This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Episode Bonuses:
Down the FREE Ultimate Guide to Online Business Models and Virtual Services
Who This Episode is Great For:
Summary:
At the end of this episode you will:
Resources Mentioned:
SweetLife Podcast™ Love:
Need faster business growth?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
Full Show Transcript:
You’re listening to the SweetLife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach. Hi guys. And welcome back to the show. This is episode number 247 and I’m April. And so lad to talk to you today. Thanks for joining me. We are diving into a topic that I actually just got out of a very cool mastermind session with an amazing group of people.
And I was saying, gosh, I’m just about to go record a podcast episode, and I really want to deliver something that is pertinent right now. And every single one of ’em was like, this is what we were talking about in this space tonight. And you should totally unpack everything we talked about behind the scenes in this whiteboard session that I hosted live on the podcast.
And so I laid out my notes for you. I have structured tonight’s training and it’s going to be a bit of an extension of some of the live conversation. I was just having with a handful of clients. I was guiding through this same process. So welcome to behind the scenes of working with me as if you were in a private client, micro mastermind with me,
but then also to the strategies that you need to apply to your own business. This is the suite life entrepreneur podcast. And I’m so glad that you have joined me. If you have never listened to the show before, thank you so much for checking us out. We really, really pride ourselves on being known for the podcast that delivers you business coaching that is vetted and proven that you can bank on.
That is so good. It’s coaching that other coaches will charge you thousands of dollars for in their own business. In every single one of our shows is a step-by-step business training. You’re going to play a right away and you can bank on what we’re talking about here on the show. So welcome all of the show notes. All of the things that we deliver to you can also be found by visiting sweet life co.com
as well as the business coaching programs that we offer to entrepreneurs like yourself. You can go to Sweetlife co.com to check it out. And we would certainly love to hear your story and get to know you and the business that you’re in the process of growing more. So today we’re going to talk about what is your minimum viable coaching niche. We’re going to dive into a few really important things,
especially extracting from this micro mastermind that I was hosting. And we’re going to talk about the fact that you have a lot of things you can do in your business. And because you can do a million things doesn’t mean that people can fully wrap their head around that. So I totally get in here that you are a genius. You’ve done a lot of things.
Most clients, when they come to us have had offers many services, even books that have been written there, they have a lot of things that they have done, but they’re struggling to put it into a blueprint that all fits together. That’s going to line up with the life they want in the future and their profit plan. And so just because we can do a lot of things when we turn around and we try to sell that to somebody that might not be as familiar with,
you might not know how great you are. They might not have been following you for the last couple of years. Sometimes it’s hard for them to fully wrap their head around all that you can and do deliver to your clients. And so on today’s show, we’re talking about what is a minimum viable coaching offer and a niche. So I’m going to give you the strategies to go and extract out of all of your assets.
The one thing that we want to sell so that somebody totally aligns and understands what it is that you do. And they’re ready to take that first step into what I call your business ecosystem. So if you’re ready for that, let’s go ahead and dive in. All right. So this show is great for those of you guys who deliver a lot of big,
huge Results, be you struggle to kind of dumb it down to people that you’re talking to in the beginning, you may speak to them and it’s like this deer in the headlights look, and they’re thinking, wow, you do so much. I can’t even identify where I would start working with you. So I get it. I totally get it. And I’m going to share some stories and how I’ve struggled with this and today’s show and the solutions that we put in place and how we fix this.
It was not easy. I will tell you that it was an ongoing struggle for a long period of time. And I know that it might be for you also, because you’re basically a genius and there are a lot of things you can do. There are a lot of things you’ve done. There are a lot of things you want to do, but just because you deliver a variety of things,
your clients doesn’t mean that they fully can see it. They can’t wrap their head around it. And so if they can’t see it, then it’s like too far away for them. It’s a Mirage. It’s like this pipe dream. It seems so big. And so far away for them to accomplish all of the things in which you can help them with.
So today we’re really breaking this down and helping you create an easy entry point or an easy offer in your coaching or consulting business. A clients can totally understand so that you can have them enter your ecosystem and then move forward with you more. We’re going to talk about understanding why you need this entry point. We’re going to dive into helping you choose this entry point and helping you have a plan of how to put this into action.
The truth of the matter is, is we have to simplify your offers. You guys know I’m the signature offer engineering framework girl, right? Like that is our jam. That is what we’re known for is helping entrepreneurs develop your intellectual property into transformational signature offers and programs. And when you hear that word signature offer, you probably think it’s so big and so huge,
but it doesn’t have to be. And so sometimes when you, what you do is so big and so huge, we want to take a little piece of that and we want to extract it out. We want to simplify it because the problem is, is again, just because there’s a lot you can do. There’s a lot that you do do for your clients.
