#147: Behind the Scenes of My Business Model
Are you a business owner or marketer who is struggling to create a profitable business model? Don't worry - we've all been there! Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a budding content creator, or even an experienced business veteran, finding success with your own venture can often feel like navigating unknown terrain. With the right strategy and approach, though, making smart decisions about how to structure and grow your company can be easier than it seems. In this article, we'll take a look at the key steps for creating an effective business model that works for both you and your customers. So let's get started!
RESEARCH WHAT TYPES OF BUSINESSES ARE SUCCESSFUL AND WHY
If you're looking to start a business, the key could be understanding why certain businesses are successful and which business models tend to bring in the most profit. Looking into business that have already found success is an ideal way to determine what business model works best for you- it gives you insight into business strategies that have been tried and tested by established companies. While there’s no guarantee of success, researching what types of business others have made into successful ventures could be a valuable step in your entrepreneurship journey.
Here are five types of business models:
1. Franchising: This type of business model involves a franchisor (the company) granting franchisees (individuals or small businesses) the right to use their brand and operate under their business model in exchange for an upfront fee and/or royalty payments.
2. Subscription-based: A subscription-based business model is one in which customers pay a recurring fee (usually monthly or annually) to gain access to products or services.
3. Online Marketplace: An online marketplace is an ecommerce platform that allows multiple sellers and buyers to interact with each other, such as Amazon and eBay.
4. Dropshipping: The dropshipping business model involves a retailer (the company) selling products to customers without actually owning or stocking the products. Instead, they partner with third-party suppliers who handle all of the fulfillment tasks, including warehousing, shipping and returns.
5. Multi-Level Marketing: A multi-level marketing (MLM) business model involves sellers recruiting other sellers to sell products and services. With each sale made, the seller earns a commission and the recruiters earn a portion of their recruit’s sales.
CONSIDER ALL THE VARIOUS ASPECTS THAT GO INTO STARTING A BUSINESS, SUCH AS LICENSING, LEGAL MATTERS, TAXES ETC
The thrill of starting your own business can easily be overshadowed by all of the tedious tasks associated with it—from marketing and branding to securing the right licensing, dealing with legal matters, and figuring out taxes. But it's important to remember that these steps are necessary in order for your business to really take off. And while they might seem daunting at first, once you understand their necessity and importance, they become a part of the exciting process of owning and running your own business.
ANALYZE YOUR MARKET - WHO ARE YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS AND WHAT DO THEY WANT FROM YOU
Understanding your avatar is an important part of a successful business. It’s not enough to know who your customers are; you also need to understand why they need your product or service and what they expect from you. An avatar is an imaginary representation of the perfect customer for your business: it takes into account their age, gender, lifestyle, interests, and needs. Analyzing your avatar can help you unlock insights about your ideal customer, create more targeted campaigns, and better serve their needs. Knowing who you’re working with can help make sure that every campaign or product release is well-received by the people you’re trying to reach.
DEVELOP A UNIQUE BRAND IDENTITY THAT SPEAKS TO YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Crafting a unique brand identity is essential for any business. It requires taking the time to create an avatar for your target audience and a road map that speaks to that audience in an authentic way. By incorporating a feminine, casual, and witty tone of voice, it becomes easier to set yourself apart from others in the same industry while still providing unique content that stands out. Doing so allows customers to recognize your unique brand and encourages loyalty amongst future followers –– something every business strives for.
PLAN OUT HOW YOU WILL MANAGE FINANCES, MARKETING, SALES AND CUSTOMER SERVICE
Without a plan, operations get chaotic very quickly! Planning out how to manage finances, marketing, sales and customer service is the key to success in any business venture. You need to draft a gist of exactly what your operations will look like, set goals for each area (finance, marketing, sales and customer service) and then develop strategies for each to see it through. Consider what are your operations objectives, what resources will you require and who will be responsible for these operations? Once that's established you can layout the timeline for execution and begin tackling the operations one step at a time. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing all the operations come together like a well-oiled machine!
