How many times this year did you helped a potential customer without asking to be paid?
How many times did you type out long, thoughtful, helpful email conversations with your readers, answering their every question but never pointing them to your paid consulting page?
How many times have you shared a premium secret from your latest ebook with someone just because you didn’t have the guts to say, “It’s in my book, would you like to buy it?”
You’re getting totally screwed over right now.
And the worst part is that it’s by you.
I take that back.
The worst part is that two simple questions are screwing you over.
How you answer these two simple question is holding back your solo-business and keeping your profit levels low and your stress levels high.
Of course the good news is that, if you can reconcile your answers, you can reverse that trend and send your stress level down and profits up, up, up.
So what are the questions?
- What do you do?
- What does your business do?
Told you they were simple.
But how do you answer them?
Are your answers the same for both?
“I’m a blogger.”
“My business is a blog that helps readers solve X, Y and Z.”
If that sounds about right, you’re in trouble because I need to lay a little hard, entrepreneurial truth on ya:
What You Do And What Your Business Does Are Two Different Things
You help people.
You solve problems.
You kick serious ass for your customers.
That’s you.
Your business doesn’t help people.
Your business doesn’t solve problems.
Your business makes money.
Period.
It makes you cash so you can continue kicking serious ass without worrying about a day job.
But your business does not, and I repeat, does not do what you do.
The division of labor keeps everything running smoothly; you help, the business collects.
When you help and your business helps, there’s nobody left to collect. You forget to make money because you’re only in business to help.
Of course you also can’t pay the rent or keep your lights on so your help doesn’t reach very many people
Always Charge For A Premium
You know me, I’m a big believer in free. I love my blog because it let’s me give 90% of what I do away for free and still make money charging for the other 10%.
But my business plan works because I have a premium line that freebie seekers don’t get cross.
Don’t be afraid to charge for your service, it’s why you created your business in the first place.
You provide the awesome, the biz provides the cash.
It’s hard for a lot of “artistic types” to wrap our heads around, I know.
We like helping people, it makes us feel good to provide that answer that changes everything for someone who thought there was no hope.
But your customers don’t need a helpful martyr and if you really want to help a lot of people, you need the resources to reach them, which means money, Sonny.
This truly is a mindset that will make or break your business so If you’re having trouble with making a change and accepting payment for your services, I suggest you purchase one of my consulting calls so you and I can spend some quality 1-on-1 time working to change that mindset to one of more abundance.
The sooner you change this mindset and start embracing these two simple questions, the sooner you stop stressing over the cash flow in your business.
