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How to Grow Your Coaching or Expert Business

SUMMARY

In this episode, we talk about the concept of leveraging and scaling a Thoughtpreneur business which is about sharing knowledge and ideas in the marketplace to have an impact and make money while doing it.

The Practice Spectrum

It determines the level of involvement/process and access to intellectual property that you have. Your expert business might fall in one or more of these categories:

  • 1 to 1: You share your packaged thoughts on a singular basis as a coach or a trainer.
  • 1 to Many: You have a bit more process when you deliver 1 to many in the form of live events or webinars.
  • 1 to Few: You deliver in small groups and they have more access to the knowledge.
  • Many to Many: Train people to do what you do; certify and license them to deliver your expertise.

Scaling & Leveraging a Practice

Models

  • Time: A traditional model where we sell our limited hours for financial returns.
  • Product: To get over time limitations, you take what you know and create a product out of it to package and sell.
  • Hybrid: When you give a bit of your time as well as products, the model becomes hybrid.
  • License: After systematizing your knowledge, teach it to someone and give them the license to use the package.

Scale

Scaling grows your revenue but it also increases the expenses. Here are the things that you can scale:

  • Marketing: Putting in automated funnels of connection with the market will allow you to scale your marketing process.
  • System: You can create a systematized framework which someone else can use and they can do the work that you are doing.
  • Duplication: Create guides and online programs that duplicates the experience without the need to deliver them repeatedly.
  • Licensing: Create a certification so that you can license your intellectual.

Leverage

Leveraging will help you to deliver better, faster and in more ways. The things that you can leverage are:

  • Time: Instead of doing 1 on 1 switch to 1 to few or many.
  • Products: Create jump start products that gets people in the process.
  • Groups: This is when you deliver in groups that can be of different sizes.
  • Licensing: After having a well-developed portfolio of intellectual property, license it.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there, I’m Mel Abraham the author of the #1 best-selling book, The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy where we teach you how to capture, package and monetize what you know, your expertise, your wisdom so you have more impact, more time and more income.

And welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show and in this episode we’ll talk a bit about this concept of what I call The Wisdom Business. “Thoughtpreneurs” is the way I look at it. It’s those people that have ideas, knowledge, expertise, wisdom that they take out into a marketplace to have a greater impact while making money doing it.

  • Some people call it the Expert’s Space.
  • Some people even call it Infopreneurs.

But I call it Thoughtpreneurs because what we’re really doing is selling our thoughts and making sure that we better people’s lives in the process. And so, we’re going to talk a bit about that business and the different kinds of business models.

How do you scale or leverage it?

And this came out of a question that was asked by a good friend of mine, Ron Reardon about scaling it in the context of a coach. So, Thoughtpreneurs will show up in a lot of different ways. So, when we come back after this brief introduction we’re going to jump in:

  • We’ll talk about some of the business models.
  • We’ll talk about how to scale and leverage it.
  • We’ll talk about the expert business or Thoughtpreneur business.

And so, I’ll see you back here right after this brief introduction. See you here soon.

Hey there and welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show and in this one we’re going to start talking about the concept of a Thoughtpreneur business and this is someone that has wisdom, knowledge, expertise, ideas and perspective that they’re going to take to a marketplace to improve; to have a greater impact in the marketplace and make a living/make money at it.

And they show up in a lot of different ways.

  • It could be a coach.
  • It could be a facilitator.
  • It could be a trainer.
  • It could be a mentor.
  • It could be a speaker.
  • It could be an author.

Those are the modalities of which they deliver their message. And we go really deep in this, in one of my trainings: Thoughtpreneur Academy and then in Thoughtpreneur Imperative but the bottom line is that what we’re really doing is selling knowledge. Selling knowledge that can improve people’s lives. That can shift an industry, shift a market, and shift a community or society in the process.

And this question came to me by a good friend of mine Ron who said,

Great. So, if I’m in a coaching business and I’m doing a one-on-one coaching business (which is somewhat a thinking business, you’re selling thoughts), how do I scale it?
How do I build it up?
How do I move beyond that because there’s some limitations?

