5 things seasoned professionals need (and 5 you don't) to make grown-up revenue with a digital business

Focus on these five essential growth factors … and try to avoid these distractions

It’s not surprising that more and more people are leaving traditional corporate roles and striking out on their own.

”Volatile" is probably the most charitable way to describe what large corporate organizations look like right now.

"Trash fire" wouldn't be unfair.

And while younger workers are getting a lot of attention for The Big Quit, workers of all ages are reading the writing on the conference room whiteboard and striking out on their own.

Allow me to offer some hard-won advice for those deciding to go solo this year, or who are ready to make some grown-up revenue with their wealth of expertise:?

?? This is not the time for "Leap and the Net will Appear.”

It's also not the time to wait and see, while your organization erodes your confidence and shrinks its layoff packages.

A rewarding and sustainable business comes from taking sustainable action, keeping your focus on what matters, and knowing how to avoid pointless distraction.

Overcomplication is the enemy

In my experience, the single biggest reason that highly skilled people don’t do well with entrepreneurship is that they wildly overcomplicate things.

In fact, the more knowledgeable you are, the more prone you are to overthinking everything in your business — from your value proposition to the colors on your website.

Making your business too complicated is a recipe for exhaustion, stress, and skimpy revenue.

Instead, keep your focus on these five factors, particularly as you’re growing your business.

I’ll also mention five elements that you can readily do without — or that can wait until your business is running smoothly and you’re ready for new challenges.

This is the order I tackle the five when I start working with a coaching client:

First: You need a solid, genuinely high-value offer

Your offer isn’t just critical to your business … it is your business.

Your offer is what you do, how you do it, what you charge for that, and how you package and deliver it.

Offers can be endlessly refined, but three components are always at the heart:

• You have to be really good at what you do — because your offer needs to provide a deeply valued transformation for your buyers
• That transformation has to be something your buyer is willing to pay money for
• The price of the offer needs to line up with the value of the transformation

What you don’t (necessarily) need

I see a lot of people jump too quickly to the idea of creating a bunch of digital products, particularly online courses.

Don’t get me wrong — digital courses can be amazing offers in the right circumstances.?

They can also (especially if you overcomplicate them at first, which most people do) take huge amounts of time, money, and energy to create and market.

I also recommend you avoid creating a collection of cheap digital products that “ascend” to a more valuable offer.?

Yes, it’s possible to replace a good professional salary with mass sales of a $7 ebook or a $197 course. People have done it.

But selling those at any kind of scale is damned hard work — and there are easier options that take a lot less time.

2: You need a platform

Once you have a solid offer designed, you need a place to be smart in public, so people can see and understand your value.

A platform also makes space for conversations with people who could become excellent clients, customers, referral partners, or content amplifiers.

Your platform starts with a nicely designed, secure website that showcases your expertise. It usually includes some strategic social media activity as well.?

These days, I’m also seeing interesting experiments in adding a magazine-style side platform for additional visibility. (Substack is the big player at the moment.)?

What you don’t need

You don’t need to spend five figures (or ten months) building your site. That can make good sense later, but it’s wasted time and capital today.

You also don’t need to spend tons of hours on social media or fiddling with design templates in Canva.

Keep it simple, keep it polished, and keep it focused on helping the right buyers move toward working with you.

3: You need to attract leads

Every business owner thinks (all the time) about where to find excellent new buyers.

Whether you call it lead generation, prospecting, or audience attraction, you have to design and execute a repeatable process of getting in front of new people who are a good fit for you — so you can present your excellent offers to them.

This looks different for different kinds of business. Many enviably successful service providers find most of their clients with referrals, smart networking, and thoughtful (not spammy) outreach.

Ads, SEO, and partnerships can play an important role here, too. The important thing is to focus on a few tactics you can do well.

What you don’t need

Conventional wisdom in digital business is that “the money’s in the [email] list.”

And there can indeed be a lot of money in the right list.

But you don’t have to wait for thousands of email subscribers to grow your business.

When you offer truly meaningful value, you don’t need to reach a massive audience. For now, you need to reach a small number of the right people.

