Pillar-by-Pillar Business Growth - Anabeth McConnell

Website: https://www.akmcconnell.com/

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00:01 Hello my friends thank you so very much for joining me today. So today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about business growth and going pillar by pillar to be able to have a road map that's going to help you create a scalable business, but a one that is built with both purpose and profitability together.  

00:31 So hey there, I'm Annabeth McConnell, I'm an online business manager and marketing strategist for service based businesses. Those who are ready to scale without the chaos, right? So if your business is growing but you're juggling 100 different things and wondering what the heck should I be focusing on, then this presentation is just for you. Little bit of other tidbits about me is I am a story brand certified coach. I am also an FG Society certified mastermarketer, absolutely love that program and I'm also AUS Navy veteran i used to operate heavy equipment in the Navy as the CV in the construction battalion and absolutely loved it.  

01:18 All right, so I love this. When you're stuck in chaos, it is hard to lead. Is that not true? Right when your head is spinning with a million different things, how are you going to be expected to lead others, lead your business, lead your clients? We want to get this chaos out of your head. So The thing is, it's not scaling isn't about just simply doing more right, It's about doing the right things. We want to do them in the right order and you want to have the right support to be able to, to scale confidently.  

01:59 So I've worked with hundreds of businesses and, and all sorts of capacities and these are the kind of few items there's always a lot, but these are very common ones. And that the business owners being stuck in reactive mode, right they're always there putting out fires. So rather than be able to come and sit at their desk and just be able to be proactive, right like I've already got the plan i know exactly what I'm going to do they start their day.  

02:25 They start their day just simply putting out one fire after another. And then you have some that their offers are selling like people are buying them like hotcakes, but they're failing and delivering. And what that does is it it it leaves a bad taste in their clients mouth because they're like, hey, I paid this money and the delivery is horrible. Or even the opposite where they've got their delivery system nailed down, but their offers just aren't resonating with who they want to be selling to.  

02:57 Duct tape systems, right? You know, they've got half their their system set up in this program and another half set up in that program. And those two programs don't talk to each other, right? That can really 'cause some problems when you're trying to figure out, you know, how's the business doing. And then here's the biggest 1 is when you have no real plan and you're just hustling to make that money to get that next client. When you have a plan of action, but you don't actually take action, you were just simply hustling.  

03:33 So ask yourself, is any of that sound familiar to you? I know if you're just getting started, you may look at this list and it's like, no, no, no, none of that does. But you do want to make sure that these are the things that you're avoiding if you're just starting out. So the thing to keep in mind is the sustainable business. You need more than just simply a great offer, clever funnels, you know, awesome copy, a gorgeous brand.   04:02 You need a framework that's going to keep your business aligned all the way from starting off with the purpose, the why of your business all the way to that smiling, happy customer who's advocating for your business.  

04:19 So I've created the seven Pillars framework and what this framework is, is to help you to identify where you need to put your focus there. Your business is always going to be evolving, right so you're, you're never going to be able to have everything 100 % at the same time because guess what, there is always room for improvement. However, with this framework, it helps you to identify areas that are weak, in areas that are strong and so when you identify the areas that are strong, you want to think about, well, what can I use from those areas that are doing so strong be able to apply some of that to the areas that are doing weak or where do you want to put your focus when you're doing your quarterly goals? Focus on those pillars that are having some challenges.  

05:11 And then you just simply keep repeating this system every quarter to, to do an assessment of, hey, so how are we doing in this pillar and be able to identify what you could be working on next. So the seven pillars, it may sound like a lot, but there's a lot of overlap. And there's also a lot of.  

05:36 Purpose in each of these. And number one is purpose right? Number pillar number one is purpose and profit and it talks about why you exist, right why did you even start this business in the 1st place? And you want to know how are you making money we don't necessarily need to know exactly dollar for dollar, but how are you turning your why into money? Pillar number two is planning and performance.  

06:02 So we want to know what you're working on, what is your plan of action, what are the steps you're trying to get there to accomplish something and to understand how do you're measuring that success That ties into not just what projects you're working on, but also in how do you determine how much money is a good amount of money or how do you determine that that offer is completely bombing we need to get that off of our our list of services. Pillar 3 is product and innovation. Again, products could also be considered your service, but you want offers, whether it's a product or a service that are actually solving the right problem.  