And there really is and so, what we do here is need to first start understanding the different types of models that exists. I talk about this in the tool and the download that we have here is called The Thoughtpreneur Expert. You can download it at MelAbraham.com/session054 or just text me. Text me MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces to 38470 and I’ll send you the download link.

But nonetheless, let’s jump into this. Here’s the deal that I call it The Practice Spectrum, if you will, and The Practice Spectrum is built on two different axes. Basically, four different, a quadrant model that I look at.

So, there’s a level of process or systems that exists and depending on the level of process or systems that exists, it will determine how intimate and how involved you are in the process. And none of these are right or wrong, it’s just that they are and you can choose and you can use all of them in variety of different ways in your business.

The question is, “Are you doing it intentionally?”

And so, you’ve got on one axis is the level of Process or systems that are being created, that can operate or be replicated with or without you.

And on the other axis is their Access to what I call your intellectual property which is packaged thoughts.

It’s packaged in a way that it’s commercially viable;

  • That is memorable
  • That is valuable
  • That is learnable
  • That is teachable

That is packageable in a way that people will pay a premium for it because it impacts their lives at such a high level and it’s got a lot of depth of thought in it. And that’s a whole different ball game how to do that but the question is, “How do they get access to what you know?” That’s effectively it.

So, at the very first level, at the very base level what we see a lot of is what I call 1 on 1. 1 to 1 coaching, 1 to 1 consulting.

This is partly what I did. As a CPA most of the work was 1 to 1 and the challenge here is that you’re typically selling your time. You’re typically selling your hours. You’re swapping dollars for hours.

It’s a well-seeded model that has been around for decades, decades and decades. The timesheet effectively came out in 1990 when it was first started to be used. So, 1 to 1 and many of you may be having these 1 to 1 practices as a coach, as a trainer, as a facilitator; something of that nature where you’re the one going out and delivering in that context.

The second level is you create a bit of more process, a bit more systems around it so you have the ability to go and deliver 1 to many. Now 1 to many,

  • Could be in the form of a live event,
  • It could be in the form of a webinar,
  • It could be in the form of a webcast.

So, it’s still you

  • Delivering the message,
  • Delivering the content,
  • Delivering the training,
  • Delivering the knowledge,
  • The wisdom,
  • The expertise.

But you’re not now doing it just single one on one. So, you’ve expanded a little bit and you get access to more and more people because you built process or systems around it in that context.

The next piece though is 1 to few. And I don’t mean 1 to few in the sense that it’s worse just 1 to few. This is your masterminds. This is what I will do at board meetings where I get asked to come to speak to boards of directors so it’s a small group but it is high level, high price in the work that we do.

I do it in some of my masterminds, my ThinkTank and all of that is small groups. I try to keep them very small so we can have more intimate, more access to the IP, more access to me and the knowledge but still I’m the one that’s delivering it by and large.

And then, when we get enough processes and systems in place and to give people access to that information we can deliver many to many.

Now, what this typically involves is that at some point now, the complexity when you get to this stage is a little higher and it can be a lot higher, it depends. But what this involves typically, is either some sort of certification where you’re training people to do what you do. You’re training people to do what you do or it’s licensing or something of that nature that allows you to move yourself out of the game so you’re not the only one,

  • Delivering the message,
  • Delivering the knowledge,
  • Delivering the expertise, and
  • The wisdom in doing that.

But that you’ve trained other people in your system, in your process; so they can think and present and do the things that you do; so they can go out and get your message out there in a greater way. So, they become the arms of your organization; so it becomes many to many.

So, that’s really how the different business models work. For the most part, you’re going to land in one of those four categories and as you grow, in an all likelihood, you will find that at some level you may have business in all four of those categories or 2 or 3 of them at the same time.

  • I do 1 to many
  • I do 1 to few
  • I do 1 to 1

And in the works is that many to many model that’s going to be coming down the road here at some level. So, realizing that it’s not an exclusive, it’s not to exclude anything. It’s simply to say here’s the models. Figure out what fits for you and if you want to start to shift and change, you can. If you just simply want to layer it on and have another model in there you can.

