271 - Value Meets Price: Unpacking Business Models in Facilitation
May 28, 2024
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Experienced founders Jenny Millar, Kirsty Lewis, and Michael Zipursky share insights on starting a facilitation business - from mistakes to pricing strategies. Topics include delegation, pricing with confidence, niching down, proving value to clients, and finding a niche for business success.
Finding a niche specialization is crucial for business growth and success in facilitation.
Strategic delegation and role delineation optimize team efficiency and individual strengths in business.
Building trust with clients through marketing, content creation, and managing sales expectations is essential in service-based businesses.
Creating tiered packages, benchmarking against the right comparisons, and being adaptable with pricing tactics can strengthen negotiations and business sustainability.
Deep dives
Building a Business Journey
Entrepreneurs Jenny Miller, Michael Zipersky, and Kristi Lewis share their paths to building successful consulting and coaching businesses. Each narrates their unique trajectory from starting as freelancers to scaling their ventures and delves into valuable lessons learned along the way. Michael emphasizes the significance of market feedback prior to launching a product or service to avoid costly mistakes, highlighting the importance of market validation. Kirsty underscores the importance of time allocation and balancing various aspects of running a business, offering insights into time management strategies within a business framework. Jenny reflects on the importance of finding a niche specialization, revealing how it transformed her freelancing career into a thriving consultancy focusing on pricing strategies.
Delegate and Grow
The discussion shifts to the topic of delegation and team growth within a business, with insights from the three entrepreneurs on when to expand teams. Michael shares a pivotal moment when a significant project necessitated hiring expertise beyond solo operations, showcasing the triggering event that led to team expansion. Jenny highlights the role of hiring the first team member to handle financial tasks, illustrating how hiring is often prompted by operational needs and growth opportunities within a business. Kirsty emphasizes the deliberate approach to team expansion, focusing on identifying roles where team members can add value and derive fulfillment, enabling business scalability and specialization.
Navigating the Managerial Role
The conversation delves into the transition from purely operational roles to managerial responsibilities within a business, exploring the challenges and choices involved in team leadership. Michael shares insights on strategic delegation and role delineation to optimize team efficiency and individual strengths, emphasizing the importance of aligning team roles with personal strengths and business goals. Jenny reflects on the evolution from solo facilitation to leading a collective of facilitators, highlighting the balance between leadership responsibilities and personal passion for client engagement and facilitation. Kirsty offers perspectives on maintaining one's core role as a facilitator while growing into a managerial position, emphasizing the choice between expansive business leadership and individual service delivery based on personal preferences and business vision.
Creating Value and Navigating Sales
The entrepreneurs engage in discussions around establishing value propositions and customer trust in services, emphasizing the role of marketing, content creation, and building trust-based relationships. Jenny elaborates on the value of content marketing in establishing expertise, building trust, and attracting prospective clients, emphasizing the importance of top-of-mind presence and audience engagement. Michael underscores the distinctions between marketing and sales, highlighting the role of marketing in creating initial connections and visibility, while sales focus on nurturing leads, building relationships, and converting prospects into clients. Kirsty shares insights on fostering trust with clients by providing quality deliverables, building relationships, and managing sales expectations, emphasizing the importance of setting accurate expectations and addressing client concerns effectively.
Role of Marketing and Sales in Trust-Based Businesses
The conversation delves into the interplay between marketing and sales in trust-based businesses, exploring the evolving role of marketing in digital landscapes and the significance of personalized sales interactions. The entrepreneurs share insights on leveraging marketing strategies to establish brand presence, engage audiences, and create trust-based relationships. Jenny offers perspectives on building audience trust through content marketing and personalized client interactions, emphasizing the role of top-of-mind visibility and authenticity in fostering client relationships. Michael and Kirsty highlight the importance of setting accurate sales expectations, navigating client perceptions, and managing client interactions effectively to build trust and credibility in service-based businesses.
Balancing Free Offerings and Conversion Rates
The discussion delves into the dynamics of offering free services and balancing conversion rates in service-based businesses, exploring the impact of free offerings on client engagement and resource allocation. Kristi emphasizes the strategic use of free sessions to engage clients, build trust, and demonstrate value propositions, aligning free offerings with client needs and resource investments. Michael reflects on the challenges of converting free sessions into paid engagements, underscoring the importance of managing client expectations, establishing clear value propositions, and demonstrating expertise to facilitate client conversions effectively. Jenny shares insights on managing client expectations, fostering client trust, and navigating sales conversations in service-based businesses, highlighting the role of content marketing in cultivating audience engagement and building brand credibility.
Building a Strong Team with Emphasis on Values and Team Spotlight
Focusing on values in team building is crucial and can determine the success or failure of a project. By putting the spotlight on team members instead of oneself, clients can see the collective expertise, making project discussions smoother. Setting clear expectations and showcasing a structured process to clients can build confidence in the team's capability.
Strategic Pricing and Offering Choices to Enhance Value and Client Relationships
Creating tiered packages allows for offering choices at different price points, moving clients from simple decisions to considering how to work together. Benchmarking against the right comparisons and emphasizing outcomes rather than components can guide pricing strategies. Being adaptable with pricing tactics based on business needs and setting a clear walk-away point can strengthen negotiations and business sustainability.
Starting your own facilitation brand can be daunting business. Thankfully, Jenny Millar, Kirsty Lewis and Michael Zipursky - three exceptionally wise and established founders - are here to teach you everything they wish they’d known sooner. The mistakes, the models, the pricing strategies, and all of the rich learning opportunities they’ve collected along the way.
As you might have guessed, our special fireside conversation this week is all about the business of facilitation! Around the fire, we dissect our own journeys in the hope of guiding you confidently on yours.
Expect empowering ideas, generous insights, tips, tricks and juicy business amuse-bouches that you can start implementing today.
Find out about:
The considerations to make before starting your facilitation business
The business mistakes, learning opportunities and things our guests had wished they’d known sooner
How you can delegate while retaining agency over galvanising your community
The Goldilocks effect of pricing: how to price with confidence
The importance of niching down further than you might think
How we define value, who creates it, and how you can prove your value to your first client
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