06:45 Pillar 4, promotion and pipeline this is how you attract and convert your high quality clients. Pillar 6 is process Pulse. This is the system that's keeping everything moving so I remember I talked, there's a lot of overlap between all of these pillars this is one of those overarching pillars, people in culture who you hire, how you lead, the partnerships you cultivate. It doesn't matter if you're a solopreneur or you're an enterprise company. People and culture is always going to be a part of your business, just at different levels if you're a solopreneur, you may still be working with contractors or maybe you're not working with contractors, but maybe you'll have partnerships with others or maybe you just need to get you, you're going out there trying to develop some thought leadership.  

07:36 So like I said, it doesn't matter if you're solopreneur, a small business, medium business, large business, people and culture are definitely a big part of your business. And then pillar number seven is perception and loyalty. This is how your clients feel when they work with you and also how they continue to work with you after they're done. And what I mean by that is how are they advocating for your business, right? Are they going out there and being brand ambassadors for you? How is your referral system? So those are the seven pillars, and we're going to dive into each one just a little deeper.  

08:14 So let's go back to purpose and profit. And again, like I said, this is your why, but it's also your wallet, right? Your why is incredibly important it's the, the reason you wake up every day and it's the reason why you take on the challenge of being your business owner. But we're here to make sure we, we have a profitable business, right? So your why is important, but we want to consider, well, how is that why profitable? So you want to think about, do you know exactly who you're serving and what problem that you're solving we're going to talk about that problem area a little bit further, but it's incredibly important that your why is tied to a problem that you're solving.  

08:59 You're right. Anybody can say I want to start a business because I want to make money, but unless they're starting a business to solve a problem, they're going to have some major struggles. Do you have revenue goals, right, or are you just getting in there and just winging it? Do a revenue goal helps to guide direction into the amount of effort that we need to do. Or it might just simply be, hey, I want to make a hundred thousand dollars a year. But what you're trying to sell, you know, if you're trying to sell a 2$ widget is that going to get you your hundred dollar gold? Not saying it won't it possibly could, as long as that 2$ widget is solving a problem.  

09:43 So, and then this one here, is the problem you solve aligned with your mission and your margin. You want to make sure that you are solving a problem that is number one but you want to make sure that you have passion for the problem that you are solving. And that is where your why comes in. So that's pillar number one so when this pillar is strong, you've got a clear mission established, you understand the problems that you're solving for your clients, and you've identified what are your revenue goals, right and again, these revenue, revenue goals could be very different in year 1 to Year 5.  

10:21 This is something that you're going to come back to and refine as your business grows. Now, when you need work in this particular pillar, you're probably just winging it, right you're chasing clients all the time you've got that feast or fast famine cycle going on, or maybe you're under charging, right if you've got this revenue goal and you're charging 50$ for something that really should be 500$ we've got a little work to do there to how do we get from 50$ to hundred dollars? So just a quick question to kind of ask yourself is, can I confidently explain how this business makes money and why does it matter? It's an important concept.  

11:06 This pillar right here is the foundation for everything else it's kind of your keystone. Then we have planning and performance. This is the brains of your business, right? You need to decide what matters and how you're going to measure the success of what matters. So this comes into making plans and not just the overall idea of a plan, but what are the action steps that you're trying to do to reach the plan.   11:35 We want to move more into what we call a proactive mode rather than a reactive mode. So setting quarterly goals helps you to intentionally look at what am I trying to achieve? And then are you focused on the right projects that's incredibly important and sometimes, especially when we're starting out in business, it could be a real challenge because you've got a million different squirrels going everywhere and you've got to figure out where, where should I spend my limited time and money this quarter, this week, this month, whatever.  

12:11 However you break down your your planning, we want to make sure that we're focusing on the right things. Because then if not, you're spreading yourself too thin and nothing's actually moving forward or your forward momentum is so slow. And in the digital space-time moves pretty Dang fast, right? So we want to make sure that we're focused on the right projects and then we want to track what's actually working right. If you're tracking what you thought was a right project and then you come back later and you realize ha, I'm not actually making any movement on this, it may be one of the, because you have a success measure to tell you, you know, this isn't going how we expected it to go.  

