September 15, 2025 • 21 mins
Are you working tirelessly in your business, only to feel underpaid and overwhelmed? In this week’s episode, Anna Lundberg breaks down the real reasons independent experts find themselves overworked yet under-earning - and what you can do differently. Discover actionable strategies to design a business that pays you what you deserve, protects your time, and keeps you energised.
Key takeaways:
-
Ditch Frankensteined Offers
Stop scattering your energy on bespoke, complicated services for every client—streamlining your offers and messaging leads to more clarity, easier marketing, and better sales. -
Break the Cycle of Undercharging and Overdelivering
Learn how pricing based on fear leads to resentment and burnout, and why knowing your “integrity rate” (what you should earn) and “resentment rate” (the bare minimum) changes the game. -
Prioritise Relationships Over Reach
Rather than chasing cold leads on LinkedIn or obsessing over follower counts, tap into existing clients, referrals, and close networks for immediate, reliable sales. -
Map Out Effort vs Reward
Use Anna’s quadrant framework to identify which offers bring in high reward with less effort—and ruthlessly cut tasks and services that drain your time without decent returns. -
Refine Your Marketing—Less Is More
Only invest in the platforms and activities that actually generate clients, not just likes or noise. Every hour counts!
Ready to earn more without burning out?
The Business Accelerator is open now. It’s a 12-month strategic reset for independent experts ready to simplify, grow, and build a business that actually works.
Apply now at onestepoutside.com/accelerate
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Reimagining Success, episode 359. And this one is for
you. If you are working hard, you're delivering great work,
posting content, saying yes to clients, but still feel like you're earning
less than you should. Maybe you're undercharging, you're
constantly reinventing offers, or saying yes to projects that drain you just to
keep cash flow steady. In a tougher market, it can feel like
(00:22):
the only answer is to work harder. But the truth is, earning more is not
about adding hours. It's about designing a business that lets you do focused,
high value work. Charge with integrity, and stop
carrying the resentment that comes from doing too much for too little.
Welcome to Reimagining Success, the podcast that helps you build a profitable
(00:46):
business as an independent expert, one that works for you and your lifestyle.
I'm your host, Anna Lundberg, former corporate insider turned business
mentor, executive coach, and mom of two. Whether you're a
solopreneur, a coach, speaker, consultant, I'm here to guide
you in creating a business that gives you freedom, flexibility,
and the fulfilment you're looking for, ready to
(01:07):
redefine success and build a business that you love. Let's get started.
Okay, so we've been talking a little bit about the. The tougher market, and I
don't want to sort of hammer home that point because I don't think it's. It's
even necessarily true. But it's certainly a perception that some of us
have. Have had. And whatever the reason for it,
(01:27):
it's an opportunity, as I've been saying, to
be intentional about how we design our business, to take that
step back to possibly redesign offers, pricing,
marketing, to really work harder for you. Because it's not
about how many hours you work. It's certainly not about
working more hours. The difference between earning well and scraping
(01:50):
by is not in the number of hours we're working, and that's for
sure. And that's also why we break free from the Monday to Friday 9
to 5 job. So let's not recreate
that and make ourselves the worst boss we ever had.
Okay, so why are you working harder than you need to?
Let's look at that one. So the first one, and there might be some repetition
(02:13):
here from the last few weeks, but there's some really important points that I want
to hammer home. The first one is kind of the Frankenstein offer problem, and I've
been using that quite a bit recently. Sorry, Frankenstein. In fact, I think Frankenstein is
the name of the doctor, isn't it? Rather than the Monster. But the
Frankenstein offer problem. So you are the Frankenstein as the
creator of all these offers. Lots of scattered,
(02:34):
custom, bespoke offers. We're saying yes to everything. We're being reactive
and that's helpful and even necessary, maybe when we're first
starting. But it leads to complexity. When it comes to your
marketing, it means your message is diluted. It's harder to make sales
when I am trying to one month speak to solopreneurs, the next one to
founders with teams, the next one to HR leaders who
(02:57):
are supporting their organisations. You know, I can either speak to a very
high level message, which is fine, full leadership content and that will kind of
resonate with everybody, or I can go really specific, but
then I'm turning the other off or they're ignoring me in the meantime. And so
it's not to say that it can't be done, but it certainly creates complexity
versus just having the one message, one client. Now,
(03:19):
if you're anything like me, we're never going to have just one client, one message,
one off. But there is a happy medium, I think, somewhere in between
those two extremes of being really boring and just having that one thing you do
versus being completely scattered and Frankensteiny. Okay, so that's number one.
