Hi! I'm Robin Waite, a business coach, mentor, and founder of Fearless Business, and I am the author of the bestselling books Online Business Startup and Take Your Shot.
My channel is designed for Coaches, Consultants and Freelancers who are looking to startup and grow their businesses on a budget. At Fearless Business we help our clients to refine their offer, articulate their value and most of all...
Stop rushing around like a busy fool. Slow down! Create some space for yourself and charge your worth!
during my 20 years in business I've
built three six-figure businesses and
one of those businesses I even
successfully sold in 2016 but one of the
things about those businesses which is
possibly slightly unusual and I'm not
ashamed to admit this even as a business
coach is that for those businesses I
didn't have a business plan for any of
them and yet I was still able to grow
all of them very successfully there's
this very simple framework which I'm
going to share with you which is
essentially a business plan on a page
well in actual fact it's not even enough
to WR on a page is probably enough to
fit on a postage stamp it's one of the
simplest business planning Frameworks
which I've used and it's called go Focus
pricing this is what I'm going to walk
through with you now and hopefully I'm
going to do that in less than 10 minutes
because I don't want to take up too much
of your time so let's get started there
is one thing which is important for me
to say though before we dive into this
that I find is quite interesting I've
worked with thousands of business owners
in the coaching Consulting and
freelancing space and each of those
clients before we start working together
I get them to fill out my scorecard I
will share a link to that somewhere
below if you want to go and click on
that and take it for yourself the
website address for that is fearless.
score app.com and it's a bit like your
mother-in-law asking you 20 questions
about your business and from that you'll
get some answers there about what steps
you should take next within your
business but the first question in the
scorecard is please rate your business
plan on the scale of 1 to 10 10 being
absolutely smashed it refer to every day
really detailed absolutely amazing and
one being it just doesn't exist and
through having over a thousand people
take that scorecard there was some
really amazing results so about 75% of
the people who took that scorecard rated
their business plan four or below so
essentially it was substandard but 26%
of the people who completed that
scorecard rated their business planner
one basically saying that it was
nonexistent now I don't think business
plans are a complete waste of time I
think those 40-page business plans with
loads of graphics and cash flow
forecasts in them and nice charts and
things like that those sorts of business
plans quite frankly a waste of time
because none of us really and
realistically are going to be looking
for venture capital investment or
massive loans from Banks some of you
might be in which case you probably want
a more detailed plan but for 99% of
small business owners out there just
starting out you don't need that at all
so here's the framework the first thing
which you need to decide on is what is
your Revenue Target for the next 12
months ahead for most people that
traditionally these days seems to be the
six figure Mark so let's say for example
if you wanted to earn $100,000 next year
that's what you would answer for that
first question and you notice this isn't
so much of a business plan as just a
series of questions and once we've
answered those questions we can then
start to interrogate that plan and see
whether we can actually make it come to
fruition or not so first question what's
your target revenue for the year ahead
and I'm going to make the numbers nice
and simple with the examples I use
mostly for myself so I don't have to
think too hard whilst I'm recording this
video but also for you so you can follow
it and then apply it to your business
the second question which we would then
ask ourselves or that I'm going to ask
you is on average how much is the
average client going to spend with you
and this then lead to some to the first
sort of big Insight which a lot of
people get when I go through this
exercise a lot of the time with a room
full of people because I'll then invite
you to take the big number your turnover
and divide that by the small number
which is the average selling price for
your product or service and divide the
two together so let's say you were
selling your product for $11,000 let's
say it's a six-month coaching program
and you're going to sell it for $1,000
you would take a$ 100K divid it by 1,000
and that gives you 100 which means that
over the next 12 months you've got to
attract can enroll a 100 clients into
your business now we've only asked three
questions at this point but typically
when I do deliver this as a talk
people's eyes pop out of the head cuz
like how on Earth do I not only you know
deliver 100 clients or 100 products to
you know these clients but how do I
actually find them in the first place so
you'll start to see here that the with
with just a small number of questions
we're looking at just the basic like
first principles around business in
terms of supply and demand and at the
moment we're trying to establish what
level of Supply we've got within our
business this now if 100 clients in a
coaching practice which I know is
unrealistic I don't think there unless
you run some kind of group program doing
100 clients one to one for example and
you're starting out is just impossible
in fact a more realistic number is
perhaps 20 clients over a six-month
period which means you've probably got
10 to 12 clients working concurrently
that's actually more than enough for a
coach starting out and again that's
where the next Insight comes in where
people all of a sudden are like well 20
clients if I take 100K and divide it by
