Ep. 218 Mini-series 3 Business model

Do you have a plan for the successful operation of your business? In today’s episode, Anna looks at the 3rd pillar of building a life outside of the 9 to 5, choosing the right business model.

*Resources mentioned during the episode*

Outside of the 9 to 5 – Your practical guide to designing and building a profitable business that gives you freedom, flexibility and fulfilment. outsideofthe9to5.com

Business model

Hello, and welcome back to the third little episode and our mini podcast series all celebrating the five pillars and the launch of my book outside of the nine to five. So I hope you’ve grabbed your copy, I hope those of you who jumped on my invitation earlier in the week already have received your copy. And I hope you’re excited to get stuck in for the rest of you, you can pop on over to Amazon, you can get the paperback at special half price discount now for the pre sale period. And then we will be going up to full price. You can also pre order the Kindle at the time of recording. And if you listen to this later in the year, you can probably already buy the Kindle version. So that’s good news. So pillar one on Monday was finding your definition of success. Pillar two yesterday was cultivating confidence and resilience.

And pillar three today is choosing the right business model. So, you know, I talked already in the last couple of days on how important those foundational modules are.

Because I’m sure a lot of you will say, especially if you’ve been in business for a while, yeah, yeah, I know all that, you know, I just want to get into the the meaty bit, right, but I say don’t do it. And you haven’t been able to do it this week, because I’ve been drip feeding you the content. But I really asked you to when you get your book to trust me trust the process and start from pillar one. Now, it’s not that actually the chapters are sequential in a way that they’re they take you through in a very logical sequence. But in ultimately, you’re going to have to end up working on all five pillars in parallel, right. However, having said that, one and two really lay the foundation for everything else. So it’s tempting to jump into pillar three, the third section to look at a business model, but you won’t get anywhere productive. If you haven’t done the preliminary work. And I take it from me take it from the experience of my clients as well. So you start with pillars one and two, they lay the foundation for everything else that we’re looking at in pillar three and beyond as well. So, you know, as impatient as you might be, too, if you’re starting out, get your business up and running. Or if you want to make tweaks already to your existing business model, just know that, you know, you will get better results if you really do that work to first truly understand what you want out of your business in life, which is pillar one. And then we can work out how we’re going to get you there.

And then secondly, make sure you’ve got the right mindset and the confidence that is going to help you achieve your goals. Right. So assuming that you’ve then worked through one and two, we can move to choosing the right business model based on your vision. Now, if you’re just starting out, that’s exciting, because it means you have a unique opportunity right to design this right from the very beginning. On the other hand, if you’re already in business, you can actually consider then how you might want to pivot to tweak your current model, develop different products and services, and so on. Now, if you don’t do this work, if you don’t get clear on the business model, unfortunately, a lot of people skip this step.

The risk is that you’ll end up copying, you know, other gurus and coaches and trying to implement their blueprint for success. And the problem is that they may have a completely different set, I’d pretty much guarantee that they have a completely different set of life goals and financial objectives, they’re definitely going to have a different set of skills and interests. And their definition of success is not going to be the same as yours. Now alternatively, and I mentioned this earlier in the week, you might create an accidental business model, where you haven’t been intentional and making choices that are going to actually serve you in the long term. So you might end up working with the wrong clients as it were, you might replicate the patterns from your corporate work, work. And then your business is actually not going to end up being enjoyable or fulfilling, right, so you might as well just go back to your full time role.

So choosing the right business model is fundamental as to whether you’re going to actually experience that freedom, flexibility and fulfillment that I’m always talking about that right model is a model that suits your practical parameters, your personal preferences, your lifestyle aspirations, your income criteria, all these things, right.

And that’s what we’ll look at, in this third section of the book on choosing the right business model. Now, by the way, I should say at a higher level, the kind of business that I’m usually talking about that I tend to favor is a service based business where you are an expert, right? It’s easier if you can call it that, to hit the ground running with a service business without the investment in tools, inventory, storage, and so on that you’d need for product business, a product business usually takes three years on average, to break even and become profitable. So here I’m really talking about freelancing, you know, you’re selling your services to other businesses or individuals, coaching, consulting, so you’re providing guidance and support in your field or specialty, teaching what you know, so packaging up your expertise into workshops, courses, programs, and so on, right. These are models where you can leverage your existing skills, experience and network. You might also and of course, I mentioned this, it was one of the sections of my previous book, leaving the corporate nine to five, you might consider a portfolio career where you’re actually doing a combination of these as well. So we’re getting super tangible now. And the first step of this pillar is to get clear on your criteria. So before you even consider any specific business model, you need to know what your criteria I say based on your big picture vision and so when everything that’s important to you, you then define criteria so that you can assess the different ideas and options that you have.

Then we’ll look at identifying the ideal clients that you want to be working with.

One specifically, we’ll look at two categories. So we’ll look at companies, b2b or business to business. And we’ll look at individuals what we call b2c or business to consumer. Next, we’ll, again super tangibly look at developing the products and services that are going to bring all this to life. And that means that you have actually something to offer those ideal clients that will bring in the revenue you want. And then finally, we’ll look at designing your bigger ecosystem. And that what that means will become very clear. It’s a term we use a lot in my corporate days for sort of a brand ecosystem, but it’s really all the different touch points, all the different things you’re creating, and how your customers and clients are actually interacting with you. So that’s pillar three. So again, to recap the four steps here, getting clear on your criteria, identifying your client target, creating your products and services, and mapping out your ecosystem. Now, I should say, I might as well now that we’re halfway through the week, that if you are finding that you want more support, this book, in a way, is a companion or sort of a version of my business academy. So the Business Academy is a self directed course self paced, self study, whatever you want to call it, that walks you through these four steps on each of the five pillars, videos, interactive workbook, exercises, and so on. Right. So that’s a great resource. It’s, it’s a perfect partner really to the book, if you’re finding you know, I love a book and I love working through a book.

But you know, if you want it to be brought to life, get the real interactivity and structure and the workbook again, to work through, then the Academy is a really great options. That’s one step outside.com, forward slash course, one step insider comm forward slash course, to read more about that Academy, and which again, is sort of a companion in a way to the book. And it’s definitely the next step from from the book if you want to take it further. Because you know, I am so happy and excited. And it’s so rewarding to publish this book and I so hope it’s going to be valuable as a resource. But it’s one thing to read a book, of course, it’s another to actually implement it and the course will help you do just that. So that’s it for today, the third episode of this little mini podcast series, we’ll be back tomorrow to look at pillar four, which is building an effective personal brand. So I’ll see you back here then. Bye for now.

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