YouTube Transcript:
The Business Model Secret Nobody Tells You

Not too long ago, I found myself
wrestling with the question of how
should I grow my small business? Should
I start an agency? Should I offer
courses? Should I start a membership?
Should I do training services? Should I
productize? Should I do VIP days? What
is the right model for me? Now,
unfortunately for me, when I was
wrestling with this question, this video
didn't exist. And so I spent the last 7
years going through these business
models, experiencing them, and coming to
find out the good, the bad, and the ugly
of each of these ways to grow the
business. So in that vein, today I'm
going to be breaking down five different
common personality types that you might
have as a leader or a founder or a small
team organizer. And for each of those
five personality types, I'm going to
match you with one of the business
models that I think would be the best
match for you, having been through
offering these myself. To get us
started, let's go through the five
common personality types of founders and
leaders and see which one you fall into.
First one up is the architect. The
architect might sound like, "I love
perfecting experiences, building
something that I know when someone is
ready for it, they can navigate through
at their own time. I feel like a museum
curator. I don't need to see everyone's
smiling faces to know I've done a great
job because building something beautiful
gives me the satisfaction I need to feel
good about my work." Next up is the
fixer. A fixer might sound like, "I love
diving deep to solve new and unexpected
challenges. Each one feels like a fresh
adventure." Kind of like Indiana Jones.
I know there's going to be surprises
along the way, but I kind of love those
surprises because when new things come
up, there are new opportunities to
learn, to help, and to fix. You think
you might be a fixer? Let me know in the
comments. But let's move on to the third
personality type, teacher. A teacher
might sound like, "I love the art of
translation. I love taking advanced
concepts and making them simple so
people can understand, but it's not
enough for me to just put that out in
the world." When I see those reactions
of people just getting it finally after
all this time, that's what makes my work
worth doing. That brings us to number
four, the craftsman. I don't like
starting from scratch over and over
again. What I really love doing is
perfecting my craft. As I go from one
client to the next, I just get better
and better at doing what I do. My goal
is to be so good at this one thing that
I am good at doing that I can become a
leader in my space and beyond. I know
I'll never be perfect, but pursuing
perfection in my craft is what motivates
me to keep going project after project
to get 1% better every time. Last, but
not least, we have the host. I don't
feel like I do anything special, but I
do get motivated and inspired by
connecting one person to another. When I
see the interaction between two really
smart people I know, I feel like the
work I do matters. I'm all about
creating meaning through friendships and
connections and networking, both in real
life and also online. To me, impact
isn't something I want to do in
isolation. All right, now that we have
all of our business models and all of
our personality types, it's time to
start matching them up. As I go through
matching these out, I'd love to have you
write in the comments below what you
expect the matches to be because I'll be
curious if we reach the same outcome.
With that out of the way, let's talk
about the architect. Which business
model sounds like the best fit for them?
Write yours in the comments. But my
answer, it's the course creator. If you
are someone who is a tinkerer, who's an
engineer, who really likes designing all
the nuances of an experience, and you're
comfortable with the distance of not
seeing that customer, you are perfectly
made for online products and so on. Does
this mean you'll need to learn marketing
in order to get the volume necessary to
sell these kinds of things? Most likely.
However, your personality type equips
you very well for building out this kind
of business. The wonderful thing about
online products of any kind, whether
they're courses, templates, knowledge
products, or software, is that it's all
fixed. You're designing your Mona Lisa
and then you're just selling it again
and again. An example offer might be
having a $397 online course about how to
use Photoshop as a wedding photographer.
Because architects have a tendency to go
deep and really focus in on designing
and fine-tuning technology and things
behind the scenes. This business model
gives you the most freedom of any of the
ones we'll talk about today. In a
typical week, your calendar might look
something like this. And as you can see
here, it is a large amount of time spent
on lead generation, building that list,
and getting attention, and very little
time on client commitments. You have
control over your own schedule, which is
both a pro and a con because there is so
much freedom in this model. you don't
have calls or other demands. The
challenge is really keeping yourself
motivated. This is the type of path to
only choose if you are someone who is
really good at self-direction. You love
marketing and the idea of just
consistently working to build traffic
and holding yourself to your own
deadlines does not feel challenging.
