How To Make Your Coaching or Consulting Business Work - Simple Strategies for Growth

Seven and ten…

Seventeen years…

Can you believe it?

As I celebrate the 17th year of my current business, I'm excited to share with you the purest distillation of my experience and insights in my new book, "Grow - 5 Simple Shifts to Grow and Scale Your Business Fast".

Are you struggling to grow your business? Do you find yourself on an income roller coaster, constantly worrying about where your next client will come from? I've been there, and I want to share how businesses like ours – coaching, consulting, training, independent professional businesses – can overcome these challenges and elegantly thrive.

Rather than talk about “Grow”, I’ll let you experience it here and see for yourself if it is a good fit for your business.

Ambitious Simplicity

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"
– Leonardo da Vinci

Welcome to "Grow - 5 Simple Shifts to Grow and Scale Your Business Fast" – the little book of growth and scale for coaches, trainers, consultants, course creators, authors, and other independent service professionals ready to build a business they can be proud of, and do it the fastest humanly possible.

As Blaise Pascal once aptly put it, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."

The brevity of this book is intentional. It distills years of experience and countless success stories into five essential shifts that will propel your business forward with speed and simplicity.

"Is this book for me?"

This book is for professionals who make a living from their expertise, information, knowledge and advice. Coaches, trainers, consultants and other independent professionals - if that's you, you're in the perfect place.

For those of you who aren't familiar with me, let me say "hi".

Hi, my name is Ana Rosenberg. I help independent service professionals, coaches, trainers, consultants to grow their business based on their expertise the fastest humanly possible.

Now, I know a lot of people like to start with a lot of blah, blah, blah... But I have a lot to give you about growing and scaling your business with simplicity, and I have – by design – a little book to do it.

This is exactly what we're going to cover...

• The 5 shifts to grow your business with simplicity while freeing up time...
• - One of the most effective ways of packaging and selling your services to get well paid for your expertise while also serving the world in the highest, best way possible.
• - The simple shift to double, triple, or 5X your fees and have clients say 'yes' gratefully.
• - The most overlooked way to grow and scale with simplicity for people like us...
• - The simple 3 steps to automate getting clients online from 'hello' to 'I want to hire you!' in less than 48 hours (even at premium fees).
• - How to put all the clarity and momentum you've gained into action in your business today.

This is my promise to you...

A step-by-step strategy to get well paid for your expertise, grow and scale your business while enjoying abundance of time freedom.

I'll give you everything I can in this book to help you grow and scale your business with simplicity. And if you want to continue the journey with me and put this strategy into action in your business, I'll show you exactly how.

My "not-so-secret" agenda for our time here together on these pages is massive clarity, simplicity, and something real. I want to make sure this is well-spent time for your business.

Now, out of respect for your time, let's clarify who this book is NOT for…

• - This is NOT for people looking for one “how to get rich quick fast and easy" thing. None of that "press-a-button-and-get-money" silly stuff.
  
  This is simple, but it takes work and dedication to grow a business.
• - It's not for people who don't know or are not willing to help people. You have to be good at what you do.
• - If you haven't figured out what you want to be when you grow up, this is NOT for you. (It's OK if you have several ways of helping people or if you want to reinvent yourself, though.)

Does this sound familiar?

• - Do you feel like you're on an income roller coaster with constant ups and downs, feast and famine cycles?
• - Do you constantly worry about where your next client is going to come from?
• - Do you know that your work is worth much more than what you are charging but you're afraid to raise your fees because nobody will pay?
• - Do you wonder how the other people in your field get well paid for their expertise and grow their businesses?
• - Do you work too much in your business and have not so much meaningful to show for it?
• - Are you overwhelmed by everything they tell you to do to grow, including technology and online marketing?
  

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I have good news for you…

The 5 shifts you'll discover will solve all of this with one elegant move.

Once you make these 5 simple shifts, you'll...

- Have control over who you work with, how you work with them and the fees you command.

- Know that you're serving the world in the highest, best way possible.

- Enjoy abundance of time freedom, location freedom and impact.

All of this with the joy you first experienced when you started to do this work.

You might be wondering, "What gives Ana the authority to teach this?"

Let me share my story of how I discovered the solution I'm about to show you…

Fresh out of university, I started my first training/consulting/coaching business in a field that had nothing to do with teaching people online marketing or how to make money. This is relevant for you because it is the humble beginning of a business of an independent service professional like us. And not the same old same old “rags to riches stories” of business coaches that have never had a business but to teach people how to make money.

My company did communication and foreign language training/consulting/coaching.

My father had just passed and I was taking care of my mom. I needed enough income to do that, and an entry level job was not going to cut it.

To place you in some context…

This was the beginning of the Internet. People were using those modems that made those strange sounds. If you've never seen them, google them and you'll see that you couldn't speak on the phone and be on the Internet at the same time, let alone do the stuff we can today.

Don't worry, though. I'll tell you exactly how to use the online advantage for your business today. That part I learned in my current business. But right now, we're talking about the beginning of the Internet and a business whose bread and butter was foreign language training.

The Gordian Knot…

You probably know that the cutting of the Gordian Knot is an Ancient Greek legend associated with Alexander the Great in Gordium, regarding a complex knot that tied an oxcart.

In case we need a refresher, this is what Wikipedia has for us…

“Reputedly, whoever could untie it would be destined to rule all of Asia. In 333 BC Alexander was challenged to untie the knot. Instead of untangling it laboriously as expected, he dramatically cut through it with his sword, thus exercising another form of mental genius. It is thus used as a metaphor for a seem-ingly intractable problem which is solved by exercising an unexpectedly direct, novel, rule-bending, decisive and simple approach to the problem that removes the perceived constraints.”