Number two, and I'm sorry if this applies to you and it probably applies to
most of us, undercharging and over delivering,
(03:42):
often that comes from pricing based on fear. And especially if we're starting out,
especially if it's a tough market, we're having a wobble, it can be easy to
go, oh, it's the price, I'm just going to charge something less and, or I'm
going to charge that, but I'm going to work way harder and deliver this, this,
this, this, this, rather than basing it on the value. And that
inevitably, I guarantee you will lead to resentment,
(04:03):
exhaustion and clients who don't value your time. I had a
chat with a fellow speaker a while ago and she asked for some advice
about a client who, a potential client who just wasn't locking in a
workshop and she wanted to go away for her birthday and she actually decided
she didn't want to deliver that project anymore. And she said, oh, gosh, how do
I even say that? And it's like, look, the thing is, it's your business. You
(04:24):
get to say, I'm sorry, I'm no longer anymore.
Ideally, we've obviously been clear up front about these are the deadlines, this is
the scope, these are the conditions under which we'll work.
Jessica Lorimer, the selling to corporate expert taught me a long time
ago that we should have an expiry date in our proposals. And that really helps
to say, look, this is valid until X. That means we don't have
(04:47):
to keep delivering to 2020 prices five years later.
But undercharging over delivering is going to
lead to you taking those types of clients who don't value your time, who
aren't bought into what you're doing. Oh, this particular client, by the way, that I
was mentioning there, also pushed her down, like made her discount her offer.
(05:09):
So it's just. Yes. If we're desperate and we have nothing
else on, we can say yes to those things just to get a bit of
money coming in. But if we do, I would very much recommend that we put
in clear boundaries rather than the opposite,
which is then we over deliver for something that's way less than we actually want
to be charging. Does that make sense? So by all means we
(05:29):
can take on lower paid things, but then let's put those boundaries in place
and compartmentalise it and box it off and like, right, that's it, they're paying that
fine. So that includes this. And you don't get all the extra stuff that I
would have done if you paid me millions, then I would be really keen to
over deliver, no problem. Okay, so undercharging over delivering
the next one. I think this is so important with our type of business. Again
with this kind of independent expert. I want to be a recognised authority. I'm
(05:53):
not scaling a massive business. I don't need millions of leads coming in.
In fact, I wouldn't know what to do with them. Funnily enough, Daniel Priestley,
who of course has a totally different type of business, I agree with some of
the things he says and some not. For that reason, he said, you know, if
he had gone on Stephen Bartlett's podcast a few
years earlier, let's say he would not have been ready to accept
(06:15):
the deluge of people who came to him when they discovered him.
Certainly I'm not ready to even entertain the idea of
pitching myself to Stephen Bartlett's podcast. He wouldn't have me on. But.
But you know, Steven, if you do, then let me know. But I wouldn't be
ready to have that many clients. I don't have the team and systems
and anything in place to do that. Right. Two years ago, and I've apologise if
(06:36):
you've heard me tell this story many a time and I had a post go
viral and I had hundreds of people book calls and, you know, it was just
too much. It just didn't work and didn't translate into sales.
So if we're constantly chasing those new clients and we're doing so
by posting on LinkedIn and what I've told my clients in the accelerator
is that, you know, we're kind of, if you imagine and I'm drawing this on
(06:58):
the table and you can't see me, sadly, concentric circles. I'm here in the middle,
in the centre, and we're trying to post stuff to
cold audiences of people who don't know us and convince them
that they need our thing, want our thing, can afford our
thing, should get our thing now, should work with us to get that
thing. You know, it's a lot of work. It's not to say that that long
(07:21):
term brand building and positioning is not important and nurturing those
cold people to become warmer is of course a really important part of the
business. But we're missing out on actually the relationship based
marketing and sales and the fact that it's past clients and
current clients and friends of friends and past
colleagues and so on local networks that will
(07:44):
bring in the clients in the immediate future.
And we don't need hundreds of thousands of clients. Unless your pricing is way too
low. And then let's talk. But really we're talking about most of my
clients. Like I just need a handful of clients to do this. You know, I've
got one more day now for coaching and I'd like that to be, you know,
five clients. Fine, great, no problem. You know, so we're not talking
(08:05):
about hundreds and thousands of people here. And a lot of the
strategies we're taught and told and a lot of the things we've
internalised are very much hanging on that kind of volume over
value. And so I'd really urge you to reframe how
you're thinking about it. First of all, in that kind of the shorter
relationship radius, I suppose the people who are in your inner circle,
(08:26):
rather than just kind of throwing more stuff
at the long term, building stuff,
unless you're in a very comfortable position where you've got lots and lots of money
and you don't need the immediate cash flow, which is fine. But if you do
want sales, then probably, you know, don't just do that
and do the numbers. Again, it's all about maths. If I want to earn 100k
(08:48):
working this many hours, I need this many clients paying this amount of money. Right?
It really is that simple. And then finally, and that's
linked to What I just said there about kind of posting to cold audiences, marketing,
busy work. I had a client, bless her, who said, you know, I'm spending hours
on crafting each LinkedIn post. And if you've only got 20 hours a
week that you're working and you're doing five posts and each one takes
(09:10):
two hours, that's already 10 hours gone just on LinkedIn. And
that's absurd. Unless LinkedIn is, and there are people like this bringing in
lots and lots of clients to you, and that becomes your one primary mechanism,
that's probably not the best place to spend your time. Also, because
A post on LinkedIn is just temporary. Yes, more and more posts
seem to be kind of lasting for longer, which I think is good news.
