Part of our journey to start a holistic business as a service professionals is the movement from doing everything our self – being the ‘Jack (or Jill!) or all Trades’ – to finding who can support you and learning what you can outsource and how you can be most productive.
It’s natural to do everything at first. You’re creating marketing, writing content for your website, answering emails, reading, learning, doing your books, answering the phone, making plans, doing the actual ‘work’ of your business – seeing clients, seeing prospects. It’s dizzying and it can be really overwhelming.
Then comes a point when you realize doing it all yourself is not getting you where you need to be, in fact, it goes from being empowering to being exhausting, even defeating.
One thing that really helps is to focus on in on who your clients are – your ideal clients.
Next, figure out what you offer them that no one else does. Be bold. Figure out what benefits you offer and move away from highlighting your features.
Let’s look at an example.
Say you’re a therapist who helps women when they’re in life transition – aging, divorce, children leaving home, children experiencing life changing issues, health challenges, you name it.
In order to help people, you need to let them know what you do. Your ideal clients need to know there is someone who can help them with EXACTLY what is challenging for them, right then.
You could tell them that you help women who are experiencing change or difficulty. But for them to really understand why they should do that or how you can help, you want to explain the benefits of those features, the features being WHAT you do.
Perhaps you explain that you help women who are going through a divorce (feature or fact) so that they can come out the other side empowered and with clarity and purpose (benefits of seeing you as their therapist).
Maybe someone is dealing with the health challenge of someone they love dearly.
You tell them you counsel women who are stressed by caring for a loved one (feature or fact) so that they feel supported enough to not feel worn out, to know how to best help the person they love and keep their own health and sanity intact to best support and serve the entire family.
A great way to figure out the benefit of features in your business is to write a statement and then add “so that”. I help women to ______________ so that they can ________________ is an example of that.
I help women become empowered, so that they can contribute to the world in a meaningful way that fulfills them and shares their gifts and talents in a way that builds their livelihood and serves their divine audience.
OR
I help women who are stuck, afraid, unsure, in transition, confused or have a problem with social disconnection break new ground of awareness and guidance that these feelings of being lost are gone.
Be sure and be clear about what you offer.
Then be sure you tell that to the people who need what you do in no uncertain terms. It’s great for you and great for them. Go forth and be bold!
