One of the key principles I work with my 1-2-1 clients around is incremental upleveling (more of that in a mo) but in order to create a progressive business you need to make sure that you have covered the foundation pieces and that those foundations and brought together (again, incrementally) in order to grow beyond.  

Here’s this week’s episode.  

There’s absolutely no point in worrying about step 962 before you’ve taken step 1.

The creation of a solid foundation ensures that your business grows with ease, that things don’t become overwhelming and that you are in a position to step up from steady ground.

It’d be easy to roll straight into “you need to have something for sale and a platform to sell it from” as the definition for your foundations BUT the reality is that there’s more than that. 

1️⃣  What’s your mission?  

What are you seeking to achieve with your business?  What fills your heart with joy?  What is your rant/get’s your wholly passionate & engaged about what you do. 

This one sometimes get confused because people ask you “what’s your why?” and often that’s something that can embody numerous things and be very personal, from freedom to making your kids proud and could actually be done by a number of different ways.  It doesn’t anchor you to THIS business and in fact doesn’t need to be about business at all.  AND usually, whilst they are kids your children are often ridiculously unimpressed by anything that you do! 

Why do you do the particular things that you do do and what do you want to create in terms of an impact.   

2️⃣  Create a Credo 

This could be words or phrases, practical or emotional based that give you an anchor into what you and your business stand for. 

The quote goes “A Business That Makes Nothing but Money Is a Poor Business’ – Henry Ford. 

So this, coupled with the mission statement is your anchor into IMPACT! 

3️⃣  An Audience 

Bringing people around you who are interested in the message that you have to share! We are thinking an engaged and interested crowd.  It’s much better to have a foundation base that’s small but engaged than larger and ambivalent. 

4️⃣  A Fabulous Product/Service 

Yes, you need to have something available for sale.  You need to have something available for sale that you believe in and are confident of.  If you don’t believe in your product/service then it’s really difficult to market it.  If you don’t believe in you how can you expect anyone else to believe in you is the one-liner and that applies equally to your product/service – if you don’t believe in your product/service then how can you expect anyone else to believe in it too.   

This doesn’t mean you are doomed if right now that one has hit a bit of a nerve or that your confidence is currently in a bit of a dip.  This can absolutely be worked on.   

So, effectively – PASSION + AUDIENCE + PRODUCT = YOUR BUSINESS FOUNDATIONS   

Obviously the biggie beyond the olde PASSION + CROWD + PRODUCT needs to be sales and feeding into all of your strategies will be the path to conversion.  Now, that sounds quite harsh and a little passionless.  I’m not talking about your crowd becoming a herd of walking purses and you’re only target and aim being to sell, sell, sell as that’s absolutely not the case. 

Relationships are key.  

I often work with people who will tell me that they have followed my work for years before they have worked with me directly and that’s totally cool.  My mission is to help as many entrepreneurs are possible to unleash their awesome on the world and to create epic evolutions and transformations in all that they do.  

YES a business has to have a sales strategy 

AND YES a business is about more than a sales strategy at the same time 

BUT neither can exist solo.  

AND both are bespoke to the business and the person running that business.  YES, there’s principles and structures that can be frameworks for that individual strategy but I NEVER have 2 businesses running on identical strategies.  

So, what exactly are we looking at here; 

1️⃣  Your Crowd Biggering Strategy 

This is about bringing more people around you who love what you do.  Spilt into 3 main elements; 

a) Social Media strategy, to include a growth strategy & engagement strategy (read last week’s blog where we talk engagement >>click here<<) 

b) Your non-disposable strategy – social media is a fairly disposable medium.  Yeah, you can bag & reuse those posts but ultimately they whizz by, day by day and don’t really leave a blueprint for your business and aren’t always talking to people who are ready on in a position for their problems to be alleviated.  This strategy is essentially thinking about being found by the people who want help with that thing that you do.  

c) Your list building strategy – yup, it’s still relevant and important to grow your email list. 

2 out of the 3 of these strategies are more within your control and are people who are either raising their hand pro-actively to hear from you or are searching out exactly what you do (and therefore further along the readiness cycle to conversion = ready to buy).  Despite 2 out of the 3 being an ongoing and more sustainable source of work most entrepreneurs spend a staggering amount of time on the other one, the persuasion piece.  It DOES have it’s place but not to the cost of the other 2!  

2️⃣  Audience Nurturing 

We are talking relationship building, nurturing your crowd, taking care of them, staying in touch with them, allowing them to experience you and to lead them to the solutions to their problems. 

Some of this strategy will take the form of Social Media content, some in terms of email marketing/newsletters/staying in touch as well as funnels and paths to purchase.  Some of this strategy will also be based on the types of content you create and how you use that content strategically. 

3️⃣   Sales Strategy 

One of the most important and one of the most bespoke.  From funnels to launches, wave marketing for evergreen products (this is a concept I work with my clients to execute that involves waves of marketing something that is always available) to  making sure you’re sales copy is optimised. 

Sales strategy is the difference between getting the results you desire and deserve and, well to put it bluntly, NOT.  You’ll be amazed at how many people diagnose their product or service as being shit because they didn’t sell anything the first time they talked about it.   

4️⃣  Evolution & Development Strategy 

Each stage  is always incremental and subject to further tweaks and dial turns are you progress in your business.  I’ve talked stacks more about this one in the Incremental Uplevelling article (>>you can find that here<<) 

The image further up the article gives you some ideas of things to think about and there’s more deets in the podcast episode for you to get your teeth into. 

If you fancy a wee chat about where you are in your business and what needs your attention then whizz a little message over…