Balancing profit and lifestyle: Designing your business model (Part 2)

This is part 2 of an episode that I released earlier this week where I focused why it's so important to have an intentional business model that takes into account your long-term vision, your offer suite and your pricing. Welcome to part 2 where I'm sharing another 4 ways to help balance your profit *and* your lifestyle.

- Why building systems in your business—right from day 1—is crucial, and 4 key areas to systemise.
- How delegating specific tasks in your business can contribute to both profitability and freedom.
- My 5 top tips for effective delegation—even on a tiny budget.
- The importance of regularly reassessing your business model and signs it's time to pivot or adjust your offers.
- How balancing your short-term cash flow with your long-term vision using cash injection campaigns can boost your revenue.

SHOW LINKS:
- DM me “OLSM” on Instagram (@stephtaylor.co) to find out more about “Offer Less, Sell More” or visit https://stephtaylor.co/offer-less-sell-more
- Looking for episode 843: "Balancing profit and lifestyle: Designing your business model (Part 1)"? Tune in here 👉🏼 https://listen.stephtaylor.co/843
- Get my Daily Biz Booster emails: https://stephtaylor.co/DBB
- 5 Simple Tweaks to Boost Your Launch Profits: https://stephtaylor.co/tweaks
- Want me to spend a day working on your next launch? Book a VIP intensive: https://stephtaylor.co/vip
- Get The A-Z Podcast Launch Plan: https://stephtaylor.co/plp-ig
- Get a 30-day free trial of Kajabi: https://stephtaylor.co/kajabi

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Having systems in place means it's much easier to then
bring somebody on board and delegate to them straight away.
You're not scrambling to put systems in place and learn
them so that you can teach somebody else how to
do them. It creates consistency in your client experience, whether
that's one on one clients, whether that's core students, whether
that's in a membership that makes it a little bit
easier and smoother for them, And it freeze up your time.

(00:23):
This is the biggest thing with systems. It frees up
your time to do the things that move the need.
Welcome to Imperfect Action. I'm Steph Taylor. For years, I
read all the books, downloaded all the freebies, and did.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
All the courses, But it wasn't until I started taking
imperfect action that my business had its first million dollar year.
Imperfect action is about doing things before you're ready, prioritizing
consistent action over perfect action, and moving forward even when
you're not sure you're doing it right. On this show,

(00:56):
you can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing tips, and strategy
to build a business that brings you more profit, more.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Freedom, and even more joy. Are you on the list
to get my daily businesses. Every day i'll send you
a bite sized prompt designed to help you grow your
business in a more intentional way. Sign up at Stephtaylor
dot co, forward slash DBB, or at the link in
the show notes. Hey, welcome back to in Perfect Action.

(01:25):
This is episode eight hundred and forty four. This is
part two of talking about business models and creating a
business model that's going to give you a balance of
profit and freedom in your business. Now back in part one,
if you missed it, I talked about the importance of
your long term vision. I talked about mapping out the
kinds of offers and the office suite that will give

(01:46):
you that freedom. And I talked about pricing. So if
you missed that episode, make sure you go and download
that and queue it up and listen to it after
this one. But this is a continuation, so we're starting
with number five or number six. Actually lost count last episode.
I can't remember if there were four or five. But
the first one for this episode is building systems for

(02:06):
freedom in your business. Now, I know you might say, well,
I'm just starting out or I'm really early on. There's
no point putting systems in place just yet, because it's
just me and that's fine. But I would start putting
systems in place honestly at the start, because as your
business grows, you're going to become more overwhelmed and you're
going to become more busy, and then you're going to
have less time to go and put those systems in place.

(02:29):
Having systems in place means it's much easier to then
bring somebody on board and delegate to them straight away.
You're not scrambling to put systems in place and learn
them so that you can teach somebody else how to
do them. It creates consistency in your client experience, whether
that's one on one clients, whether that's core students, whether
that's in a membership. That makes it a little bit
easier and smoother for them. And it frees up your time.

