BMP219 Holly Worton ~ How to Crack the Code to YOUR Business Blueprint

Today’s Guest

Table of Contents

I’m back again, with another solo episode! Today, I’m talking about how to crack the code to YOUR business blueprint, so you don’t have to waste time and money trying to use someone else’s.

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What You’ll Learn

What I mean by business blueprint, and what are the elements that make it up
Why you need to create YOUR own blueprint, and not use someone else’s
How to create your own blueprint
The specific questions you need to ask yourself
The attitude you need to have to approach this process

Things I Discussed

Connect With Holly

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast episode 219. This is your host Holy Worton and I am back with another solo episode.

Today, I am going to talk about business blueprints, I am going to talk about why you need to create your own blueprint rather than using someone else’s, even though that is super attractive. And, how to create your own blueprint. I am going to give you some examples of what other people are doing, and what their blueprints look like, and give you some ideas, give you some questions to ask yourself, help guide you on the pathway to creating your own.

Now, when I say: blueprint, or business blueprint, what the heck am I talking about? So, you may have noticed that a lot of the online business people, especially the ones that are more established, or have been around for a while, the known people, often have a very clear way of doing things. So, they have very specific offerings that perhaps they have had for years and don’t ever change, or they have a very specific way of marketing themselves, it is like they have found the magic recipe that works for them. They are not just taking shots in the dark, or throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks when it comes to running their business, they have done all the trial and error, they have cracked the code, they have figured out what works for them. Now, a lot of these same people will take that blueprint and say: this is my six figure/seven-figure blueprint and I am going to now sell it and teach it to you, but as you know if you have been listening to me for any amount of time, I do not believe that that cookie-cutter approach works, I don’t think it works. I was going to say it doesn’t work for everyone, but I just don’t think it works.

So, the odds of someone else’s blueprint working for you are pretty slim, it might, but it is probably not going to; because you are a different person, you have a different business, you have a different background, you have different skills, you have different interests: everything is different, because you are different! That’s why your blueprint has to be different. I know it is so super tempting to read someone else’s sales page, it is perfectly crafted and you think: oh, but they are going to sell me their blueprint, and all I have to do is follow the recipe and a beautiful business will come out of it. But, that’s not how it works, and a I know it is kind of frustrating; so, I wanted to kind of segue into a little something that I channeled last month when I went to Avebury. So, I did a couple of channeling there, I went up on Windmill Hill, two days in a row, and the first day I channeled this really lovely message that the guides clearly said was not just for me and I had to share it with other people and you can find that on YouTube, I will include the link in the show notes. And the next day I went back, and I did a little bit of written channeling, also on Windmill Hill.

Now, when I first wrote this down it was pretty clear that the message was for me, but I think that there is a lot that you can take from this, so I am going to share this with you now, here is what they said:

You must do the work, the light work. Do not shy away. This is the work you were drawn to, you were drawn to it for a reason. This is your work, yes. You. Do it in your way. In the way that you know is right for you: outdoors; in nature; nature goddess; love; light; energy; with friends; alone. Do the work that you know is yours. Without fear. Without shame. With love, light, pride, humility, this is how you serve.

So, they were clearly talking to me specifically when they were mentioning stuff about nature, and doing stuff outdoors, and that may or may not resonate with you. But, all the rest of it, you can totally take on board. This message is so aligned with me, and the way I do business, and the way I teach. It is: do it your way; you are the only one who knows what’s right for you. And that’s why you are the one who has to figure out what your business blueprint is, and your way of marketing your business, and your way of offering your services; and your way of running things. So, do it your way. If you take away anything from today’s episode, it is: do it your way.

