Three Cracks in your Business Foundation
Everyone wants the secret sauce, the step-by-step playbook. Because you want to know the secret that they have that you don’t.
But the real “secret” of growth? It’s about building stronger foundations.
Just like building a house, or growing a tree… you’ll be limited in how tall you can grow without an equally solid foundation.
It’s not about executing more, doing more. It’s about knowing where your foundation might be shaky that’s going to keep you from growth.
You might notice signs that your foundation isn’t strong enough to support the weight of what you’ve built:
You’re always scrambling, always “busy” but you don’t seem to be growing your business
Balls seem to be getting dropped - or requiring you to have to “save the day” on a regular basis
Manual processes that worked well when you just started out are now administrative thorns in your side
You’re working all.of.the.time - yet not actually making enough money to make this all worth it
When you’re early on in business, your foundational areas to focus on might be your messaging, your offers, your pricing for you as a solo business owner and the face of your business. And as you grow, you might need to look under the hood at your project management processes, how you interface with your clients or students as a team, or your sales process and positioning now that you’re more seasoned.
And each stage of business requires a stronger foundation. We’re required to root down before we rise up, and review our foundation to make sure it supports us as we grow.
But instead of trying to do more, be more, try out the next random strategy, let’s instead get curious about the cracks in your foundation, and where you might need to strengthen that foundation first to support that growth.
So let’s look at the three most common cracks in the foundation - no matter your stage of business.
Crack 1: You’re pursuing methods that belong to the wrong model
We do what we see modeled. But what if you’re watching the wrong models?
I see this most frequently with Craftsman or Advisor delivery-based service providers who are modeling their teachers or community leaders - who have a Teacher- or Edutainer-based model. Your teachers are growing by having a pre-existing large audience built over years, time (and a team) to create content, and a leveraged delivery model with digital flows. But you’re trying to build a service-based business with much more time spent doing work with clients - and less need for a constantly growing audience or sophisticated tech. Following the Creator methods isn’t going to leave you with the results you want.
It’s vice versa for entrepreneurs who want to build or transition to a Creator-Based business with leveraged delivery or products, but AREN’T doubling down on the methods for growth in that model, especially improving your marketing craft, building a consistent audience growth platform, and streamlining your operational back end.
Crack 2: Your pricing and business model are misaligned with the audience/community you have.
These four items have to be aligned for sustainable growth: your business and profit model, your audience makeup and size, your positioning, and your relationship growth strategy.
Let’s consider a web designer who wants to make $100K and has a core service spending a month designing a website for a single client. In order to make $100,000 per year, each website needs to be priced at about $8K and you’d need to work with 12 clients. So in order to sell that service, you have to be working with clients that ideally 1. can invest the $8K and 2. will receive a return on that $8K.
So if you’re working with and making connections with newer business owners, that might be tough, because many of them cannot cash flow $8K and might not see a return on that investment quickly even if they were to invest.
The typical option is to drop your price for the same service, hustle and deliver for twice the clients in the same time, and then burn out.
What could your aligned go-forward options be? Two examples:
Change the model: To serve that audience, you could provide more of a productized solution that can be turned around in a week for substantially less money - though, needing a higher number of clients (meaning a stronger focus on audience growth and visibility).
Change the positioning: Or you could tailor your messaging, positioning, and networking towards a more seasoned community that can invest $8K with you.
There are lots of options to align the four areas - but before you burn out trying to grow, these need to be aligned first.
Crack 3: You’re missing or underinvesting in at least one step in the marketing and sales process.
Generally speaking, there are three stages for a new customer:
Awareness/Discovery - aka Reaching people who don’t know you
Engagement/Nurture/Trust-Building - aka Get people that know who you are ready to work with you
Invitation/Sales - aka making an OFFER and inviting them into the sales process.
All too often, you’re missing at least one of these steps, and often two.
Spoiler alert? The most frequently missed steps are Step 1 and Step 3 - exposure to new audience and making offers.
Why do we skip Steps 1 and 3? These are the stages that require the most visibility and vulnerability.
For the audience that already knows you and subscribes to your newsletter or social media channel, they’ve already opted in. It’s easier (though not always easy) to build relationships with that group, because they’ve already told you they want to hear from you!
But reaching new audiences, or making an ask of the audience you have, requires more effort. People might say no. You might have a hard time making inroads with people that don’t already know you. You could be like me, and LOVE deep, nuanced writing in a world where you have a snap second to have someone new turn towards your work and still be figuring out how to communicate to people who aren't avid fans already.
But spending all of your time on nurture activity and neglecting these other steps is a sure-fire way to get frustrated.