(09:33):
But it's not a long form, evergreen piece of content like, like a
podcast, like a long workshop or YouTube video or
book or something like that. Right? So. And let's not put that much
time into the individual things that last for about three seconds.
And crafting and reposting, reposting,
re editing and perfecting the picture and so on.
(09:57):
First of all, visibility is not sales. And again, I did a series on this,
I think it was in July, on sort of quiet
authority over that virality
and also marketing. And again, another episode from July is
not the same as sales. So the again
and again I hear from people who've grown their following thanks to the latest
(10:17):
hacks and tricks on. On LinkedIn, let's say. And the
same on Instagram. I have a colleague who said the same. It does not translate
into sales. Okay, so stop sort of comparing yourself to people with bigger
followings. And let's look at who we have in front of us now. Also,
from like a integrity and generosity standpoint,
there are people right now, you know, five people show up to my workshop. That's
(10:38):
amazing. Five people have trusted me to spend an hour together with
me. That's huge, you know, and it's quite disrespectful to go, oh, only
five people showed up. If I've got, you know, 2,000 people
on my email list, that might not seem like a lot, but imagine 2,000 people
in a room, you know, listening to what you're saying once a week, twice
a week, whatever it is, that's again, huge. So you know
(11:00):
the value and the
real conversations that you're having, relationship building
over just that busy work. Okay, so Frankenstein offers
too many scattered custom offers. Undercharging over delivering,
pricing out of fear, focus on volume instead of value.
And that marketing, busy work. Okay,
(11:23):
And I've got. Oh, I've got quite a bit to share with you, so we'll
see how we get on this time wise. But I wanted to give you some
really tangible shifts you can make to earn more without working more, without
burning out. And one of the frameworks I've shared before
is, is the effort versus reward kind of quadrants. So if
you imagine high effort, low effort, high reward, low
reward, and I should really write this down so I can
(11:47):
tell you the right thing in the right quadrant, but I'll try to visualise it
in my head to give you the right label. But if you think, obviously
high reward and low effort is dreamland,
if there's something you can do, relatively simple, low effort, low
input, but the reward will be huge in terms
of whether it's, I don't know, reputation,
(12:09):
visibility, income, meaning
whatever, then that's a great place to be. Right? That's an obvious
quick win. The other one that's really important is the
high effort and high reward. That kind of thing is worth
doing, but we're going to recognise it will take more work and take more time.
Then you've got the don't do this, which is high effort, low
(12:33):
reward. Those need to go. You're spending hours and hours crafting
bespoke stuff. No one cares, no one's buying, paying very much.
No. And then there's the low effort, low reward, which, you know what, if you've
got nothing else to do, by all means, you know, tick the box. But really,
that's not going to get you very far. Right? So just take your offers
as a start and your ideas maybe, and just map them
(12:55):
on the effort versus reward quadrant and see where you end up. And like
I said, the high reward, low effort obviously is dreamland.
And then the high effort, high reward could be the things that you kind of
planned for next year or for the future. The second
piece, and these are the two sort of heaviest things and then the rest is
a bit sort of simpler. But the second piece is knowing your integrity rate and
(13:15):
your resentment rate and I can't remember, so apologies if I've talked about this in
the podcast before. Plus you may just be listening to this for the first time,
so I'll go through it again. But your integrity rate is what
feels fair and energising to you. It's based on the numbers. And
again, if you go back to the kind of the term time work
episode from August from last month, then
(13:36):
we did a bit of maths to get the math to be Mathing, it's
my favourite expression ever. Again, I always take the
100k a year you want to earn and you're going to be working
100 days, that's this many hours, and that means you need to
be earning this rate, so that is where you want to be. If
I'm getting that as sort of an average or they're paying more than that, then
(13:59):
happy days, I feel good. And even if it's not kind of the massive,
I want to get 20k for my keynote talk, as long as it's above my
integrity rate, that's good. On the other hand, you also want
to set yourself a resentment rate, which is what makes you cringe, what is
not going to allow you to feed the poor children. You're not going to survive
on that rate. Okay, there are. And you can factor in
(14:21):
some more subjective things. Again, if you're getting testimonials, credibility,
getting to use a big logo of a company or something, that's fine, you can
factor that in. But obviously just
ask yourself the question, if every client paid this, would it be viable? And the
answer is no, then that's not great. If again, that
example that I shared before of, okay,
(14:44):
they're asking the world, they're asking for like a really tight deadline,
lots of stuff, and asking you to reduce your pricing, you're not going to
feel good about that, right? If something's easy and yeah, sure, it's a bit of
a fun day out, I'll do that. A bit less than what I usually charge,
but no problem, I'll do it, you know, so it's,
it's a bit subjective, there's no magical answer, but
(15:04):
knowing your numbers is going to help you there. So your integrity rate,
that's what you need to be earning. I'm not saying charge by the hour, charge
by the day, but you need to know, on average, you need to be earning
5,000 a day, 2,000 a day, 10,000 a day, whatever it is,
and then your resentment rate below that, you're going to say, no,
I have a coach who says, like, oh, make sure that you quote sort of
(15:26):
a range that is above your lowest rate. And I suppose in
my terms, and the resentment rate, you don't want to say if my resentment rate
is, I don't know, 1,000 a day, let's say, whatever it is, I wouldn't say
to them, oh, yeah, it's £1,000. And I wouldn't say,
oh, my prices are 1,000 to 3,000. I would make sure that
the bottom of What I say is higher than that bottom rate. Right.