It’s just too big. They can’t even see past this emergency that they’re having right now in their business. And so the solution is to create this easy entry point. And so what that means is you are going to sell what the people know they need right now, so that you can have an opportunity to then teach them and help them overcome what they don’t know is coming down the road.
So let me say that again. We sell them what they know they need right now in order to bring them into your ecosystem of all the other things that you can do so that you can solve their tomorrow problems, because they can’t even see those big trial problems. You can see it cause you’re an expert. You can see it because you’re so close to what you do and you see it.
So in depth, in the intricacies of all of the solutions and all of the different angles that you want people to be thinking about, but they can’t even get there. They cannot get there in their mind. And so we have to meet them where they are right now. And we have to solve their first pain problem, not like all their pain problems,
but we just have to solve the closest one to where they are now, the closest one that they know. And they understand that they are talking about on a daily basis because when you provide a longer term solution in what you do, so you’re listening to this, you’re probably an expert of some kind or a coach or consultant, or you provide a service.
So when, what you do is rolled out over an extended period of time and they might not get like this instant result, but, you know, in order to get the big life-changing or business changing Results, they have to do the work, right. So if it doesn’t happen overnight, people just can’t see it. They’re just far away from it.
And it just seems so big. And so this is something I struggled with for years, you guys. So what I really do is I help entrepreneurs, blueprint and engineered their entire business. I help entrepreneurs map your entire business based on exactly how you want your life to look. If you want to be in a hut over crystal, clear water and Tahiti,
I will help you blueprint that if you want to travel around your kids, lacrosse games and, and be on the road, traveling with your family five months a year, like I do, I will help you blueprint that. Okay. But it’s so huge, right? So I say that, and even as I’m saying it, you’re like, oh yeah,
in your mind, you’re like, oh yeah, sure, whatever. Like teaching me how to build a business and blueprint in my offers so that, you know, I know for a fact I’m going to be in this great hat over, you know, dangling my toes in the crystal, clear water and Tahiti. It just seems so big. Right.
But that is what I do. I’ve done it for 25 years and I’ve done it for a lifetime of entrepreneurship for myself. I literally have a lifetime of proven experience doing that for myself and clients all over the world, but it’s too big. So when I say that and I used to say this all the time, and I used to go back and forth with my teams and I used to say,
well, why can’t we just put out on there that, you know, I do, you know, lifestyle, business, design, lifestyle, business engineering. And my team would come back to me and they would just say, April, it is so far away. People think you’re full of shit, basically. You know what I mean? Like they just can’t even get there because right now in their business,
they need to land their first 10 plants. Or right now in their business, they need to hit consistent 10 or 20 K months, or right now in their business, they need to hire their first team member or a podcast producer. Like that is all they can see when I’m like out there saying, Hey, listen, but guess what don’t you want to be here and Tahiti with your toasting clean in the water with me.
Sure. Yeah, of course that resonates, but it doesn’t hit home because after this podcast is over, you would hang up and you would leave and you would turn this thing off. And then that immediate problem would still be in front of your face. So I want you to take that scenario in your business. You deliver so much more than what you do.
I know that you know, that your expertise, your ideas and your thoughts is so much bigger than your audience is capable of wrapping their head around. Right. But the problem is when we approach them with that big picture thing, they’re going to bounce right off of you because you seem too good to be true, because it seems kind of fake because it’s not solving their immediate problems.
And this is something that I struggled with for ever like 12 years seriously in my team is finally like no, April. We really have to lead in with the first micro solution that we deliver to clients, which is engineering and structuring their intellectual property into a signature offer. Because the truth of the matter is, is without that one thing, without your signature offer,
we can blueprint it all out. But you’re not going to get to Tahiti, sitting on a pier with your toes, dangling in the water, unless you have a world-class signature coaching program that changes people’s lives. And so I had to start with saying, okay, I really want to talk about all of it because it makes me so excited. And I literally had to live it every single day,
but where my people are is the fact that they don’t have a signature course or a second draw for a signature program. And so I want you to be thinking about, although you can do all the things, where are your people right now and what are they saying to themselves right now in relation to one piece of the big picture that you solve. So when you commit to put your client’s biggest fire out,
and I’m not saying it’s like the biggest one in truth, but in their eyes, what is it? Truth is in the eyes of the beholder or whatever it is, right? Like this is how they see it. This is a very big problem for them. So based on what they see from their perspective, it’s a big fire that needs to be put out.
And so by solving this immediate problem to them in what we call a foundational signature offer, then it gives you the privilege and the opportunity to build a relationship of trust with them, and then open the doors to them, to the rest of your, the wonder land that you can solve to the rest of this amazing mindblowing world of all these different levels they can go through with you.