This is most definitely the path for
you. This schedule freedom tends to
attract a lot of people, but it is a
double-edged sword and I would say the
most difficult part of this model. When
you are in the architect lane, you need
to be self-driven. Just like an
architect working on a building, you
could have multiple years being spent on
perfecting one product or one
experience. And no one is holding you to
those deadlines generally speaking. But
if you don't meet certain deadlines,
your revenue is going to suffer. So, the
best architects are ones that are very
self-motivated, self-directed, do not
struggle with the freedom of
open-endedness, and can just keep
driving towards perfection little by
little by little. If that sounds like
you, you're going to enjoy so many
advantages down this path in that you
can have sales while you sleep. You can
have generally a low touch fulfillment
with just some minor support and no
ongoing client work. And a lot of the
things you do can be asynchronous, so
you can do them from anywhere at pretty
much any time as long as you keep things
moving. However, in my experience, there
aren't a lot of earlystage business
owners that are actually this
comfortable with this much ambiguity and
open-endedness. So, let's talk about the
next category. Next up, we have the
fixer. And of all of these business
models, can you guess which one the
fixer is going to be? Write it in the
comments. But for me, the answer is
definitely a custom service. If you are
someone that loves to help, that loves
to solve new things, to dive under the
hood, I think you're really going to
love the fixer lane. Because you're in
the land of custom services, every
project is going to be a little
different. You'll typically have some
kind of sales process where you have
discovery where you're figuring out, oh,
what could I do? And then you're
creating a custom bid or a custom
retainer in order to accomplish some
kind of custom thing. This makes your
sales process more intense, requiring
some good communication and diagnostic
skills, but it also ensures that you're
always getting novelty and something new
to solve. Because of the novelty of what
you offer, it's also a lot easier to
sell this type of business model because
you can kind of adapt to any problem you
have the skill set for. You don't have
to market a particular way. You just
have to attract a person that you were
able to help in some way, shape, or
form. Common offers for this business
model might be a monthly retainer where
you have a certain number of hours or
tickets or widgets that you are getting
in that month. Or it might also be a
flat bid project such as a custom home
renovation where you're making a quote
and working through it that way. You
might also see some VIP days fall into
this category where you say, "Hey, you
get to pick my brain for eight hours on
anything you want." Even though it's
somewhat productized, because it's so
open-ended, I would still consider it a
custom service. Now, with that, let's
talk calendar for this one, because this
is definitely the most calendar
intensive of any of the business models.
A typical week for you might look
something like this. If you went the
fixer route, as you can see, you might
have a handful of sales calls, a handful
of client calls, and a lot of deep work
focused on your clients. Because you're
working in a custom environment, you're
going to have a lot of communication
with your customers as well, because
things are going to come up along the
way. Like, if you're doing a home
renovation, oh no, lead pipes. uh we
have to figure out what that looks like.
Expect a lot more communication here
than some of the other models we're
talking about. What makes this model so
great is that you don't need to have a
big audience in order to have a big
business. You can grow this up very
easily, and it's why most people start
with this model. I know I did. It's also
very hightouch, so you're able to
customize everything to each person,
building a real relationship with your
clients. And you don't need many clients
to have a successful business here.
Assuming you were one person show, one
to five clients would be all you would
need to get through your year and have a
successful business. Whereas the
architect might need 1 to 500 clients to
reach the same amount of revenue.
However, the challenge with custom
services, and the fixer kind of likes
this, but it's still something to be
aware of, is scope creep. Because things
are going to come up along the way, it
can be easy to spend too much time on a
project, particularly if your brain
wiring makes you enjoy that. You can get
caught with shiny objects. It can also
be a bit of an intense service both on
the sales side because there's a lot of
work to create those custom proposals
which may or may not get uh approved and
also it can be emotionally intense from
the delivery perspective. You are going
to get to know these clients really well
if you only have one at a time. And so
if they're unhappy with something, if
they're struggling, it's easy for it to
become personal, which for some people
is a pro, but in general can be a con
because it can really start to drain you
if you don't have good boundaries, which
is the key to making this model work.