(15:48):
Hope that makes sense. I can do a whole training on this and if you
want to work out your numbers, then, you know, get in touch, we'll talk about
it. Onestepoutside.com call to have a chat about
your numbers. So, okay, number one, map your offers on the effort versus reward
quadrant. And number two, know your integrity rate and resentment rate and that will help
you work out. Okay. Actually, this offer isn't offering. No, that doesn't make sense.
(16:08):
This offer isn't mathing. This doesn't ladder up to the income that I want in
the time that I want to work. Okay. And then as promised, the next three
tips are a little bit lighter in the sense that there's no framework here. But
number three is sell more to the clients who already trust you. That's that
relationship radius that I talked about. Right? It's upselling, cross selling to
existing clients, extending engagements,
(16:29):
creating, you know, group programmes, more advanced programmes for people
who already knowing what you do and they've already done the basic stuff
with you, having that ecosystem of things that build
on each other rather than, again, just going for that cold audience with
your LinkedIn posts or whatever, which is valuable but not immediately
impactful. So sell more to the clients who already trust you.
(16:51):
Streamline your marketing to what works. And I know it's not easy to know what
works, but do do a bit of analysis, look at your top posts on LinkedIn
and above all, look beyond social media and think, okay, well, I went to that.
You know, where did your last five clients come from? Where did your best five
clients come from? And it might be again,
I've mentioned many times, I've got quite a few clients from a personal branding article
(17:13):
I wrote years ago. I've had clients drip in from different podcast
guesting I've done. Some have come from
workshops I've run, whether free or paid. It might be
referrals, but thinking of where they're coming. So if I'm posting every day on
LinkedIn and not a single client has said that they found me on LinkedIn,
maybe I could scale that back and focus my
(17:35):
time in a better way. And then finally, and this is the one
I'm probably worse at, but I'm getting better, it's collaborating and leveraging your network.
Yes, we're solopreneurs. That doesn't mean we have to do everything ourselves. If we can
partner with someone, get referrals, you know, have conversations,
that's really powerful. And I'm not Saying you need to now have a
co founder. Certainly I'm not even saying that you should co develop
(17:57):
a group programme or something because that brings a whole host of different problems.
Rather it's, you know, making sure that people around you know what
you do so they can recommend you. And likewise you might have a kind of,
you know, I try now with my accelerator programme to tell clients,
look, if you refer someone, because I'd love for it to grow organically, then
you'll get this extra training or coaching session and so will the
(18:19):
person you recommend or you. You know, I'm happy to make a charitable
donation or whatever that incentive might be
talking to people around you. Who knows, the parents at school might be in the
exact dream organisation you want to work with your past colleagues and
clients and so on. Right. So again, just
a reminder of those little tips or strategic shifts to earn more
(18:41):
without working more. Map your offers on the effort versus reward quadrant.
Know that integrity rate, the higher rate that you want to be earning and then
the baseline resentment rate that you don't want to go
below. Sell more to the clients who already trust you. Streamline
marketing to what works and collaborate and leverage your network.
So you know, that's a lot that I've thrown at you, but I think the
(19:03):
two key ones really are to map your current offers.
Just see where they sit in the high effort, low reward
quadrant. Certainly if they're high effort, low reward, then you should nix
those, but see where they are. And maybe the idea is how could you shift
that higher reward square?
What would happen if you did stop offering those things that aren't bringing the reward
(19:25):
right? And then what's that real resentment rate? And what are you still
saying yes to to work below? Who are the clients you kind of need to
let go of or at least go, you know, why not go, hey, you know,
I've increased my prices, is my annual price increase and then either they'll say yes,
happy days or they'll say no and no problemo. So you do not need to
add more offers, hours, hustle more to earn more. What
(19:46):
you do need to do is design your business around the work that delivers the
most value. And that means marketing, sales and the actual delivery
of your work. And that means value for your clients and value
for you if you're ready to redesign your offers and
pricing for this sustainable kind of success,
sustainable income before the end of the year. The doors are open now for the
(20:07):
accelerator intake that we start in October. And
best first step is to, well, in fact, if you're interested in accelerator, the best
thing to do is apply and it's no obligation. But it gives me
an insight because a little form for you to tell me a little bit about
your business. If you go to onestepoutside.com
accelerate onestepoutside.com accelerate
(20:28):
you can apply there and then you'll be redirected to book
a call to have a chat and then we can talk about whether it's accelerator
or if it's a one to one or something else that would be the best
fit for you. But that is the best next step. Thanks so
much and I'll see you back here next week. Bye for now.
If you're ready to grow a business that actually works, one that pays you well,
(20:49):
protects your time and reflects what matters most, the business
accelerator is for you. It's a 12 month journey for independent experts who
want strategic growth without burnout and without
compromise. Apply or join the waitlist@onestepoutside.com
accelerate onestepoutside.com
accelerate.
Reimagining Success, episode 359. And this one is for
you. If you are working hard, you're delivering great work,
posting content, saying yes to clients, but still feel like you're earning
less than you should. Maybe you're undercharging, you're
constantly reinventing offers, or saying yes to projects that drain you just to
keep cash flow steady. In a tougher market, it can feel like
(00:22):
the only answer is to work harder. But the truth is, earning more is not
about adding hours. It's about designing a business that lets you do focused,
high value work. Charge with integrity, and stop
carrying the resentment that comes from doing too much for too little.
Welcome to Reimagining Success, the podcast that helps you build a profitable
(00:46):
business as an independent expert, one that works for you and your lifestyle.
I'm your host, Anna Lundberg, former corporate insider turned business
mentor, executive coach, and mom of two. Whether you're a
solopreneur, a coach, speaker, consultant, I'm here to guide
you in creating a business that gives you freedom, flexibility,
and the fulfilment you're looking for, ready to
(01:07):
redefine success and build a business that you love. Let's get started.
Okay, so we've been talking a little bit about the. The tougher market, and I
don't want to sort of hammer home that point because I don't think it's. It's
even necessarily true. But it's certainly a perception that some of us
have. Have had. And whatever the reason for it,
(01:27):
it's an opportunity, as I've been saying, to
be intentional about how we design our business, to take that
step back to possibly redesign offers, pricing,
marketing, to really work harder for you. Because it's not
about how many hours you work. It's certainly not about
working more hours. The difference between earning well and scraping
(01:50):
by is not in the number of hours we're working, and that's for
sure. And that's also why we break free from the Monday to Friday 9
to 5 job. So let's not recreate
that and make ourselves the worst boss we ever had.
Okay, so why are you working harder than you need to?
Let's look at that one. So the first one, and there might be some repetition
(02:13):
here from the last few weeks, but there's some really important points that I want
to hammer home. The first one is kind of the Frankenstein offer problem, and I've
been using that quite a bit recently. Sorry, Frankenstein. In fact, I think Frankenstein is
the name of the doctor, isn't it? Rather than the Monster. But the
Frankenstein offer problem. So you are the Frankenstein as the
creator of all these offers. Lots of scattered,
(02:34):
custom, bespoke offers. We're saying yes to everything. We're being reactive
and that's helpful and even necessary, maybe when we're first
starting. But it leads to complexity. When it comes to your
marketing, it means your message is diluted. It's harder to make sales
when I am trying to one month speak to solopreneurs, the next one to
founders with teams, the next one to HR leaders who
(02:57):
are supporting their organisations. You know, I can either speak to a very
high level message, which is fine, full leadership content and that will kind of
resonate with everybody, or I can go really specific, but
then I'm turning the other off or they're ignoring me in the meantime. And so
it's not to say that it can't be done, but it certainly creates complexity
versus just having the one message, one client. Now,
(03:19):
if you're anything like me, we're never going to have just one client, one message,
one off. But there is a happy medium, I think, somewhere in between
those two extremes of being really boring and just having that one thing you do
versus being completely scattered and Frankensteiny. Okay, so that's number one.
Number two, and I'm sorry if this applies to you and it probably applies to
most of us, undercharging and over delivering,
(03:42):
often that comes from pricing based on fear. And especially if we're starting out,
especially if it's a tough market, we're having a wobble, it can be easy to
go, oh, it's the price, I'm just going to charge something less and, or I'm
going to charge that, but I'm going to work way harder and deliver this, this,
this, this, this, rather than basing it on the value. And that
inevitably, I guarantee you will lead to resentment,
(04:03):
exhaustion and clients who don't value your time. I had a
chat with a fellow speaker a while ago and she asked for some advice
about a client who, a potential client who just wasn't locking in a
workshop and she wanted to go away for her birthday and she actually decided
she didn't want to deliver that project anymore. And she said, oh, gosh, how do
I even say that? And it's like, look, the thing is, it's your business. You
(04:24):
get to say, I'm sorry, I'm no longer anymore.
Ideally, we've obviously been clear up front about these are the deadlines, this is
the scope, these are the conditions under which we'll work.