(02:52):
This is the biggest thing with systems, and it frees
up your time to do the things that move the needle,
rather than you spending your time manually doing all of
your bookkeeping in an Excel spreadsheet because you don't want
to pay the fifty dollars or whatever it costs for
zero every month where they will do that for you
or creating all your invoices in Canva and then emailing

(03:14):
them and then manually following them up rather than getting
zero or QuickBooks or literally any book keeping software to
do that for you. Like, yes, it might cost say
fifty dollars a month. I think it's actually even less
than that. But it might cost you that, but it's
going to free up a lot of your time that
would be spent on better tasks, things like getting more clients,

(03:35):
growing your business, creating new offers that will free up
your time, things that we talked about in the last episode.
So a couple of key areas that you should systemize
in your business. Firstly, content creation, So thinking about okay,
putting out a content calendar. Building a content calendar so
that every time you sit down to create any kind
of content, whether this is a podcast, a blog, emails

(03:58):
to your list, social media, any piece of content you
are creating, put it in a calendar so that you're
not having to think about it each time you sit
down to write the thing or record the thing. It
just takes one little piece out of your mental load
that to create if you can, because it'll be a
lot more efficient than context switching between tasks and then
think about how you are repurposing. So, if you are

(04:19):
writing emails to your list, can you repurpose those as
social media posts? If you are recording podcast episodes, can
you transcribe them and edit them, or even better, get
an AI tool like chat, GBT or claude to edit
them and turn them into blog posts. Client onboarding is
another really big one. So automating those welcome sequences. When
you have a new client come on board and you

(04:41):
want to send them your welcome kit with your you
know how to work, like how we work together, what
your boundaries are, when they can contact you, all of
the things that they need to know, questionnaires, anything that
they need to know to be able to work with you.
Or if somebody's bought your course and they need to
know how to access their course portal, all of these
things should be automated. The sequence that you are sending

(05:03):
them showing them how to find the course portal and
join the Facebook group and register for the calls that
should be automated. Okay, make sure that you have intake
forms and questionnaires that are standard that you can send
to your clients as part of that automated sequence, and
make sure that you are communicating really clearly what kind
of expectations and timelines you have for them. So this

(05:24):
is probably more applicable to one on one clients, especially
if you're doing project based work. Like I remember, I
think was a forget who it was, it was a
copywriter or a designer. I remember working with somebody not
that long ago who I was just blown away by
the communication around, Okay, I need to have for us

(05:44):
to be on timeline for this project. I need to
have this thing from you by this date. I need
to have this thing from you by this date. I
will get this to you by that date. I need
you to review it by this date and have it
to me to keep it on task. And I was like, oh,
this is really good. So if you can communicate that
to your clients, it's going to make your life less
stressful and it's going to manage their expectations so they
know what they can expect and when, and if they

(06:04):
don't get something to you on time, it's not then
your fault that you didn't deliver the final project to
them on time. Okay. The next one to systemize would
be delivery. So whether that's client project delivery, client offer
one on one coaching delivery, client course delivery, whatever it is,
whatever your offer is. If you have a course, invest

(06:25):
in a course platform like Kajabi to make it really
just nice and easy for them to use. Really use
a friendly. If you're working one on one on client projects,
make sure you've got some kind of project management tool
that you can track progress on that task, on that project,
so you know where everything is at. Bonus points if
you can invite your client to that particular tool and

(06:47):
they can see where everything is at, because they will
love you for that. If you have, you know, common
emails that you're sending or common deliverables, like if you
have a structure to every single strategy document that you write,
create a template for that for the structure. It doesn't
mean that you're giving somebody a templated strategy, but make
sure that the skeleton is there so that each time

(07:09):
you sit down to do a client strategy, you're not
having to spend half an hour just setting up the document.
Same with you know those emails that you're sending over
and over again, make sure you have templates for those
so that you're not having to think about what I
want to write? Those all counted as systems as well.
So systems, yes, part of that is software, but also
you know, templates can be really useful to have in

(07:29):
your business. And then also thinking about systems around your sales.
So that might mean having email sequences where you are
nurturing your leads. You might not be selling to them
directly after they've I don't know, downloaded a free lead
magnet from you. You might not be selling directly to
them in those email sequences, and most of the time

(07:50):
I would recommend not, But in those sequences you might
be nurturing them so that they are a lot warmer.
So then maybe the next time that you sell in
a webinar that they're going to, they're much more likely
to buy from you because they are much warmer leads.
Maybe you've got a series of follow up emails that