ESTABLISH A PRICING STRATEGY THAT WORKS FOR BOTH YOU AND YOUR CUSTOMERS
Neither customers nor your business should miss out when pricing; that's why establishing pricing strategies is key. It's like a delicate dance between the two parties, where pricing is kept fair yet maintains the profitability of your business. A good pricing strategy should consider customer needs and expectations, while also weighing up your own price points to keep the lights on. After all, pricing has an impact on everything — it can drive profits, market share, new customers and much more. As such, being strategic with pricing calls for getting creative – whether it be discounts and offers or simply finding the sweet spot in pricing overall.
Listen to the Show:
Laura 00:00
Over the past few months, I've been head down hard at work in anticipation of what promises to be an exceptional year for our consulting company. Our fractional freedom coaching certification program has already seen impressive success. And we have currently at the time of recording half our seats sold out before you've even begun the official launch. With consulting revenue already exceeding budget, it's super exciting period of time for the company. And we are looking forward to tremendous success along the growth path. And as we look into the future, I really want to share with you what I'm doing in order to position my company for success from where it is today, up until a projected over 100% year over year growth rate by the end of 2023. I've got an action plan. And I'm eager to show you how we are going about things. So, let's get started.
Laura 00:53
Welcome to the Next Level Leap podcast. I'm your host, Laura Meyer top growth strategist to some of the country's fastest growing brands, and mentor to consultants. My signature leap methodology has changed the way 1000s of companies look at growth strategy, and this podcast shares, best practices and inspirational interviews to help you make that next level leap in your business. Stick around and join me as I share the journey of how we as founders can multiply our income impact and influence by landing on the other side of our next big leap. Let's go.
Laura 01:33
So with all this talk of rapid growth and 100% year over year growth, one thing I'm adamant about is making sure that results come first, which is why I'm not going into a lot of detail on the specific metrics that would light up an Instagram post, but wouldn't necessarily give you the information that you need to know whether or not this is something that you could implement in your own business. But what I can say is that when I was previously overseeing a $3 million business that I owned and grew from the ground up, it still didn't have anywhere near the profitability that my company has today. So, with that said, I'm in the process of scaling up an organization to the seven figure mark and beyond. And I'm doing it in a very unique way in a way in which I'm making some very careful decisions about exactly what we're doing. And I think it's going to be helpful to you no matter what the stage of growth your business in. is
Laura 02:38
One of the reasons why I'm recording this podcast is that some people have been checking on me because I've been so quiet and head down. They've been asking Laura, are you okay, I know you left the advance Are you pivoting? And the truth is, we're more than okay, this has been an incredible time for the business. And I'm so excited to share with you what we're up to. And some people even said, like, oh, my gosh, what you're doing is fascinating. Do you have a podcast where I could learn more about what you're doing. And so, I figured I would
make one. So today I'll be exploring this unique business model from how it functions to the breakdown of my team, and how we're dividing out revenue and effort. So come along with me as I take you through this journey. Before we even get started and what things look like today, it would be really important for me to also share that my journey to success has included some major obstacles and hardship. And I'm super proud of how far things have come. But it's also important to take this into consideration. So, you can have perspective on where my path has taken me to this point. So just the short version is that over two decades ago, I started out in the photo industry, and I developed a broad breadth of expertise. So, while some of you might recognize me as a consultant, or a membership site owner, others might remember me from the early days when I first started out in my photography journey, if you are one of those people, let me know I'd love to hear from you.
Laura 04:03
And starting from humble beginnings about 20 years ago, I worked so hard I started out at the very bottom of the ladder in the photography space and devoted myself to becoming one of the most sought after wedding photographers in the Philadelphia area over the span of about eight to 10 years. I had a skillful eye and a way of connecting with people as well as a creative flair. That helped me just rise to the top of that industry where I was able to capture some of the most special weddings. And my work was sought after by some of the country's premier wedding planners. I'd photographed celebrity weddings worked with big planners, and it was so fun. But after getting married in my early 30s I decided it was time to start a family and I started dreaming about having children and I started thinking about maybe changing my business model a little bit so I could be home more often.
Laura 04:59
And so that's when children's portraiture really started to become part of my life. And a lot of my wedding clients started also having children and that that was really fun to get pulled back into their lives. It's such an important time. So, while the initial success of my concept in Philadelphia was really based in wedding photography, I started one children's portrait studio and then another, and then I was approached to expand. Some people wanted me to bring the business to their area through licensing, and as I did more research, I decided to open a franchise. As a result, before long, we had set up shop at 12 different locations across the country in major metropolitan areas. And things were looking great until circumstances shifted.
