The One Question That Is Changing My Business
Who’d have thought it would only take one simple question to unlock the next phase in my business? It’s one of those “yeah yeah, it’s that easy, ok then” kind of claims. I have never been a fan of the “one thing” narrative because it puts us on a quest to find the one thing forsaking all others, instead of experimenting and finding magic in a mixture of ingredients. Also, it’s just too simplistic. There’s never one thing, but a finely balanced system of lots of little things. But really, this one question started the engine that would elevate my ideas and business to the next level. It is the one question that is changing my business.
Let’s recap. If you’ve read any of my blog posts this year, you’ll know that a big focus for me was moving from a mostly one-to-one business model (i.e., most of my income came from clients), to primarily one-to-many (most revenue coming from courses or groups). This was something I had lots of blocks around, from the psychological (“why on earth do I think I deserve to do this?”) to the practical (“how on earth am I going to do this?”). My heart longed for an existence that was appointment-free, my head wasn’t entirely sure it was possible but decided to humour my heart and step in if it needed to.
There was a false start in the development of the plan. There is a very narrow model for online education businesses, just as there are with products or other services. If you have a product business, the models for you are to become a factory or stay where you are; if you work one-to-one, you can keep upping your prices or shift into group programmes. In online education, you do social ads, grow a huge mailing list, and sell your core courses three times a year for $300. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat. That is the dominant model we see for a functioning one-to-many business, so that is what I was pursuing.
But I didn’t feel very motivated by it, and that was because I didn’t want to do the things it would take to have a business like this. I wrote about this at length in this post about making peace with my audience numbers – I didn’t want to churn, I didn’t want my courses to be impersonal, I didn’t want to have to worry about how many people clicked on a thing. That took the traditional education business model off the table and left me a gap to fill. If I wanted small volumes and few launches, the question was really, “how do I do one-to-many in a one-to-one way?”. How do I create a one-to-many offering that is marketed and delivered like a one-to-one service?
The first idea I had was to bundle up all my existing courses and Kits into one product that you could buy. That would solve the perpetual launching problem because it would always be for sale, and people could still get it. It also meant I could do things on a smaller volume because the bundle would be priced higher. But, as you can probably tell, I didn’t feel excited by this idea. It felt transactional. It didn’t feel like enough. It felt like what it was: the first solution that came to mind. That idea was set up to meet my pain points, but not anyone else’s – so why should anyone else be interested. If I wasn’t excited, then no one else will be. So I sat with the idea for a while, waiting for inspiration.
And here is where we come to that one question.
I did a course over April with the Do Lectures, about writing but also about having big ideas. In a lesson about developing ideas was the prompt: “what is the bigger problem?”. Behind the product, behind the mild inconvenience, what is the bigger problem that the customer is experiencing?
My idea of the bundled products wasn’t working because it wasn’t addressing the bigger problem. It was treating a symptom of it, by providing know-how and tips to get over the bumps in the road, but it wasn’t getting anyone up the mountain. I realised this was another iteration of my adage “there is a difference between what people want and what they need.” What people need is not the course or the expertise or the know-how they think they want, what they need is the permission to do things their way. All this time, I was looking at solving the symptoms, not the cause. My courses and Kits all address the symptoms of not knowing what to do in business, but why is it that they don’t know what to do? What’s the reason behind the desire to learn more about marketing? A lack of self-trust.
The bigger problem is that the world is full of women who have unlearned their instincts and spend their days full of worry, uncertainty, and pressure. The bigger problem is that they don’t trust themselves to run their business from the soul outwards.
On a subconscious level, that’s what it had always been about anyway. I was always scraping around the outskirts of this idea, like an archaeologist digging in the sand when the pyramid is right there – I just needed to look up. To stop scrabbling around in all the activity, ask myself “what’s the bigger problem here?” and then craft the most beautiful solution.
I’m now on the home straight, working out the solution. I’m excited by it, and I’ve been honing it. And I’ll be showing it to you soon. If you want to be sure not to miss it, make sure you’re signed up here (and you’ll get my free workbook too).
