Robin Waite - Fearless Business

Hey friend, I know how it feels, waking up exhausted after multiple trips to the bathroom and feeling embarrassed by sudden leaks. I used to be constantly on edge, searching for a restroom whenever I was out. Then I discovered better woman. I was skeptical at first, but two months in. Everything changed. I experienced improved bladder control. No more heart-stopping moments when I laugh or sneeze, less urge to go, deeper and more restful sleep. I finally felt like myself again, confident and in control. Better Woman is natural, effective, and trusted by women for over 25 years. Ready to take back your control? Head over to Bebetternow.com to order your supply today. That's Bebetternow.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Users directed individual results may vary. Hi everyone, it's Bill Black, the exit coach from the Exit Coach Radio show. You know, one of the biggest questions I get on the show is what exactly goes into a business exit plan and when should I start creating mine? Well, I always tell people that the best time to start was 5 years ago, but the next best time is now because you never know when you might need it. So we put together a free report that describes what an exit plan is and what you should know. You can get it free by texting exit plan with no spaces to 442-22. That's exit plan to 44222. Again, text exit plan to 44222. Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And now here's your host, the exit coach Bill Black. Oh, welcome everyone. Thanks so much for joining me once again today. It's always a pleasure to have you with me and I have a great lineup of guests today. I hope you'll stick around for the whole show. My first guest joining me today is Robin Waite from Fearless Business in southwest UK. Now Robin has agreed to stay, stay late at the office today and talk to us, and what we're going to talk about is Fearless Bus, a program that's a 12 week business accelerator. For coaches, consultants, and freelancers, and at Fearless Business they focus on productizing services, implementing new pricing, and reducing friction in the sales process. So we've talked many times about the fact that so many businesses these days are service oriented businesses, and that might be difficult to sell someday. So I'm looking forward to this conversation. Robin, welcome to the show. Oh, thanks for having me, Bill. I'm so excited about the interview. Uh, I'm, I'm very excited about it because this is a topic that we, we don't talk. I don't feel we talk enough about, and I've looked at your website and, and you have a great consulting um website and and business, and I really look forward to learning more about this. Before we get into this topic, Robin, would you please share a little bit about you and your background and how you got into this area of business? Yeah, of course. So, um, so first and foremost I'm a very loyal and loving husband and then father to two young girls, very keen cyclist, road cyclist, and surfer. So that, that's the good stuff and I would say that that's really my purpose in life. But obviously on the business side of things, I started out life as a systems analyst out of school working for one specific company making medical devices, which is where I kind of sharpened my sword in terms of understanding all the ins and outs of running a business. Um, and then from there I set up a marketing business in 2004, which I ran for 12 years and we managed to get that up to about a 250k turnover, so not a huge business, but we're only, you know, I live in a small local sort of rural town in England, and so, so far as small businesses here, um, it was quite big. Um, and, and that was really where I started to kind of see inside a lot of, I guess other microbusinesses. We did a lot of work with other coaches, consultants and entrepreneurs and people just starting out, and we started to see a few trends around how they were charging for their, how they were charging for their time in terms of their services that they were selling and the fact that not many of them had actually packaged up what they were doing. And and we realized, um, well I realized at that point actually we could be doing something slightly better so um in terms of that that productizing of a service and at the time we used to sell um sort of branding, logo design and branding and websites and things like that, and we ended up their services which aren't typically assimilated with workshops and actually what we did is we ended up creating a series of small workshops just to Include our clients within the creative process and I ended up having a lot of business owners coming to me saying, gosh, what you did with that one day branding workshop was really cool. