What To Do When The Old Stuff Just Isn’t Working
Do you ever find yourself doing the same things over and over in your business but they just aren’t working, or maybe they did once but they don’t seem to be working now?
This happens to me all the time. I think it’s just part of being in biz for yourself.
I want to share a few things that have really helped me when the usual things don’t seem to be working, things that might help you when things are slow, things that might help to put some mojo back in your business, some excitement back into what you do, and maybe even give you some insight for the future of your business.
But first, I want to share a story that inspired me to write this …
There’s A First For Everything
A few weeks ago, I was surprised to see a hand-written letter sitting in my mailbox addressed in English to “The Moore Family.”
No return address.
No postage.
Here in Nice, like most people’s mailboxes in France, only residents of our building and mail carriers can access our mailbox so I was quite perplexed by this letter. I opened it and read in tight, neat handwriting a truly heart-felt invitation for our family to attend a religious meeting to celebrate what the author asserted was the precise day that Jesus was born. It was signed by a woman who also included her warm regards as well as her email address.
It would have been easy to be annoyed by this letter—the disregard for my privacy, no return address, the kinda creepy spy tactics used to case my family—and toss it in the recycle bin and carry on about my day.
But something compelled me to write her back.
Maybe it was the care in which the author had hand-written the letter, maybe it was her zeal for her cause, maybe it was my morbid curiosity of learning of how she knew who we were, where we lived, and that we were, an English-speaking family living in France.
So, I emailed her back.
I sincerely thanked her for her care in writing us the letter and for inviting us to this event which clearly meant a great deal to her. I wrote that while I was very grateful for the invitation, I’d previously attended enough religious meetings in my life to have developed a sort of allergic reaction to them and that my personal religious views centered around simply loving people regardless of denomination. I said that while I would not be attending her meeting, I nonetheless appreciated her for caring enough to invite us and offered a heart-felt sentiment of love and wellbeing toward her and her family.
She wrote me back.
She was absolutely thrilled to receive my email and said something that FLOORED me.
She said that in the 15 YEARS … (I pause for effect) that she’s been leaving these hand-written invitations in people’s mailboxes, I was the very … first … person … EVER to actually respond to one of them.
I mean, you gotta admire this woman for her unwavering faith and tenacity. I hope that by leaving these meticulously hand-written letters in strangers’ mailboxes she’s somehow racking up some bigtime heaven points which she can cash in for some celestial rewards like the eternal jacuzzi in the great beyond … or maybe a word processor.
But at what point do you realize that the way you’ve been doing things … just … isn’t … working.
Why Rinse And Repeat Is So Essential
What’s true is that I relate to this woman. I relate because I’m the king of getting into a rut, doing the same damn thing over and over, wondering why business slows down.
This is why “Rinse And Repeat” is an essential pillar to my business model and mentor training I call The Mechanism of Influence. “Rinse And Repeat” is about regularly going back to the drawing board and reevaluating or refining your business’s direction so that you continue to be passionate about what you do, continue to meet the needs of your clients, and continue to be relevant in your field. It’s about avoiding a rut.
Here’s a few ideas I use that might also help you keep your business fresh and alive.
The first step in “Rinse and Repeat” is to go back to the drawing board and ask yourself:
Who am I—what are my interests, skills, and qualifications, both tangible and intangible?
Have my interests, skills, or qualifications changed since I started my business?
What sounds most interesting or fun to ME right now?
Next, return to your avatar, the theoretical model of your ideal client and ask:
Who is my ideal client—get really granular in understanding them, everything from age to income, and especially their needs?
Have their needs changed in the last year or 6 months?
What are their most relevant and urgent needs at this moment?
Brainstorm ideas about how to meet what you perceive as the needs for your client. There are NO bad ideas. If you stumble upon an urgent need of your client that meets up perfectly with something you’re REALLY interested in, this is a big win. It’s likely that your excitement alone will stir up some amazing energy for a new project and that will carry you into awesome opportunities.
Next, do you have a secondary market product you could offer, i.e., the next level product for graduates of the first product?
If the economy is booming, develop more high-ticket offers and bundle products.
If the economy is slow, keep the same value to your products but cut them into smaller, more affordable chunks so that people can either buy smaller versions or purchase the full product over time. For example, instead of offering a 100-hr training, break it up into 5 modular 20-hr trainings.
Another idea is to look at what others in your industry are doing and get curious how you might adopt, adapt, or innovate what’s already out there. Also, look at what’s being offered and determine that product that is glaringly absent but deeply needed by your avatar, no matter how niche.
Stop guessing and simply ask your clients what they need.
Lastly, do your best to try to anticipate possible changes in the industry or economy 6 months or a year from now and make a plan to take advantage of those changes.
At the end of the day, whether you’re a teacher, coach, or selling widgets, nobody has written the manual for your business. You’re writing it, day by day as you get curious about the events that occur. Everything that happens in your business is just information. Evaluate that information and take the next best step in a direction you hope is right. If it’s fruitful, keep going. If not, change course until you find the one that is.
Please, for the love of god, if what you’re doing is not yielding results, don’t wait 15 years. Instead, “Rinse And Repeat.”
Regardless of how well things are going for you in this moment, I invite you to get curious about your business and conduct a “Rinse And Repeat” cycle to keep your business fresh.