12:55 Then you have another decision to make is do you adjust the plan or was this the wrong plan to start with? So when this pillar is strong, you've got some established OK Rs objectives and key results. You've got a clear plan of action, incredibly important, and those success metrics in place. So when you need work in this area, you realize i'm constantly busy, but you have no idea if what you're busy with is actually moving you forward.  

13:27 And then here's a great question. Am I focused on what will move the needle or just what's the loudest? If you're focused on the loudest, you're being reactive. Alright number three your offer should solve real problems and evolve as your clients do. Remember I talked about your purpose needs to be set in what problem are you solving your offers, whether that's product based, service based or combination. Your offer needs to solve a problem that your clients want, your ideal audience wants. So you're asking yourself, is that service ladder clearly defined? Do you know what your service ladder is? This is those those low tickets that lead to your signature that leads to those high tickets.  

14:19 What what is your service ladder look like? Are your offers price for value and profitability? Again, we're tying things back to your revenue goals. So 50$ product could be the right price, right but we want to make sure are they getting 50$ value value or are they getting a 500$ value that you're only selling for 500 And here's the key to for pretty much everything is, are you revisiting and improving them regularly? The online space, I mean pretty much any space, but particularly in the online space, things change pretty rapidly. And we want to make sure that we are regularly looking at, hey, is this service offer still serving our business? Is it still serving my clients are there ways to make it better?  

15:12 So when this pillar is strong, you've got a service ladder that I just talked about, those low ticket, mid ticket, high tickets. You got a feedback loop from your clients to understand, hey, how is this helping you how can we improve this? And you're confident in your pricing structure. Again, you know when you're just starting out, you may be starting at a lower rate. However, you must intentionally go in there knowing that I'm starting lower. But this is what I'm trying to achieve when it comes to pricing my value.  

15:43 We may start at 50$ and every client we get in, we're raising it by 5$ until you hit that 500 So we want you want to be confident in your pricing structure when you need work in this area. You're, you're customizing everything. And don't get me wrong, I come from the web industry where a lot of my on my websites were, they're all custom websites. However, I started with a baseline. Every single project started with the boiler paint. So and then I built the custom features from there.  

16:17 So just because you have a business that you're like, oh, mine, mine's customized i can't, I can't, I can't privatize this rethink that mindset is to come back and look at your SO where can I put in some baselines and being able to serve my clients better and faster. It also needs work if you don't even know which of your products or offers is selling the best, right? You may continually have an offer out there that you put in all of this work, but when you actually go and look at your profit margins, you got to rethink, is that really worth the amount of effort that you're putting into it with the little margin that you're gaining from it? So when we need work in this particular area, we if you don't understand what your margins is, your margins are on what you're selling, you might want to look into this a little bit deeper.  

17:13 And the one thing you'll always, always want to ask is, are my offers the best solutions for the problem I solve? You may initially think this one is perfect for solving this, but six months down the road, a year down the road, you realize huh, there needs to be some tweaks here or I have a better option. So we always again want to be going back and looking at our offers and pricing to make sure they are what they need to be just best serve your clients promotion and pipeline.  

17:43 Here's the here's the thing, marketing and sales they seriously don't need to be complicated, but they do need to be consistent, right? Do you have a clear message that speaks to your people, right? Making sure that they understand what you're selling and how that what you're selling is going to make their life better? What is that clear message and then you take this clear message and you make sure that it's consistent across all your marketing channels.  

18:13 The other thing is, do you have a consistent sales process in place? I will be honest with you, I hate sales. I, I, I absolutely love selling. It is my least favorite part of the business. But I found that once I get a consistent sales process in place, like I know what happens when a lead reach out reaches out to me. So by the time I get on the discovery call, I know what questions I'm going to answer and I know what's going to happen after they tell me yes.  

18:42 And I know that they're going to get the onboarding and I'm going to be able to take care of them once we're ready to kick off, right? It releases some of the fear of the sales process when I understand how it works. So when this pillar is strong, you're visible, right people know who you are. You've got a sales funnel in place and this could be a simple sales funnel simply going in and you've got a lead gin form that leads to your site that lets them book a call and you have that conversation with them, a conversion strategy so conversion strategies, again, could be simple as you get on a discovery call with them and you convert them on the call or it could be, hey, download this ebook and in the ebook is where you're encouraging them to reach out for a call or to sign up for your course.  

