She came to the strategy session asking for one thing….but came away with something completely different.  And it’s the thing that can make all the difference in her profit, passion, and sense of purpose.

Meet Ann Bell. She’s an artist in Texas who posed this question, “How can I sell my art?”  Her studio is pretty much off the beaten path, so was coming to the call inquiring about some new ideas to get her art sold.

And after ten minutes of hearing the challenges of selling original art in this day and age, I asked her to open her mind and play with me a bit.
Thankfully she was wonderfully willing, but here’s the challenge I put before her -

“Instead of trying to find people who buy your art, how about you create an EXPERIENCE for people who love to paint.”

We moved from her trying to figure out how to go from selling a product to providing something very unique for the folks who would love to come out, move past their mental barriers, enhance their natural talent, and indulge in a creative dream for themselves.

Why the shift?   Frankly, its a hard sell to find the audience of art buyers.  Lots of people may not want to pay $1000 for a work of art.  So my intuition kicked in and saw the whole picture of people flying in and having Ann work with them.  The market for destination travel and people spending money on recreation is probably an easier one to find than the occasional buyer of art.

The cool part?  Ann was delighted.  While she initially wanted a plan to sell her paintings, she saw that the people who bought her weekend experience might also be art buyers.  Here’s what she said:

It never occurred to me that the experience would entice people just to “explore” or “discover” their creativity.  I’m excited to implement this new income stream and opportunity to be of service.  You greatly expanded the idea I had into something that is more likely to attract people who will respond to the opportunity.

Here’s what you can do to shift from just selling products:

Look at your business.  Throw away the box. Shift your thinking out of what you have been selling and start from scratch.

See if you can come up unique programs where people can get a unique experience with you.  Take the time to interview clients and find what their hearts desire.

And then deliver it in a way that will knock their socks off!

If you have been following this series you can see that we start with the ‘inner journey’ marketing pieces of Positioning and Messaging and today we look at how to take our time and LEVERAGE it.

Why?  It’s two fold.  First, if you are a service provider at a certain point you will run out of hours.  So your money leaks will happen because you can’t give any more to the business. or because your time is spent on activities that aren’t bringing the big dough in.

Next, with the proper business model you can leverage your talent by finding ways to reach more people in a variety of delivery methods.  The cool part here is that this gives you much more reach and the ability to help people all over with the content you create.  So if making more money and having more time and helping more people are things that interest you…keep reading!

To leverage your time, the simplest process is to follow yourself around for 3 weeks, noting what you do.  Ok, you can literally follow yourself, but you can make lists and track where your time goes.  Next you make a decision to give yourself x amount of hours a week where you can do things like marketing or other activities designed to get you out in the world or clients in the door.

Let’s say you decide to give up the checking email portion of your business or want someone to help get your content out in the world in a bigger way than you have time to do.  Finding a VA for that would be the first step.  (And I have a great referral if you need one!  Check out Renee Charbonneau for this)

After the decision piece, you commit to how much $$ you’ll be able to invest in getting help so you can peel off some pieces that you are doing that may not make you a happy camper.  In my call next week on 5 Business Leaks That Are Costing You Confidence, Credibility, Clients and Cash I’ll be sharing some of the secrets to figuring this out in a more detailed and personal way.  Head over to that page and register so you can get the process for how to make this work for you.

The funny thing about this delegation/leverage stuff….it seems like it should be a no-brainer.  We know we need to get some support, yet I often find some mindset blocks around either asking for help, admitting that you need some, feeling like no one can ever do it just as good, or maybe even a deservability issue.  So if you have tried to outsource and haven’t been as successful as you want with it, dig in and see if there is some little voice running around in your head telling you that you are tough and can do it all yourself!  WE gotta fire that Inner John Wayne!

My suggestion to you this week is to go through the process and DECIDE that that you are going to get some support in this area.

Next post will be leveraging part 2 – how to leverage your talent.

Blessings….

Oh, and I’d love to have you hope over to my site and join my list so you can get the latest offerings, newsletters, tips, and great resources.  Click here and you’ll get  a special report about plugging the Money Leaks in your business.