But if you lead with all the big, huge weakness, and you don’t already have a big, huge audience, it is going to be very, very difficult for you to bring people into your ecosystem, to expose them to the overall client journey that you can bring them to. And so, one of the terms that is used is called the minimum viable offer.
Okay. And we use this often. Okay. So minimum viable offer a minimum viable product is a one thing that you can sell that you know, that you can sustain your business and you can prove your audience by having this minimum viable offer. This is what I want you to think of. And I seriously don’t even care if you have been in business for 10 years and you’re rolling in the dough.
If you’re struggling with bringing people in and you haven’t pinpointed that entry point, by the way, side note, you would be surprised at how many businesses that I’m connected with that are making 30 and $40,000 a month. That still struggle with basic things like ideal client messaging and offer creation. So I’m just going to take a little sidebar here, just you and I talking on the side,
these things come up again and again, and again, it’s really important. We nail these things in the beginning of the business because they will continue to haunt you as your business grows. They won’t always inhibit you from making a ton of money, but they will be a problem. So our little sidebar is done there, going back to our offer. When we’re talking about how to have people enter your big program,
your big year long, whatever you do, or like it could be years long, whatever your signature program is. We have to talk about this minimum viable offer minimum viable program. And so when you do a lot of things and you want to change somebody’s life and you want to change some of these business, I understand that you’re so close to it,
that you do it so well that you live it and you breathe it. And we have to then dumb it down. I mean, I don’t even know what a better word to say other than that is besides simplify, dumb it down and not to insult your audience, not to insult my audience, but we have to meet them in a place where they’re already having these conversations with themselves.
And so here are some ways you can go through, if you have a lot of things that you do offer for your clients, and you can kind of pick what this one, a minimum entry point is going to be for your clients. So if you have a ton of things, the first thing I want you to do is I want you to lay out all of the things that you actually are good at getting results for your clients.
So I want you to lay out, you know, these are the things I do. These are the services we provide. These are the different areas of consulting you may do. And I want you to look at all of them. And then number two, I want you to put them in an order of operations, what is the best order of operations that somebody would proceed through the journey of working with you?
First of all, don’t structure your business like this, having all these little teeny offers, it’s a hot mess. And that is not the ideal way. We’re just doing this for organizing your ideas right now in your head. So lay out the different things that you can offer them. I’m not saying that I recommend you do all these little teeny offers.
Let me just make that clear. Okay. And when you’re laying that out in that line, that timeline, if you will, of all the different Results, then I want you to just get really real. I want you to ask yourself what part of what you do do you absolutely love the best because I’m really a firm believer that we have to really love what we do otherwise.
It would be really difficult to continue when you’re tired, when things get hard, do you have to totally love what you do? Here’s another little sidebar. Can I tell you a secret? I am recording this podcast episode at 11:56 PM. Is this how I usually roll? No. We usually batch our, our podcast and it’s all structured and perfect, but the last three weeks have been crazy because I’ve been traveling so much and I’ve had sick kids.
That’s the reality. Okay. If I didn’t love what I do, if I did not love talking to you about finding your minimum viable coaching product, then there is no way I would be up right now at 1156 recording this episode. You know what I would’ve done. I would have taken an old episode because I have five years of podcast episodes. And I would have just told my producer to repurpose it,
but I’m getting on a plane tomorrow to go visit my son at college. I can’t record it over the weekend. I have a deadline with my producer and I just had this awesome conversation with this cool group of entrepreneurs in a whiteboard mastermind session that I was hosting. And I wanted to come share it with you. There’s no way I would have done that if I didn’t totally love what I do.
And that’s what I want for you to love. When we’re talking about extracting out your minimum viable offer, I want you to love it so much that when it’s like 1157 at night and you are tired and you got to get on a plane the next day, and you could have just taken an old episode and repurposed it. Cause it’s been so many darn years,
but no, you want to share with your audience a thing you want to share. Okay? And that’s what I’m doing here. I absolutely love coaching entrepreneurs and seeing their minds just explode with their own genius. When it comes to life, there is nothing more rewarding than the business world to me than that. So what is the one thing in all the things that you do in the layout of your coaching that you totally love?
So that’s number one. And then here’s where the hard part comes in, though. Okay. What is the part of that? That is the center of their daily thoughts. So just because of what you love is what you love. Doesn’t mean that’s going to be the thing that they are thinking about every day. And we really need to create a minimum viable offer or a foundational signature offer based on the thing that they are thinking about every single day.
And that’s keeping them up at night. If there is a combination between it happens to be what you love and it happens to be what you need or what they need. And they’re thinking about, well, then look no further, but if you’re like most people and you’re like, well, shoot, really don’t love this entry level offer, but people are having this conversation and I need to meet them where they are.
