one. Once we did that, everything finally (three years later) started flowing almost effortlessly.
If you want to listen to this instead of reading it, head over to myidealbalance.com/podcast and skip to episode 110!
Beware of Multiple Ventures
We get it. There are so many opportunities and a lot of them seem really great and you are tempted all the time by a shiny new opportunity. Alex Hormozi refers to it as the Woman In The Red Dress syndrome.
We started with just financial coaching. Then we added health coaching. Then we added events and workshops. Then we added home organization.
It can be very tempting for entrepreneurs (us included!) to want to take advantage of every possible opportunity. It’s rewarding to start something and get some initial success or positive feedback. But eventually it’ll be hard again and you’ll be right back to where you began.
What made things worse for us is that we got amazing feedback for everything we did. We took that as confirmation that we should keep doing everything.
We thought, well, obviously we’re supposed to be doing all of this.
That was the wrong conclusion. Eventually we figured out if we put all of our time and energy into one thing instead of spreading ourselves so thin, that would be a game changer!
What’s Wrong With Being Spread Thin?
Imagine trying not only to work IN five businesses but also do the MARKETING for five businesses. This was perhaps the most frustrating part of it all. Putting on a completely different hat multiple times a day depending on what “Profit Center” we were working on was emotionally AND physically exhausting. Then, trying to figure out how to write & produce marketing assets for so many things at once. Nope. Just Nope!
Oh and because we didn’t have the energy or time to make anyone ONE thing big, we were stuck at one level financially. Which meant we were working a lot for a very little amount of money.
Maybe There’s A Different Way
We’re stubborn. We knew our coaches had told us to do one thing and do it well. But we saw people like our mentor Dave Ramsey doing 9 profit centers so amazingly! (Nevermind that Dave took decades to build, one-by-one, additional profit centers with a TEAM of support)
So many times we had signs or moments to figure out that we should focus on one thing. So many times we pushed through anyway. Stubborness!
We also had a little people pleasing going on. That is, when we tried to quit fitness, our clients begged us not to. So we didn’t.
Many times the hires we made to our team blew up in our faces. One of those times was when we decided to end fitness forever. We “sold” the business to a local trainer we loved and never looked back. It was really difficult but we immediately felt lighter.
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Another time we got smart and decided not to market or offer home organization any more. We knew that was the smart thing to do. Somehow, through word of mouth in a small town, we got two referrals in one week. We didn’t want to do it, but we were still being stubborn so we quoted them double our previous rates in the hopes they would say no…and they didn’t. Fast forward to two days of the most grueling (physically and emotionally) home organization sessions we’d ever had and….we finally REALLY quit home organization.
We were trying to do too many things with our time and our energy… If you have to stretch that into several different things, none of them can grow.
Things needed to change. We worked very hard and it felt like we were running in circles. Eventually we realized, by looking at the metrics, that financial coaching came easy.
Financial coaching is the one thing we’ve never had to really sell.
Financial coaching happened primarily as word of mouth referrals and it was the most profitable service we offered.
Niching down made everything better: our energy levels, our business organization, marketing, growth and more!
One thing to keep in mind when niching down is to evaluate both what you’re good at AND what problem people need solved.
For us, people didn’t need more financial education. And there were better fitness and life coaches out there. And we weren’t going to become the next Home Edit. However, coaching individuals to completely change their financial trajectories…that was something special we have that no one else does the way we do it! We have such seen amazing results for our clients over the last nearly four years.
Our one thing then became financial coaching. We did go off track here and there (like that time we taught all day at a high school about student loans), but the “say no” muscle is growing. We’ve gotten better at saying no or staying focused on the one thing.
At Least We Had Profit First!
One note to make is that we are and always have been a debt free company. That means that even as we’ve muddled through these mistakes and lessons and pivots, we’ve always been profitable, we’ve always gotten a paycheck and we’ve never gone into debt. We use the Profit First system and help our clients to do the same.
Most entrepreneurs are going to have to go through some learning / experiment phases until they find the thing that sticks. What’s important is to not to make those learning opportunities financial mistakes that make it all much worse. That means not using your personal budget to fund the learning curve. It means don’t spend years and thousands of dollars on a website or logo before you earn your first dollar or try out the thing you’re hoping to make money from. We have a saying:
No make-y, no spend-y.
Look for the signs
We had many signs from God on what to do, what to change, what not to do. We were stubborn. We sure hope you won’t be! Take it from us, focus on solving one problem for one person using one channel. For us, that is financial coaching for people who make good money but have nothing to show for it and telling everyone who’ll listen about it on our podcast.
So, we hope this has helped you. If you want to know more, listen to the podcast. If you have a question, feel free to reach out by emailing us at info@myidealbalance.com. Finally, you can always sign up for financial coaching. As we mentioned, most of our clients have their own business and we can help you get your personal and business finances in order.
Book Your Free Call Now!
We are excited to create the time & space to talk to you about your current money situation. This is a free, no-obligation call where we can answer questions you may have and maybe find some quick wins for your budget.
What do you have to lose?
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