So, how do we do this? What do we need to look at in the context of a coaching practice, a speaking practice, authorship what I call a Thoughtpreneur practice, a thought leader practice? That we call it at thought leader global.

So, we talked a bit about the models here but let’s talk about how we can make money more directly and the first part of this is really understanding the different ways that we can create revenues. And then, can we scale it or leverage it?

We will talk about the difference between scaling and leveraging at least in my world and my thought process behind that.

So, when we’re dealing with models we can sell our Time. And this is the traditional model that most Thoughtpreneur, thought leader, expert types of businesses, coaches, speakers do is to sell their time for money. Me as an accountant, when I had my firm and I’m doing the consulting, I’m selling time for money, I’m selling hours.

Here’s the challenge with that is there’s a limitation. Look, I haven’t figured it out; if you figure it out let me know. But there’s only 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 365 days in a year unless it’s leap year and that is all you get. You get no more and I don’t know how to cut it up any differently. I don’t know how to get more out of it.

It’s about how effective you are at using it and I can’t do everything for 24 hours a day because I have to sleep and I want to spend time with my beautiful wife and my family and do the things that I want to do. So, at some point you hit a threshold of time that you can sell.

So, what do you do?

You start to increase your hourly rate. Which I did. I’ve got a very high hourly rate and so, you’re selling less hours at more dollars that gives me more space, more time. Now, you got to deliver a different set of results usually if they’re going pay those kinds of dollars for what you do. But the key behind this is to really understand the dynamics of what you’re dealing with in this kind of model.

Now, I’m going to invite you to say if you’re doing that, if this is your sole way of making money to start to find a way to transition or find other ways to supplement the income from your time, we will talk about that as far as scaling and leveraging as we move forward.

The other model that you could have is a Product model. So, you’re taking what you know, you’re creating a product out of it and you’re packaging it and selling it which now levitates the time issue. Now, we just got to create it once and then sell it off.

So, that’s certainly a model that a lot of people in this space have started to move towards including myself. We have a number of products and trainings and things that are out there.

The third is what we call a Hybrid model. Hybrid model gives them a bit of your time and a bit of the products.

And so, for instance: You come to Thoughtpreneur, you register with me at Thoughtpreneur Academy what ends up happening is you get online training, you get online tools and then you get a chance to come and spend time with me live.

So, you’ve got product and you got tangible stuff that you’re working from and working with, and then you got access to me in the process. So, it is a hybrid product.

And I think that there’s a tremendous amount of value with that because what allows you to happen—this kind of goes back to The Khan Academy kind of philosophy in the sense of let people learn in their own space and time, the online training and let them come to a workshop, to a place where they can ask questions, get distinctions and do implementation and make it real, make it come to life and that’s kind of the way we do our trainings is just that.

Instead of you coming in to get educated, let’s give you the foundation of education first. So, when we come in we’ve got a more meaningful conversation that moves the needle much farther, much faster as we move forward. So, hybrid products are really a great way to start to build that. But understand where are you at?

And then the last model is what I call a License model. And that is when I systematize my stuff enough, I can then teach someone to go out and do what I do and I can give them the license to use my intellectual property—the knowledge that I have has been packaged in a way that they can go out and teach it and present it and consult with it and make a difference and they become my extra arms that extend the reach of my intellectual property, my thinking out there.

So, those are the types of models. Again, the level of complexity as you start to move up this chart goes up but also the level of compensation can go up.

Now here’s the thing that I’m going to caution you on. If you go and try to do something at a much higher level before you are ready for it because there is an order, a strategic sequencing that you should go through to build it because

  • If I haven’t developed my content enough,
  • If I haven’t developed my thinking enough,
  • If I haven’t developed my business enough

> Trying to license it is a mistake.

It’s like trying to create a franchise and I had a very good friend of mine in Australia. He tried to create a franchise before it was ready to franchise and he ended up buying all the franchises back because it was premature.

