Last week I hosted a live Q&A. One question that kept coming up was how to grow your business. Whether it’s more customers, more clients, or more email subscribers. Growing our business is something we all struggle with.
Keep reading for a summary of our last conversation.
How To Grow Your Business
Starting a home business is challenging. One of the biggest obstacles – after you’ve figured out your niche and decided what to sell – is finding your first paying customers.
Without income, you can’t grow your business. And so finding customers soon becomes a pressing need for all new business owners.
In this post, I summarize the four reasons why people struggle to get the results they want in their business. I also share what to do so that you can avoid making the same mistakes.
Reason #1: Not Offering Enough Value
One of my core beliefs is the importance of providing immense value to the world. The more value you put out, the more it comes back to you in the form of money and impact.
Now, in business terms, value means offering an outcome that people are prepared to pay for.
You must get clear about what you offer, who you offer it to, and why people should buy from you and not from someone else.
You must also be willing to go above and beyond for your audience – even before people start paying you. Think about how you can be the best at what you do.
I am constantly looking for ways to deliver over-the-top value to members of Business Growth Lab.
It’s my goal to create the best coaching and online training for new digital entrepreneurs. I know that when I do this, I don’t need to worry about whether I will get paid.
Reason #2: Failing to Communicate the Value
Most people I work with are good at offering value. My clients and students are heart-centered people who have a passion for their business. They love giving to others.
However, many of them are not so great at communicating what they offer. This is a skill most of us aren’t taught at school.
Take coaching as an example – coaching is one of the most valuable investments anyone can make. A coach helps you access your own wisdom, see your problems clearly, and identify solutions. With great coaching, you can achieve anything in life.
But despite this, you can’t simply sell “coaching”. Your ideal clients won’t instantly see the value in “being coached”.
Instead, you must spell it out for them using words they connect with. Start by answering this question:
What is the desirable outcome people can expect when they buy your product or service?
Here are some example outcomes:
- Losing the last 10 pounds
- Living another 25 years
- Earning $5000/month on the side
- Finding your first 5 paying clients
- Become pain-free
- Finding Mr Right
Note how these results are all sought-after by certain audiences. They are things that people willingly pay for.
Clearly communicating your value is a skill. And it can take a lot of practice to get right.
Be open to playing with your message. See what people respond to. Keep doing this until you land on the thing that gets you the results you want in your business.
Reason #3: Not Making Enough Offers
The next common mistake is not making enough offers. Most people give up too early in their business – before they’ve given it a chance.
You must be honest with yourself about the numbers in your business. And accept that they may be a lot bigger than you thought (or hoped).
You may need to make a hundred offers before you find your first paying customer (if you are making in-person offers). Or a thousand (if you’re relying on social media to spread your message). Or even more.
This isn’t a bad thing.
As you make offers, you get better at communicating your value (see reason #2). You also learn who responds to your message and who doesn’t. This helps you focus your marketing efforts where they are most effective.
All this takes time. So, be prepared to put yourself out there and spread your message as wide as possible. You may face a lot of rejection before you receive your first “yes”.
But that first “yes” makes everything worthwhile.
Reason #4: Getting In Your Own Way
This brings us to the last mistake most people make. We get in our own way.
We all have excuses for not taking the required action. Or for not doing it on a big enough scale.
Building self-belief is one of the three habits of successful people. If you want to grow your business, it’s something you need to get to grips with.
Here are some of the “reasons” for not doing the work that came up during our call. Note how real these all seem.
“I can’t market myself and also be authentic to who I am”
“I need to spend more time learning the skills before I can sell my thing”
“I don’t want to insult or annoy people by advertising”
“I have health issues that prevent me from doing all that I need to do”
“If I become more successful, life will become more chaotic and out of control”
“My product isn’t good enough yet”
“I need to move to a different platform”
“I need to spend a lot of money on technology to do what I want to do”
“I don’t have enough time to build my business while I also have another job and a family”
These reasons are excuses that hold you back from doing the work you are meant to do. Your brain creates these thoughts to keep you safe. To stop you from doing something new and scary.
They all sound and feel like valid reasons to stop taking action. But they are not. They are just thoughts.
Your brain is skilled at creating ways to keep you safe. So that you don’t go out there and do what’s necessary to create bigger results in your business.
How to Get Over Yourself and Grow Your Business
This leads us to the all-important question. How do you move past your limiting thoughts and grow your business?
First, you want to become aware of the thoughts that are holding you back. One way to do this is through journaling.
Write down all the thoughts and feelings that come up when you think about growing your business. Spend 20 – 30 minutes writing. Don’t censor yourself. Capture everything.
Now, read through everything you wrote. Be hyper vigilant for any negative thoughts and beliefs.
If you’re not careful, negative thoughts can sneak in there without you noticing. They disguise themselves as irrefutable obstacles or facts about your life.
These are the key to what’s holding you back from growing your business.
Finally, look for positive beliefs and feelings that will drive you to take more action. You probably already have some of these (mixed in with the louder negative thoughts).
Pull out any positive thoughts and build upon them. For example, you may think:
“I am smart enough to figure out how to earn an income from my business working X hours a week.”
“It’s possible I already know exactly how to earn $X in my business.”
“I am awesome at what I do and people will want to pay to work with me.”
Tap into how you feel when you think these thoughts. Maybe it’s “empowered”, or “committed”, or “determined”, or even “joyous”.
Find a positive thought you can believe in. And an emotion that works for you. Something that will drive you to grow your business.
Then keep practicing your new belief.
The bottom line is this. You can’t create results from a negative place. You need positive thoughts and feelings to drive the required action.
The fear may never go away, but the positive thoughts will carry you through.
Do this, and you can achieve the results you want in your business.
