“Get More Clients!” It’s the message that many marketers want you to hear.
Making money is, of course, an important function of your business but when the numbers in your bank account may feel smaller than you think they should be, money has this habit of taking up more of your attention (AKA worry, anxiety, feeling of lack) than it should.
It’s why I see, time and time again, business owners get hung up on the ‘get more clients’ marketing tactics and end up spending too much time, money and energy, learning how to do these new marketing ideas and processes (usually involving digital tools such as social media and funnels) that don’t make you any happier.
Of course, more money in the bank helps a lot with your finances, but have you ever stopped to consider what revenue will make you happy?
Happy Revenue was a phase that came up during one of our Momentum Pod Calls. At the end of each 90 Day Plan, each member presents their learnings and celebrates their successes. One particular member was sharing her learnings around her sacking a client.
This particular client was, on the surface, a big and important client and they were paying her a substantial monthly retainer. But the problem was that they were turning up to meetings late and sometimes not at all. They weren’t sticking to the project timelines and generally a pain-in-the-arse to deal and it was impacting how she was serving her other clients.
We helped her sack her client gracefully and professionally, and the difference this client sacking made was enormous; not only did she create the opportunity for a new and better client to replace her pain-in-the-arse client, she also stepped back into her power because she was no longer playing a servant role.
Happy Revenue; this is how Caroline, one of our members, described it.
Why chase the ‘get more clients’ story when actually it’s not MORE clients that are going to serve you.
In my book, True Profit Business, I take you through the four choices you can make to help decide which business model will suit you best.
1. What’s the role you want to play in your business; what’s the right balance of technician (delivering what it is you are selling) and manager (having associates or other team members being the customer point of contact)?
2. What’s the optimum number of clients; will you work best with clients 1:1, 1:Group, 1:Many or 1:Mass?
3. What’s the best delivery method; what’s the right balance of in-person, virtual or digital delivery that will allow you to deliver your best work, without burning you out?
4. Which selling system would suit you best; internet marketing, conversation marketing or a hybrid of the two?
These are the four profit levers in your business that can either help you grow, or keep you crazy busy, often with low profitability. They are your top four potential energy, time and profit drainers and/or energisers in your business, and they give you your True Profit.
However, there are no ‘most profitable’ or ‘easiest for you to make money on’ answers here.
Why? Because this is the BS that is being fed to us entrepreneurs right now; particularly those of you in the coaching, therapy and transformation professions.
Digital businesses that focus on having an internet marketing selling system in place and having hundreds of customers every year, can be highly profitable, hugely scalable and a lot of fun to grow and run. But for some people, there types of businesses can be hell on earth, drain you of money and burn you out. Just hearing the word ‘funnel’ is enough to freak you out!
The same goes for those of you who may have been told that selling a VIP or premium level of service is what will work for a business like yours; only to find that you are running yourself ragged, trying to prove that you are worthy of this level of pricing. For some, it doesn’t matter how good the advice is, if you haven’t done the personal development work or built up enough credibility, then you are going to feel extremely uncomfortable at selling at high prices, which is not going to make for an easy, simple business model.
You, believe it or not, have the choice on what’s going to work best for you, based on your own money goals, time needs, core values, personality and impact you want to make. And when you decide what you feel is going to work best for you, you then put in the right boundaries, processes, team and business infrastructure in place to support this.
Let’s tie this back to this phrase Happy Revenue.
I love this phrase and I wish I could credit the person who first came up with it for my client, Caroline, to have shared it in our call yesterday, but it seems that not even Google can give me any clues. (If you know, please let me know – thanks!)
It may become the title of a book I my write in the future if I could drum up enough energy to go through the book writing process for a third time! So for now, I simply want to gift these two words to you: Happy Revenue.
And I invite you to come back to the real reasons why you decided to start your own business. For some of you, you may have grown in confidence and ready to scale up your business to bigger revenues. But for many, starting your business was to give you a sense of freedom; freedom to earn you money in way that was fun, creative and gave you time to do what else you wanted out of life. And if your revenue has stopped being happy, then it’s time to take a breather and review your business model.
Of course, if you want help with this, then me and my coaching team are only a zoom call away. You can book a free True Profit Call to discuss your Happy Revenue potential with us right here.