So, before you turn around and say, “Oh I want to do the licensing thing or the hybrid thing” let’s prove it out, let’s build it out, let’s do the right things, do the foundational works. So, when we put it out there, now we got

  • Something that’s real
  • Something that has depth
  • Something that has breadth
  • Something that will allow it to grow and grow the roots so it’s strong at the foundation

So, that brings me to this question of how do you scale?

  • How do you scale?
  • How do you leverage?

Now, what’s the difference between scaling and leveraging?

So, here’s the way I look it.

Scaling a business and you will hear it, “How do we scale a business?”

What scaling a business does is it grows the revenue in my mind but it also grows the expenses. So, things start to grow. Now, the challenge is that I can’t sprout more Mel Abrahams and god forbid my wife’s got enough with just one of us.

So, but I can’t just scale me per say. There’s some things I can do to scale my business but that’s not going to continue to grow on a regular basis. What I can do is

  • Leverage me,
  • Leverage my time,
  • Leverage my knowledge.

So I can get it out there easier, better, faster and in more ways.

So, there’s a difference between scaling and leveraging, and there’s some aspects of your expert business that we might be able to use scaling for and some that we may be able to leverage.

Now, I’m going through the difference here. It doesn’t matter. Bottom line is, we’re going to try to grow your business. We’re going to try to do a couple of things.

  • We want your income to go up.
  • We want your days off to go up
  • Your time free to go up
  • Your impact to go up

So, to me whether you go on to call it scaling or leveraging it doesn’t matter. What matters is that your income goes up, your impact goes up, your days off go up and life is good.

So, let’s just look at it first. Let’s look at this scaling column first. So, one of the things you can scale is your Marketing. In other words, if you’re going out there one on one trying to sell may be that’s really not going to be an effective, efficient model in the long term to allow you to scale.

So, what could you do to scale your marketing?

Well, one of the things you can do is put automation in; automated funnels. To build an automated funnel of communication and connection:

  • With your possible market,
  • With your potential market,
  • With your referral sources,
  • With the people that you’re doing business with to create a community to build it.

So, it’s not you knocking on doors all the time. There’s a time and place for that absolutely but what about using the technology that exists today whether it’s an Infusionsoft, whether it’s an iContact, whether it’s OptimizePress. Whatever it is to scale your marketing efforts. To be able to go out there and do marketing while you’re sleeping. To do marketing while you’re out doing other things/delivering.

Because remember, as an expert, as a Thoughtpreneur you got to market it, sell it and then you got to deliver it. Well, while you’re delivering, if the system is it in place? If you haven’t got the automation in place you can’t be marketing and selling while you’re delivering at the same time on an ongoing basis.

Now, granted when you’re delivering you could be selling at the same time. That is a possibility but likely when we talk about a broader base, that’s not what’s happening. So, automation, funnel systems, sequencing and when I talk about sequencing what we’re really getting at is creating a journey for your possible customer.

  • What’s their customer path?
  • What is it that they’re coming to you for?

And allowing them to jump on the boat with you and go for a ride:

  • A ride of training
  • A ride of education
  • A ride of authority
  • A ride that gets them to understand what you could do for them and how that could impact their lives.

So, sequencing is another way that you could do it. Getting your content out there. I do these weekly shows as well as multiple posts daily—constantly working to build the community, to get information out there and get it out there in a way that once it’s out there it’s out there.

And now all we need to do is allow the automated marketing system to deliver it in a couple of different places on an ongoing basis so I create it once and deliver it often.

And then the other way to do it is through what I call Replays. Whether it’s a webinar or webcast, record it and let it play and now they can get access to the education, the training, your tools, your thinking and your wisdom on an ongoing basis where you don’t have to deliver it personally each and every time.

The next piece of scaling I think is your Systems, is really to

  • Look at your process,
  • Look at what it is you’re doing,
  • Look at how you’re doing it,

And say, “Is there a way to take what I do and package it into a box, call it a process? Package it into a box, call it a system.”

To create a framework that allows someone else to pick it up and go do it in the same way that maybe you do it and get the same or similar results.

And so, the sooner we can systematize and create a process that works, the easier it will be to have other people doing the work that you are doing and to give you (remember lower days), more income in the process.