You have to love helping. You have to
welcome surprises, and you have to be
able to hold those boundaries even when
it's a little challenging. Next up, we
have the teacher. And of our remaining
business models, any obvious guesses as
to which one? Yeah, I know this one's
not really much of a guess. The teacher
is an obvious fit for the training
approach. Training is very similar to
custom services in that it is a human-d
delivered service. But here rather than
having a custom methodology and custom
deliverables, we've fixed both of those
things. We're always doing the same
thing in the same way for the same type
of person. But when we do it, unlike the
architect who's delivering it through a
platform, we're delivering it through a
human typically. So, we will have a
trainer or a team of trainers educating
clients on a set thing again and again
and again. Training is a less customized
form of a productized service, which
we'll be getting to soon. And a example
training package might be something like
this, where we have a $6,000 one-day
on-site training where we teach your
whole company how to make toast. Now,
going down this training route, assuming
you are oneperson organization, you will
typically have one to four events per
month. And in a week where you have an
event, your schedule might look
something like this. Now granted, in
weeks where you do not have an event,
your schedule will look a lot more free
because you will have that extra time to
spend on marketing or on the business
work. But as you can tell, this is a far
cry from the schedule we were used to
back in the fixer and even more
different than what we saw for the
architect. If you enjoy a predictably
irregular schedule and you like to mix
it up a little bit about how you spend
your days, it's probably a good sign
that you will like this training route.
And of course, that's not the only
benefit of going this training route.
With training, you also have the benefit
of having reusable materials. So, as you
can see here on the calendar, we're not
actually spending a ton of time on
client work each week because we are
reusing the same materials and
presentations and just tweaking it for
each client engagement, making this a
little bit more profitable than what we
might have expected from the fixer.
We're also able to incorporate fixed
processes in this because just like the
architect, we are designing an
experience for delivering a training and
we are just wash, rinsing and repeating
it every time. Now, it's not all roses
and sunshine in the training land, the
main challenge with this is the pressure
of performance because at the end of the
day, just like a teacher showing up for
class, being a teacher in a business
context requires a certain level of
professionalism and frankly endurance.
While you might be able to work wonders
with your contracts, if you really want
to go down this route, my suggestion
would be be sure you are someone who is
good at honoring your commitments and
you are able to commit to a schedule. It
is very hard to have this business model
when you are unable to perform on
demand. For example, if you are
scheduled to present a 6-hour lecture in
Vermont on Tuesday, but you don't feel
like it, if you are someone that would
go anyway, that's probably a good sign
the training route is good for you. If
you are someone who is more emotional
driven and you're like ah if I don't
feel it I just can't perform and that
this is probably not the right space for
you. Oh quick sidebar here. I'm showing
you calendars on this view assuming you
are a one person or one in a few
contractors kind of business because
ultimately if you are that small you are
signing up for this journey. Over time
as you hire these calendar commitments
will be spread around throughout your
team. I'll tell you today as I am
running uh four I think of these
business models simultaneously at
process driven I don't have calendars
that look exactly like the for me
personally but if I were to combine all
of my team members our calendars do look
pretty much like four of these all
mashed together. I'm purposely not in
this video talking about team growth and
what your team org chart would look
like. But if you'd like to see a part
two on that just write the word uh org
chart in the comments. But as you grow,
just recognize you can hire people onto
your team that have balancing
personality types to expand your
repertoire. So my personal personality
type here, which you might have
gathered, is the teacher. That is where
I want to be. That's what I want to do.
But my team that I'm surrounding myself
with, I have people who are hosts. I
have people who are fixers. I have
people who are architects. Even as a
small team, I am purposely balancing out
these personalities. And guess what?
Because of that, I'm able to expand to
multiple business models if I want to.
