What Business Model Are You Running? (7 different models)
“I make $50,000 each month as a creator.”
“Create your million-dollar framework and wait for the bennie’s to come in while you sleep.”
“How I work: I sit down and write for 4 hours, spend an hour on LinkedIn engagement, and then my day is over.”
“I make multiple six-figures without any social media presence.”
“I can’t remember the last time I sent out an email to my list… do I have a list? But I’m very profitable.”
These all sound amazing… but also paradoxical to each other!
And maybe… just maybe… doesn’t sound like your business.
Because we’ve lumped all of these businesses together: entrepreneurs, freelancers, creators, solopreneurs, small business owners, micro-businesses, service-based businesses….
When there’s actually distinct business models that inform how you work in your business.
These models guide where to focus your attention.
Your profitability model, your marketing and sales methods.
And it’s critical that you see which model - or models - you have in your business to guide your decision making process.
Let’s take a look at the three categories of businesses - with example business models.
The Delivery Model Businesses
In these business models, the focus is on delivering a service, either through yourself or through a team. These are characterized by comparatively fewer customers with a deeper and potentially longer-term relationship. These are somewhat dismissed as “time-for-dollars” business models but can actually be wildly profitable even if not as scalable. Yes, you might be creating for clients or creating content to market your business online, but the focus is on client engagements, not content.
The Craftsman
You pride yourself on delivering a craft. You either actually enjoy doing the work your clients hire you for, or you otherwise can’t see or don’t want to move any of that work to an additional person. There does end up being a limit to how many clients you can serve both from a time and energetic perspective - yet being a true soloist gives you immense flexibility for how you construct your schedule and your finances. Because the work is hands-on in the delivery, there may be more recurring client work so exceptional client delivery is your calling card. You probably work with people you know, like, and trust without having to do much true cold selling.
Examples: Bookkeeping/tax prep, ghostwriting, copywriting, graphic design, video editing, virtual assisting/online business manager, web design, hand-crafted artifacts.
The Advisor
You thrive on guiding your clients through a transformation. You have deep experience in your trade, so much of the client transformation happens between your sessions. You have less delivery hours, so you can take on multiple clients at a time at reasonably premium price points. You’re most likely not doing ongoing production work or ‘in-the-business’ work for your clients, though you’re probably producing strategic deliverables like coaching notes, financial plans, marketing plans, or project roadmaps. Because you often work on upfront strategy or discrete engagements, your projects likely have an end date, requiring an ongoing flow of new or renewing clients. You often attract these clients and build your reputation through branded models or frameworks, demonstrating your intellectual property and expertise.
Examples: Financial advising, 1:1 coaching, consulting, strategy sessions, marketing strategy
The Agency
You’ve moved - or want to move - from delivering the service or advising to bringing on a team to do all or some of the client delivery work. You may or may not be still involved with day-to-day client delivery, but your role shifts to company and client strategy creation, intellectual property development for your firm, and business development to keep the client roster full to keep your team sufficiently utilized. You’ll likely first shift to the pure strategist, retaining strategic planning and client relationship management while having more junior team members manage projects and produce deliverables. As your firm grows, you can move further out of ongoing delivery, bringing on seasoned team members who handle end-to-end project management while you handle business development and partnerships. (Think a consulting or law firm’s rainmaking partners).
Examples: Consulting firms, financial service or legal firms, podcast production/pitching agencies, PR or marketing agencies, health practice owners.
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The Creator Model Businesses
In these models, the focus is on creation - creating and distributing content around your point of view. What distinguishes these models from each other is the way you intend to make a business (aka monetize) from that content or that viewpoint. These models are characterized by comparatively larger audiences, with potentially fewer to no “clients”. These models are seen as more scalable - but with scale comes a requirement to be building an audience. Even if you facilitate a community or a group, one of your major - if not your primary - activities is creating and distributing content to spread your message and attract new customers.
The Gatherer
You love to curate and facilitate groups for connection and conversation: communities, retreats, events. There is likely not a firm promise or an outcome, simply a premise around which to gather people who want to learn, share, or connect more about the subject. Your primary focus is on how to structure the community, build rituals and rhythms, and ensure engagement while maintaining a strong culture and norms - and at the same time, attracting new members. While you might have some courses and recorded content, the focus and sharp point is on the community itself. The structure accelerates connection between members, not just from member to the leader. The business model shifts from evaluating the individual transformation/delivery and starts focusing on how the community is structured to attract, onboard, and engage its members without substantial churn or community degradation.