And this episode was actually inspired by some journalling that I did a couple of mornings ago. So, I had gone out with a friend of mine on Friday, we were talking about business stuff, we hadn’t seen each other in probably two or three months, and she had had major shifts in her business since then. Suddenly she has cracked the code to her business, she is fully booked, she is working with people just the way she wants to in six-month packages. She had hired a coach, and she had hired a sales coach, and she had learned, she had figured out how to create the right offerings for clients, how to market, how to get people on discovery calls, and she is signing up people who are such a perfect fit to work with her. And I was so excited for her, because I know that she has struggled with this stuff in the past, she has been on this business journey for a couple of years now and I was just thrilled. And I found that it was so easy to get caught up in her solutions. In her coaches, the coaches she had hired that had helped her get this result. Her speaking process: because she was getting a lot of these discovery calls through people who were coming to her speaking, she was doing little talks, webinars, and also doing speaking online as well. It was so easy to get caught up in her new sales conversation style that she had learned, I just wanted to learn more – partly because I think it is always interesting to hear what is working for other people – but it was like one part of my mind took it one step further and was just like: right, if you sign up with her coaches, and start speaking in the way that she is speaking, and you follow her new sales conversation, you are going to crack your code, you are going to find your secret sauce, your magic recipe.

And then, I realised that I was being ridiculous {laughing} because that’s her code, that’s her special recipe, that’s not my special recipe. And, yeah, maybe her coaches could help me, maybe her new sales conversation, style/technique will work for me, or maybe not. But I am sharing the story, because it is so easy to get caught up and say right: well I have got to model that and it will work for me. Well, yeah, maybe parts of that will work for you, and it is totally worth trying, but I think that we need to approach those experiments, as an experiment, as a way of saying: this worked for her, her business is kind of similar, or not, in this case it is not, so let’s give it a try, let’s experiment. Because, I think there is a lot of trial and error in business especially few months, maybe years, until you find this magic recipe that works for you. And once you have got it, and it works, you can tweak it as you go. And, until then like I said it is a lot of trial and error, it is just getting yourself out there in all these different ways and seeing what works for you, what works for you is not what at works for someone else. What I realised, of course, is that those are the pieces of her business puzzle, not mine. And, to be fully open here, I still need to crack the code of my business puzzle. Like, I am getting out there, I am getting clients, things are growing, I am getting visible, but I still haven’t cracked that blueprint, I still haven’t found that magical recipe of the thing that works for me so I can narrow it down and just focus on those things and have that kind of flow; the sense that the machinery is working in the background and I know what I have to do, I am still doing kind of the shot in the dark thing, because some things work, some things don’t. So, I am keep trying, what I am doing is working, but I still haven’t found that exact recipe, let’s call it.

So, questions you may be thinking: How do I find what works for me? How do I find what ingredients go into my business recipe or business blueprint?

So, I think it is really important to start out by looking at:

What do you like when it comes to marketing your business and offering your services? and
What do you not like?

So, I really like podcasting; I always talk about how this podcast was a complete surprise to me, I haven’t missed a week in 219 weeks now, I love it, it is easy, it is fun, I love my podcast. So, thank you for listening, because obviously I I wouldn’t be doing this if you weren’t listening. I like writing books; I love writing my business books, I like writing my walking books (those are not related to my business, really); I love doing webinars, especially co-hosted webinars, I love all the stuff I do online. I like doing videos (I am not: oh my god wow video!). I love getting interviews, I love it when people interview me on their podcasts, or if they have a video show, or a video YouTube channel; I love being interviewed, so if you have a thing and want to interview me, I will probably say yes, because I love it, it is fun; I love having new conversations with new people and it is just great, I love interviews. I really like speaking, but I have realised when I think about what I used to…so, I used to go to London a lot, go to networking groups, try to get speaking engagements, when I think about doing that now I just think: oh my God, so heavy. Like, if I could just tele-transport myself from my house to the event, speak, have a lot of fun, and then like tele-transport myself back home, that would be possibly great; but just the thought of getting out of the house, and going, and coming back and the public transport and ahh, it just feels really heavy. Which is a surprise to me when I was exploring this, because I love speaking. But I just, lately have found just so not motivated to go into London which is where most of the speaking stuff happens. And that’s part of the reason why I started speaking my business more into online stuff, the last…it has been online always – I kind of left the offline networking a couple of years ago, I think it was now. So, I love speaking and if someone invited me to go and speak I would, but I am not motivated to put my effort into travelling to speak. Same goes for when I travelled earlier this year to Brussels to speak at No Limits, I loved it once I was there, it was so good. But, I was invited to that but if I had to go out and start pitching myself to stuff like that, I don’t know, it just feels really heavy.

