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Two options for scaling your business…

I wanted to do today’s short episode because I think it’s common for coaches in the online health and fitness space to create an offer, likely 1:1, have some success, and then be like, “Shit, what now?” Your roster is full, your time is spent, and you literally can’t do more work. So you can’t make more money either, unless you raise your prices. Which is fine, but what’s the end game?

That, my friends, is where scaling comes into play.

How we scale is to essentially replicate ourselves.

You scale a business once you’ve got a proven system or product that works. You can then scale THAT offer or product, or scale your business another way.

Today we discuss both options.

There are not only two ways to scale, but these are what I see most often. Especially in the online health and fitness space.

Think of a brick and mortar shop. Once they’ve nailed down their product or services, systems that work, and proven that what they have created is sustainable, they open another shop using those same systems.

Same goes for scaling your business. But we’re not opening another shop. We’re duplicating you or your process. Tracking?

Even if you’re not ready to scale now, you’ll want to be some day. Well, I can’t guarantee that either. But it is likely that you will reach a ceiling with a 1:1 service or even a single service that is not 1:1.

At some point you’ll need help. But which kind, that is up to you.

Option number one for scaling:

Creating an offer pyramid and passive income

We can continue offering value without increasing your workload by creating passive or partially passive offers. Aka building an offer pyramid.

The passive piece wins because it keeps paying after creation but is no work for you. Again, this doesn’t skip out on value for your clients. Just takes out the real time work for you.

Your second, third or even fourth offers will be something that your clients from your current offer would benefit from. These are what I call supporting offers. Which are valuable on their own, or in combination with your other offers as well. These do not compete with one another.

You never want a prospect to be confused which offer is for them based on the offer descriptions. Let’s make life as easy possible for potential clients.

Options we have here:

• Create a resource of some kind. This can be a course or educational PDF. For me think about the Big Lift Audit or Movement 101 on the fitness side.  And Instagram 101 on the business side.

• Or you can create an automated or mostly automated and streamlined membership. This is assuming you have a 1:1 higher touch offer to begin with. The membership would that system with less touch points and personalization. Again, for me – this is my Built By Annie Membership in fitness and FitsPRO Foundations in business.

When you begin to look at scaling, you should have a pretty freaking solid idea of who your target audience is and what they need or desire from you. You’ll know what they would find helpful.

Perhaps you’re marketing to an earlier version or a more advanced version of your ideal client for your current offer. Your ideal client in a different stage or level than what you are currently helping.

This is by no means a one size fits all deal. You have so many options here. But if you haven’t learned about your ideal client, this will be a challenge, and you’re likely not ready to scale anyway.

Whatever you choose needs to be scalable. That might sound obvious but you’d be surprised how many entrepreneurs don’t understand what it means to scale.

Look at the growth potential of the offer. Can 10 or 100 people join and it be the same amount of work for you? Or relatively close? Or does the workload increase but 10x when we go from 10 to 100 customers?

For instance with Instagram 101, no workload increases. Literally none. I could have 10 or 300 people in the course and nothing changes for me. There is NO live component to this.

With FitsPRO Foundations, there is still a Facebook group at a bare minimum. Managing a Facebook group of 10 is different than 100 but it’s not THAT much more work. Certainly not 10x the amount of work, right?

These are just some factors I want you to look at when scaling. Be real with the true scalability of the offer.

If you want to continuously scale, you’ll likely pay for advertising at some point. This might be far down the road. But still, you’ll need to be gaining prospects on a regular basis in order to have a pool of humans to sell to. This is money if we can make it happen organically at first. And of course this is my suggestion.

But once you get that proven system, have it scaled, and are successfully selling to your audience, you might entertain paid advertising like Facebook ads. It’s truly on par with the idea of replicating yourself with scaling.

ANYWAY – not the concern right now.

Once you’ve established yourself with offer #1, whether a course, or 1:1, or a membership, then build around that offer based on gaps you’ve seen in working with your ideal client.

That is option one for scaling.

Option two is…

Hiring coaches

Literally replicate yourself. But also, fill gaps.

This is applicable if you have a course, program, or system for coaching clients that WORKS and you want to provide the service for more humans than you can as a one person show.

Train up assistant coaches who believe in and can execute your system and philosophy. But you can go even further and bring on coaches who are not like you. Perhaps they specialize in a specific area? Or they have experience with a certain type of clientele. Fill gaps in your own coaching by hiring coaches that fit the mold and bring something essential to your team.

That way you can pair new clients with the proper coach based on the information gathered in your onboarding process.

There are logistics to hiring coaches so just be sure that you’ve had proper legal contracts drawn up, and know the pay split and payment agreement ahead of time.

Scaling is great but also has a learning curve, no matter which route you choose.

When hiring, you’ll want to get VERY clear what you’re looking for in terms of personality, education, certifications, and experience. You’ll also want to be crystal clear on your values and standards as a company.

If this is in the online space, what are your regulations for social media use and representation?

We just want to make sure your expectations and guidelines are written out very clearly. I can guarantee that you don’t want a high turnover rate of coaches working under you. So let’s get clear up front for all parties.

Those wrap up your options for scaling. From my point of view anyhow. Build out a team, go passive, or a combination of the two.

There is not one way to do this. But I hope these two options gave you some excitement and outlook on the future for your biz.

Review of the week comes from MelStebbs and says,

“Please do yourself a favor and follow this podcast. Annie knows how to simplify and breakdown the areas most entrepreneurs struggle with when growing their business. Every time I listen, my brain starts spewing content, info and questions I should have already been answering. Annie leads from experience and you can tell. All you gotta do is listen and implement.”

Remember you need to check the show notes (here) to see if you were review-er of the week, and then keep an eye out to see if you were listener of the month as well. That will be in the show notes and Annie’s Weekly Wrap. You can subscribe to Annie’s Weekly Wrap here!

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