So, in this case, I have a YouTube
channel here. I have courses and I have
my person who loves being an architect
in charge of those courses. And then I
have a community, our membership
community, the process-driven
membership. I have somebody on my staff
who is a host personality type. And
guess what? He's in charge of that
community. I don't want to get too far
into the team building side of things
because I know if you're at this point,
it's probably premature. But just know
that our decision today is focused on
you because you are the one constant on
your team. But just know that this can
grow, particularly if you're looking to
hire full-time employees down the line.
Next up, we have the craftsman. You can
probably guess which one that's going to
fall into. But if you are a craftsman,
productized service is where you'd want
to be. I define productized service as a
fixed method with custom deliverables.
So, for example, if I had a $5,000 brand
redesign package, that could be a
productized service. in that I have a
set way of doing things. I know roughly
what the deliverables are like a logo, a
website, and so on. But every time I'm
doing it, I'm doing it a little
differently because I'm working with a
different company. If we were to put
things on a spectrum, the product high
service would be kind of in between
training and custom service in terms of
rigidity. The week of this perfection
motivated craftsman might look something
like this. This schedule looks most
similar to what we saw with custom
service, aka the fixer, but with the
notable exception of fewer sales calls
because if you are offering a
productized service, you're selling the
same thing every time. So, typically you
will have things be selfch checkout or
very, very simple of a sales process
because that's why you are productizing.
The fun thing about productized service
is that this is really the best of all
worlds of all of the services we talked
about because you can design it to pull
from any of the other examples. Some
people will have productized services
where there's a course in it and then
there's a coaching component basically
pulling inspiration from the architect
and the teacher. There are other
productized services that have a fixed
teaching and training component that's
the same every time just like the
teacher would like and then also has
some kind of custom deliverable in there
which is something that the fixer would
like. I designed the schedule assuming
that your signature program your
productized service had at least one or
two calls in the program experience. But
the nice thing about this is that this
is kind of like Goldilocks. You can make
it right in the middle for whatever you
find interesting. So choose your own
adventure. Now, not to fan girl too much
over productized services, but there are
some additional pros that you should be
aware of when it comes to this lane in
that with productized services, you are
also able to sell it more easily. It's
just so much easier to sell, hey, I will
redo your brand, rather than, hey, I do
brand stuff. How can I help you? That's
kind of what the fixer would say. So
being able to position yourself as the
person that helps solve a specific
challenge in a specific way for a
specific person, that's really helpful
when it comes to selling, which allows
you to again automate this and reduce
the amount of work you have to do to
sell because no proposals for the most
part, which I guess is kind of a second
benefit in of itself. No proposals. So
you're not spending a bunch of time
doing things for free that may or may
not lead to client sales. However, there
is a dark side to productized services,
too. namely that you need to have strong
processes to do this. You need
consistency. If you are delivering your
signature brand design and service, make
sure that signature service has a really
good flow. As you start increasing the
volume here, which you will typically do
compared to the fixers, you might have
three or four clients at one time. And
to keep track of all of that stuff
without reducing quality, process is
going to be your best friend. So, you
know, maybe subscribe to this channel.
Um, but that's going to be key. And the
second key component of this is make
sure you pick a good promise, a good
outcome. Uh productized service is about
saying, "Hey, here's the outcome. I can
get this specific person in this
specific way." If you pick the wrong
specifics, it can actually make selling
harder. If you ever find that your
productized service is more difficult to
sell than a custom service, that might
be a sign that you've stuck your flag in
the wrong patch of sand, maybe picked
the wrong niche, or maybe you're just
not communicating to people who are in
that niche yet. But either way,
something to pay attention to and
definitely something to watch out to.
But no need to stress about this. You
can always change your niche by changing
one sentence on your website. So, it's
not a huge commitment if you get it
wrong. But just be aware of this and
don't let it be wrong for years and
years. Not like I'm speaking from
experience or anything here. Last but
not least, we are left with the only
remaining choice, which is the host and
the online membership/group program.