Laura 05:43
After about a decade and a half of being in the photo industry, and at this point, I was much more of a CEO than a photographer, I was running a multimillion-dollar company that was 75 employees brand wide. I started to witness the shifting tides in the photo industry. And I started feeling very uncertain about our future. I was noticing not only the rise of technology, disrupting the way in which our clients were perceiving our products and services and the value of our
products and services. But I was also noticing more and more online providers product providers coming in offering really high-quality canvases and albums at a fraction of the price of our studio. More and more people were coming in, they didn't want the products that we were used to selling them at a premium price. They only wanted a few digital files, and I saw the writing on the wall. So, I tried to transition our company's revenue structure to a more diverse set of offerings. And I really struggled with it for about a year, I eventually sold a location, close the other and dissolved our franchisees into various license agreements.
Laura 06:56
I truly had no idea what I was going to do next. And honestly, it was one of the darkest periods of my entrepreneurial journey, our family experience total loss, we had to sell our home for cash flow. And not only that, but it highly impacted a lot of people that I care deeply about investors, franchisees, team members, and I felt so guilty for bringing people down a vision that didn't come to fruition. If you had asked me while I was in it, there was no question in my mind that that concept would grow to hundreds of locations across the country. And I would be exiting to private equity or venture capital, and that everybody would be set up for success, and it would be a winning business model. So, once I realized that was not going to happen, and I spent some time unpacking all of that, ultimately, I needed to forgive myself. And that was the hardest person to forgive, I forgive could forgive other people for contributing to some of the pain that we experienced. But one of the hardest decisions that I had to make is to let it go within myself for the pain that I caused my family and the people that I loved. And during that time, as a result of the reputation and connections that I had in the franchising industry, I sort of fell into consulting. It wasn't something I was planning on doing long term because I very much see myself as a creative, visionary type. But the consulting created a lot of fruit. I enjoyed talking about business again and getting excited about growing a business. And come to find out I had learned a lot about growing a business. And that 15-year period when I was in the photo industry.
Laura 08:41
As I was building my consulting business, our lifestyle quickly transformed from feeling so stressed about what we were going to do next financially into a business that really created our dream lifestyle. Were able to purchase a home in a beautiful area of Pennsylvania where we now live and love every single day. And while growing my consulting business, it gave me the freedom and spaciousness I needed to embark on a journey of healing and self-discovering. I took advantage of every resource I could like therapists, life coaches and other self-help material. And this experience of diving in was so valuable because it allowed me to gain insight and how I could better move forward in the future and prevent any type of heartbreak like that happening again. During this time, I made some promises to myself. And the first is that I would never allow myself to go through a slaughter like that, again, as an entrepreneur if I could help it. One of the things that I realized in retrospect is that I was swimming upstream in
terms of the market conditions and moving forward, I would only let natural demand drive growth for my business. And those last few years of running the portrait studio and even opening new locations. It sorts of felt like I was swimming upstream. I was selling things to people that they didn't necessarily want or had budgeted for, and the marketing had become much more of a push strategy than a pull strategy. This was a nuanced shift. But in retrospect, it was something I noticed and was very much concerned about. I attribute this shift to changes in technology and the availability of online products. But I also promised myself to stay flexible, and never try to play that game again, where you're up against a changing tide, I only want to be where there's natural demand for the services and products that I'm selling. And if that's no longer available, it's time to play a different game.
Laura 10:37
Second, I promised myself that I would never choose a business model, again, with such little room for error. And to me, this is a tremendous benefit of having an online business. Because the truth is, even if we reached half our launch goal at any given time, we would still be wildly profitable. If you reach half of your revenue goal in one month with brick and mortar, it could be deadly. So, this was a major shift in my thinking and making sure that I always had room for error, and margin for things to go wrong. Finally, I promised myself that I would let this terribly challenging experience become a story in which I could help others. Because the truth is success is a lousy teacher, and I experienced a lot of success in a 15-year period. Yeah, there were challenges for sure. And if you asked me at the time, I could have told you about all the hard things I went through. But I had never experienced anything so challenging in business. And I promised myself that once I unpacked it, I would use it every day to benefit others. There is something that can only be learned through the wisdom of experience. And I lean on all of those extremely challenging times to help my students and the organizations that I consult with in their big decisions.
