The number one reason your business isn’t generating the revenue it could be is that your business model is not set up to generate more.
People who earn more know a very important fact:
It’s easier to earn the second $50,000 than it is to earn the first $50,000.
Or the second $100k, or the second cool million.
In other words, once you’ve earned $50,000, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be earning 6-figures. The difference is that earning 6-figures generally requires leveraging your earning. It means no longer trading time for money. It means understanding what parts of your business can be duplicated over & over again with almost zero effort. It means finding a tipping point again, and again, and again.
You don’t have to give up family time to earn more. You don’t need to resort to shady promotional tactics or annoying affiliate campaigns. Instead, your business needs to embrace a better business model that is based on value & results, not time & energy.
If you’re putting too much work into earning too little, there’s a good chance your business is based on a relationship model.
Now, don’t get me wrong! Relationships are great. The human element is the most important element of any business. But here’s what starts to go wrong when you base your business on a relationship model:
Relational transactions happen most often in project-based or one-to-one client scenarios. The easy way to develop a relationship is with time, exchange, and getting-to-know-ya. You put your whole heart & soul into the process. Those relationships turn towards a transaction when you have something that fills a need for the other person.
It’s a feel good way to do business. But it’s a slow process. Each customer represents hours of time, loads of money (don’t think your social media use & Skype coffee dates aren’t costing you), and emotional stress waiting for those relationships to convert.
On the other hand, sales in transactional models come fast & furious. They utilize scale to generate the revenue that’s needed in the business. Transactional models are built on acute needs & impulse purchases.
The difficulty with this model is that it’s hard to achieve customer loyalty, harder still to truly delight your customers. Once a solution is purchased, there’s often no word from the customer to find out if it’s working or not. And this type of business might leave you scratching your head, wanting more.
In a perfect world, there would be a sweet spot between transactional models & relational models.
Not to get all Dr. Pangloss on you, but the New Economy just might be the best of all possible worlds.
There is a sweet spot. There is a way to build a business that takes your big ideas and your brilliant products to scale in a way that makes each customer feel special and singled out.
Your customer understands that you are doing business with him in mind, that your business is geared to her success, and that you have a vision for how his life can be better.
Leveraged income isn’t outside the customer relationship cycle. It’s an integral part of it. You don’t develop leveraged income opportunities to generate money where before there was none. You develop leveraged income opportunities to solve problems for people you care about, over & over & over again.
If you’re making $10k, $20k, even $50k per year, you’re already solving problems for people one at a time. To make the jump to your dream income, your goal is to solve problems for people 10, 100, even 1000 people at a time.
Don’t fight your desire to forge & foster relationships with your potential customers. Just realize that you can serve more than one person at a time. In fact, you owe it to your customers to do just that.
