I'm back, answering another of your questions to help you confidently launch your own service-based business. If you’d rather watch/listen instead of read, then click here to watch a video over on my Insta page.

This series is for anyone who is in the very early stages (or even just at the idea stage) of starting their own business that offers a service rather than a product - so coaches, mentors, wellness practitioners, course creators etc. 

The question I’m going to be addressing is, “HOW CAN I WORK SOLELY IN MY BUSINESS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE?”.

This is a topic that I love talking about because the answer that I give usually isn’t what people expect to hear. I’m not going to be talking you through top business hacks to earning six figures in six months or how to on-board a huge number of clients as quickly as possible. I’m not going to be telling you to do these things because they might sound enticing in the short-term, but they don’t lead to real results for you or your clients.

So, what am I going to say? Well, first off, I’m going to flip the whole question on its head and ask, why does working solely in your business and only earning money through your business have to be the goal? And if it does have to be the goal, why does it need to happen as quickly as possible?

My argument is that there’s actually a huge amount of benefit for you, your clients and ultimately your business in taking your time and maybe always working in a hybrid way or as a multi-hyphenate - a person with several professions or skills.

So, let’s explore this idea…

Working solely in your business and only earning money via your business rather than from a range of sources is often perceived as the ultimate goal, because that’s how we measure the success of our business and as a result, the value or importance of the work we do in our business. 

It’s not surprising that we hold this view because of the capitalist system that we live in - productivity is centred over everything else and this is measured in money, therefore our concept of how productive we are is measured by how much money we make (time is money, right?) and how much money we make links to how successful or valued we feel as a person. 

But, I’d like to encourage you to reframe this idea by instead of focussing on how you can work solely in your business as quickly as possible, lean into all of the benefits of taking a slower, more intentional, hybrid or multi-hyphenate approach to your business.

Before we get into the benefits it's important that I clearly state two important points. First of all, it’s a myth that building a business and earning significant amounts of money from your business is quick and easy - this is a marketing ploy to get you to buy into quick fix business coaching. And secondly, whether you’re earning your money solely from your business or from a number of sources, you are still a valid business owner, that's a fact!

Now that's out of the way, let's explore the benefits of hybrid working...

Hybrid working removes financial pressure. Building your business alongside other work gives you financial freedom as well as mental freedom that can really help your business flourish by allowing you to get really good at what you want to do and the service you want to offer your clients. For example, if you want to coach, it allows you the time and space to harness those skills alongside earning a regular income. This is really important because so often new business owners focus solely on how they can earn as much money as quickly as possible, instead of the value of what they are able to offer their clients. Not having to worry about how you’re bringing money into your business is a great opportunity for you to hone your skills which will ultimately enable you to show up confidently and actually have a positive impact on the lives of those people you work with.

Removing financial pressure allows you to stay true to your own personal values because you’re not being forced into a position where you have to earn a certain amount of money from your business in the early days in order to pay your bills. This is a brilliant position to be in and instead of seeing it as an annoyance, I really encourage you to see it as an opportunity, because it means that your business can grow and evolve organically which is more likely to be fulfilling for you, instead of it growing and evolving through fear and anxiety driven by the fact that you need it to bring you a certain amount of revenue each month. 

You will have time to explore and experiment with your offerings, skills and ways of working. You can start by working with one or two people and gather feedback as you go along so that you can tweak your process and ensure that it offers the result you promise to your clients. This is a great way to ensure you're operating from a place of integrity instead of putting pressure on yourself to bring on 8-10 clients straight away (which is difficult) and not really knowing whether your programme or process will have the desired impact.

Embrace the opportunity to genuinely build and connect with your community. This is vital because as a business owner, you need to have an engaged community that trusts you and sees value in your work. This doesn’t happen overnight as it takes time to demonstrate that you have skills in a particular area, it also takes time for people to get to know you and feel that they would like to invest in the services you offer. Just because you have decided that you’re ready to launch your business, doesn’t mean that people have decided they would like to buy from you. This is one of the key reasons I am always very dubious about business hacks and short-term business coaching programmes, because all of this stuff takes time, you can’t shortcut it.

Connecting with your community can look like chats over DM, offering free sessions, running free masterclasses, reaching out to people over email and not with the intention of selling them anything, as well as engaging with other people’s work. Have real conversations so you can really understand what the people you want to work with are actually experiencing and how you can help them. Not every conversation needs to be about selling, you should also have a genuine interest in working with your people so there should be a natural curiosity to learn more about these people - more insight will also mean that it’s more likely you’ll be able to offer a service that has real value to the people you want to work with.

More freedom to make changes to your business as you go along because you’re taking a slower approach. When your work is an extension of yourself, it will change over time just like you do. If you have pushed yourself to very quickly earn your income through your business, you may not have given yourself the breathing space to see if this is actually something that works for you. If you’re back-to-back with clients very early on, there isn’t the room to change what you offer or how you work because you’ve already made a commitment to them. This can lead to you feeling burnt-out and resentful in your business, regardless of how much you’re earning, which I can bet are all of the feelings you definitely didn’t want to feel in your business. 

All of the points above and so much more frame the work I do with my client's as part of my 12-month programme, The Portal. I’ve got two spots opening up very soon, so book yourself a call with me if this sounds like something you’d like to explore. I also offer single, 90 minute coaching sessions that you can book here.

Let me know what you thought about this blog in the comments or drop me an email. As always, I want to keep this conversation open so any other thoughts or questions you have, I’d love to hear.

I’ll be going live on my Instagram page to answer more of your business related questions, so make sure you’re following me there so you don’t miss it.