Laura 11:54
So, during that two-year period, I was consulting as my only revenue stream, and I was very happy. Honestly, I didn't have any big plans for anything else to grow, but a few opportunities presented themselves. The first is that I started a membership called the advanced women's expert network with my former business partner, Kelly Roach. And at that time, I was able to share with others what I had learned about relationship marketing during my 15 years of being in business. As I started to reflect on not only the positives of that business, in addition to the negatives, the more recent pain, I had realized that I built that entire company with no paid advertising, it was all organic and relationship traffic. So, there was a lot that I could pay forward in that experience. The second is that people were starting to ask me how they can have a business like mine, and they started to ask me, Laura, can I pick your brain, or she can we have a coffee chat. And the truth is being a premium consultant isn't necessarily something that I could teach somebody over coffee, or even with a small chat over zoom. There were
tools and systems and processes that I was developing and had perfected over time, that needed to be part of a program if I was going to teach it at all. So, I sat on that for about a year and eventually saw the opportunity in the market, I was a little slow to jump on it because I had gotten myself to such a safe and secure place financially. And I didn't want to rock the boat. But about a year ago, I finally made the decision to launch a consulting certification program, just as a beta test without any long-term commitment of doing it again, or offering a program beyond that.
Laura 13:40
Come to find out I really love giving other people the opportunity that really saved me when I was in a tough place and entrepreneurship. And I was able to bounce back fast from one of the hardest times in my life. I also found it so rewarding to help some of the people coming through our program just fast track the things that I had to figure out the hard way. And by the end of the beta program, most of the people in it were asking what would be next they weren't ready for anything to end. And I didn't have much to sell them. So, I put together a mastermind and let them know it was a beta. And now I have a consulting certification, and a mastermind for consultants. The Mastermind has evolved over time. And it's been really fun. Because there's a lot of nuanced elements to being a consultant and this is where I can help them problem solve some of the challenges that inevitably come up as you start really getting into the thick of things when delivering consulting.
Laura 14:42
At the same time that consulting certification was growing. I was having to turn down consulting clients simply out of capacity. My associate consultant on our team Sarah was being groomed to take on her own consulting clients, which was a really nice arrangement as I was training her and creating an opportunity to be developed within our organization. Then, one of my mentors, when I worked in private equity came to me and said, Laura, I have a nonprofit project for you. It's through Notre Dame University, and I really want you to try it out. I said, no, I'm good. I don't do nonprofit; I don't know anything about it. And I wouldn't have the faintest idea where to start. And he said, Trust me, this is something you'd be awesome at, you should do it. So, I said, Okay, I'll take one project. And then one project turned into two. And now we're on our third project, working with Notre Dame University's lab for economic opportunity, on scaling, promising nonprofits so that they can increase their impact and eventually grow across the country.
Laura 15:48
Notre Dame was so happy with the work that we're doing together that they came to me about six months ago and asked if we could take on not just a few clients at a time, but 10 to 12 clients at a time in the spring of 2023. And then in 2024, they wanted to know if we could handle 20 to 25. Well, that was well beyond what Sarah, and I could handle. So, I said yes.
And now we're getting ready for this first group to onboard in April. And this isn't something I couldn't have planned on I There's no way I could have written this into a business plan. But when it came our way, I felt so called by God to walk through that door and serve the nonprofit clients in a way that we had found to be successful in the first few organizations that we've helped with this year.