19:33 Your conversion strategy could really be simple. When this needs work, you're ghosting your audience. And why are you ghosting your audience? It's because you have no consistency in your marketing or it may be like you don't know what to say about what what your product does and you don't know how to speak to your project, Your product, your messaging is inconsistent, right you're saying on your website one thing and you're saying in your your social media account something different or there's no clear path for them to actually buy from you you could be putting out all of this content, but if you don't have call to actions.  

20:14 They're not going to know what to do they're going to say, hey, great thanks for letting me read that and move on to whatever next social post is popping up. So you want to ask yourself, am I consistently attracting and converting those right fit leads when you're considering your promotion and pipeline process pulse? Yes, yes, yes, this one is. It's both a in one of the most important elements, but it's also one of the ones that tend to be the scariest for a lot of businesses because this requires ongoing work just as much as marketing does, just as much as your sales do.  

20:53 You're being able to have a system in place where things are repeatable. And here's the thing, when things are repeatable, your life gets easier, right? To know what the routines are, what is the process how do I do that you're not constantly having to figure out, well, how do I do this what is the next step? Remember, I talked to you about my sales process, how I hate sales, but when I understand what comes next, it takes away that fear. And that's the same thing when it talks about when we have systems in place, it takes away the fear of what needs to happen next. It also takes away the fear of being able to bring somebody into your business because you have an established process for how you want things done.  

21:40 So you want to consider, are your operations repeatable? Do you have those systems in place for delivery, for marketing, for how you're communicating your sales? It's one thing to look at systems as just a bunch of SOP's but what it is truly is number one making your life easier. It also is part of the client experience and we'll chat through that a little bit further on. So when this pillar is strong, right, you've got those SOP's And I will tell you, SOP's in general will never, ever stop you will constantly either be creating new ones or refining old ones. So keep that in mind as SOP's are incredibly important, but it's, it never stops automations oh my goodness, with everything that we have nowadays, automations are so incredibly important.  

22:37 And it could be simple automations they don't even need to be a lot. Your CRM, your email service may already have some simple automations there about how you're sending out emails. I have an automation setup that's just been a lifesaver where I have my Google Calendar, but a lot of my clients that I work with might have me on their Outlook calendar. And so I have an automation setup that if somebody books time on my Outlook calendar, then it automatically blocks out the time on my Google Calendar.  

23:11 So I have a single source of truth. So automations can be complex, but they could also be incredibly simple and save you an insane amount of time. And having a steady rhythm, right when you know what happens, you get this rhythm and it releases stress because you're not having to constantly think what's next, what's next, what's next, it's done for you. So when you need work in this area, it's when you're constantly reinventing the will, right? When you go in and have to remember every single time, oh man, how do I deliver this project? You know, how do I deliver this website how do I deliver this? That the frustration that your brain has right there, that every single time you've got to think about, well, how did I do it?  

24:02 It builds on you you may think, oh, this is just two minutes, I don't need to write this down. But now next time you have to remember what was it you did in those two minutes? So the big question in this area, could someone else step in and run things for a week? It doesn't matter that you're looking for somebody to come in and run it for the week. But if you can answer this question, it helps you to understand where you may be in this pillar. Because if you can say, oh, no way could somebody come in here and do this.  

24:32 That says we've got some work on how do we build a business that we could be comfortable letting somebody step in and run things so that I can go on vacation, I can go take my daughter on the field trip and be that parent chaperone. It's things to consider when you're thinking about Pillar 5 people and culture. Like I mentioned, it really does not matter if you were a solopreneur or if you have a team of 50 or 500 people and culture isn't is integrated into your business. So do you even know what roles are needed as you grow so if you're a solopreneur and you think there's a possibility I may want to grow bigger, do you have any idea what those roles are? Even if you decide you want to be a solopreneur, but you want the business itself to grow, well, then maybe you need to hire some contractors.  

25:27 Do you even know what those roles are? And then making sure that you're, and if you have a team, you want to make sure are those team members or contractors are they aligned with your core values and are they equipped with the tools they need to perform their role? Even as a contractor, it could be one of the hiring questions like, hey, do you have access to this piece of software? If you don't, this may not be the right contractor for you. So people and culture, no matter the size of your business, is an important pillar to consider.  

