046: Starting A Business Doesn’t Mean Starting At The Bottom
Apr 08, 2024Episode 46
Shannon Stone
Decades of experience but one person starts a business and sells their services for an hourly rate, another sells thousand dollar packages, the difference is in this episode.
By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:
How the same level of experience doesn’t equal the same level of revenue (and why)
The decisions you can re-make that will influence the success of your business
Why today is a great day to reset your business and align you experience with your service offerings
Let’s not let another well-experienced business owner undersell their services any longer, enjoy this episode and don’t forget to share it with someone who’ll find it useful.
Decades of experience but one person starts a business and sells their services for an hourly rate, another sells thousand dollar packages, the difference is in this episode.
By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:
How the same level of experience doesn’t equal the same level of revenue (and why)
The decisions you can re-make that will influence the success of your business
Why today is a great day to reset your business and align you experience with your service offerings
Let’s not let another well-experienced business owner undersell their services any longer, enjoy this episode and don’t forget to share it with someone who’ll find it useful.
If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.
Shannon Stone:
H ey guys. Welcome to the podcast. Super excited to jump into this episode today.
Shannon Stone:
Today we are talking about why starting a business doesn't mean starting at the bottom, and this doesn't just apply to people who are just starting businesses, because actually it's funny that I'm talking about this, because I don't generally help brand new businesses, especially businesses or people who haven't started getting paying clients yet. There's a lot of reasons for that. I just find the best people I personally help are those that are a little bit more established. And you know, get your runs on the board first and then we can do a lot of magic together. But whether you are starting a business or you've been in business for a while. I wanted to share this episode because there are so many people that are in business and so many that I talk to that are so well experienced but, for whatever reason, they feel like they're still in the starting stages of their business, and this can show up in two ways, or kind of like two different categories. One is that you've been in your industry or you've developed your skills for 10, 20, 30 years and now you're starting a business or you are in, you know, the first couple of years in business. So there's that category of people. And then there's the other category of people that I talk to who are also extremely well experienced and they've had their business for 5, 10, 15 years or more and they're still feeling like, in some way or in many ways, they're starting at the beginning or they're starting at the bottom.
Shannon Stone:
So I wanted to share this episode and I wanted to talk about this today as a little bit of a shake-up, like a little bit to tell you that, tell you who you are, tell you how experienced you are and why this means you don't need to start at the bottom. One of the amazing things like to me this is. I find business honestly, like I keep telling people this is like a reality show, like I find this so interesting to watch and see how things play out. Truly the business geek in me. But one of the really interesting things that I find is how different people like some people will start their business or be selling their services, say, at like an hourly rate, like a hundred bucks an hour or you know more than that if they're feeling game, whereas some other people will start their business or start selling their services at five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand for their services or their packages, and I'm like I wonder what the difference is, and so I just want to remind you.
Shannon Stone:
It really comes down to the decision that you make. Where do you want to start? Just because you are starting out, just because you are at the beginning, in whatever sense that is for you, it doesn't mean your prices, your services, your packages, the people that you work with, they don't have to reflect that starting point. So you need to remember the skills that you have, and a really great exercise that you can do is pen to paper, write down all the reasons why you are qualified at what you do. And within this. This is not what I intended to share, but it would be a great action step. But what are the qualifications, what are the results? What are all the events that you've been to? What's all the upskilling that you've done? What are all the things, all the reasons that lead to showing you why you are incredibly experienced and qualified to be doing what you do? And then imagine matching that against what you're selling. Do the two line up, or are you selling your services well below where they should actually be?
Shannon Stone:
Now, I think a lot of the people that listen to the podcast are a little bit more on their way in business, and I want you to know this is relevant for you as well, because wherever you are on your business journey, just know that any point in time you can re-decide what you're selling, who you're selling it to, where you position yourself. And this is the conversation I wanted to present to you and this will be the action step. I want you to reflect and check in and say to yourself is this where I actually want to be? Because we can just repeat the same things month on month, year on year, be selling the same thing, same type of people, all that kind of thing and literally just stay in the same spot until someone kind of shakes things up a bit for you and says hold on, you're really experienced at what you do. You get the right people, the right results. The problem is you're not working with the right people. So that is what I wanted to kind of shine a light to in today's episode. It will be a bit of a short one, but if we put something tangible to this, one of the great things aside from doing that check-in based on why am I so good at what I do? Like put on paper the qualifications, the results, you know all the upskilling you've done, all the type of people that you've worked with, all those kind of things like get that underway, all the type of people that you've worked with, all those kinds of things like get that underway.
Shannon Stone:
But when it comes to your business, there's four things that I think when you make a decision around them and put them on paper, it takes you out of just being at that beginning stage, especially if you are that solopreneur. So number one is what are you selling? What is in your service suite? What are your packages? What are you offering to people? Like, work that out and put that on paper. It's not that you have to share it with anyone, but you need to take it from being this like fluffy thing or this thing that you're just testing and trialing all the time to like hard decisions around not that they're in concrete or anything, but what are you actually selling? You need to write this down.