Jessica Lorimer, the selling to corporate expert taught me a long time
ago that we should have an expiry date in our proposals. And that really helps
to say, look, this is valid until X. That means we don't have
(04:47):
to keep delivering to 2020 prices five years later.
But undercharging over delivering is going to
lead to you taking those types of clients who don't value your time, who
aren't bought into what you're doing. Oh, this particular client, by the way, that I
was mentioning there, also pushed her down, like made her discount her offer.
(05:09):
So it's just. Yes. If we're desperate and we have nothing
else on, we can say yes to those things just to get a bit of
money coming in. But if we do, I would very much recommend that we put
in clear boundaries rather than the opposite,
which is then we over deliver for something that's way less than we actually want
to be charging. Does that make sense? So by all means we
(05:29):
can take on lower paid things, but then let's put those boundaries in place
and compartmentalise it and box it off and like, right, that's it, they're paying that
fine. So that includes this. And you don't get all the extra stuff that I
would have done if you paid me millions, then I would be really keen to
over deliver, no problem. Okay, so undercharging over delivering
the next one. I think this is so important with our type of business. Again
with this kind of independent expert. I want to be a recognised authority. I'm
(05:53):
not scaling a massive business. I don't need millions of leads coming in.
In fact, I wouldn't know what to do with them. Funnily enough, Daniel Priestley,
who of course has a totally different type of business, I agree with some of
the things he says and some not. For that reason, he said, you know, if
he had gone on Stephen Bartlett's podcast a few
years earlier, let's say he would not have been ready to accept
(06:15):
the deluge of people who came to him when they discovered him.
Certainly I'm not ready to even entertain the idea of
pitching myself to Stephen Bartlett's podcast. He wouldn't have me on. But.
But you know, Steven, if you do, then let me know. But I wouldn't be
ready to have that many clients. I don't have the team and systems
and anything in place to do that. Right. Two years ago, and I've apologise if
(06:36):
you've heard me tell this story many a time and I had a post go
viral and I had hundreds of people book calls and, you know, it was just
too much. It just didn't work and didn't translate into sales.
So if we're constantly chasing those new clients and we're doing so
by posting on LinkedIn and what I've told my clients in the accelerator
is that, you know, we're kind of, if you imagine and I'm drawing this on
(06:58):
the table and you can't see me, sadly, concentric circles. I'm here in the middle,
in the centre, and we're trying to post stuff to
cold audiences of people who don't know us and convince them
that they need our thing, want our thing, can afford our
thing, should get our thing now, should work with us to get that
thing. You know, it's a lot of work. It's not to say that that long
(07:21):
term brand building and positioning is not important and nurturing those
cold people to become warmer is of course a really important part of the
business. But we're missing out on actually the relationship based
marketing and sales and the fact that it's past clients and
current clients and friends of friends and past
colleagues and so on local networks that will
(07:44):
bring in the clients in the immediate future.
And we don't need hundreds of thousands of clients. Unless your pricing is way too
low. And then let's talk. But really we're talking about most of my
clients. Like I just need a handful of clients to do this. You know, I've
got one more day now for coaching and I'd like that to be, you know,
five clients. Fine, great, no problem. You know, so we're not talking
(08:05):
about hundreds and thousands of people here. And a lot of the
strategies we're taught and told and a lot of the things we've
internalised are very much hanging on that kind of volume over
value. And so I'd really urge you to reframe how
you're thinking about it. First of all, in that kind of the shorter
relationship radius, I suppose the people who are in your inner circle,
(08:26):
rather than just kind of throwing more stuff
at the long term, building stuff,
unless you're in a very comfortable position where you've got lots and lots of money
and you don't need the immediate cash flow, which is fine. But if you do
want sales, then probably, you know, don't just do that
and do the numbers. Again, it's all about maths. If I want to earn 100k
(08:48):
working this many hours, I need this many clients paying this amount of money. Right?
It really is that simple. And then finally, and that's
linked to What I just said there about kind of posting to cold audiences, marketing,
busy work. I had a client, bless her, who said, you know, I'm spending hours
on crafting each LinkedIn post. And if you've only got 20 hours a
week that you're working and you're doing five posts and each one takes
(09:10):
two hours, that's already 10 hours gone just on LinkedIn. And
that's absurd. Unless LinkedIn is, and there are people like this bringing in
lots and lots of clients to you, and that becomes your one primary mechanism,
that's probably not the best place to spend your time. Also, because
A post on LinkedIn is just temporary. Yes, more and more posts
seem to be kind of lasting for longer, which I think is good news.
(09:33):
But it's not a long form, evergreen piece of content like, like a
podcast, like a long workshop or YouTube video or
book or something like that. Right? So. And let's not put that much
time into the individual things that last for about three seconds.
And crafting and reposting, reposting,
re editing and perfecting the picture and so on.