Laura 16:38
So, by now, you might be thinking what ended up being an obvious solution for all of us in our company. What was initially a capacity problem ended up being solved by the spontaneous mastermind that I put together last year as our mastermind students who will be fulfilling the consulting projects as part of our contract with Notre Dame. So right now, during this time of recording, I have been heading down, I was ruthless with eliminating some projects that didn't have anything to do with the focus. I exited myself from the advanced sold my shares to Kelly and I've been extremely focused with my own habits, systems and routines to support the focus of growing both the consulting certification and mastermind, as well as the support systems that we were required to enable our scaled consultancy to take off. I've turned down podcast and speaking appearances and coffee chats. So, I could go all in on hiring and training our team and setting up the operations system to support this ecosystem. So here we are with a certification in a mastermind and a scale consultancy, which on the surface could look somewhat complex. And that is something that I was initially concerned about, and I have a bias for simplicity. But what's really exciting is that the circular ecosystem really works. This is where we've been using the tools, templates and resources that we developed for our clients with our consulting students. And then we use our consulting students to fulfill on the consulting projects. The cons, of course, is that they're two very differentiated revenue streams with different marketing systems, business development activities, and different operations. One runs a little bit more like an agency model, and the other runs like a traditional group coaching program. But the beauty is that it's a very flexible model so that anytime we can shift with economic conditions, or the demand of either revenue stream might change at any given time, and it is something that we can adapt to easily and quickly. The other con is that requires a heavy focus on team and operations and operations is not historically my strong suit. So, this is where I'm spending most of my time. Right now. I'm hiring a Director of Operations, we're operationalizing and Systemizing, everything that we do in our organization, because the revenue for the most part this year is set. We have our contracts with Notre Dame, we have our regular fractional come consulting clients, we have our mastermind payments that are pretty much secure throughout the end of the year. And the only variable is fractional freedom, which will only launch three times and we have a high interest list for that program. So, the revenue is pretty locked in. And today I'm spending most of my time on Program Design Thinking out long term business development into 2024. Ensuring that our mastermind students are well equipped to deliver on the enterprise projects. And that is something that I'm spending a tremendous amount of time and focus on are fractional freedom launches tend to
go well because the scarcity and urgency we cap our program at 20 students to make sure that everybody has an optimal experience. And the circular nature of this entire offering mix is very effective. Active,
Laura 20:00
Even though it's two different revenue streams. What's nice about it is that I'm also a coach that actually does what I'm teaching. And that's not always the case. And it comes in really handy when I use myself as an example, in training our students. The challenge to this model is that I'm often feeling pulled in different directions, especially being a mom to young children, I think it's natural to feel like that even with just one revenue stream never mind two. Additionally, the team has been divided between the two revenue streams and which I'm working on, I'm in the progress of creating a vision where specific leaders will own each revenue stream. So, the division of attention does not end up hindering growth. The bottom line is this is a little bit more complex, and how I typically like businesses to operate. And like I said, I have a bias towards simplicity. But I also feel very called that growing both of these businesses simultaneously, is an amazing opportunity in the marketplace, and the pros outweigh the cons.
Laura 21:05
So, as you can imagine, these past few months have been a lot of work. I've been hiring and then rehiring. And once I've got the right people in place, we've been working diligently on our systems. But it promises to be an exceptional year, our fractional freedom consulting certification program has had impressive success. It's an awesome program. And we are growing and growing in interest. And it's just such an amazing sign that we've already filled half the seats. And at the time of this recording, we haven't even launched yet this year officially. And with consulting revenue already exceeding budget, it's just shaping up to be a great period of time for the company. So, we're looking forward to so much more success as we continue down our growth path. If you want to learn more about our consulting certification program called fractional freedom, you can click in the show notes or visit get fractionalfreedom.com to get on our waitlist. And if you've gone through anything challenging, like what I shared, I would love for you to message me and let me know. I want to leave you with this quote from Elizabeth Lessor. That helped me a lot when I was going through my most challenging and darkest times. She says, "I've found the changes I feared would ruin me have always become doorways. And on the other side, I have found a more grateful and courageous self." That is how I feel in this moment. Grateful, grateful to you for listening, grateful to God for opening up these opportunities and grateful for just so much good that is happening for our company right now. And I feel courageous. For a few years, I was not very courageous, I was healing, and I was spending time in places that felt safe and secure. And that's okay, if that's the season that you're in right now. But now it's time to spread my wings again, it's time to see what we can do with this incredible company that has given us so much and to empower other people with the
tools and resources that we've been able to develop from all of the tough, tough lessons learned over the years. So, I hope that you've enjoyed just behind the scenes of my business model. Let me know send me a message and I'll look forward to hearing from you soon.
Laura 23:18
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The Next Level Leap podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.