So, it’s going to be framework driven. I know all of you know how framework driven I am. I have frameworks for everything. So, what is your framework?

And if you’re not sure about it, this is something that we go deeper into in some of the other trainings and Thoughtpreneur and all of that but we need to create your proprietary system in a way that makes it more transferrable.

Then Duplication. And the interesting thing about duplication is it’s like cloning yourself. It’s the way I look at it.

  • How do I productize what it is I do?
  • How do I create guides on what it is I do?
  • How do I create an online program where they get access to it?

For instance: When I first did Business Breakthrough Academy, the very first live event that I did, I did that live. And from that live event, we created an online program.

So, what it allowed me to do is to duplicate the experience that my customers had, that my clients had at Business Breakthrough Academy. They duplicated the experience and allowed them and other people to come back through and experience it without me necessarily being there.

And I still do Business Breakthrough Academy and a number of other events but the question that I’m going to ask you is, “What is it about your system, about your process, about what your teaching or doing or consulting or mentoring that we could create and duplicate in a way that it can get delivered without you being there?”

And then, the last piece of scaling and this really is in both areas I think is licensing. And this is down the road. In other words, for you to license someone to do it you need to have created enough intellectual property and know that the results you get are consistent enough that they can go out and duplicate it.

And this is a much more complicated model. It takes a bit of time to do it. I got to create

  • Instructor guides,
  • How to guides,
  • Systems that are duplicated,
  • Processes that work,
  • Frameworks that are implemented,
  • And all of those things and license them to do that.

Now, I don’t have enough time in this episode to really go into the concept of Licensing. Just put it in the back of your mind that it could happen, that

  • You could create a certification
  • You could license people to use your intellectual property

To take your wisdom, your knowledge, your way of thinking and take it out on the world on your behalf where you get paid a license fee, a royalty fee, a training fee; something of that nature.

So, that’s kind of how I see the element of scaling. So, how is that different from the element of leverage?

Well, let’s look at leverage because this is going to be more driven by you personally and your time. And the first is, how do I leverage my Time?

In other words, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year unless we’re in a leap year, that’s all I got. So, how do I take and use my time more effectively?

And we touched on it when we put the quadrant up about the practices. And that is: First off is instead of doing 1 to 1,

How do I do 1 to many?
How do I turn around and go one to few?
How do I grow and impact a grander group, a bigger group in at the same time?

  • Well, we can do it through groups.
  • We can do it through forums.
  • We can do it through the replays that I talked about.

There’s a lot of ways to start to look at: What is it that I do that maybe instead of doing it 1 on 1, I can do it 1 on few or 1 on many?

Ask yourself that. Start to examine that. And maybe, there’s a way to adjust your process, adjust your systems to allow for that to come into play or have an element of that that relieves you to do some of the other things.

The other piece of leverage is through Products. If we’re scaling, we’re creating systems to leverage your time more is to create products.

  • What products could you create?
  • Can I create a fast start or a jump start program that gets people into the process?

Gets you to do the foundational trainings so now you can bring them into a 1 to many kind of situation or a 1 to few situation. You know that they’ve got a baseline of understanding and training with that.

Products then Groups like we said, building groups doing seminars. I’ve got Titan’s Thinktank which is my think tank, my mastermind; which is a high-priced, small group type of mastermind but in order to impact greater people I do my live events, my live seminars with a 100, 200 people at a time where I’ve got the ability to deliver one to many in that process and when I combine it with products, say an online training, I now have leveraged the process in there and again the last piece of this is the concept of Licensing again.

And licensing is always in there but I think it’s probably one of the last things you want to really, it’s not something that you want to go into really quickly because we need to have a well-developed set of intellectual property, a portfolio that is intellectual property to really take it out there and do it.

  • We need to have it framework driven,
  • It needs to be a teachable process,
  • It needs to be a transferrable process.
  • It needs to have predictable results in the process

And it needs to be something that someone can come and train and say, “I got it and I can go do it and get similar results.”