20 that means I need to be selling this
package for $5,000 and again their eyes
pop out of their head cuz they're like
well I'm not worth that much and then
who's going to pay that much and how do
I find clients that have got $5,000 to
spend on a coaching program so but what
we're doing here is or what I would
invite you to do is to take the
handbreak off this is your opportunity
just to dream and create the ideal
business model and what we're looking
for is is a business model here in this
basic plan that economically Stacks up
in terms of being able to deliver enough
units of capacity at the right price
point to have a sustainable coaching
business consultancy or freelancing
business or agency and and also not just
sustainable but also profitable as well
because what I've noticed is if people
are selling too many products too
cheaply their business generally isn't
profitable in fact in many cases it's
actually losing money I I've done plenty
of videos on pricing so I suggest you
there'll be either one linked around
here somewhere or you might want to jump
into the description where I've shared
three videos um which are all about sort
of pricing and money mindset and things
like that so I'm not going to dwell on
the pricing side of things to you much
but just for now for the sake of this
exercise and for this this business plan
you're creating Dare To Dream this is
your opportunity just to create the
perfect business model for you for you
and for your business that's going to
give you the freedom you want it's going
to give you some spare time to be able
to spend with your family or friends or
do things which you want to achieve
hopefully it's going to make you enough
money in the long run and also it's
going to be fun that's ultimately what
we what we want to be achieving because
there's nothing worse than running a
business that's you know running you
into the ground and creating burnout and
things like that so we've got to make
sure we design this business so it
fulfills all of those different aspects
of your life but also on the business
model so 20 clients at 5K and that's the
supply side of things taken care of now
what we've got to look at is the demand
side of things so ultimately what I'm
talking about here is marketing and
sales and a a typical good conversion
rate for a coach consultant or
freelancer is roughly 1 in 3 to 1 in
five so 20 to 40% we we'll work on the
worst case scenario because then that
presents us the picture of like the
maximum amount of activity you're going
to have to do in order to achieve that
100K Target in those 20 clients but
let's say you're working on a 1 in five
conversion rate for those 20 clients
that means you've probably got to sit
somewhere in the order of about 100
consultations per year in order to
attract and enroll 20 clients into your
practice now 100 consultation sounds
like a lot but when you actually start
to break it down that's two maybe three
a week and if those consultations are
only maybe half an hour to an hour
that's not really too honorous and also
it's a manageable amount of volume of
work in order to be able to build this
sustainable business six figure business
in the first instance the other thing as
well is the next question probably to
ask then is well how do I get those 100
people booked into consultations well
again I've done another video about this
which is all about how to build
Partnerships to generate effortless
leads for your business so go and find
the link for that but really what we
want to do is we want to initiate these
the invitation for these consultations
through just some some basic
conversations with people you could do
this through networking through podcast
interviews through a YouTube channel or
social media you could do it through
in-person events or referrals there's
number of different ways to initiate
conversations but Loosely speaking
you're probably talking about for every
consultation which you book you probably
want to initiate 5 to 10 conversations
with your ideal audience in order to be
able to then build up enough trust to be
able to invite them into a consultation
so you're talking about over the course
of a year maybe starting 500 to 700
conversations with people who may fit
the bill in terms of like ideal client
fit and that's essentially it so you've
got the business plan there is have an
idea about what the turnover is and then
what we do is we reverse engineer the
business model to achieve that turnover
based on the capacity we've got to
deliver however many products or
Services you can deliver that gives you
a few Clues as to what price point on
average you should be charging per
client it also helps you to discern how
much activity you've got to do in terms
of consultations to then get people in
as clients and how many conversations or
what level volume of marketing you've
got to do to initiate those
consultations and that's it it's really
that simple hopefully this B video has
actually taken me less than 10 minutes
to get into this if you follow these
steps and we'll itemize them in the in
the description below you should have a
business plan which you can then look to
execute on over the next 12 months I'm
sure you'll probably have questions as
well my door is always open I
periodically do group coaching
experiences which is essentially a
workshop where we I'll do some live
coaching Hot Seat work with a client and
we'll work through some of these basic
business plans and models I also offer a
free 30-minute diagnostic call as well
which is an application process we'll
share a link to that Below in the
description as well well so please do
take me up on that if you've gone
through this exercise and you're left
feeling a little bit of confused or your
eyes are on stalks because the numbers
just look a bit wild that's a really
good time for me to intervene and maybe
help you out um with that business model
and give you a bit of coaching around
how you can actually make it work for
yourself