Are you building a business you can’t escape?

The way you set up your business allows you to be either free or tied to it. What are you choosing?!

The great thing about being a Speaker, Author and Coach is that you get to build the business On Your Terms™. You get to keep it small, or you can scale it. You get to be the only person in it or you can have a team. You get the idea; you get to be in charge of everything!

You have a choice when you are setting up a passion based business — how much do you want to be in it? And how long for? Do you want this to be a business that grows with you, that you are always going to be a part of, or is it part of a legacy that you want to be able to leave behind to continue to impact even if you are not there?

Most people we work with don’t stop to think about these questions soon enough — usually they are either excited about changing the world, or they think it’s too soon to consider them. It’s not. Thinking about how your business is set up is vital, so if you have not until now, please let us guide you with some questions we ask all our clients.

So, what kind of business suits you?

As we said, you get to design your business — through your business model, the products and services you sell. You may not yet know what your intentions are for your business, but most Speakers, Authors and Coaches we know have big ideas and don’t realise that they can build ‘big businesses’ around those ideas. So the key here is to start to think about that.

You can definitely start where you are at, and build your business to suit you. Most think they want to build a personality based brand with them at the heart of it, and don’t leave room to ‘escape’ or exit as an opportunity they can take later on. That’s why we are here, reminding you to ‘think big’ or at least ‘think ahead’ and check out what might be possible or desirable for you.

Think ahead.

It’s important to think about your level of time commitment and to think ahead on how your business and your lifestyle looks in 5 years time.

• Do you want to always play an active role?
• Do you want other people to be spreading your message and working under your umbrella?
• Do you want to leave a legacy that continues?

A question we get asked a lot — usually by those who’ve been running their business for a while — is: “How do I scale my business and not experience burn out, if I am at the heart of it and am the brand?”

Now that we’ve got you thinking, we know that question often leads on to this additional question: “Should I call my company and brand name or your own name?”

So we are going to give you some advice on both of these questions by showing you some case studies. It all comes down to how you structure the business.

How to scale your business so you have choice.

There are 3 main ways to scale up your business as a speaker, author or coach:

1. Build digital products and books so that you can reach more people without having to physically swap time for money
2. Create IP that other people can licence and use under your brand
3. Franchise or created accredited training to teach others in your methodology so they operate under your umbrella

Here are some examples to get you thinking:

Scaling through Digital Products.

These people brand themselves under their name (even though they have branded named products) but this means that they always want to play an active role in their business.

Tony Robbins is an obvious example of this — he’s maximised on books and courses and of course that reaches more people, but it’s a trap for himself, he can’t really leave the business. Unleash the Power Within just would not be UPW without him! In recent years, he’s outsourced a bit, and other trainers are running the programmes like Date with Destiny (love your life!) — but he’s still the figurehead and will always have to be involved in some way.

Marie Forleo and her B-School is another example. She’s got dozens of digital products and programmes that put her in the spotlight. Someone running this type of (large or small!) organisation loves the limelight, they want to have their fingers in the pie, so to speak. They are tied to the business, hopefully because they set it up that way. They put their personal brands at the heart of the business and as such must show up, but they extend reach through digital products so they don’t have to physically exhaust themselves, but still achieve massive growth.

The next 2 examples are ways to step up under a brand names so you can walk away at anytime; the business model still work, even without you. These examples show that even though they not involved at a day to day level or even at all, they are heavily featured as the founders.

Licenced IP

If you think about Steven Covey and his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His model has outlived him, but the company still exists and in fact is in the care of his son, who is continuing and developing what Steven started. Through licencing out the framework and building programmes and products around it, the man is not the work, but the founder or creator of the methodology. There are now licenced trainers of the work all over the world. So this may be one option that you’d like to think about. Developing your own IP releases you from having to be in your business and frees you up to share the message for as long or as short a time as you wish.

The Accredited Training / Franchise route

Brad Sugars of Action Coach developed coaching model, that is licenced and franchised out. He effectively trains and share a ‘business in a box’ idea — providing a proven system for coaches to coach on and selling the franchise to individuals. He loves what he does, and is still heavily involved. He’s in his sweet spot being part of the organisation currently, but could stop if he wanted to at any point. He’s an ambassador but could leave because it’s a robust IP based business that trades on a global brand name.

What you need to run a business that you can escape.

Hopefully by now, you are thinking a little bigger or beginning to understand how you can set up your business to give you a little more flexibility. So what are the assets required to scale your company?

Here are some of the things that we suggest you start thinking about creating or putting into your business:

• Online products / programmes
• IP / Frameworks
• Books / Memberships / apps
• Training manuals / accreditation programmes
• Solid business model and core team members

Is your business what you want it to be?

The biggest thing to consider though is this: are you building for the future? Are you creating products that mean the company can live on without you, or are you placing yourself right at the heart of your business and loving every minute?

OR are you at the heart of it, yet desperate to get out but stuck because you’ve made it about you. That’s why we want you to think about this now.

If you want the zenith of freedom that every entrepreneurial soul seems to want, you might want to think about the ROLE you play in the business — How entrenched are you currently in your business? Does it rely on you working in it? Or have / can you set it up so you don’t have to stay in the business?

You can build your business to sell, scale, stay in it.

Each comes with it’s own set of choices. Scaling will usually mean creating products — sometimes built around you explaining your IP / Frameworks. It will take some work and effort, but you’ll be able to leave if you choose.

Staying in it, means building up your personal brand to allow you to have the choice of what you do — speaking, consulting, presenting. If so, you need to build up your reputation, so you can raise the prices, because you are tied to the business — because you are at the heart of it — like being Tony or Marie.

We hope to have got you thinking so tell us how you are planning to scale and what you need more help with to achieve it in the comments.