So, those are some good examples: what about you?

What kinds of things feel light?
What kinds of things feel fun? and
What kinds of things feel really heavy to you?

So, if you go back to the stuff that we talked about in Redefining Visibility, which you can still sign up for – it is now available as a home study program which you can sign up for at https://www.hollyworton.com/RV for Redefining Visibility, so if you go through that and work out which types of content feel fun, and exciting, like: doing a podcast, writing on a blog, doing YouTube videos, doing live videos, interviewing someone else, being interviewed by someone, doing webinars on your own, co-hosted webinars, writing emails or newsletters, writing books, eBooks, audiobooks, creating graphics for Instagram or Pinterest, creating info graphics, reviewing other people’s products that kind of thing as a good way to get affiliate income. There are so many types of content that you can create to help us to market our businesses and be visible. So, I think that is one piece of the business recipe or business blueprint. So, think about what feels fun, think about what brings joy, think about what you don’t enjoy. I think that’s a really good place to start, because it is all about doing these things in your way, when and how and where: it it right for you? It is all about focussing your energy only on the things that are right for you. But, sometimes it takes throwing the spaghetti on the wall, trial and error, trying stuff to see what sticks, see what works for you and play around, if you can come at this from a place of experimentation, play, let’s see what works, rather than: ugh I tried this and it was awful; I tried this and it didn’t work. Try, try, try; experiment and see what works for you.

And I think the other part to this is: what are the products and services that you are going to offer? So, I am really simple in my products and services: I have got my books; I have got my 1:1 work, of which I have two packages, you can work with me on three 90-minute-sessions, or you can work with me for six months, because I love working with people for longer periods of time, because that’s how you can get really, really big change and I love seeing people evolve like that. So, that’s pretty much it, I had an online program, it is kind of on the back-burner now, I have taken it off my website because I want to upgrade it again, and then re-release it, but that’s it. It is pretty simple, and I like to keep it simple, I don’t like having 1001 offers. So, like I said, two of the elements here are: what kinds of contents are you going to create? How are you going to get yourself out there? How are you going to get yourself visible? And then, how are you going to serve your clients?

So, when I was thinking about this journey, I was thinking about people’s business blueprints, or their puzzle, and this is as I said, this is your puzzle to solve, no one else can solve it for you, they can’t do it for you, they can give you ideas to play with. Certainly, you can work with a business coach or mentor, but ultimately you have to do the work yourself, but you also have to solve the puzzle yourself, you have to create your own blueprint, because only you know what’s right for you. So, I was looking at what other people do, this will give you a good example, because the people who have cracked their code are really simple.

So, I talk a lot about: Fabeku Fatunmise, and I am a big fan of his; I have been following him for about a year, I am doing his money lab now, it is amazing, and I am so excited to finally be in one of his group programs. He is so simple, so he basically just does Facebook, he doesn’t send emails out to a list, he doesn’t do any other social media that I can see; he posts a bunch of stories, like really human stories from his life, and business, and clients, on his Facebook profile and I guess his page maybe not, I guess it is just his profile and his Facebook group. So, he has got a Facebook group and you can only join the group if you are a friend of someone already in the group so he has got this really consulted way of accepting people into the group. So, you have to friend him on Facebook and then send him a message and say: I heard about this through so-and-so and then you have to send your mutual friend a message and say: you want to join, and then they have to let him now…yeah it is a bit complicated. But, he gets a great community of people who are truly interested in what he does and have heard about him through word of mouth. So, if you want to join his Facebook group which is amazing, send me Facebook message, let me know that you want to join his group and I will connect you. So, again, he has an email list that you can sign up to on his website; he does not send out emails, he does not blog, he hasn’t blogged in years; I don’t see anything of his anywhere else on social media; he doesn’t do webinars, he doesn’t do social media, he doesn’t do Facebook lives, it is just that simple. And he also has simple ways of working with people, the way to work with him 1:1 is he has this thing called a Rev, it is $1500, he is booked out five or six months in advance and that’s it. Every once in a while, he does these coherence labs of which the money lab is the 3^rd and he does one or two a year, and again, did you hear me say he is booked out months in advance. He does no marketing! He just mentions in his Facebook group: hey I have got one last slot left for February, boom it gets booked. Simple!

Denise Duffield-Thomas, whom you also know I am a fan of, she has been a guest a couple of times on this podcast; she does a weekly video which she batches all at once. I think last year she batched all of her videos for the entire year at the end of the year, had them all professionally done, boom all of her content done at once. They go out weekly, so she has a weekly video, which gets transcribed and put up as a blog post, beneath the video, and the audio from the video is used for a podcast, so people can subscribe and get that in their podcast tab. She also gets interviewed a lot. She talks a lot about how she has got a blogpost which says she is interviewed at least 200 times a year, for the work she does: simple. She also has very simple business offerings, for years she has had only one offering which is the Lucky Bitch Money Bootcamp. This year she added a Money Archetypes program. That’s it. Two basic things, simple, she has cracked the code.

Marie Forleo: she has got one offering, she has got B-School that comes up every year; I have actually seen her doing a lot of interviews lately, but she wasn’t doing anything for a while, other than her Marie TV videos; and getting lots of affiliates to help her promote B-School, when it launches once a year. Super simple, she has cracked the code to her business puzzle.

This friend of mine that I mentioned earlier, she is doing speaking, she is doing webinars, and from there getting people onto sales conversations and then getting people onto her programs, her 1:1 work. I have another friend, who does joint ventures to get people on webinars, to sell them onto her online program, she does that once a year. From there she gets them onto…some of them will come onto a live event and then she will up-sell them into whatever she is doing, a mentoring program, or whatever it is she is offering for the following year. So, simple, simple, simple. But, I think it is probably fair to say that these people didn’t crack the code to their business puzzle, or business blueprint, the first week, month, or maybe even year. It is trial and error which gets you what works for you. And then once you find that you can keep that simple and I think that is just beautiful but it is about finding your own blueprint.

So, what are all the elements that make up this?

So, what can you do to get visible?
What kind of content can you create?
How are you going to get people onto discovery calls, if you do discovery calls, if you don’t, you can just have a button on your website – plenty of people do not do discovery calls.

Try things out, see what you like, see what you don’t like, see what you want to do, see what you don’t want to do, what feels heavy and ahh. Let go of what doesn’t work and focus on the stuff that you love. And focus on making that work for your, keep trying things.

So, moving on from what I discussed earlier as to what I like and what I don’t like: I need to focus on my podcasting, I need to focus on writing my books, on my webinars, on my online stuff, on getting interviews; because this is the stuff I love. I think the more I can create a plan for doing more of this stuff, and then just keep doing it and getting better at it, and getting it out there to more and more people, that to me I think is the path to my own blueprint.

So, as we talk about this, I would also like you to be aware of mind-crap that comes up for you. So, when you think about cracking the code, or solving the puzzle, to your business blueprint, how does that feel? Does that make you feel excited, or does it make you feel scared? Like: oh God I could never do that, other people can do that, it is easy for them, not for me. Pay attention to the stuff that comes up for you. What fears do you have around creating your business blueprint, not creating your business blueprint; your ability or inability to create your business blueprint; what blocks do you think you have? What’s coming up for you that might be stopping you or keeping you stuck from finding your business blueprint? What might keep you stuck? What might prevent you from taking action on this, of playing with things, of experimenting with things? What beliefs do you need to have in order to play with this stuff, to experiment and create your own business blueprint? Who do you need to be as an entrepreneur to create your own business blueprint?

These are the questions that you need to be asking yourself, journal on this, write about it, think about it, talk to yourself about it, talk to your friend about it, talk to your coach about it. Start making this stuff percolate, marinate, in your mind. And see what comes up; because you have got to take action on this stuff. You have got to take practical action, and you have got to take any mindset work that you need to do and energy work to release the blocks, to release the fears, to release the limiting beliefs, the mind-crap that might be holding you back from creating those things.

