Now, probably trying to replace your employed income from quitting or so you could actually quit your day job. Now that's essential and regardless of what others may say about niching straight away, those people in my view are forgotten what it was like, the fact that you have no idea how you might pay your mortgage or your rent. How you'll pay for your food shop, your electricity or your water or whatever it might be in my view, the right way is, and always will be, --- unless you've already got a massive pot of money --- is to start by attracting as many different customers as possible.
The trick then is to figure out the right time to change tact;
leave it too long? You're just going to create a big headache for yourself as you've got too much work and not enough time to get it done.
Do it too early though, and you simply won't have enough money to pay yourself or at least pay yourself enough to pay your bills.
The best you can do, though, in my view is work out your survival income level, that level of income that you need in order to live an okay lifestyle for now, until you can start leveraging other people effectively through delegation and to level up yourself.
Now Mike's a great example. Mike won't mind me telling you that he struggled at first and he resist it. As is normal with many business owners, you're trying to do something so different to what has worked and got you this far.
So, Mike runs a custom window blind installation company, they supply and they fit made to measure blinds for the windows in your home, office, place of work. However, he had a premium product at a super cheap rate. His goal was to work less, however, by keep trying to be cheap and do a favor and be nice. He was constantly hindering this progress.
He was finding it frustrating as he wanted to spend time with his young children who were growing up farty fast and to be able to support his local church.
So, Mike had a business that really was ideal to focus on quality and convenience. This is the most common way, by the way. Very rarely. Is there a business owner of a service-based business, who wants to compromise on quality?
When it comes to between price and convenience? Usually, they'd rather focus on convenience and leave price as a compromise.
I'll talk to you more about this, the business triangle in a future episode.
Now, this is a crucial stage, if all you continue to sell is I can fit you a blind, but we added some key questions for Mike to use.
So let me give you an example...
Mavis is getting on a bit and from the questions you've asked, you have learned that in the afternoons, the sun comes in through the living room window and she struggles to read her books.
However, by that time in the day, she's tired. It's an effort to get up and go and close the curtains, in order to block out the sun, because they are thick and they're heavy. It all reminds her how old she is. Then it distracts her from her reading time. She does like the color of the curtains though, as they match the room.
Now we've got all this info, Mike, can I pitch the right solution.
"Well, Mavis." Mike says, “based on what you've told me, I'm confident you need these Venetian blinds. You see they're available in the same color as the curtains, so they can fit in with the current decoration and they are great at blocking out the light when closed, but you can allow light in through them when they're open.
On top of that, I can install an electric motor and an easy-to-use controller. You can open and close them with this simple click of a button. This gives you more time to enjoy your book, and you don't need to feel as old because not only do you not have to struggle getting up, but also because you are using a bit of modern tech and you can feel like the young ones too.”
Now you've completely changed here. What's being sold. It isn't a blind. It's a great solution to a frustrating problem. Now, not only have we done this with multiple clients, but we've done this ourselves too. You see, we used to be a tax return filing service. Now that it doesn't attract a huge price tag, it's not solving a big issue.
It's a form-filling exercise in the view of most people. Therefore, the value is pretty low. Regardless of the skill that's actually required to do the work.
Yes, there's hard work involved in it, but this change in the way that we deliver our services is called a value proposition. It changes the game. It separates you from the competition when everyone else is playing left to right. All of a sudden, we're playing up and down. And you become known as a problem solver, a thought leader, a guide to help people as that's what you do. And the best thing is all you have to do is ask better questions and then listen for the nuggets of gold. That is the information and the answers given.
Position yourself as the person who can solve that problem. If you genuinely can't solve it, then just say so, this isn't some kind of gimmick or route to be able to con people. It's a route to get you to position yourself correctly and charge what you are really worth.
Now if you like what I've got to say, and you really want to join more of this. Then look me up on social media or join my Facebook group.
It's called The Thriving Business Community.
Let me know what you currently do and how maybe you could reposition what you're offering to provide a better value proposition and deliver more value to your prospective and current clients. 📍
If you want to listen to this podcast Episode, go here or if you want to watch this Episode, go here.
Happy Learning! :)