(08:10):
you will send to somebody who's inquired about working with
you or who's had a discovery call with you, thinking
about like, what are the things that you are doing
over and over and over again. This is the key assistance.
What are the things you are doing over and over
and over again that are not the best use of
your time that you could streamline, You could automate you
could make them faster. Then the next part of your
business model is thinking about delegation. Okay, when and what

(08:34):
are you going to start delegating even if you are
just starting out. Okay, even if you are just starting out,
even if you are still on a tiny, tiny budget,
it can be a great way to free up your
time to build your business more by hiring a virtual
assistant for a few hours a week. Okay, So things
you can delegate administrative tasks, so are things like emails, scheduling,

(09:00):
data entry, any kind of content creation support, so maybe
graphics maybe if you're doing reels or other kinds of
short form video. Maybe editing that, maybe research for content topics.
Things like tech support, so website updates, setting up your
course in Kajabi, customer service so you know, replying to

(09:22):
emails from your audience, your customers, replying to dms from
your customers, that kind of thing. There's all those little
tasks that take up more time than we realize that
are quite easy to delegate, and when you start to
get those off your plate, it means that you can
focus on higher value tasks, which means that you can

(09:43):
grow your business faster without also having to work more hours,
which ultimately you know that's going to improve your work
life balance and that's going to stop you from burning out. Right.
I talk a lot about freedom on this podcast and
in business in general. The side of that is, you know,
if you try to build a business that's going to

(10:04):
give you freedom just by chasing after more sales and
more profit, then you are potentially going to burn out. Okay,
So a couple of tips around delegating. Start with a
virtual assistant for a few hours a week, but be
realistic about what kinds of tasks they can do, what
they are an expert in, and what they are not
an expert in. The biggest mistake is to hire a
virtual assistant and expect them to be the expert in

(10:25):
what you want them to do, like saying, Okay, well
I want you to write my emails when they've never
written emails before, Like I'm talking about sales emails and
cut open emails and things not just normal reply replying
to emails in your inbox. So you might need to
give them a little bit of training. If you have
one off tasks, use something like upwork potentially, So like

(10:46):
if you have a one off editing project for your
course videos, maybe you could get somebody off upwork to
edit them for you. Create clear standard operating procedures for
all of the tasks you are delegating. So that's just
like a step by step do this, do that, do that.
It'll make it a lot clearer for the person who's
doing the task, and it'll save you having to give

(11:07):
them instructions each time. Invest a little bit of time
in training them if you need to. So if you
are expecting your virtual assistant to design Canva graphics and
they're not a graphic designer, maybe you can invest in
a course for them so that they can improve their
design skills. And then make sure that you're doing regular
check ins and meetings with your team members as well,

(11:29):
just to make sure everybody's on the same page. Okay,
the next thing to think about is how will your
business model evolve over time? And it will evolve over time.
You need to regularly reassess what is working what is
not working, and this is how you ensure that everything
is still aligned with your long term vision even if
your shorter term goals are evolving. It also means you

(11:52):
can adapt to changes in the market. So, for example,
the online business world right now. The market that I
sell to is very different this year compared with four
years ago when we were in the middle of the
pandemic and everyone had a lot of cash to spend. Okay,
so there's different needs now because of that. So if
you can take that time to assess what does my

(12:13):
audience need for me right now, what does my market
need for me right now, then you might need to
realign your offers. You might need to change things. It
also means you can identify some opportunities for growth or
for improvement. You might notice at some stage that you
need to retire an offer. Let's say let's say that
you are like, oh, I don't know if I should

(12:34):
keep selling this offer or if I should remove it.
That's one of the big changes that you might make
in your business model. If you are feeling less enthusiastic
about delivering it, if you are getting feedback from your
audience that they no longer need it, if you are
noticing market trends or different opportunities that mean that this
particular offer is not really relevant anymore, or maybe it's
just stopped growing or it's not profitable anymore. These might

(12:56):
be signs that it's time to retire and offer you
have and there's nothing wrong with that. Like I know,
I can you can feel a little bit reticent when
you've spent a lot of time creating a course, for example,
because courses do generally take a bit of time to create.
You might feel a little bit reticent around letting it
go because you've put so much time and energy into