So, here’s what you need to do – take action today, please – journal on this stuff, think about it:

What do you like?

What do you want?

What sounds fun?

What can you play with?

How can you experiment?

What can you do differently in terms of creating content, marketing your business, getting that content out there?

And, how do you feel about the products and services that you offer?

Are you happy with them? Are you excited about them?

Do you want to continue them?

Is there something else that you would rather do that maybe you think you can’t? (Like: maybe you have always wanted to run workshops and retreats but you think: oh no, I could never fill a retreat, I don’t know how to run a workshop. Maybe you have always wanted to write a book, but then you think: oh no, I don’t know how to write a book, I’m not a book-writer. Stuff is coming up there for you.

So, get clear on what sounds fun, in terms of content, product, marketing, services, and also what is the mind stuff that is coming up for you, so you can bring that stuff up to the surface and start working on it to shift it and to get moving on your way to cracking your business blueprint. Because it is really practical stuff that is going to get you there. You have got to be willing to do the work, both the practical work and the mind-set work, and you have got to be willing to play, and experiment and try new things. Try things that you think that you might not even like. If you have had told me four years ago that I would be doing half-hour solo podcast episode a couple of times a month, I would have thought: no, not me, I can’t talk, I can’t talk for half an hour. Seriously, I probably would have said that. That’s why I started out with interviews, I love doing interviews, wanted to have an interview show but it was really hard for me, in the beginning, to do the solo episodes, but now it is super easy. I write out some bullet points, think about what I want to tell you and boom, here we are 29 minutes later, which means I am going to wrap it up.

So, thank you so much for listening, and please drop me a line and let me know what you thought about this week’s episode, you can email me at: [email protected]; or you can find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and get in touch there.

I would love to give you a shout out on the show if you like, if you do send me any comments let me know if you want me to read them aloud on the show or not, and I would also love for your to join me in my private Facebook group; Business Mindset Alchemists so we can continue the conversation there. As I always say, podcasting is such a one-way conversation, I have just sat here talking at you for the last 30 minutes, so I would love to hear what you have to say, I would love to get some feedback from you in the group: Business Mindset Alchemists is a a group dedicated to exploring business mindset and how you can get the mindset you need to achieve your dreams. I would love to see you in there. So, if you go to: https://www.hollyworton.com/group you will be redirected to the Facebook group where you can join and I would love to see you in there.

Finally, whether you have been listening to the show for a while or whether you have just heard your first episode if you are drawn to learning more about mindset work and you want to learn more about how can work with me, please get in touch or head over to http://HollyWorton.com/call and you can book in a call with me to learn more. I would love to work with you if you are ready to work on transforming your mindset. And thank you so much for listening, if you enjoyed this episode I would love it if you would leave a quick review on iTunes, it would mean the world to me because it helps me get this out there to other people, it helps me get the podcast discovered by other people. And if you have any friends who you think would benefit from listening to this, please pass it on to them, I would greatly appreciate that.

And remember to visit hollyworton.com/219 for the show notes on this episode.

Next week, on episode 220, you have got another co-hosted episode with Jo Casey. We are going to talk about the importance of resilience in business and why we think it is a vital skill to develop if you truly want to succeed as an entrepreneur. This is part of the shadow-side of business that people don’t really talk about; but it is one of Jo’s specialities and so I am really excited to share this conversation with you, because I think this is so, so, important. So we are going to talk about: what is resilience, and why it is important; what purpose does resilience serve; how to build resilience if it doesn’t come naturally to you; we are going to talk about the difference between a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset; we are going to talk about how to pick yourself up after what feels like a failure, we are going to talk about the key questions you need to ask yourself in order to come back from failure; and we are going to wrap up with how to reframe the failures in your business, and that’s all failure with air quotes – because we don’t believe in failure because failure is nothing more than feedback!

So, tune into next week’s episode and again get in touch if you gave any comments about this show, I would love to hear from you.

Thank you so much and have a great day!