My Journey From A One-to-One Business Structure To A One-to-Many

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTIn the early days of my business I worked really hard to network, find clients and build my email list.During the first few years of me running my business, I did a lot of local speaking gigs.Once my business started to grow, I was able to hire my first ever VA, who has now grown to be No.2 in this business.It was great having someone who understood how businesses are run as she helped me turn my business into an agency. I now have 6 freelance members of staff within the agency.When I started speaking on bigger stages I noticed that I was getting less and less enquiries from clients.Although my team were working with clients back home, I knew that these speaking opportunities were something I had to do.As my clients started to reduce, I noticed that my email list and audience was growing and growing.I soon realised that fifteen years of experience put me in a position where I could offer valuable advice to people who are in the same position I was in years ago. I wanted to work out how I could offer this advice to people and still earn money as a business.For me, the best step was to open an Academy. I knew I could talk about growing your business all day every day and never get bored.I moved from a one-to-one to a one-to-many model for a number of incredible reasons.Once I launched my academy, I had to be more selective when it came to bringing on new clients. I also had to rejig the way in which my team worked and accept that I’ve had a drop in income.Although I have taken a drop in income, I now have a business that I love even more.I want you to think about what you’re doing as a business and whether or not that is what you want to do. What changes would you make? How can you get there? Can you grow your business without having to grow your time?THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…The real organic content that gets the most reaction tends to be the things you create off the cuff. Although you can hire content writers and social media managers to run the day-to-day aspects of your business, the most relatable content will come from YOU.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSMe and My Business - 03:12Hiring My First Member of Staff – 10:00Increasing my Speaking Opportunities 12:20Growing my Audience – 15:00Taking Things Online - 17:50One-to-One to One-to-Many – 25:00LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEEpisode 69: A Guide To Starting Your Own Membership With The Membership Guys Episode 34: 3 Mistakes I Made When Starting My Business Episode 79: 5 Top Tips For Gaining Speaking Gigs In Your Industry Buy The E-Myth Revisited Attend A Masterclass Join My AcademyTranscript below&nbsp;Speaker 1: (00:33) Hello and welcome to another episode of the Marketing That Converts podcast. I nearly forgot the name. Uh, that's a great start to the podcast. Well done, Teresa. I hope you are well and having a great start to your week. I would just wanted to mention that I've had some lovely reviews on iTunes. I appreciate it so, so very much. And you know what's really, really nice is that so many of you have said that it's like listening to someone you'd go for a coffee with or having a chat with someone or like a friend. And I love that. I just think I'm so glad that's what people think. And obviously I just get on and I just do my thing and talk away whether it's very professional and I'm yet to decide and I guess that's for you guys to decide. But I really liked doing it naturally.Speaker 1: (01:24) I really like doing it a little bit off the cuff. I like the fact that it's not scripted, that I literally just get on hit record as I've just done and start speaking. So for me, I'm over the moon that you like it that way and that you guys think and feel that we are literally just having a conversation and we're like sat down and having a chat and we could be having a coffee or depending on the time, maybe a gin and tonic, glass of wine, glass of Prosecco, champagne, you name it really. Any of them, I'm up for it. Cool. No problem.(01:57) Okay, so this week is a solo episode and I've been racking my brains, right? I focus so much on getting interviews in place and I've got a load of them stacked up and there's some brilliant ones and I focused so much on that and so much time on planning what they're going to be that the solo episodes are kind of forgot about, very organised of me and I've just literally sat down and thought, right, I need to record. I'm doing some batching at the moment. What am I going to talk about? And I always go back and see what we've talked about previously. I look at kind of other people's topics, what are the people talking about at the moment? And I try and come up with a few different ideas. And today's episode I've decided that I want to talk a bit about business overall and I want to talk you through some of the things I've learned and changes I've made in my business because I really think that you're going to find this interesting. And I also think you're going to be able to sit there and resonate with some of the stuff I'm saying and it might help you think about your business going forward.(02:59) And one of the other reasons I've chose this for today is because last week I was in Newcastle in the UK and I went to Retain Live, which is part of The Membership Guys and they were on the podcast not so long ago.&nbsp;Me and My Business&nbsp;Speaker 1: (03:12) I'll put the number in the show notes. I wasn't expecting to talk about it and I forgot what episode they are, but it was a great upset. I had both of them on it, Callie and Mike and yeah, so I was up in Newcastle, at Retain Live and Retain Live is all about memberships and doing memberships and as I'm sat there looking at all these people in the room and the speakers on stage and thinking about how good and effective memberships are, I kind of realised that I never ever intended to go out there and have a membership. So it was interesting that I've sat in the room and kind of made me think about what got me to that point. I suppose I should start with saying, and I have said it before, but in case you didn't know, I actually never intended having a business at all.Speaker 1: (03:57) I was a very good employee. I liked being employed, I was very efficient. I liked having that kind of structure in terms of this is what you do, the accountability, being patted on the head when you did something right. I really liked all that. So the fact that I even started my own business is a bit of a shock still I suppose when I think about it. But then what it's gone from and to, it's taken a real curve. And you know what? What's really interesting is at the moment I'm at a really interesting point in the business, which is a little bit scary and I wanted to talk to you about that and talk to you about kind of some of the steps we have to make in order to move on and get the life and the business you want.(04:38) So let me start by going back a bit. Let me start by telling you how my business started. So, like I said, never intended to have in a business. I have talked about this before in another episode so I weren't going to too much and I will link up to the episode in the show notes cause I literally took you through the gory details of the fact of I had no husbands, no rich parents and no savings and I left my fairly well paid job while I had my daughters look after, a roof to keep in my hand and a car to keep running. Very smart decision, Teresa. Managed to come up with a brand and a website in about a week and basically had to earn money immediately or otherwise I would have been homeless and I would've had no home and no food for my daughter and no car to run. So I basically started of the business as a marketing consultant slash if you didn't have a marketing manager, I could be your part-time marketing manager.Speaker 1: (<a...