I took Bill Baren’s “Big Shift Experience” http://thebigshiftexperience.com/, which is an amazing weekend and I truly believe Bill when he says that his mission is to help small business add six figures a year in revenue. I walked in the front door of the hotel with the name of my practice, “help people get their money shit handled” but nothing else. Bill had helped me figure out that kickass name and it was solid gold so I figured if I got something equally valuable from the weekend I would be incredibly happy. I was mainly looking for details on what the right vehicle would be for the results I wanted to deliver. Wow, details, a plan and inspiration were delivered.
First off, full disclosure. I’ve known Bill for about a year, but just socially and never really knew what he did for work outside of being “a business coach.” When he invited me to his big seminar weekend I sent him an email asking him if it was right for me given the place I was in starting my business (essentially just a postcard with an idea written on it) and he said yes it was a good fit. I paid full price and he didn’t ask for this post, but I hope he reads it (Hi Bill!)
The workshop was back in March, and i’ve been sitting on this post as I get the rest of my blog sorted. My entire business has been a result from this weekend and I really appreciate it!
Rockstar Idea #1: Charge what your worth, and provide the value to back it up
The first major takeaway I had is how to be comfortable asking clients to pay me what I’m worth. Too often we have limiting beliefs about how much impact we can have in the world and first and foremost among those is how much value we can provide. The big idea is: if you had to charge $20,000 per year, what is the value you would provide such that after looking at it, your client goes “that’s a no brainer of course I’ll sign up.” This was very important to me because I kept thinking to myself “How could I ever charge more than $100 an hour?” By thinking the opposite way, “What value would I have to provide to charge $500 an hour?” I suddenly had the keys to the kingdom. I haven’t quite figured out what I could do to charge $500 an hour, much less $20,000 per year, but I’m getting there.
Rockstar Idea #2: Work backwards from your goals to create a business plan
This is actually something I kinda knew for a while but it really crystallized here. By figuring out what end results you want (how many pounds, how many clients, how much money, whatever), the path becomes much clearer. If you need 10 clients, how many conversations do you need to have to get 10 clients? 100? What’s your plan to have 100 conversations? Reach 1000 people. How do you reach 1000 people? Etc, etc.
There are several ways to do each of these steps and he laid out several different ideas. I now have a 4 page document laying out exactly what my immediate next steps are, what my core offering is, what my big questions are, what business questions I have, what my business plan is and who my partners will be.
Rockstar Idea #3: Invest in your human capital first
Another important thing I got from Bill, which was also echoed in a significant way in Michael’s book, is investing in yourself. Investing in my own human capital is the significant way I’ll improve my business moving forward. I’m in a fortunate position that I have a day job, so my basic monthly money needs are met through that and I can afford to pay for sales classes or for 1 on 1 time with a marketing guru. This was a big shift for me because I had expected to do fun things with the revenue from my business, but I see now how important it is to invest in business skills. Therefore all the profit I make on my business for at least the next year will be put into improving my “human capital” as Michael puts it.
Rockstar Idea #4: Enrolling people in your vision is the key to success
Bill also showed me what the importance of enrolling is. “Enrolling” doesn’t mean the same thing that you and I think it is. It has nothing to do with signing up for classes in college. Enrolling, in Bill’s universe, is getting the listener to be inspired by your mission. After I got done listening to Bill’s big pitch for his ongoing coaching services (which cost way more than I’m in a position to pay right now) I was completely inspired by his desire to help me. I was also convinced about how he would help me, but that was a result of the entire weekend not just the big pitch moment. It showed me that an emotional connection at a human level, not just a quick “buy buy buy” message, was the key to really finding the people who you want to help and the people who want you to help them.
Bill’s weekend seminar was such a complete package that I’m doing it a disservice by only outlining these takeaways, but rather than just a review of the course I wanted to let you know what impact it had on me.
Again, I appreciate you being on this journey with me and I hope that this post has inspired you to take new action in your life. I’d love to hear about it at Brian@BrianMDriscoll.com or as a comment on this post!
Thank you for this review. I’m considering attending!