(13:16):
creating the thing. But when you let it go, then
you create space for other new things to fill that
and they are likely going to be better things. Okay,
so how can you make changes to your business model
without disrupting your entire business? Firstly, I would look at
testing new offers in a really fun, light easy way

(13:38):
rather than this has to work at all costs, thinking
about okay, how can I sell this? How can I
test this in a what would happen if I tried
this kind of way? That's why I created conversion campaigns
like that was the one thing that was driving me
was I want people to start taking that imperfect action
to testing new offers, to generating cash injections in their
business without it always having to be a massive launch. Yes,

(13:59):
there is a big place in your business for the
bigger launches. Absolutely, I still love those, but you don't
always have to do big launches. You can do smaller
ones in between as well. And then also, you know
phasing out old offers over time. So if you have
a course that you are retiring, communicate that. Tell your

(14:20):
existing students, hey, I'm retiring this course, and if you've
given them lifetime access, make it available for them to download,
like put it in a Google Drive folder and send
them the links so they can download the videos and
have that lifetime access. Okay, Now, the final thing I
want to talk about is balancing short term cash flow
with your long term vision. This is a challenge because

(14:44):
often the things that are going to move you closer
to that long term vision require a bit of a
sacrifice of cash flow. In the short term. It requires
saying no to that one extra client so that you've
got more time to build the online course that's going
to generate sales in the future. So it's saying no
to short term sales right now so that you can
generate more sales in the longer term. Okay, So two

(15:07):
little strategies to manage your cash flow while you are
still building out that ideal longer term business. Firstly, think
about the cash injections that you are bringing in. So
conversion campaigns, this is why I created it, right, So
generating quick revenue with limited time, smaller offers. And it
might be like one of our campaigns was a three
day launch of an existing offer, but just with a

(15:29):
new bonus, and that's all. It was three days of emails,
no like, no massive build up, nothing else, just three
days of emails where if they bought during those three days,
they got a different bonus. Okay, So that's one example
of a campaign. It can be also things like you
know a new offer. You might be like, well, this
week I'm offering one on one sessions to help you

(15:51):
identify your niche in your business, right, and I'm taking
ten people. That's something I could then just offer to
my list and they can book in for that. So
little conversion campaigns like that can be really useful for
boosting your cash flow when you need it without adding
a huge amount of things to your to do list.

(16:11):
The other thing could be offering higher ticket offers like
a VIP day or an intensive or a quick revenue
boost that is only taking like a day or two
of your time, like it's high value it's condensed work session.
It can be premium priced because you are concentrating quite
a lot of value into that time. And it's a

(16:32):
it's a project, right, You're doing it once and then
it's off your plate. It's not an ongoing client where
you're constantly having to where you're constantly adding extra work
onto your plate. Okay, So then to put all of
this together, to put all of the things we've talked
about in the last two episodes or this episode. In
last episode, I want you to think about what kind

(16:52):
of actions do you need to take. And the first
thing would be to assess your current business model against
your long term vision. So where are those gaps or
those misalignments in your current offers what you currently sell
or you currently price them, And where are the gaps
in your systems and your processes, like where are you
being less efficient than you should be or could be?

(17:16):
And pick one of those areas to optimize in the
coming week. Maybe you will refine your office suite so
that you're better aligned with your ideal business. Maybe you
will implement one new system in your business so that
you become more efficient. Maybe you'll identify one task that
you can delegate. Okay. The one thing I want you
to take away from this episode and last episode as well, though,

(17:36):
is always keep your long term vision in mind when
you are putting this all together. And even though your
long term vision might stay the same, your business model
will likely evolve as you grow, as your business grows,
as your goals change. Even if the long term goal
stays the same, your middle and short term goals will
likely change. And that's okay, and you can reflect that

(17:57):
in your business model. So I really encourage you to
start taking imperfect action and start putting together that ideal
business model. If you're telling yourself, oh, I need to
be a little bit further along in my business before
I can do this, that is a story you are
telling yourself to keep yourself safe. So start taking that
action now. All right. That is it for today's episode.
I hope this has been This has been quite a

(18:18):
good one. The last two episodes have been two pretty
meaty episodes. So that's it for today. Thank you so
much for listening. Catch you next time.