Kind of obvious here because these are
our only remaining options. But if you
are someone that gets joy from
connecting others together, that's
absolutely what you should be doing in
your business itself. This group program
and membership model is defined by
having fixed methods, fixed deliverables
and all of it being delivered through
human interaction. So kind of like
training except rather than me giving it
to somebody, I am connecting others for
them to experience it. But otherwise
very similar in that it's always the
same thing for each person. Some common
offers that would fall into this
category could be something like a $200
a month membership or a $50,000 a year
mastermind or a $5,000 a ticket event.
As you can tell, there is a wide range
that can all fall into this connecting
and matchmaking category. When it comes
to the calendar, I have assumed in this
case that you were going the high volume
membership route, but of course there's
a wide range here, so I could probably
have a bunch of different calendars, but
your week would probably look something
like this. Note how there aren't really
a lot of client calls except for maybe
one client meetup or event that you're
hosting, but a lot of your time is spent
asynchronously interacting in your
community. But for all this hard work,
what you're getting is a lot of
flexibility. You can do this from
anywhere. You can do this at pretty much
any time. You're able to reuse content.
And all you need to be able to do to get
consistent recurring revenue is keep
driving that engagement and making sure
your people are connecting and getting
value. But this can also then become a
challenge because it's very easy to get
on the content hamster wheel with
memberships where you're just creating
more and more and more content. It's
very easy to get on the hamster wheel of
engagement where every day you're just
responding to messages. Hey Bob, what do
you think of this? And trying to drive
engagement in your online community or
event or mastermind. There really two
types of headaches you can expect inside
this arena. People headaches and tech
headaches. If you are going very high
volume, meaning a membership or large
community, expect a lot of tech glitches
and a little bit of people issues. And
if you go very high touch and low
volume, such as a high-end mastermind,
expect more people issues and a small
handful of tech issues. That balance
between tech headaches and people
headaches is kind of something you get
to choose within this category depending
on how exactly you structure your offer.
In fact, that's a pretty good point for
me to just hit on before we wrap up.
Each of these models has an implied
volume of clients and the amount of
leverage you could have. Meaning, how
many clients could I serve as just one
person? And if I were to plot these on a
chart, they look something like this. An
architect is someone who was going to be
creating something that they need to
sell many, many times, which is why they
have to spend so much time on marketing.
They have a lot of leverage. One person
could easily serve a thousand clients in
the architect arena, but again, they're
typically charging much less. So you
need that thousand clients to get what
would be equivalent to one client if you
were a fixer. A fixer is low volume, low
leverage. It's one to one. My time is
spent and getting clients in. But for
just one client, I could probably get
the same results as an architect could
from selling a thousand courses. So if
you have a smaller audience, I would go
for these lower volume options. And you
can see the craftsman, the teacher, and
the host kind of fall in between here
based on again audience size or volume
of clients you need. and the amount of
leverage you have. On the left side,
these low leverage options, if you want
to grow them, you certainly can. You'll
just eventually need more people. On the
right side, you can go quite far before
you need to add more people to your
organization. So, if you are someone who
enjoys big team, you probably want to
stay on the left side. If you're someone
who kind of hates people and never wants
to learn how to be a manager, you
probably want to stick to this right
side. And again, watch out for that one
in the middle because it could go either
way. Now, once you pick your business
model, the new problem that's going to
come up is how do I actually operate
this business system in a processdriven
way? How do I make sure that if I'm
going training or if I'm going custom
service, it feels good while delivering
it? Because no matter what you choose,
it can feel chaotic if you're not doing
it right. Right? That's where the
blueprint found in the description below
for free is going to be your best
friend. It is a master class where I go
through my A toZ approach to how to
systemize a small team. And before you
go, I do have to admit that this whole
video just stemmed from a conversation I
was having with a friend where I was
just ranting about how like why do
people keep picking business models that
suck and why did no one tell me that I
would hate this business model before I
did it for 4 years and you know this is
where this all started. Um so if this is
not helpful to you I kind of expected
that and if this is helpful to you let
me know because that is that is truly
shocking. Um, but like, subscribe, share
if you feel so inclined, and watch this
video next.