And this is what we strategizing about. And this is what I was working with my clients about in this mastermind session. The deal is, is that you might not necessarily love that foundational offer. We do need you to love the entire signature offer part of it. But what I am an advocate for, and I do have to say, you really,
really have to, is you have to love and the way in which you are delivering it, at least. So the content itself may not like floats your boat, but you’re really, really good at it. You can get people really fantastic results from it. And therefore we want to build it into a model that you do love doing. How do you love working with people?
How do you love interacting with people? Do you love seeing their expressions? Do you want to do something live? Do you want to do something in small groups? So if you don’t necessarily love the content that you’re delivering in this minimum viable product or this minimum viable program or offer, I want you to love the model in which you’re delivering it. And that will keep you going,
because if you love the way you’re doing that, and you’re seeing people get results that is fuel for your fire, if you are a, and then again, it opens a door to bring people into the entire ecosystem and all of the stuff that you really, really, really do love. So make sure you love the model, make sure you’re, you know,
that you love delivering the model and the way it is first, because that’s going to keep it sustainable, working with your life and finding that sweet spot of what your clients are thinking about on a daily basis. And one piece of the huge picture that you deliver to your clients long-term then you are going to have that entry point. It is going to be that minimum buyable entry point or product that is strategically designed to lead to the signature offer the next big thing,
or your entire suite of offers that you deliver for your clients. Okay. Don’t just pick up randomly. And one more thing before I end, there is a conversation. We have a lot in our communities with our clients, and that is a difference between now money and tomorrow money. And let’s keep it really real, right? Most people need now money,
right? You want to build and design a tomorrow business. We need to make sure the work you’re doing now is going to get you where you want to be in the future. And again, this is like the whole big picture thing that I coach people on that it’s hard to understand where I need to meet you, where you are right now is I totally get the fact that you might be like listening to this.
And you’re like, I have got to hit a 10 K a month for the next three months, or I have to hit my first freaking client. You know, everybody’s at a different place, right? So I identify that having a conversation around now money and tomorrow money are very, very important things. And I want to make sure that whether you’re working with us to do it,
or you have a mastermind that you’re connecting with, that you’re any place where you can come up with a strategy to make sure that you are nailing the now money so that you have an opportunity to build out your business for the tomorrow money. This minimum viable program offer that we’re talking about on this show. This should also fill the spot of your now money.
Okay? So this should fill your financial need for the immediate fast. I’m snapping my fingers back here. You can probably hear that on my mic fast now money. And so it’s an entry level point into your business. It gives people great results. It opens them up to all the rest of the ecosystem and it’s solving a financial issue for you right now in a,
hopefully we can keep putting it on autopilot and scaling it so it can continue to consistently bring in new leads into your business, giving these new leads, amazing results, and then moving them into your next level signature offer program. So I just wanted to say that I hear you. And I know that probably 70% of you listening to this show are dealing with a now money issue.
And you want to be dealing with a tomorrow money issue and you should be dealing with both of them at the same time, strategic business design mapping, everything out mapping your business needs to take into consideration, making sure you’re building your tomorrow business model, but it’s reverse engineered. Even if your now many is something that you might just need to do for only two or three months.
That’s fine. I’m fine with that. But I identify that you might need to have some now money and this strategy of creating this minimum viable offer this minimum viable program that you have also fills that need for those of you that need now money just wanted to say that. Okay. So I am losing my voice. I have been coaching whiteboard sessions all week long.
My signature offer masterclass, that’s called a, your signature offer opens this week. And so we have these amazing conversations with people, both clients and new clients to us in these whiteboard sessions, leading up to it. And my voice is totally shot. And I’m about to go cheer for my son’s college lacrosse game this weekend. So who knows what’s going to happen to my voice after this,
but anyway, wanted to get this episode out to you guys. And, and I just felt like these conversations. So we have in our community, these are the ones that we really want to put out on the podcast. It might not be something that’s planned six weeks down the road in my overall 2022 content strategy. But I would much rather be here with you now at 12:04 AM recording this show and dropping it to you because I believe this is something that’s going to benefit you.
Something in here we talked about, hopefully we’ll hit an immediate problem that you have and give you an immediate idea or a thought process for a solution. And I love hearing about how you guys are applying this and your business. So hit me up on Instagram, send me a DM. I love getting your guys’ DMS. I’m at April beach life. And if you do want to learn about joining our mastermind,
our coaching programs, our masterclasses to lay out your business for both the now many in the future money, definitely cruise over to sweet life co.com. I would love to work with you. I’d love to get to know you more, make sure that you qualify to work with us and just really hear your story. Thanks for being here. You guys hope you have a fabulous day.
I hope you’re listening to this in the middle of the day, not in the middle of the night, and I will talk to you next week on episode number 248. Can’t wait to see you then.