“So what was the leap you made, Mark, from having a just-okay private practice to really experiencing momentum?”
Kate Williams, my collaboratrix at Heart of Business, had put the question to me. She had admitted that although she had years of experience in small business, and although she had helped a university bookstore quadruple sales, she had never made the big leap while being self-employed.
You may be wondering the same thing:”What is really going to lift me out of the just-okay, feast-or-famine, never-really-secure private practice into having a solid business with some momentum?”
Ingredients of a Pre-Momentum, Mostly-Sorta-Okay Practice
You need these four things if you are going to get more than one random client a year:
1.An Identified problem that you help solve.
2. An effective service or product that solves that problem.
3. Some kind of ongoing contact with folks who have that problem, so they know you can help them. (Otherwise known as “marketing.”)
4. An effective (slime-free) process that turns people who express interest “Oh, really, you help with that?” into clients, “Oh yes! Please help me. Can I write you a check?” (Sometimes called “sales.”)
If you are reasonably personable, have decent communication skills, and you have those four things, you can probably get clients on at least a semi-regular basis, enough to prove that, heck yeah, you actually have a business.
True, each of those ingredients is slightly more complicated than that. But not by much. The question is, if you are already kinda, sorta getting clients on a kinda-sorta regular basis, how do you make the leap to true momentum? You know, with waiting lists and no “famine” periods?
You’ve Probably Heard This Before
Momentum requires content. Writing, audio, video. The reason? You just can’t connect with enough people through one-on-one conversations to really attain momentum. Well, maybe you can, but I personally like to sleep, spend time with my family, and see friends occasionally. And yeah, eat meals.
When you create content, you are creating a sustainable way to connect with people who need you. Although content isn’t the only ingredient in momentum, it’s a big one.
Can You Be Both the Cool Kid and the Nerd?
The cool kid in school may have had lots of flaws, perhaps ones that you were especially aware of. But they were cool. And so lots of people flocked around this kid. Your business needs to be “cool.” Attractive. Interesting. Comfortable to be around.
But cool alone won’t get you business momentum.
When you’re behind on your homework and you have an essay due tomorrow, who do you ask for help, the cool kid or the nerd? That’s right, you ask the nerd, because that nerd is getting straight A’s and actually has a chance at helping you.
Your business also has to be that nerd. You’ve got to demonstrate that you know what the heck you’re talking about, which means more than just being knowledgeable. Can you do the hard work of taking complicated, esoteric, or difficult-to-explain concepts in your field of expertise and make them understandable and digestible by folks seeking information?
Probably most of your colleagues can’t, in simple language, explain what they do or why it works. If someone asks them “why” or “how” suddenly they land in glazed-eye land, because it feels like it would take a two-year intensive to explain what they do. You’ve got to be able to translate what may be years of experience into meaningful bites.
If you can be cool and nerdy in your content, then two things start to happen:
1. More and more clients come around, because they think you’re cool AND because you can help them with their homework.
2. More and more of your colleagues start referring to you. They teach a class, and they are mentioning your name, or passing out one of your articles, because you’ve explained something that they haven’t.
Suddenly you’re a leader. Suddenly, momentum begins to happen.
Is It Really That Simple?
A business with momentum does seem to have an ungodly number of moving parts to it, and so it’s not exactly paint-by-number, or everyone would have one. However, it is very attainable, if you’re willing to do the work that leaders do to become leaders.
Start right now with three steps:
- First: Identify two or three identifying personality traits. It’s kinda like looking in the mirror, so you have to get over not liking your haircut. Connect with your heart, and become conscious of two or three parts of your personality that make you who you are. Then make sure they are consistently present in your content.
- Examples: do you tend to have a sharp wit, always with the quick comment? Do you have a droll, dead-pan sense of humor? Do you have a gentleness about you?
- Of course you’re a multi-dimensional being. But pick “trademark” traits that you can bring out in your writing on a consistent enough basis that people get to know you.
- Second: What kind of Divine quality do you carry in your heart? A personality without a deeper sense of presence can seem pretty thin and artificial. Your deeper heart is a great place to come from. When you are feeling ungrounded or that your writing is somewhat hither-thither, this depth can provide an anchor to return to.
- This awareness makes sure that your heart is included and that you don’t end up feeling like you’re in some adolescent popularity contest. Speaking from experience, I was definitely not the cool kid.
- I strongly recommend “The Unveiling Your Jewel” exercise for clarifying this Divine quality that lies in each of our hearts. That’s why I include it in our
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- Third: Simplify a difficult-to-explain concept. Pick something in your field that is difficult to explain, yet common. Something that you and your colleagues end up spending long minutes unsuccessfully trying to explain to clients.
- Analogies are great tools for this, like using the Cool Kid and the Nerd to explain an esoteric business topic like “branding content” that makes it understandable. Yes, it will take some effort.
Why This Isn’t Artificial
Artificial is fake. If you were to totally make up a personality that you don’t have and try to carry it off, it would feel awkward to you and weird to your audience. I’m merely suggesting you emphasize things that are already authentically within you.
The essence of our spiritual journeys is to wake up, to become conscious. If you can consciously use some of your natural gifts and personality flavors to connect with more and more people who need what you do, go for it!
As you do, you just might find your business slowly, surely, and organically moving out of the awkward feast-or-famine private practice into the flight of a business with momentum.
