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What you’ll learn in this episode:
As business owners we are focused on creating growth and increasing profitability in our businesses. In order to accomplish this, most entrepreneurs look for all the ways they can stimulate growth, often resulting in adding more things to their business and complicating their operations.
I want to offer to you that if you want to grow in a way that is sustainable, fast, and that feels good, you do not want to run after every opportunity in your business. You actually want to look for your best opportunity for growth, and you want to focus there.
In this episode I share with you the steps to identifying your best opportunity for growth, and how you can create a plan to focus on that first so you can create a whole lot more in your business – more money, more time, more sanity – without doing more.
Here’s a glance at this episode:
- Understand why focusing on your best opportunity is better than focusing on all your opportunities at once
- Learn how to identify your best opportunity
- Discover why doing more in your business (especially all at once) creates less and results in you growing more slowly (rather than quickly)
- Identify a plan on how to take your best opportunity and bring it to life (and quite possibly have your best summer ever in the process!)
Mentioned in this episode:
Canyon Ranch Fall 2023 Retreat
Work/Connect with me:
Consults That Convert FREE Training
Jessica Miller
[0:01] Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of the It’s Your Offer podcast. For the new listeners, I’m Jess Miller and I’m so excited to be here with you this week. We have quite a few new listeners, so I want to welcome you to the podcast.
Jessica Miller
[0:14] What an exciting time as we move into another season, and we’re talking about all the things that will make your summer amazing. I want to just welcome you all here, to all the listeners that have been with us from the beginning, or maybe just some time, welcome back for this week. I’m excited to talk to you this week about your best opportunity in your business. This is a really hot topic right now, and it’s something I am really passionate about. So I’m excited to do a podcast today about it to talk to you about what do I mean about your best opportunity? Why is it important for you to figure this out? And why, contrary to popular demand, focusing on all the possible opportunities in your business is actually not the way to grow. It’s not the way to grow.
Jessica Miller
[1:01] I actually also just shared a reel about this on Instagram, and it’s you know, people are commenting, and it’s really cool to see what people are doing. By the way, if you don’t follow me over on Instagram, Jessica Dioguardi Miller, definitely come follow me over there. I’d love to see all of you there. But why is it important for you to figure out what your best opportunity is? So, like I alluded to, when you want to grow in your business, you look for opportunities to do that, right? And often we go, and we look at what is happening in our business, what’s happening in the marketplace, what can we do differently to move our business along to continue growing or to kind of spur growth in our business. And what often happens is people go into this sort of brain dump place or this audit of their business where they start to uncover all the possible things that they could do in their business for growth.
Jessica Miller
[1:58] But I want to offer to you that if you want to grow in a way that is sustainable, that is fast, and that feels good, you do not want to run after every opportunity in your business. You actually want to look for your best opportunity for growth, and you want to focus there. Looking for all of the opportunities and going after them is the fastest way to slow your business down. I’m going to repeat this for the people in the back. If you want to grow quickly, if you want to have the biggest impact in your growth, meaning moving the needle the best, you don’t want to go and audit your business, find all the opportunities, and start going after all of them. You actually want to identify what your best opportunity is for growth. You want to create a plan and you want to go after that.
Jessica Miller
[2:58] I also want to add that as I am recording this podcast, and we are moving into the summertime, this is one of those times where people think about growth in a really wonky way. And I say that with love. But the reason this happens is because there are all these different sort of stressors on our business at the same time. So first of all, it’s summertime, right? We recognize that there are shifts in the marketplace, shifts in behavior, that are driving the way that we think about our business and the things that we do. Our schedule often changes if you’re somebody who has children. This is like a huge thing right there: schedule shifts. You shift, there’s vacation, there’s all the things that causes the dynamic in your business to shift, you will fundamentally shift because often people want to do different things in the summer. Like if you’re someone who lives up in the northeast, like I do, there are a couple of golden months where it’s actually warm enough to get outside and love it and you want to be out there. So the, you know, you’re shifting in your business.
Jessica Miller
[4:05] So there’s all of these things that are happening around you that make this time period different than other time periods. And when you think about continuing to grow your business in this, you know, let’s just say three-month timeframe, you have to think about it differently. And often the usual things that we do, which is go in, look, do all the things, hustle, make it happen, add things, all of that just doesn’t work. And if you are somebody who has done this in the past, and I want to just say full transparency, I have been one of those people. If you have tried this, you have lived through the aftermath of that. Like what that actually feels like it what it creates. We often end up feeling like we’re pushing the boulder uphill. We do not get the results that we want. We are exhausted. We feel like we are pulling all these things from all these different places. And this whole romantic notion of this awesome endless summer just gets flushed right down the toilet. It is frustrating if you have a team, everyone on your team is also experiencing this. So it’s kind of like herding cats, and it just becomes the recipe for disaster.