I wish I could say that I was as smart as Alexander The Great and immediately cut the knot in my business.

But no... I messed around with the ropes quite a bit.

This was back then my Gordian Knot...

I needed the income (aka I needed to get well paid for my expertise). I like to be proud of my services and my business. So the high standards of excellence needed to be there.

I also had a lot of clients who paid me very little but I could not stop because I needed the income.

I didn‘t enjoy a lot of my clients. They wanted to work with me because they liked what I offered but…

… There was no way of raising my fees without losing them.

The biggest knot…

I had absolutely no free time.

I was either working long days or doing business stuff or looking for new clients.

Back then, nobody spoke about burnout. All I can tell you is that I was tired all the time.

The turning point came literally out of the blue…

One summer night I was awake planning my business year, when I got a thought I had never thought before inspired by this quote…

"You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?"
– Rumi

Let me show you exactly what I did, how it worked and what I have been doing ever since to grow and/or scale any business like ours.

There are 5 simple shifts to grow and scale well... with ambitious simplicity. (I was exhausted so I became very ambitious at keeping it simple.)

Let's begin with Shift One...

Shift ONE – Value Packaged the Right Way

Let's begin by unpacking two crucial keywords: value and package.

High value is NOT adding a lot of stuff.

As I always say…

"Adding value means taking people closer to the outcome they desire."

***

Let me take you back to that summer night when I had my little revolutionary insight. My thought back then was... What high value could I offer that people really wanted?

To do that, I had to leave my ego aside and how great all my stuff was - which was great - and think like my clients.

In the case of foreign languages, they wanted a pill that could make them speak fluently. I'm sure that whoever invents that pill will be a gazillionaire.

Since I couldn't invent a magic pill, here's what I did in-stead…

I designed an intensive premium program to give professionals the ability to understand and communicate in their professional activities. My first program was for lawyers who wanted to understand and translate legal documents.

And I did it in a short intensive.

Now, the specifics of what I did aren't important. What matters to you is the thought process behind it…

What outcome could I help my clients create? Where can I add value?

I knew lawyers wanted that, especially the ones in international business. They wanted to be able to express themselves as adults and not like a kid in a foreign language.

***

Now, let's move on to the second keyword: package.

How can I package this?

Having taught thousands of hours of language training, I knew that to give them the closest experience to taking a pill... it needed to be intensive, fast and fun. I packaged it like an intensive retreat.

Again, the specifics of my packaging aren't crucial. What matters is the thought process…

What format does my premium program need to have?

The answer to that is…

It depends on the function of your program. Don't start with the container before you have a well-designed premium program.

Don’t worry, I’ll show you where you can get the best formats for your programs. For now, let's focus on understanding the core principles of value and packaging.

***

What happened next?

I knew exactly what getting well paid meant to me back then. I knew what my enough was: enough to lead the life of growth. I added 20% to that. I looked at my calendar to see how many premium programs I could have during the year.

I came up with a fee that sounded like a lot and I scared myself thinking that nobody was going to pay that. But...

I started calling lawyers I knew would be interested and I got my whole year booked.

***

These were one-on-one clients and I was thrilled.

Let me explain my reasoning…

My instinct was to start with one-on-one clients because as soon as somebody said yes, I had a client.

***

Now, I had to decide what to do with my existing clients... I raised my fees without making a mess and I'll show you exactly how you can do that if you need to.

***

The results were transformative…

Now I had free time and space in my life to grow. I devoted a good chunk of that leisure to learn about business growth. I started to teach my friends and colleagues about all this.

I was hooked.

This experience led me to an important realization…

As a side-effect, my Gordian Knot showed me what I was passionate about: helping people like us (independent service professionals) grow their businesses.

I have always been very much into studying success and happiness, which are not separate from having a business that you love. And now I had the time and the resources to do it!

***

My journey didn't stop there. Let me share a bit more of my story…

After my mom died, I sold the communication and language business and I left for China to consult for a private college. On my way to China, at the airport in Germany I met my future dear-German-engineer husband.

I lived in China several years until I decided to marry him and move to the middle of the Alps with more cows than people. The middle of the countryside inspired me to learn everything about using the online advantage from anywhere in the world.

This experience led to another crucial insight that I'll share with you in a second. In Shift FIVE, I'll show you what works best online for people like us – coaches, trainers, consultants and independent service professionals.

***

But for now, let's return to our discussion of premium programs. In particular, let's dive into the five key success factors for creating and selling premium programs.

There are 5 success keys...

KEY ONE - You need to make sure you are designing some-thing people want.

KEY TWO - It needs to be designed to be easily sold at a premium price. (Just putting together a lot of stuff doesn't make it premium.)

KEY THREE - A premium program has to be well-designed and that includes the communication of its value imbedded into your program.

That way people see for themselves the value to them to join.

 

Let me draw a couple of fancy graphics for you…


The people who are looking for help have a picture in their head...

Most professionals talk about something else...

So the very people looking for them cannot make the connection...

A well-designed premium program communicates the value it provides in a way that people can make the connection and see for themselves why they need it...

KEY FOUR - Part of being well-designed is to leverage your time and have your clients served with excellence.

KEY FIVE - I've been hinting not-so-subtly at having a premium program to be proud of.

The energy of "pride" is powerful.

***
Once you have a well-designed premium program, it's time to fill it. Now, let's move on to Shift Two, where we'll discuss...

You can have all five shifts here – GROW ON AMAZON

Till next time, remember… your brilliance is portable. You can take it with you anywhere and everywhere, including growing your business.

With all my love,

Ana