As promised in my last article on here (which, if you haven’t already read, go give it a read!), I have a business question for you.
Now, disclaimer, technically, there is no right or wrong answer. Which is the beauty of business, right? There is never a right or wrong answer!
So here’s the question (or situation, should I say):
Imagine you have a business providing marketing services for lawyers. You have one VA on your team who works for 10 hours per month. Your revenue is $5000 per month and you have 5 clients. You feel overwhelmed and underpaid so you’re having a strategy session to fix this. Where would you start?
- You start with hiring more help for your team. You need other marketers to pull you out of the weeds.
- You start adjusting your pricing and raising rates or refining the scope for your current clients.
- You create a passive income product to generate revenue whilst you focus on client work.
Let me know in the comments where you would start!
The truth is, all of these could work. But they are also all going to take work.
Let’s take a look at each option:
Option A- Hire more help. This means you have to create a job description and start the hiring process or start interviewing multiple contractors to find the right fit. From here you also need to make sure you have an onboarding /training process in place so that your new hire can support clients without your constant help and supervision.
Option B-Adjust and raise your rates. You’d have to start by reviewing the scope of your work and figuring out what a suitable price would be. You’ll also need to review client contracts to look at what you are tied into. Next, you’ll need to talk to the client and there’s always the risk you could lose the client so you have to be prepared for that.
Option C- Create a passive income product. Passive income is great but anyone who has made a passive income product knows it is anything but passive initially. You need to create the product, market your idea and have a system in place for it to truly be passive. This could include webinars, paid ads and automation.
So yeah, all of these take a LOT of work.
But that is the point. There is no Staples easy button in the real world.
It is important to understand that every answer (in this situation and in every other business scenario) comes with a set of steps you’ll need to complete as the leader of your business. Even not doing anything is a decision.
All of these decisions lead to other mini decisions.
This is why a good plan is instrumental for the success of a business.
Like I said in my last article, the best way to make a plan is to establish your overall vision and create goals to support this by identifying the pillars you need to focus on.
The reason it’s important that everything you do ties back to your larger goal is because as your business grows, what you have to do and how you act may change, but your vision will stay the same. So centring goals around that vision will keep you on track!
Now, the key part is aligning your vision and prioritising your goals.
Say that part of your vision is that you want a large team but right now it’s just you. So you need to be looking at a few different pillars of your business to achieve this goal such as:
- Your offer/product suite to see what offers are working well and to see where your margins are good.
- Your team so you can look at the type of roles you’re bringing in, whether that’s subcontractors, assistants or anything in between.
- Then, of course, your financials are going to come into play. You need to be able to afford to hire and pay a great team well.
So if your vision is having a big team, you need to keep in mind that these are the core pillars you’re going to be continually looking at!
Once you’ve established this, you’ll need to look at a few things to be able to prioritise how you work towards this goal in the most efficient way.
The biggest thing to think about is what has to happen now and what needs to wait.
This will help you prioritise your goal and the things you need to get done sooner!
Because let’s be honest, running a business is a lot like being a parent, the work is never done. So you need to get good at prioritising.
You have to take it bit by bit. Or as I would recommend, quarter by quarter.
My advice is to break down your goals, then prioritise what needs to happen first and find quarterly focuses. Find a couple of goals that align with each quarter’s focus and create an action plan of smaller steps to achieve these goals, one quarter at a time!
And remember, it’s okay to make a decision that may be perceived as a backwards step IF you can see the long-term benefits and it aligns with your overall vision.
The main takeaway from this?
There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to business, there are simply things that need to be prioritised over others to help you set goals that align with your big vision.
Do you agree?
Let me know in the comments (along with how you’d tackle the situation above!).