Shannon Stone:
Number two is who are you selling to, and who really? Who is that ideal client that you want to be working with? Like I said a little bit earlier, it's that you can be working with the wrong people and that could be the reason your business is just not growing. So a check-in like this, like who are the real people that you should be working with? Are they the more advanced clientele, are they further along on their journey? And for whatever reason, you just picked more of the people at the starting point and that's fine. That served you up until now, but now we get to make a new decision.
Shannon Stone:
So number two is who are you selling to? What are those ideal clients? And then number three where are you finding these ideal clients? Get really clear and put it on paper Honestly. Any strategy works. You just have to choose one of them and fully get behind it rather than jumping from one strategy to another strategy, to another social media, to another person, to another, everything. So where are you finding your people? And get that really clear, get that on paper. I think you're probably starting to get a sense is that we just have to get clear, decide, put it on paper. It makes it a little bit more concrete, and these are the kind of things that help you to feel like your business is just not something that's pie in the sky, it's something really tangible.
Shannon Stone:
And then the last of these four things is what are you saying to people? So, when you are getting in front of your ideal clients and this can depend on what your strategy is as well what are you actually saying to them? So, if you find your ideal clients, you can find them on Google, or maybe you're going to purchase a database or maybe there's a network that you can tap into. So, once you are in front of them, what are you going to say or present in front of these people, these ideal clients that's going to initiate them having that sales conversation with you. So this is pretty open as far as what it could be. Maybe it's your crafting an email and you're going to follow up with a phone call or maybe it's some kind of more elaborate strategy, but you need to work out what are you actually saying to people and get this onto paper. So they're the four things.
Shannon Stone:
Now let's jump into the action step. So, overall, before we actually jump into the action step, it is just a reminder that wherever you are on your business journey doesn't mean you have to be at the beginning anymore. If you are starting a business, you don't have to start at the bottom. Think about all the years of experience that you have, all the know-how that you have, and think of the people who just decide from day one or from this day in their business that they're going to redirect, they're going to go after clients or selling packages at four and five figures, not at hourly rates, and it all comes down to you deciding what you want to do. You don't have to earn your stripes in business. I'd love to say that you do have in some sense. Obviously you do. You need to earn your reputation and build that, build your credibility and all those kinds of things. But you get to decide where you start with that and if you're really going to be starting at the granular down the bottom. At the hourly rates it's a very long climb up that ladder. So that's what I wanted to achieve with this episode just to shake things up a little bit for you and just to get you thinking about what the possibilities could be and that it's completely in your control. So to the action step. Really, it's not so much of an action as it is more of a check-in. So I want you to check in with yourself and where you're at in business. Do you really feel like you're still at the teething stages of business? If so, this is time to sort things out. You know you're way too good to be starting at the bottom or starting at the start or feeling like you're starting at the start.
Shannon Stone:
Sometimes a good little exercise that I do is just a thought exercise and just think okay, well, if I really had all my say ducks in a row can't say any other words on this non-explicit podcast, but say I had all my ducks in a row. What would that actually look like? If I was working with my ideal clients, what would I have to have in place in order for me to feel like I can achieve that? And it's a very personal question that comes with personal answers. The answers that I have would be different from what you have, and that is the whole idea of it. It's like what do you believe you need to have in place in order to achieve the things that you want to achieve? So it's a nice little exercise to think, okay, well, I don't want to be at the starting point anymore. I don't want to be working with you know clients who are struggling to afford for my services. I want to be working with these kind of people and these kind of clients. So what would that actually look like for you? And answer that for yourself, and then you've got a bit more of a plan to, you know, fill in any of those gaps.
Shannon Stone:
The last thing I will say on the action step really it is a thought exercise, but almost just another reminder for you that you know so many of the people that I work with. It's like you could be, or you could or should. I don't want to say should to people, but you could be working with you know clients who are well on their way Again, not at the starting stages. You know you don't need to convince people to buy from you. Look for the people who want your services. You know people should be lining up to do business with you.
Shannon Stone:
If you think about what problems you solve and how you help people, I'm sure it's a pretty hefty solution that you can provide to them. So let's use this as an asset for you. So I hope you found this episode useful and interesting and hopefully puts you in a positive redirection, if you do need it. If you know anyone that is starting a business, I would love for you to share it with them. I think if someone can hear this at the early stages in their business and obviously any stage, as we've discussed but imagine how much time they can save and also how much more they could be earning much sooner in their business as well.
Shannon Stone:
To tell someone from day one you don't need to sell your services at an hourly rate. You can think of well, who do you really want to work with, what are the problems that you're actually really good at solving, and can you attach a four or five figure price tag to that package? Because anyone can be doing that and it's the people who decide to do it that do it. So that's what I'm going to leave you with today. Definitely share this with someone who might find it helpful, and I'll talk to you on the next episode.