4 Things Keeping You from Having More Impact, Lifestyle and Freedom
Michael Knouse
Coach | Advisor | Facilitator | Writer | Instructor helping managers unlock their potential and unleash their team's performance | Building a boundless business and sharing everything I learn along the way.
Freedom, impact, creativity, and lifestyle… these are the main reasons that many entrepreneurs launch into business for themselves. But even with these great motivations, many will never get past survival mode. Sometimes, the focus that got an entrepreneur to stability, or even a little beyond, is more about “hustling.” The entrepreneur that relies on “hustle mode” is the entrepreneur that doesn’t have a clear picture of where he’s really headed. He’s too close to the action to look at things from a broader perspective. Because of this, he will never realize that what he’s doing isn’t sustainable or scalable.
Why Most Entrepreneurs Are Broke
After meeting and working with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the past few years, I’ve learned that most are making far less than they deserve to be making and working wat harder than they need to be working. In fact, many are making so little that they’re merely scraping by. It’s not that these entrepreneurs aren’t smart. It’s that they’ve blindly stumbled into creating a job for themselves and they don’t see a way out.
Most think that hustling is the answer but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
One of the most important phrases for any entrepreneur to grasp is, “Everything you’ve done to get to your current level of achievement is EXACTLY what will hold you back from arriving at your next level of success.”
This might be great news or not-so-great news, depending on your perspective.
Those of us building service-based businesses normally see profit margins of between 25% - 50% before taxes. So even after reaching, say $250K per year in revenue, our businesses are left with between $60,000 to $120,000. That’s the financial reward for a “successful” $250k/year service business. Or at least that’s what you’ll have to show for it – after all the hustling, hard work, headaches, and struggles.
This will make some want to give up. Others might become even more motivated. But here’s the good news, with the right business model, planning, and focus, you can intelligently build a meaningful business while also leading a rich life.
That’s why I do what I do - help others fix the problem of being stuck in a business model that requires constant hustle - I help entrepreneurs get unstuck. It’s because of my own struggles that I can speak directly and honestly about the four painful obstacles that might be blocking you from reaching your full potential.
Obstacle #1: You Lack a Powerful Identity
You are a carbon copy of the next person in your space. You have the same offer, the same marketing, the same everything. You lack a powerful identity… therefore, no one will recognize your genius.
We all have unfair advantages… but because you’re obsessing over keeping the lights on, you never get to highlight what makes you stand apart. You choose to stay ‘vanilla’ with your message and not take a stand for something bold. This keeps you firmly established as a ‘me too’ solution where people aggressively price shop (since everyone looks the same).
Further, since you have no powerful identity, you have no control over how you are being perceived or differentiated in your industry. People form the story about you and your business in their head without you even having a say.
Without a powerful Identity, you have ZERO. COMPETITIVE. ADVANTAGE.
Obstacle #2: You Rely on Pure “HUSTLE” to Get Clients
Messaging people on Facebook, hosting another launch, outreach by phone or LinkedIn, blasting your email list to “book a call.”
Every single way you generate clients is based on your “hustle.” The more you hustle, the more money you make - at least, up until a point. This is the default mode for those growing from $0 to $100K.
It’s fine. And in some cases, necessary, early on. Heck, it’s how I built my coaching business for the first four years!
However, to have a great life and a great business, you must be able to systematically generate clients. Without this ability, you’re done. You’ll completely maxed out. And your business will never achieve any sustainable or predictable revenue.
And if you think that running launch-after-launch, or promotion-after-promotion, will save you… you’re asking for a mountain of infinite stress. (Goodbye, life!)
Obstacle #3: You Lack a Proven Model or Framework
If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you want to make a huge impact. With that vision of impact, you likely started out trying to serve anyone and everyone. But, when you do that, you’re setting yourself up to be on a perpetual hamster wheel of hustle.
I learned this lesson the hard way. I had built my entire business around my ability to show up and do the work. If I didn’t show up, I didn’t get paid. Ouch! Earlier this year I began building a model that I can leverage. The Council of Visionary Business Builders is a community-based peer group that allows me to serve my clients in a more scalable way.
It’s absolutely necessary that you leverage your skills experience, and assets to develop a proven model or framework that allows you to escape the time-for-dollars treadmill. When you do so, you’ll develop confidence in enrolling clients and delivering consistent results.
Have you ever noticed that the preeminent thought leaders in a given space almost always have a proven model or framework that they are known for?
Mike Michaelowicz has Profit First
Marie Forleo has B-School
Michael Port has Book Yourself Solid and Heroic Public Speaking
Seth Godin has altMBA
Sally Hogshead has How To Fascinate
Lewis Howes has The School of Greatness
I could go on and on. I think you get the picture. It’s important to know that creating a proven model or framework doesn’t happen overnight but it’s the thing that will give you leverage, sustainability, and predictability.
Imagine if all of your business expenses and personal salary were covered by your flagship product or service. This means that everything else you created would be for the pure joy of it. All of your additional profits could go towards a favorite charity, a down payment on a house, or to fund your kids’ college tuition.
Obstacle #4: You Are Neglecting (or Unaware of) Your Ideal Business Model
Contrary to what the culture of (insert your industry) wants you to believe… your business doesn’t need to be defined by what others are doing. The quicker you can evolve your business to match your ideal lifestyle, the happier that you will be.
This is another lesson I learned this the hard way!
For years, I was caught on what I like to call the ‘Coaching Hamster Wheel.’ I would enroll my clients in a coaching program that was a reflection of what others were doing. And I was miserable. It wasn’t until my coach challenged me to create my ideal business model that I even thought it was possible to do something different.
Today, my business allows me to offer coaching services that are a unique reflection of how I can most powerfully serve my clients in a fun and profitable way. This allows me to take the last week of every month off and take my highest-level clients on Adventure Immersion Retreats to play, evolve, and create.
The other part of my business is all about curating a powerful community of visionary entrepreneurs.
Here’s the thing… the most elegant way to grow an impact business is by working from your ‘Zone of Genius’ within a business model that allows you to consciously create a business that fiercely feeds your Soul while allowing you to have your desired level of impact and lifestyle. In order to do that, you must fix obstacles 1 through 3, above.
When you do this, it’s the exact moment that things will “click,” and you’ll go from “hustle-mode” to true impact.
In order to run my business, it takes me roughly 30 hours a week. The rest of the time, I get to do what I want. For me, that’s my content creation time, connection time, and play time. Yet, it wasn’t that long ago that I would routinely work 50 hours a week, trying to do everything. Once I fixed where I was falling short, focused on my ‘Zone of Genius’, and hired for anything outside of it – everything began to fall into place.
Sure, there’s more to it… and it’s not that simple. But if we’re honest, most people like to make things far more complex than they really need to be. Depending on where you’re at in your journey, you might just need to slow down for a moment and say…
- How can I get my head out of the sand for just a minute?
- How can I accept the truth of where I am and where I want to go?
- How can I make a plan and execute?
And that’s exactly what I do for my clients – empower impact-driven entrepreneurs to escape the hustle and build a more joy-filled, sustainable, scalable and predictable business.
If you're interested in ending the cycle of hustle and harnessing your ‘Zone of Genius’ to become the preeminent choice in your industry, I’d love to help you get there with more fun, less struggle, and more profits.
SIGN UP HERE if you’d like to create a plan that will give you more impact, lifestyle, and freedom in your business.
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