Don’t let it worry you — or slow you down — if you don’t have a big email list, or if the list you have doesn’t really have the right people on it yet.

4: You need a path to purchase

Leads are important. But (particularly for higher value offers and services) they don’t always convert quickly.

You need a good system for keeping the conversation going with potential clients.

That means two things: Content (particularly smart content sequences) and Follow Up (including simple email automation).

Individual connection is invaluable. But you’re wise to support it with a few strategic content pieces that will help keep your message clear and present.

What you don’t need

You absolutely do not need to create a mountain of content to make this work.?

The “drip drip drip” of weekly (or even daily) content was powerful and impressive ten years ago.

Today it’s just more clutter in the hellmouth that is our inboxes.

Strategic content nurtures and educates the right people until the timing works for them to move forward with you. It keeps the lines of communication open, rather than clogging them up.

(If you’re not sure what kind of content to create, VESPA will help.)

5: You need a simple, effective delivery process

Getting clients to say Yes is wonderful. But if finding great clients is 90% of the work, providing them with a great experience is the other 90% of the work.

“You sell the dream, we deliver the nightmare.” - my friends in Operations

As you design your business, put some serious thought into the choreography of how you’ll take money, onboard your precious new clients, deliver your work efficiently and well, and systematically ask for referrals.

The more delightful it is to work with you, the more steadily your success will build.

What you don’t need

There are some digital business platforms out there that sound amazing in theory — but using them effectively is a full-time job in itself.?

If it handles more tasks than a Swiss Army Knife, it’s likely to overwhelm and frustrate you (and eat cash) without giving you adequate return.

(Incidentally, my business bias is that no matter what my platform can handle for me, I run my email marketing using a dedicated tool that does that and only that. I happen to like ConvertKit, it’s reasonably robust without being overwhelming.)

The TL;DR

If you’re a capable, experienced professional working at a high level, focus on these five things to grow your business:

1. An offer that provides genuine value, that the right person is willing to pay good money for
2. A platform that allows you to be seen for the smart, seasoned pro you are
3. A way to reach out to new people who might become great clients
4. A way to nurture those relationships and create a comfortable path to a sale
5. An efficient process for delivering your work, so you can delight your clients and enjoy the work you’re doing

And try not to get too distracted with:

• Creating a bunch of digital products, particularly at lower price points
• Excessive faffing around with an overcomplicated website?
• Worrying about the size of your list
• Writing ten business books’ worth of content
• Signing up for an expensive, complicated business platform that does 20 things you don’t actually need?

How long does all that take?

How long will it take you to get these five in place??

Obviously that depends hugely on your energy level, your willingness to do things outside your comfort level, and what you already know how to do.

Two to three years is a reasonable amount of time to allow yourself to get these dialed in. If you have a ton of energy and you don’t get discouraged easily, you may be able to crash through them in a year.

The five won’t be perfect in that time (they’ll never be perfect, business is much too organic for that), but you can have them in great shape.

If you’d like to get there a little more quickly, I lead a coaching program called The Offer Accelerator that’s designed to do exactly that.

Inside the Accelerator, we work closely together to design a powerful, well-positioned offer — including building simple, effective marketing and delivery systems — to get your business firing on all cylinders in about six months.

No cookie cutters, no silly internet marketing games … and no overcomplicating your business.

It’s six months to focus on the right things in the right order, with a ton of support and accountability to keep you in the game.

(It’s also a great fit for seasoned freelancers and creators who aren’t getting paid what they’re worth — and are ready to change that.)

If that sounds like something you want to learn more about, drop me a connection request right here on LinkedIn.?

?? (For the record, I never try to pressure folks into signing up for the Accelerator. We work much too closely together for that — having the wrong person there would be excruciating.)?

Or if you prefer to read a few more details before we connect, you can get them here: More about the Offer Accelerator.

However you decide to get there, keeping your eye on these five — and steering clear of complicated distractions — will get you to a rewarding, well-paid, and sustainable business much more quickly.

How about you?

Which of the five gives you the most heartburn? Let us know in the comments!?