(09:57):
First of all, visibility is not sales. And again, I did a series on this,
I think it was in July, on sort of quiet
authority over that virality
and also marketing. And again, another episode from July is
not the same as sales. So the again
and again I hear from people who've grown their following thanks to the latest
(10:17):
hacks and tricks on. On LinkedIn, let's say. And the
same on Instagram. I have a colleague who said the same. It does not translate
into sales. Okay, so stop sort of comparing yourself to people with bigger
followings. And let's look at who we have in front of us now. Also,
from like a integrity and generosity standpoint,
there are people right now, you know, five people show up to my workshop. That's
(10:38):
amazing. Five people have trusted me to spend an hour together with
me. That's huge, you know, and it's quite disrespectful to go, oh, only
five people showed up. If I've got, you know, 2,000 people
on my email list, that might not seem like a lot, but imagine 2,000 people
in a room, you know, listening to what you're saying once a week, twice
a week, whatever it is, that's again, huge. So you know
(11:00):
the value and the
real conversations that you're having, relationship building
over just that busy work. Okay, so Frankenstein offers
too many scattered custom offers. Undercharging over delivering,
pricing out of fear, focus on volume instead of value.
And that marketing, busy work. Okay,
(11:23):
And I've got. Oh, I've got quite a bit to share with you, so we'll
see how we get on this time wise. But I wanted to give you some
really tangible shifts you can make to earn more without working more, without
burning out. And one of the frameworks I've shared before
is, is the effort versus reward kind of quadrants. So if
you imagine high effort, low effort, high reward, low
reward, and I should really write this down so I can
(11:47):
tell you the right thing in the right quadrant, but I'll try to visualise it
in my head to give you the right label. But if you think, obviously
high reward and low effort is dreamland,
if there's something you can do, relatively simple, low effort, low
input, but the reward will be huge in terms
of whether it's, I don't know, reputation,
(12:09):
visibility, income, meaning
whatever, then that's a great place to be. Right? That's an obvious
quick win. The other one that's really important is the
high effort and high reward. That kind of thing is worth
doing, but we're going to recognise it will take more work and take more time.
Then you've got the don't do this, which is high effort, low
(12:33):
reward. Those need to go. You're spending hours and hours crafting
bespoke stuff. No one cares, no one's buying, paying very much.
No. And then there's the low effort, low reward, which, you know what, if you've
got nothing else to do, by all means, you know, tick the box. But really,
that's not going to get you very far. Right? So just take your offers
as a start and your ideas maybe, and just map them
(12:55):
on the effort versus reward quadrant and see where you end up. And like
I said, the high reward, low effort obviously is dreamland.
And then the high effort, high reward could be the things that you kind of
planned for next year or for the future. The second
piece, and these are the two sort of heaviest things and then the rest is
a bit sort of simpler. But the second piece is knowing your integrity rate and
(13:15):
your resentment rate and I can't remember, so apologies if I've talked about this in
the podcast before. Plus you may just be listening to this for the first time,
so I'll go through it again. But your integrity rate is what
feels fair and energising to you. It's based on the numbers. And
again, if you go back to the kind of the term time work
episode from August from last month, then
(13:36):
we did a bit of maths to get the math to be Mathing, it's
my favourite expression ever. Again, I always take the
100k a year you want to earn and you're going to be working
100 days, that's this many hours, and that means you need to
be earning this rate, so that is where you want to be. If
I'm getting that as sort of an average or they're paying more than that, then
(13:59):
happy days, I feel good. And even if it's not kind of the massive,
I want to get 20k for my keynote talk, as long as it's above my
integrity rate, that's good. On the other hand, you also want
to set yourself a resentment rate, which is what makes you cringe, what is
not going to allow you to feed the poor children. You're not going to survive
on that rate. Okay, there are. And you can factor in
(14:21):
some more subjective things. Again, if you're getting testimonials, credibility,
getting to use a big logo of a company or something, that's fine, you can
factor that in. But obviously just
ask yourself the question, if every client paid this, would it be viable? And the
answer is no, then that's not great. If again, that
example that I shared before of, okay,
(14:44):
they're asking the world, they're asking for like a really tight deadline,
lots of stuff, and asking you to reduce your pricing, you're not going to
feel good about that, right? If something's easy and yeah, sure, it's a bit of
a fun day out, I'll do that. A bit less than what I usually charge,
but no problem, I'll do it, you know, so it's,
it's a bit subjective, there's no magical answer, but
(15:04):
knowing your numbers is going to help you there. So your integrity rate,
that's what you need to be earning. I'm not saying charge by the hour, charge
by the day, but you need to know, on average, you need to be earning
5,000 a day, 2,000 a day, 10,000 a day, whatever it is,
and then your resentment rate below that, you're going to say, no,
I have a coach who says, like, oh, make sure that you quote sort of
(15:26):
a range that is above your lowest rate. And I suppose in
my terms, and the resentment rate, you don't want to say if my resentment rate
is, I don't know, 1,000 a day, let's say, whatever it is, I wouldn't say
to them, oh, yeah, it's £1,000. And I wouldn't say,
oh, my prices are 1,000 to 3,000. I would make sure that
the bottom of What I say is higher than that bottom rate. Right.
