September 2010

In working with hundreds of professional women these past several years, and launching my new Breakthrough Vision Marketing programs, I’ve uncovered one key truth that was hidden to me in the past:

If your business model is flawed, no amount of great marketing will help you make the money you need and want.

Here’s a case study of what I mean, using my personal experience (I’m sharing here the real insider story about small business – something you’ll seldom hear from thousands of professed “experts,” many of whom aren’t making a living).

I launched a career coaching practice after long, hard research about what it takes to be successful, and earning the credentials, experiences and know-how to be respected and recognized in my field, and to rise above the competition. 

I followed all the core marketing and business development strategies that one needs to achieve national recognition, and be considered an acclaimed “expert” as coach, author, and speaker.

Throughout this 10-year development process, I learned some hard-earned insights about myself as professional and about what it takes for me to be a successful entrepreneur, namely:

1) I LOVE helping women achieve breakthrough in their lives and work, relationships, and in themselves – to create life and work as they truly want it.

2) I LOVE to help a select group of women.  Here are my personal criteria for folks I’ll work with as clients:

– Above the line thinkers (those who believe they are accountable, capable, responsible and ready to commit to reclaiming their lives)

– Ready and able to do the inner and out work of real change

– Able to invest time, money, energy in the process of life and career change

– Not expecting an easy fix or magic bullet

– Not viewing me as the answer to all their problems

– Able to make the financial investment of working with me, without it adding stress to their already stressed-out lives

3) I DON’T WANT to work (and to be paid) only on an hourly basis (even if my hourly wage is substantial, as a coach or consultant).  I DO want to have several different avenues of generating revenue, including one-on-one work, group coaching, speaking engagements, marketing and business consulting, and successful passive-income coaching and marketing programs and streams — top programs and resources that help a wide global network of women, without my having to necessarily provide them with direct, in-person service.  I’d like to make money while I sleep!

4) I’ve EMBRACED what it takes to identify exactly what I want to create, produce, and sell in terms of products and programs, and have a solid plan for building those

But You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

I was trucking along these past years building my coaching business, and everything I was doing felt and sounded “right,” until about six months ago, when I finally realized, “You don’t know what you don’t know!”

Here’s what I realized I hadn’t known, in developing my coaching business model:

The Big Flaw

There was a big flaw in my business model.  The FLAWED part of my model is that, after years of serving as a career coach for women, I realized that my business is simply too limited in focus and too narrow in terms of the types of products and services I offered, to be financially successful at the level I wanted it to be.

My narrow service niche (career coaching for women) — which I deliberately and intentionally designed — has turned out to be too confining and limiting for me.  Career coaching alone isn’t tapping into all the many marketing, business development, communications, and strategic planning skills, talents and experience that I’ve earned in my 20 years in the corporate arena.