If you are self-employed, sooner or later, this question comes up.
What happens when my life changes and I can’t work on my business with the same intensity?
For me, it came up a year into my marriage after realizing 10hr work days are not sustainable.
How is this gonna work once we have kids then!?
Suddenly, I found myself in a race against time.
A race that lasted 3 years and ended with the birth of my son.
So how did I manage it?
There were many factors, but it all boils down to one thing.
Niching down.
Niching down allowed me to simplify the business.
Eliminating overdelivering and underpricing, while improving our positioning, authority, and expertise.
This allowed us to grow.
Suddenly there were fewer parts to focus my energy on and more time and money to invest in the business.
But it wasn’t easy though.
I struggled to get started.
The thought of saying NO to projects without knowing what the next month would look like put me into panic mode.
But then something happened.
Instead of doing 1 livestream, 1 company video, and 1 YouTube commercial all at once, things began to change.
Suddenly we were doing 2 livestreams at once, then 3 livestreams, then 4 livestreams…
Before we knew it, we weren’t doing company videos or YouTube commercials.
And that was ok.
It turns out that by niching down, I wasn’t cutting on revenue.
I was replacing it.
So How Did I Niche Down?
I went back to the basics.
We had started selling livestreaming services for events but, somewhere along the way, a client asked if we also did company videos.
Without thinking about it, I said hell yeah!
And just like that, we were in the video business.
I thought that was the way to grow.
Offer more services so that more people can buy from us.
Or so I thought…
A year later, I was resenting the business.
Every project was like starting from zero. This not only made them hard to price, but then I was constantly stressed trying to deliver outstanding results.
People pushed for discounts only to change the scope of the project once we started working.
Then came the client fire drills with last-minute requests due yesterday.
Followed by late payments that required several follow-ups after they pushed to get their work on time.
And finally, the overall feeling of just being an implementor of the client’s ideas rather than my expertise.
All these had taken a toll on me.
The Only Option I Had
Feeling helpless, I didn’t know what else to do.
I had invested too much time, sweat, and emotional strength to get here to jump ship.
Getting a job was simply not an option.
So out of apathy, I began to say no.
I was fed up and tired.
I began eliminating the most painful projects.
Told customers we were going to focus on livestreaming events from then on.
And that’s it.
That year we grew about 50%
Transitioning Out Of Delivery
Narrowing our focus, allowed me to build processes and systems around delivering one service.
This helped simplify our work and improve margins.
And above all, it made it easier to sell.
Giving me the resources to build a team of performers without breaking the bank.
Simpler processes meant that I also didn’t need super-specialized people with years of experience.
Once the team was in place, they began to take over tasks I used to do.
There was a bit of struggle in the beginning as the roles and responsibilities became clearer.
But in the end, the business was able to unlock a new stage of growth.