💡 Business Tip - Create an Ecosystem (Issue #13)
Virtuous cycles power your business flywheel
As you have probably guessed, I love service-based businesses. When designed well, they’re quicker and easier to get up and running than a business selling products or one that requires a physical storefront.
A services business is also cheaper to launch since you can often sell what you already know and do in your 9-5 job. The amazing thing is you can probably charge way more for your services because you’re going direct to clients vs. having that relationship mediated by an employer who takes a big cut.
I recently encouraged you to start simple and scale later. But for this newsletter tip, I want to talk a little about how you can scale later by creating a healthy ecosystem of services for your clients (and potential clients).
I began my coaching business focusing simply on one service: 1-on-1 coaching. But, after that was established and stable, I started designing an ecosystem that could provide more value to more people and allow me to scale my time. It also lets me scale my revenue streams so I can generate income 24x7 (even while I’m asleep).
The core pillars of my ecosystem include:
Coaching
Community
Newsletter
Digital Goods
Online Courses
I have created a virtuous cycle by running all of them in parallel. My work in each pillar contributes value to the others. For example:
Students taking my online courses sometimes want more personalized 1-on-1 coaching.
The recurring themes I see in my 1-on-1 clients' struggles often show me I should create a course about solving those issues to help more people at scale.
Coaching clients often want to continue the connection with me and build relationships with like-minded peers, so they join my community.
My subscription emails bridge the gap between free advice and more expensive coaching. Plus, the content for my newsletters is informed by the work I do with my clients.
It's a nice little ecosystem! Plus, some pillars are infinitely scalable.
I can only coach so many clients at once. The quality of my community and its culture might suffer if too many people joined it. But there is no limit to the number of people who can sign up for my newsletters, take my online courses, and purchase my digital goods.
So, as you are visualizing the future of your business, try to design an ecosystem model that will enable a virtuous cycle and healthy, scalable growth.
Hi, I’m Larry Cornett, a coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. You might also be interested in my “Employee to Solopreneur” workshop (coming soon). I currently live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and a gigantic Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely. Lately, we’ve been trying to enjoy the crazy amounts of snow here and get some skiing in at least once a week.