And until that’s in place licensing is not the game for you and I don’t do any licensing at all. I am looking at it but it is a play down the road, it’s a plan down the road, it’s not something that I’m going to do right now because right now I want my, I want to create that intimate community. I want to build that process as we go forward and licensing is part of the strategy but it’s not immediate right now.

So, those are the things that I think that you can look at

  • In your business,
  • In your expertise,
  • In your practice.
  • In your Thoughtpreneur practice.

When you look at it say, “How do I grow it? What can I do to grow it?”

Well, let’s figure out

  • How we can leverage our time.
  • How we can create products.
  • How we can maybe go from a 1 to 1 to a 1 to few or a 1 to many model.

How we can create systems and processes that allow you to remove yourself without losing:

  • The predictability of your results,
  • The integrity of your system,
  • The integrity of your thinking,
  • The integrity of your wisdom.

So, we can duplicate you and not just focus on a time-driven model but move ourselves in some capacity to a hybrid model where you put time and product and online and a lot of different ways so you create income streams, multiple income streams from the same thinking.

And we talk about this in Thoughtpreneur Academy and Thoughtpreneur Imperative is that sometimes we get caught up in how we want to deliver it. In other words, we look at things and say, “I am a speaker and that’s it.”

Bottom line is that we have a message and we need to focus on that message and we want to build that message and we have a system, we have a process because it impacts people and it gives them these great results and that’s what’s most important.

Does it really matter how you get it out there except that we get it out there?

And so, I’m going to invite you to be more open-minded, to how you might be able to deliver your message out there.

  • Let’s refine the message first, that is the most important thing.
  • Let’s get that refined and defined.
  • Let’s create the intellectual property portfolio around it.
  • Let’s build a practice around it.
  • And let’s be ready to then go out and deliver it in multiple modes.

And if you develop your information, if you develop your content, if you use some of the principles and develop your content the way thought leaders develop their content you will think once, you will create the portfolio to intellectual property and then you can deliver it multiple ways in multiple times without having to re-create it.

So, you no longer are in a situation where someone calls you up and they say, “I want you to speak and you have to create the speech.”

Then someone else calls you up and says, “Hey could you facilitate this retreat and you create this 2 day retreat?”

Then you get a call from someone that says, “Hey can you write this article?”

So, you now have to go write an article.

See, that’s the old model. That’s the wrong way to do things because that’s tiresome, it’s frustrating, it’s re-creating things repeatedly over and over again. We got to think once, we got to create and package our intellectual property in a way that allows us to then deliver it over and over again without having to recreate the thinking in the process.

So, that’s the way that I’m going to invite you to start thinking about it. There’s more tools, there’s more things that we can do on this and we will over time. I just don’t have enough time in this episode to get there. I just wanted to answer the question about scaling and expert practice, a Thoughtpreneur practice.

And you know what?

To learn a little more about this, download The Thoughtpreneur Expert. It’s by going to MelAbraham.com/session054.

Or just text me. Text MYLEGACY, if you happened to be out, MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces to 38470 and I’ll make sure that I send you the download link, so you can get that. You will read a little more about the business models and the principles associated with all of that.

And if you found this of value, do me a favor. Subscribe, leave me a comment. Hey, say hi. Whatever it is, I’d love to hear from you. I want to get a chance to get to know you. See if there’s other things that I can do to serve you, support you and help you along the journey.

So, subscribe, leave me a comment, say hi and share this with a friend. Give them the gift of some of these tools and tactics and strategies to move forward.

And if this brought up some questions for you and some concepts that you are sitting back, that you want clarity on or you’re unsure of or some things that you want me to deal with, go to AskMelNow.com, leave me your question, leave me your comment and I will be sure to make it part of one of my upcoming episodes on The Entrepreneur Solution show.

And I thank you again, I’m blessed to have the opportunity to be with you, to talk with you, to be a part of your life. I don’t take that lightly. I don’t take it lightly that you take the time out of your day to spend it with me.

And so, I in deep gratitude and appreciation. Thank you so much.

I will see you on the next episode. And until then,

May your vision be grand, your journey epic and your legacy significant!

See you soon. Cheers. Bye!!

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