What is urgency?
There are times in business when you need to pull out all the stops to bring in clients, launch the program, launch the website, book the speaking gigs, make the money to fund a marketing activity, etc. And it’s all out urgency. Then there are times in which you focus in on consistency, sustainability, and peaceful progression.
One is not good or bad, right or wrong. The empowering part is choosing. When you are aware of right where you are and what your focus is, you can bring joy to total urgency, and joy to peaceful allowing. The struggle comes when you think you should be one way and you’re not lining up with it.
I spoke with a VIP Day client the other day who is waiting to get all her ducks in a row to start spreading the word about her new business. For her, the urgency needed isn’t in bringing in the clients, or even in lining up the ducks. The urgency is in creating the experience of being someone who lets her ducks be scattered and serves clients anyway. The struggle was in not being AWARE of her true limiting pattern.
The next client I spoke with was feeling a huge urgency to make sales. So much so that she was actually willing to look at the Truth about why she wasn’t making them. She wasn’t reaching out to anyone because she had no habit and therefore no experience of reaching out. Why? Because creating a ROUTINE of making calls felt so confining that she would do anything to avoid it. It wasn’t even the calls – though that was scary, we’d worked through it. It was the ROUTINE that felt like death as she was fighting against a former belief that routine would make her boring, trapped, and a whole host of other negative consequences she’d experienced earlier in life. Lack of AWARENESS was her limit.
I subtitled this article “It’s not what you think.” Because whether you need to change your sense of urgency, your brand advocacy, or your business model, it’s the AWARENESS of the real problem, or lack thereof, that is holding you back.
ADVOCACY
Recently I was with a bunch of friends and there was lots of buzz about the series, “Orange is the New Black.” I thought this must be something everyone knew about but me, like housewives and Kardashians. Turns out, there was one person at the party who was in love with the show, and had told so many people in one hour that I had the perception I was the one who was in the dark. One advocate created buzz.
With advocacy for your own business, brand, or offerings, the same can be true. See, we assumed it was a great marketing campaign, hitting everyone with 7 strategic touchpoints, that created the buzz, but it was one person in our crowd. You don’t have to execute every possible marketing approach to create buzz about what you’re doing – you need to design so that your message so perfectly hits home with a few people that they can’t NOT tell everyone. I’m seeing advocates pop up for my SMALL RETREAT MAGIC series and most people even tell a few friends. I didn’t engineer that. Advocacy just happens with great insight into the who, what, and why of your offer.
People want buzz, or advocacy, for their offerings, of course. Trying to use all possible marketing touchpoints to create buzz for something that has no alignment doesn’t work. True advocacy stems from natural alignment. Start with your AWARENESS of who your offering really speaks to and why, and arm those people with the Truth that will spread like wildfire.
BIZ MODEL LIMITS
My favorite awareness gap to help a client identify is one that has to do with a limitation in their business model. Why? Because they are the easiest to fix. And often we aren’t AWARE when they sneak up on us, so we are solving different problems instead!
What is a business model limit? If you want to make $100K per year, you can effectively serve 2 new clients a month, and you are charging $2500 per client, you have a business model limit. Your 24 clients can only yield you $60K. You’ve got to raise your rates, or become more efficient so you can serve more clients in order to hit your goal.
I hit my business model limit in a similar way. A couple of years ago, I’d built a steady, solid business doing things a certain way. Offering specific entry-level retreats to lead people to my work and then bringing them on mostly as 1-on-1 clients. For me to have the life I want, serve my clients the way I want, and deliver the effectiveness and value I want, I recognized I needed to move to more of a high-level group program.
I knew this at some level and had been thinking about it without great urgency. And I hadn’t solved my business model limit. I clearly remember one week where I had a handful of conversations with potential clients, and most of them did not lead to a clear, decisive conclusion of buying or saying no to my programs. This was an unusual problem for me, and was out of alignment with my commitment.
When I looked deeper I saw the answer. I’d hit my business model limit, and I hadn’t adapted to my new reality. Not because there wasn’t a solution, or that I wasn’t willing to do what it takes, but because I wasn’t AWARE of the real limit. [Many of you know this led to the Amplify program and I now have two very specific gateways to access time with me, and I love it!]
I’ve given some vastly different examples here, but they all have a common source – the root issue is generally not what you think. When you create AWARENESS of the root issue, you’ll be delighted in your own solutions!
If you are ready for support in discovering your root issue, let’s talk about how we might work together. Email support@alignedentrepreneurs.com and someone from my team to reach out and explore.