I don’t know about you, but to my case I have always felt like I was born an entrepreneur. This means even the professions I have, I practice them as entrepreneurship. So, I have the audacity and all rights shade some light on this topic. To get to the topic faster, most professional based entrepreneurs struggle to make a financial breakthrough with their business, some stop on earning enough to pay the bills and the story ends. Having been a victim of the same at some moment, I found it important to shade some light on the topic. Let’s move faster!
Poor business model – if at all they do have.
If you are not an entrepreneur, I know we shall argue about this, but the reality is that the foundation of every great business is a great business model. To make things practical let’s learn what a business model is. Common definition via Wikipedia explains that a business model describes how an “organization” creates, delivers, and captures value, in economic, social, cultural or other contexts. If you keenly read, I quoted organization, this means business models are well implemented in a structural setting of a team. Most profession based entrepreneurs like coaches, consultants, accountants, bloggers, lawyers, etc. don’t have any experience running a real business, they have knowledge but not experience.
They are a one man show and one face hustle. It’s not their fault, it’s not like this is taught at university where they graduated and they likely either worked for someone else in a corporate environment where everything that wasn’t their responsibility got taken care of, or they might have mastered one aspect of a business like PR and marketing but once they become the entrepreneurs they realize too late that they need to master much more than that one thing.
Most don’t have a business model that can leverage or build continuous momentum to get out of the dreaded inconsistent business of professions. They just land on gigs and then get stuck and eventually either go broke or quit to try to get a real job again.
I have built countless business models and I have consulted for countless coaches and consultants, and I can tell you the impact of a business model. 8/10 professional based entrepreneurs don’t even know what a model is. They just drift. Don’t be like them!
The Qualification syndrome
Name them all, from all sections, coaches, trainers, accountants, etc. fall into the trap of feeling like they need to take their qualifications as a big deal, they spend too much time proving to be the guru, and feel everything needs to stem from their qualifications entitlement rather than knowledge delivered. The truth is, nobody cares how many degrees you have, how big your brand is, or whether you have all the accreditations and academic qualifications unless all that delivers a solution to them. Get me well, Qualifications matter but when the work gets rolling, what customers care about is if you can solve their problems, period. And to do that you just need to throw the hat of qualifications and noble motivations and just have to be committed to solving people’s problems. Fold the sleeve and focus on what matters – addressing customer needs. That’s how referrals are built. Customers shall only refer a person who solved their problems with ease, no one will refer you just because you have a Ph.D. or what accreditation unless all that is attached to a huge skill popular for easy and great service delivery.
Drifting instead of mastery
“Jerk of all trades, master of none”. – I guess you ever heard of the saying. You don’t have to be an implementor or expert at everything, don’t practice the superman syndrome; Marketing, sales, team building, leadership, systems thinking, to name a few all require you to master not all of them but how they work, simply put; management of those who run them.
You need to master what you can master and outsource what you can afford at the time. Don’t drift at many things and end up mustering none. You can be good at branding but suck at mobilization, don’t make your energy drain while drifting. Master a thing do it, influence other master do what you struggle with too, that way the hustle shall be productive beyond measure.
Insufficient & ineffective focus on business Development
You all know this. It’s a huge blow and hard reality to get to terms with. Any profession based service is a business regardless of its nature. Even a freelancer have got their operational expenses. We all know a business can’t exist very long unless it makes enough money to cover its expenses and turn a profit. And in order to do that, you have to be able to market and sell your products or services more efficiently than the vast majority of others out there in the competitive marketplace.
You will believe me that most profession based entrepreneurs are still trapped in the myth of ego and they market small, or sometimes if they do, they do in a sucking way. The trends have changed. Marketing in this noisy world must be taken on deliberately, else the aggressive street chaps will take over. No wonder you see unqualified men and women running errands that used to be for high end law firms. Because ‘most’ lawyers, minus the regulations of their industry, they still don’t know how to place themselves up for business.
The world is noisy more than ever, and you can’t just make it by keeping the siren mute. You need to fill that gap, regardless of the niche you occupy. You need to be SEEN, HEARD & Eventually paid. there are a whole lot of things to do to get there and i share some in my book GET SHAP (Get Seen Heard and Paid) Get the Book HERE Now.
As a professional based entrepreneur, you need to get over any fears, misconceptions or false beliefs about marketing and sales, you need to break the myths. Positioning, branding and marketing are the skills that any entrepreneur MUST master in order to find any level of financial and business success in the professional world. You are not a professional to just make money for bills, but you also need to buy that uptown building block, build a home and have a wealth of your own. So, Get SHAP!
It’s a simple creative thinking approach. Don’t be a dud. Invest in learning what it takes to turn a stranger into a happy, paying client with ease like the BIG Boys do. . It’s not that hard, but there is a right and wrong way to do it.
With my experience, I know for certain that marketing and sales makes all the difference between success and failure. Money can solve most business problems, and a lack of it causes most businesses problems. Simple enough.
Not having systems & Standards
Again, we must agree that any business requires systems and standards Lack of systems an standards can cause business fractures and bruises.
From documentation, quality control, records, customer interactions, transactions, regulatory requirements and so on, business regardless of their size require certain standards and systems fully functional to beat competition and have smooth productive operations. Systems and standards are an essential part of the business. Systems and standards are used by both small and big businesses to demonstrate their ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer and regulatory requirements under acceptable disciplines.
Fueling the rate race!
Hard to understand but if you talked to any professional based entrepreneur you will know what i am talking about. Some tactically spend time hustling to get clients, then get full and then get busy executing the obligations, and guess what? in that period they put the foot off the marketing pedal and all of a sudden as they finish the tasks they are back to zero again. Then takes more time without leads hunting for more. Get, cover previous idle time expenses, get busy serving them and rinse. Back to square one. You get it?
Instead of creating a continuous systematic marketing processes they keep in an unending rat race, starting over from square one each month and having many idle days. Just to remind you; every bill you pay is due every month regardless of whether you had work or not. Meaning any idle period you get with no leads, your future income suffers a deficit. Unsubscribing off the rat race is key to make the business work at times.
Unnecessary Skyrocketing
It’s like bringing a boiling electric kettle coil to warm or boil the ocean. Simply put most of these people have Huge and too broad offers. You must find a niche figured out to filter what leads to target other than burning resources and dropping here and there proposals that wont be received with recognitions. You don’t need to shoot the skies who birds are not impactful. Focus on your target areas with masterly as you build new ones. Don’t just dabble around.