(15:48):
Hope that makes sense. I can do a whole training on this and if you
want to work out your numbers, then, you know, get in touch, we'll talk about
it. Onestepoutside.com call to have a chat about
your numbers. So, okay, number one, map your offers on the effort versus reward
quadrant. And number two, know your integrity rate and resentment rate and that will help
you work out. Okay. Actually, this offer isn't offering. No, that doesn't make sense.
(16:08):
This offer isn't mathing. This doesn't ladder up to the income that I want in
the time that I want to work. Okay. And then as promised, the next three
tips are a little bit lighter in the sense that there's no framework here. But
number three is sell more to the clients who already trust you. That's that
relationship radius that I talked about. Right? It's upselling, cross selling to
existing clients, extending engagements,
(16:29):
creating, you know, group programmes, more advanced programmes for people
who already knowing what you do and they've already done the basic stuff
with you, having that ecosystem of things that build
on each other rather than, again, just going for that cold audience with
your LinkedIn posts or whatever, which is valuable but not immediately
impactful. So sell more to the clients who already trust you.
(16:51):
Streamline your marketing to what works. And I know it's not easy to know what
works, but do do a bit of analysis, look at your top posts on LinkedIn
and above all, look beyond social media and think, okay, well, I went to that.
You know, where did your last five clients come from? Where did your best five
clients come from? And it might be again,
I've mentioned many times, I've got quite a few clients from a personal branding article
(17:13):
I wrote years ago. I've had clients drip in from different podcast
guesting I've done. Some have come from
workshops I've run, whether free or paid. It might be
referrals, but thinking of where they're coming. So if I'm posting every day on
LinkedIn and not a single client has said that they found me on LinkedIn,
maybe I could scale that back and focus my
(17:35):
time in a better way. And then finally, and this is the one
I'm probably worse at, but I'm getting better, it's collaborating and leveraging your network.
Yes, we're solopreneurs. That doesn't mean we have to do everything ourselves. If we can
partner with someone, get referrals, you know, have conversations,
that's really powerful. And I'm not Saying you need to now have a
co founder. Certainly I'm not even saying that you should co develop
(17:57):
a group programme or something because that brings a whole host of different problems.
Rather it's, you know, making sure that people around you know what
you do so they can recommend you. And likewise you might have a kind of,
you know, I try now with my accelerator programme to tell clients,
look, if you refer someone, because I'd love for it to grow organically, then
you'll get this extra training or coaching session and so will the
(18:19):
person you recommend or you. You know, I'm happy to make a charitable
donation or whatever that incentive might be
talking to people around you. Who knows, the parents at school might be in the
exact dream organisation you want to work with your past colleagues and
clients and so on. Right. So again, just
a reminder of those little tips or strategic shifts to earn more
(18:41):
without working more. Map your offers on the effort versus reward quadrant.
Know that integrity rate, the higher rate that you want to be earning and then
the baseline resentment rate that you don't want to go
below. Sell more to the clients who already trust you. Streamline
marketing to what works and collaborate and leverage your network.
So you know, that's a lot that I've thrown at you, but I think the
(19:03):
two key ones really are to map your current offers.
Just see where they sit in the high effort, low reward
quadrant. Certainly if they're high effort, low reward, then you should nix
those, but see where they are. And maybe the idea is how could you shift
that higher reward square?
What would happen if you did stop offering those things that aren't bringing the reward
(19:25):
right? And then what's that real resentment rate? And what are you still
saying yes to to work below? Who are the clients you kind of need to
let go of or at least go, you know, why not go, hey, you know,
I've increased my prices, is my annual price increase and then either they'll say yes,
happy days or they'll say no and no problemo. So you do not need to
add more offers, hours, hustle more to earn more. What
(19:46):
you do need to do is design your business around the work that delivers the
most value. And that means marketing, sales and the actual delivery
of your work. And that means value for your clients and value
for you if you're ready to redesign your offers and
pricing for this sustainable kind of success,
sustainable income before the end of the year. The doors are open now for the
(20:07):
accelerator intake that we start in October. And
best first step is to, well, in fact, if you're interested in accelerator, the best
thing to do is apply and it's no obligation. But it gives me
an insight because a little form for you to tell me a little bit about
your business. If you go to onestepoutside.com
accelerate onestepoutside.com accelerate
(20:28):
you can apply there and then you'll be redirected to book
a call to have a chat and then we can talk about whether it's accelerator
or if it's a one to one or something else that would be the best
fit for you. But that is the best next step. Thanks so
much and I'll see you back here next week. Bye for now.
If you're ready to grow a business that actually works, one that pays you well,
(20:49):
protects your time and reflects what matters most, the business
accelerator is for you. It's a 12 month journey for independent experts who
want strategic growth without burnout and without
compromise. Apply or join the waitlist@onestepoutside.com
accelerate onestepoutside.com
accelerate.
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