10,000 Feet, Scaling A Business and Profiting with WordPress WPCP: 046
Yep, I was actually 10,000 feet off the ground a couple of weeks ago!
The photo isn’t actually from my flight, but the #selfie of me below is (we were squeezed pretty tightly into the balloon and I happened to be on the side where the sun was coming up, so I couldn’t get that great of a picture with my phone). I was pleasantly surprised that being so high up didn’t make me nervous at all. I think because there were so many of us in the balloon (12) and we were instructed not to move, so it was simply peaceful & serene (even with the scorching flame above my head that propelled us!). I’ve gone parasailing a couple of times and it’s a little more nerve-wracking than the hot air balloon.
A Different Perspective
I was in Park City, Utah for another mastermind event (which was awesome), and the day after we had two days of ‘masterminding’ after our adventure day (we also did a GPS adventure which was a blast) and on our first day of meetings, we talked about some takeaways from the adventures we did. One of my takeaways was the value of getting a different perspective.
When we’re doing “our thing” we caught up in the day to day of growing our businesses and we don’t always see the opportunities that are right in front of us. If you don’t change the view you miss out on opportunities. That’s what I had been doing for the first few years in my business. Staying busy with the day to day minutia and tasks… missing opportunity after opportunity.
Not anymore.
I got crystal clear on the opportunities I’ve been missing and how I can connect the dots between what’s working and what I want to do.
I’ve talked a lot about the shifts I’ve been making in my business this past year and sometimes I feel like it’s taking forever and then of course there are other days when it feels like it’s moving too fast (I know, sounds exhausting, doesn’t it? Yea, I wear myself out too). Regardless of the speed at which this is happening, I trust the process and truly feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. If I want to move things along quicker then I need to focus and be much more strict with my time. That means blocking specific time and days for me to work on things that require my full attention (i.e., not something I can delegate).
Taking the time to plan
Isn’t it weird that taking the time to plan out how you want to get where you want to go feels like a luxury? Somehow it doesn’t feel like ‘work’ so I put it off until I realize I had better stop what I’m doing and plan out the details. We did this in Park City. The entire first day of our Mastermind was spent doing this. We talked about how things were going, the bigger picture, and how we were going to get there (Be, Do, Have: What is it we want to have, who do we have to be and what do we need to do to get there). The value in doing this is beyond anything I can put into words here, but suffice it to say it’s part of my routine now. Effective immediately.
Scaling A Business
Let’s start this segment with a question.
Has your business consistently grown or has it been stagnant? If you have grown your business, have you done it strategically or would you say you’ve gotten ‘lucky’?
Most of my growth the first few years in my business was because I worked hard and stuck with it, not necessarily luck, but I can’t say that there was a ton of strategy behind it either. Over the past year as I’ve invested in coaching, mentoring, and focusing on getting myself off the hamster wheel strategy seems to be at the core of everything I do.
Especially scaling my business.
Enter the new division of my business: The WP Team
The WP Team is an outsourcing company solely for WordPress web developers. I’ve toyed with the idea of doing this for a while and after having opened this up to my coaching clients realized that I was missing a huge opportunity by not opening up the doors, strategically, to other WordPress web developers.
Many of you know Troy Dean from WP Elevation and Video User Manuals. Troy interviewed me for his podcast for WP Elevation and then I had him on my show. The initial connection has turned into a great friendship and Troy reached out asking if this was something I wanted to open up to his WP Elevation members, which of course was a no-brainer.
Troy was our initial beta tester and it went extremely well so the next step was to open it up to a handful of additional beta testers.
We’ve just completed our first month of the initial beta testers and so far so good. We did a webinar with Troy for WP Elevation and have opened the doors to a few more users.
Growing Pains
Have there been issues and challenges?
Absolutely.
I hit a wall yesterday, reacted like a toddler who needed a nap (which I did), and stepped back to get some more clarity on our processes and best practices for growing things.
Here are a few things I’ve learned in the process:
– Clarity has to be the foundation of everything you do. Unfortunately, sometimes you need to implement things to get clarity.
– Too many cooks in the kitchen will inevitably lead to a food fight.
– If you don’t focus on what YOU do best you’re setting yourself up for failure.
– Stop and breathe. Every few days, which is totally not my style (one of these days I’ll learn).
- – Trust yourself
Profiting with WordPress
I feel like I’ve been talking about this a lot lately and it’s something you’re going to continue to hear me talk about.
Because I run a business.
A business that uses WordPress at the core for everything I do (just about anyways).
There are SO many ways to profit and grow a business with WordPress – and you don’t have t be a coder, programmer or designer to do it.
I go into more detail in the podcast, but here’s a quick list of different ways you can Profit with WordPress.
- Blogging about WordPress (yes, there is still space here and a way to differentiate yourself)
- WordPress websites
- WordPress maintenance
- Content
- Themes
- Plugins
- Teaching & Training
- Courses
- Podcasting
- Coaching
- Services
- Design
- Sales
Don’t get stuck in what you see other people doing… create the business that YOU want to own. Do the thing that YOU love and makes you happy. That’s how The WP Team was born.
In my manifesto that I created a few years ago that was one of the FIRST things I said:
“If it’s not fun I’m not doing it”.
Stop doing the things that don’t make you happy and focus on what you’re great at… that’s when things will really take off.
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