“Do you want to build a snowman?! Do you want to play outside?!” These are the words being repeated constantly by offspring this week while we play in the snow!
We commenced our annual snow trip on Sunday just gone and it’s ALWAYS an epic-ly LONG trip to get here! Between ‘are we there yet’ and ‘he touched me’ throughout the journey to cries of ‘OOH!! LOOK! SNOW!’ at the very first sight of snow spotted on the side of the road as we make our way up the mountain.
I’m incredibly grateful that I have built the business in the way that I have, so that we CAN take the kids out on holidays when we want to and STILL have the business-wheels-a-turning so to speak!
“How can I do that?” I hear you ask. Well. Here is the key:
Reverse Engineering
I can’t remember where I first heard this term – I think it could have been Danielle LaPorte, but I’m not 100% sure. Wherever it was that I heard it, I LOVE IT!!!! What you want to do is this: Work out HOW you want the business and your lifestyle to look in say, 12 months time. How are you working? Who are you working with? How do you want it to look?
Something I want you to realise right here, though, is that you may hit this goal BEFORE the 12months is up or AFTER the 12months is up. It’s not so much about the timeframe…it’s more about designing it how you want it.
And then we work backwards.
What needs to happen for you to be able to achieve your goal?
Let’s look at an example. You might want to be working 5 days per week solely online using Skype, email, videos and doing limited (and well paid) one on one work. Doing some consulting. Having some flexibility. You might think that by about this time, you’ll want a staff member….
What is the FIRST thing that you need to do to make this happen?
I would be breaking it down into chunks… I find that this can be easier if you work backwards.
1. I need to have an online Program to facilitate the information.
And THEN WHAT?! Then, you step into step 2 and so on:
2. To have an online Program, I need to sell it first.
3. To sell it, I need to have a marketing strategy in place so I can generate leads to fill the Program.
4. I need to know who I’m marketing to.
5. I want to know HOW what I am offering is going to help the people that I want to help.
So, the first thing I would do is start AT NUMBER FIVE not number one!!!!
I trust that this makes sense.
Once you have these 5 steps in place, you will be selling people into your Program and HEY PRESTO! You’re off and running!
*Hot Tip: Sell it BEFORE you create it. Simply create an outline for your Program, get some features and benefits ready so that you can match them to what your prospects are telling you that they want, and KABLMO! Once you’ve sold, THEN create your content. (Maybe set a start date of 10weeks AFTER you’ve sold your first one for your Program to commence.).
The biggest mistake I see SO MANY entrepreneurs make, is that they create the content for the ‘big thing’ or the program that they want to sell. And then they go out there and try to sell it….but can’t, for a multitude of reasons. And then, this product that they’ve poured their heart, soul, blood, sweat & tears into sits on the shelf (in the computer) almost blowing raspberries back at them.
Flip it the other way around and I promise that you’ll have a much better result!
Have fun with it !
For now, I’m off to decorate the snowman with the kidlets!
Nic x