AKA: How I make life more juicy!
One year ago, a very pregnant me had her nausea subside and energy return. Fuelled by the looming, unimaginable change on the horizon I made a big decision. It was time to level up in my business. I want to show my daughter that anything is possible. I also want a business that could support greater balance with family life. My business at the time was already intellectually satisfying and creatively fulfilling. I wanted more from it and to do that, I had to develop myself as a founder.
Fast forward to today and both myself and my business are in a radically different place – even though half of this time has been on maternity leave.
From a Business Design perspective I’ve already worked with many different scales of business. I’ve also worked with businesses that are transitioning between sizes. What I needed to learn wasn’t how to run my business – it was how to run me! When at a crossroads, it’s the visionary at the helm that decides where to go. If there’s a problem in my business, it comes back to me and my mindset. I am my businesses most important asset.
I started by talking to people who had recently made this transition themselves. Most people had worked actively to up level. A few had it thrust upon them with a moment of rapid growth. Even they said they had to work actively, otherwise they would have wasted all that potential and stopped growing. That's what I wanted to hear, because it meant this transformation was within my power.
- Surround myself with many of these people
- Learn actionable techniques
- Applying my learnings.
Here’s what I discovered
Invested wayyy more money in my business
WHY
I needed to make investments to get returns on those investments.
THE OLD LEVEL
I had been and had been surrounded by, a lot of small business owners who hold the belief that doing everything yourself or very cheaply is the only option or a sign of being savvy.
HOW
- Looked at my strategy for where I wanted to be
- Identified gaps in the how that I couldn’t fill – whether through skill or feasibility
- Invested in experts to fill competence gaps. Invested in people to delegate work to. Invested in systems to automate repetitive tasks. Invested in software to deliver on key components of my strategy.
THE NEXT LEVEL
This freed up time, put money in my bank account, ticked tasks off my list and injected my business with the fresh expertise it needed.
Said goodbye to my lowest value segment
WHY
To make the most impact I need to focus on the people who are ready for transformation.
THE OLD LEVEL
Spending time and energy prioritising people who will not prioritise themselves. The only big transformation a low value segment could experience is one where I would run their whole business and make it successful, probably for free. I needed to get off that treadmill.
HOW
- Identify the common threads among all my buyers that: (if service) spend the least money while asking for huge results (if product) buy the cheapest things but want the best experience
- Removed the offerings that only this group go for and updated the remaining offerings to best serve my highest value segment
- Raised my prices. If I’ve leveled up, my income should also.
THE NEXT LEVEL
Self love is the real winner here. I no longer spend time answering lots of insignificant questions or trying to prove myself to people who would never hire me at a proper rate. My high value clients already know my magic is what they’re looking for. They trust themselves to do their part so they know they’ll get the results. The ease and abundance is yummy.
Practice what I preach, no exceptions
WHY
It’s a win-win of me getting the full benefit of my own talent and impacting others in my orbit when I show them what’s possible.
THE OLD LEVEL
What if I make a mistake doing the thing that I am an expert in? Why I ever chose to do something poorly or not at all within my zone of genius is beyond me. Fear is a terrible leader.
HOW
- Make the time
- Do the things
- Thrive.
THE NEXT LEVEL
I have now joined my clients in getting to experience my expertise. I have fun doing it because I love it. I get the VVIP treatment of getting to try out new things on myself before anyone else. I lead by example and that is so much more potent for everyone. It’s cool to look back even a few months and see how far I’ve come.
Spend as little time as possible depleting myself
WHY
Every second of my time is important and I should get to choose to spend it, intentionally, how I want to.
THE OLD LEVEL
Effort. Striving. Trying to lift up emotionally draining personalities leaving me in a negative space long after. Letting time sand activities (emails, socials, you know the ones) occupy a higher priority than they should.
HOW
- Learned about boundaries, both with other people and with myself (for tasks and life)
- Implemented boundaries that were right for me. Stepped away from people and tasks that weren’t right for me
- Take a longer moment to identify red flags so I can avoid depletion.
THE NEXT LEVEL
More peace, less frustration. More energy, less anxiety. More joy.
Cultivate a bias for action
WHY
Strategy has no value without results, and that comes from implementation.
THE OLD LEVEL
Strategy is my comfort zone – I enjoy it and I’m good at it so of course I like to hang out there. I also believed that I needed more time when what I needed was to shift the ratio of strategy to action. Funnily enough, acting brings results which actually makes more time.
HOW
- Track how long I spend on the strategy and execution phases
- Actively reduce the strategy component
- Get myself into a creative flow state quickly whenever at work
- Kept this top of mind so that old behaviour didn’t creep back in until the new habit was formed.
THE NEXT LEVEL
I get success not just strategy. I get to harvest not just sow. I can see my businesses cup getting filled in real time.
Looking to the future, I’m already ready for the next level up. The space I’d like to reach looks like this:
- Enabling my impact to reach scale
- Having a system where I only work directly on dream projects, nothing else
- Bringing my ultimate product to life. Including backing my ideas and going the investor route. It will take longer to get to market but when it does, it’ll be a life changer from the get go.
I’ll report back to you when I get there. 😉