Jessica Miller
[5:19] So today, I want to talk to you about what does it mean to find your best opportunity, why you should do it, and why I think for the Endless Summer we’ve all been dreaming about, but frankly, for growth in our business at any point. Not going after all of the opportunities, but getting really, really specific on what your best opportunity is, and leaning into that is the key. It is the key for growth, it’s the key for running your business the way you want to run it, and is the key for happiness. And today, I’m going to talk to you about how to identify what that best opportunity is, and how to focus in on that. So there are a handful of things that I want you to go and look at in your business, to identify what is your best opportunity for growth going forward.
Jessica Miller
[6:08] Okay, so the first thing I look at is what is working. If I look across my business, all of my offers, all of the different, maybe programs that I run, connected to those offers. So maybe that’s a webinar or, you know, a challenge or whatever, I’m looking across all of these different pieces, and I want to know what is working. In other words, what is creating the result that you want in your business? So that might be what is bringing in the most money? What is bringing in the most clients? What is the most streamline, so it’s creating the most time and sort of spaciousness in your business? Whatever barometer you use for this, you want to ask yourself, what is working in my business right now? And you want to go and look for that thing. For many of us, we can have an intuitive hit, or a pretty good guess at what that is. But we often don’t ask ourselves this question. We kind of just weight everything in our business the same, we do an audit, and we just like look at everything. I want you to ask yourself what is working. Okay? And I want you to write that down. What are the top three things that are working? If you’re so compelled, you can write down all of your offers and all of these different pieces, and rank them all from like best to least, you know, based on again, whatever barometer you’re using. I personally use a barometer of like, what is bringing in the most money, what is bringing in the most clients, and, you know, I also look at factors like time, you know, what is, you know, taking the least amount of time as well in there. Those are my three kinds of markers of success of what’s working. So I want you to first start with that.
Jessica Miller
[7:57] Then, the second thing I want you to do is I want you to go and look at the data. So this is where the intuitive hit gets really kind of messy. When it comes to humans, we tend to overestimate or underestimate things all the time. I always joke with people; this is what I tell people when we talk about are you hydrated enough. You ask people, ‘How much water do you drink in a day’, and they’ll either tell you, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m drinking like tons of water, you know, there’s no way I’m dehydrated.’ Or they’ll be like, ‘you know, I actually like I don’t drink enough water at all. And I don’t think I could drink that much water.’ And when you actually get down to the data, they are either grossly underestimating it or grossly overestimating it. I always joke with people, if you don’t feel like you are floating down a river and running to the bathroom every five minutes, you are not drinking enough water. And all the people that tell you that they’re drinking enough water, if they are not measuring it, they are not drinking enough water, because it’s a lot of water, the amount of water you need in a day.
Jessica Miller
[9:01] So anyway, my point being, you want to go to the data, and you want to validate your hunch. So for example, if you have a program, let’s pretend it’s a six, six-month program, and you’re like, ‘This is the one like I think this is the one that’s bringing the most money, in the most clients, the most cost effective, doesn’t take us that much time, you want to go to the data and find out if that is validated. You want to look at the numbers to see, is this true? Like is this the most profitable? Is this actually bringing in the clients that I want? Is it really working the way that I think it is? The data will not lie to you. Okay? The data is the data, and you cannot argue with the data. One of my colleagues just told me that. It’s so true.
Jessica Miller
[9:46] So you want to go to your data, and you want to validate your suspicion that you put down in question number one of what is working. Once you have that data to validate it, then you really have a clearer picture of what, what your opportunities are. And you’re able to see from that place from, again, the hunch and the data, almost like the tactical stuff, what actually could be your best opportunity? Okay, so those are the first two things. What is working, write that down, we have a good, pretty good idea, go to your data, and validate it. You want to look at the data, and what you wrote down and then be able to rank things about how these opportunities are actually working for you. Okay, so once you do that, you have what I call it those brass tacks, right? This is the data, right? This is the actual facts.