Examples: Interest-based communities (e.g., around mindful productivity or shipping your creative projects), communities of practice (e.g., a community for Independent Consultants), retreats, events/conferences, community-organized masterminds
The Teacher
Your mission is to guide your clients to either an outcome or deeper learning through skills, content, or a framework. You’ll make your money by growing your audience via content and by selling related products (templates, tools, courses, books, self-guided or cohort-based programs). You have to balance three priority areas: content development, student experience, and audience growth. You’ll spend time curating your insights into saleable content but equally as important is designing the learning experience. You’ll spend your time defining your onboarding, accessible content delivery for different learning styles, live session management (if applicable), and how your students will actually do something with what they’re learning. You might need to train anyone delivering your material. Especially if there’s a specific outcome that can be “achieved”, you’ll need a continued inflow of students so the third pillar of your time is spent building your audience.
I put group coaching, teacher-based masterminds, and cohort-based courses in this model. In group coaching/mastermind models, the live calls are actually more comparable to live discussion of course concepts instead of 1:1 client-led transformational coaching (because I don’t believe that’s truly possible in a group). You may even have a community as part of a cohort-based program, but the primary draw is the course or content, with community being a wonderful way to embed the learning.
Examples
Content Only: tools, templates, digital or physical books, self-guided or evergreen courses, content-only memberships, curated resources
Content + Interaction: cohort-based programs, course-based platform with a lightly-moderated online group, group programs with hot seat coaching, teacher-led masterminds, content-based courses with office hours
The Edu-Tainer
You’re still creating content that distributes your message online. But unlike the Gatherer or Teacher models, you’ll make your money by growing your audience and primarily monetizing your content through sponsorships, advertisements, affiliate revenue, books, paid content, and speaking. The activity can vary widely here: you may take 2-3 keynotes and travel around the country to speaking engagements, or have a podcast/YouTube channel from your studio and create content multiple times a week. Especially if you’re going digital, having a strong distribution platform is required. Your work is not just on making your craft more engaging and compelling, but how that you reach those who don’t know you, such as your authority-building book or social media channel.
Examples: Speakers, YouTube stars, monetized video/audio/written content through ads, affiliates, sponsorships, brand partnerships, or user donation (paid newsletters or Patreon model)
The Brand Model Businesses
This model is the maturation of the other business models. Once you’ve refined and “productized” your process of how you work (delivery-model) or refined your content and teaching style (creator-model), many business owners start actually selling the brand. Instead of working with clients or creating new content to sell directly to individuals/companies, you’re training others to deliver your frameworks or you’re selling/licensing/franchising your intellectual property. I call this the “brand” model because the transformation/results can no longer be dependent on the original creator; the material/process has to be turnkey for someone else to work with your IP and expand the impact beyond what you or your company could personally deliver. It’s the logical extension of the teacher model, but the primary customers deliver your framework to others versus being the primary end consumer. Your mission becomes expanding your brand, improving your IP and certification programs, and enrolling new licencees/franchisees/certification students.
Examples: Certification models, licensee or franchise models. Examples include Donald Miller’s StoryBrand, Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead program, Geno Wickman’s EOS Franchising model, Gary Keller and Jay Papasan’s The ONE Thing certification model.
But I have more than one of these models!
Hybrid models completely exist. “Creators” can have a membership, be an advisor, and have courses. Consultants who primarily make their revenue through delivery can also make money through books, courses, and speaking. Brand-based businesses can still make money speaking or with advisory or cohort-based teaching programs.
But all of these models require different methods in your business.
Even within the “creator-based” models where the primary technology might be an online course/community platform like Circle, how you market, price, sell, structure, and deliver a community is different in crucial ways than how you do those same activities for a course-based model.
There’s a cost-benefit tradeoff when you’re adding or shifting models, as each distinct model you add increases the overall cost and complexity in your business.
I see businesses adding on business models to generate more revenue: a content-only course adds a cohort element or group tier, or a creator adds a VIP level with personal advising. That switches the game from audience building and teaching a course to moderating a community or having more personal knowledge of each person’s body of work. This also incurs a shift in the cost and time model in your business - what investments you need, how you spend your time.
Or a 1:1 coach decides to move to a group/teacher model. That can add “scale” but comes with the cost/time impact to distill your frameworks into content, thoughtfully architect how your group will engage with you and each other, and increase your audience size with more marketing.