26:00 So when this pillar is strong, you're delegating, right? You're being able to lead with clarity because right, you've done your process, your process pulse, right, you've got those systems in place. So it makes it very easy to be able to delegate and being able to foster team trust when people know that the systems in place are reliable, they know that they can come to you with any questions. When you build a team like that, it makes happy to come to work, but it also spills over into the client experience. So when this pillar needs work, you're doing it all right or you're struggling to lead with the team that you have.  

26:41 So if you're a solopreneur and you're doing it all, if you're happy with it, then people and culture would be fine. Although you want to think about any external people that you're working with, those partners, right your vendors or if you're struggling to lead, then there might need to be some work on how are we delegating. So the quick question is do I feel supported? Does my team feel supported? The final pillar is perception and loyalty.  

27:13 And I really debated on where to place this framework when I first started considering it because your client type experience, I feel is probably, you know, your purpose and profit is your keystone. But I feel like this is the foundation, right? Our, our, our job is to serve our clients. And when I started looking through the rest of the framework is I realized that every single piece, every single pillar is actually the ones supporting pillar number 7. And that's because the whole reason you're doing the business is to serve clients. The whole reason you're creating systems is to improve how you're delivering and how you're improving and serving your clients.  

28:04 And so the thing you want to consider in this area is are you delivering that consistent high quality experience. I can tell you if you are feeling low and one of the other pillars, this pillar is definitely going to be low, right? If you're not marketing consistently, then that client experience is not there. If you're not planning on how you're going to serve your clients, the client experience isn't there. And you look at this as being loyal.  

28:37 Being loyal is having those brand ambassadors, those who go out and refer you all the time. And why is that important? Well, it's important for one is word of mouth is a very cheap way of marketing, right? But it also means you're not constantly having to go out and find new customers because you have the, the clients you have are going to stay with you long term. They call that churn, right? You know, if you have high churn, that says the people that you're with are not wanting to stay with you long term, but if you have low churn, then they are very happy with the service with you and they're in there for the long haul.  

29:20 And those become your brand ambassadors. When this pillar is strong, you've got raving fans, great testimonials, a solid reputation you're the ones that people say, hey, you got to go check out this person when you need work. You're not collecting any of that feedback, right? I mean, that right there is how do you even know whether or not the client experience is good is whether or not you're getting feedback right? If you're constantly having high churn or you're losing those clients post sale, then you want to consider where are the touch points that we're struggling with? And so ask yourself, does my reputation reflect the experience I want to be known for?  

30:04 So you might be strong in some areas, right, Struggling in other areas. And that's absolutely normal. As I said before, the goal isn't about perfection, it's about alignment. It's about being able to see how those pillars interact with one another and being able to bring them up to so that the business is in alignment from the purpose to the delivery.  

30:32 It's a road map. When you can look at these different pillars and you could see the areas where you're weak, the areas where you're strong, it gives you, hey, this is what I should be working on, right because this one's doing well. Knowing that helps you to grow. You have more clarity about where the challenges are and you can help eliminate that chaos.  

30:57 So if you're wondering where should I even start, I did create a tool for you. It's called Where is my business Now? It's just a quick assessment, right? You're going to score yourself across these different 7 pillars so you want to be very, very honest with yourself and you'll see what's working, what needs attention, and this will allow you to prioritize your focus so if you're scoring really well in purpose and profit, but you see process pulse is really low, guess which one we need to focus on for that next quarter, right? So be sure you grab that freebie, fill it out, find out where your business stands.  

31:38 And the next time you're doing your planning session to understand what do I need to do to build my business up, You'll take a look at that and say, hey, this is where I want to throw our focus in. So you don't have to fix everything overnight. That's incredibly important, right there's all kinds of things to do, but you don't have to do it overnight. But when you know which of those pillars is holding you back, you can finally take action that matters. So I appreciate your time today i know I threw a lot of information out for you. Please check out that freebie and fill it out get a little clarity about where your business stands right now.  

32:18 Continue to use that every quarter or month or however you do your planning sessions, redo it or look at it again and that way you can see the progress that you make in certain pillars and be able to catch other pillars that may be starting to fall. So I wish everybody a happy rest of presentation. Enjoy all of the speakers and wishing you the absolute best. Take care.