Jessica Miller
[10:42] The next question I want you to ask yourself is based on what you want to create. And so for example, if we were thinking about, you know, the summer or, you know, the next three months, or whatever time period, I usually work in 90-day years, I personally like that, you know, is this, getting you closer to where you want to go. So eight, for example, I’m gonna give you an example, with the six-month program, let’s pretend your six-month program was a group program. And that is the thing that is knocking it out of the park for you, you know, financially. But what you really want to be doing is building your one-on-one coaching, if we’re talking about a coaching business, as the example, more one on one clients in your business, then this opportunity, that is more of a group program would not be getting you closer to, for example, more high ticket one on one clients. Okay?
Jessica Miller
[11:42] So after you have the data, you want to really lean into, is this getting me closer to the results that I want? Because when you pick your best opportunity, you want to make sure it is aligned and, and connected to the goals and the results that you actually want. Part of what makes it the best opportunity is that it is, it has all the characteristics that you need for the sense that it’s working. But it’s also creating what you want in your business. And that what you want is connected to the goals and the results that you put down and you create for you within a certain period of time. And again, I always like 90 days. So if we’re talking about it now, it would be thinking about where do I want to be in September. And when I look at this ranking of things in my business, is this gonna get me closer to that. And as I mentioned, if you have, you know, the opportunities of your six-month group program, and you have, you know, a one-on-one program listed on those group of opportunities, which one of those are going to line up best with your goal? And for this example, it would be the whatever you’re doing one-on-one with clients that ranked the highest. So that would be the next factor of figuring out what is your best opportunity.
Jessica Miller
[13:04] And then last but not least, and this is a big one, and it is super important, because it should be weighted heavily in your decision as well is, do you love it? Is it enjoyable? Is it something you want to get up and do every day? Is it bringing you the motivation and the momentum that you want in creation of the business that you have chosen? And answering that question, when you’re then looking also at these options, is crucial in deciding which thing to pick. Because best does not mean it’s just making you the most money. Best does not mean it’s just bringing in the most people. Your best opportunity means it is working. It is, you know, it is lined with your goals and what it is you want to create your results. And it’s something you’re passionate about. And once you can lock into those four things, and you’re able to kind of sift through your business with this lens in mind, you will then see very easily what pops out as your best opportunity. And from that best opportunity, you will then be able to devise a plan to focus on that thing and optimize it. And this is something that I talk about a lot right now is that it’s not enough to just have offers.
Jessica Miller
[14:29] For all of us listening to this, as established business owners, we have offers. And for those of us who have growing businesses, those offers are established and we’re in a place where we’re often not just going to like trash things unnecessarily. When we think about growth, though, we think about adding things in. We’re always adding, like what else can I do? What other shiny object are other people doing that I feel like I should do more of, or what other things do I need to add into the mix again? We’re like, we think about all of the opportunities for growth. But I want to offer to you that when you have an offer that is working, and it fits these criteria, it then comes down to optimizing that offer, and not just optimizing it, but optimizing it for profits. And so when you take this best opportunity, and you start to put it through this growth lens of how do I make this thing better, that is working, that I love, and that is getting me closer to my goals, your business thrives, you make more money, it creates more momentum, it is so much more fun.
Jessica Miller
[15:39] The other thing that it does, which is a beautiful thing, is it clears up so much time, so much time and so much energy. Because after you identify your best opportunity, all of the things that don’t fit into that criteria, they can sort of fall away. Now, again, you are not taking your whole business and stopping everything and just, you know, like only selling one thing. You can do that, but what it does is it gives you the marching orders to create the most growth in your business over x period of time. So again, for us, we’re talking here, like over the next 90 days, it then becomes super clear. If I want to get here, pretend you want to make another $15,000, I’m just using that as an example. This is your best opportunity to do that. And then you can start getting really creative and creating a very specific plan for the next 12 weeks on how to make that happen. This is how I work with all of my clients. It does not matter if you are just starting out, or you’re a $5 million business. Your best opportunity is always going to be your best opportunity for you. And the reason it’s so powerful is because it is customized to you, your business, what you love, and what you want to create. And every time you do this, it is a game changer.
Jessica Miller
[17:05] So this summer, this next 90 days or into infinity, I want you to think of your business through the lens of your best opportunity. I want you to go and look at your business, not from a total audit, not from all the opportunities, but from what is the best opportunity for you. And I want you to focus on that. And I want you to watch how quickly and how powerfully your business grows, and how much more fun it is and how much more time you have. Get ready for your endless summer. This is how it happens. So go look at your business, find your best opportunity, and then I want you to go and enjoy the time that you’re going to have and the momentum that you create by focusing on your best-off opportunity and not all the opportunities. Till next time everyone, have a beautiful week.
