Most of us went into business for freedom of some sort. We wanted the freedom to spend our time doing work we love with people we love to work with. We want to make a big impact, and have a profitable business that allows us to live and enjoy the lifestyle we want while having a business model that supports it.
So what do you do if that's not your reality.
- Maybe you've been working way too hard and are sick of continuously sacrificing your personal life and your health for your business?
- Or maybe you've lost the passion you once felt for what you do and want to take a fresh look at your business model, offers, or team?
- Or maybe you are filled with so many amazing ideas to scale your business but don't know which one to do next?
- Or maybe you're thinking to the future and may know that what got you here won't get you there, but have no idea what will get you there. And you're wondering where exactly "there" is anyway?!?
Is it time to reimagine your business or any aspects of your business? So many of my clients and members of the Lean Out Community have shared that they are so ready to reimagine their businesses. From being frustrated with pouring money into paid ads and not getting the return they expected, to new clients and contracts falling through at the last minute, to lower than usual sign up, show up, and conversion rates for their launch events.
Tune into Episode 67 of the Lean Out Your Business Podcast or keep reading below.
In some cases, they had wanted to make changes for a long time but it took things no longer working well to be the catalyst to finally act upon it.
Are you feeling ready to make changes as well?
There are often catalysts for change that we experience in our business journey, some business related, but often personal. Things that make us lift our heads up above our business and question everything.
For me personally, the catalyst came when I received the dreaded call on New Years Eve 2019 that no one ever wants to receive telling me that I had breast cancer (2020 was a wild ride but I am grateful to be fully healthy now).
It caused me to question everything and was when I made the decision to finally shift my business model from consulting primarily with Fortune 50 companies to working exclusively with entrepreneurs and small businesses which is who I most wanted to support.
That was a giant leap towards a reimagined and realigned business model, but apparently there was more to come. Something that I haven't talked about on the podcast but that you may be aware of if you are part of my community is that in December my world turned upside down when my best little buddy in the world, my yorkie Chewbacca, disappeared without a trace.
I have never been so deeply impacted by an experience in my life and I spent a lot of Q1 in a place of deep introspection and reimagining while working through the grief.
It was the catalyst for further refining what really matters most to me in my life and my business - who I want to work with and support most, how I want to work with people, what my ideal team looks like, what business model feels most aligned right now, what a rich fulfilled life means to me, etc.
Sometimes personal tragedies or challenges are what cause us to realize what matters most. But the good news is we don’t need to wait for something to happen.
We can choose change anytime, for any reason. That is the freedom we have as the owners of our own business.
So if you have been wanting to reimagine your business, look at how you can start to make changes now.
Here are some questions to reflect on:
- What matters most to you both within and outside of your business
- Who you love to work with most and how you want to work with them
- What fuels you that want to create the space to do more of
- What drains you that you want to lean out / cut or delegate
- What the next level identity looks like for both you and your business
In part 2 of this 2-part series, I am going to take you behind the scenes and share more of how I am approaching things, what the impacts have been, and what my biggest lessons learned have been to date from reimagining things inside the Lean Out Method.
In this post, I wanted to share HOW I approached reimagining my business for its next major uplevel, so you can leverage this same strategy in your own business.
I started by asking myself the same question I ask all of my private clients when they want to reimagine their business and that is:
If you were starting a business from scratch tomorrow and you could bring with you all of the experiences, skills, and knowledge you have accumulated in your business to date but nothing else... what would you do and how would you do it?
- What would your offers look like?
- Who would you work with?
- How would you structure your day?
- What would your business model be?
It can be incredibly freeing to go into brainstorming from a blank slate. Whether you launched your business 2 years ago or 20 years ago, you have likely learned a LOT and grown a LOT as a leader in that time.
No matter how much logical sense it makes to let go of the things that are no longer working or in alignment with your next level, it can be incredibly challenging to do.
So much of our identity gets wrapped up in what we do that it can be hard to let go, even when we want to or we know it's the right decision.
Whenever a client is struggling to say no to things or experiencing a case of the "yeah, but's" and starting to second guess the commitment they made to reimagining and leaning out their business, I take them back to the blank slate approach.
It is sometimes easier to built up than it is to build down. Follow whatever approach works best for you.
At the end of the day, your goal is simple. To do work you love, to make an impact and for many of us to leave a legacy, and to generate the level of revenue and wealth that allows us to live whatever a rich fulfilled life means to us.
If your business today doesn't match that goal, it is time right now to reimagine your business. I hope this helps you get started.
Ready to reimagine your business?
Schedule a complimentary scaling strategy call to see how we can best support you.
by Crista Grasso
Crista Grasso is the go-to strategic planning expert for leading global businesses and online entrepreneurs when they want to scale. Known as the "Business Optimizer", Crista has the ability to quickly cut through noise and focus on optimizing the core things that will make the biggest impact to scale a business simply and sustainably. She specializes in helping businesses gain clarity on the most important things that will drive maximum value for their clients and maximum profits for their business. She is the creator of the Lean Out Method, 90 Day Lean Out Planner, and host of the Lean Out Your Business Podcast.
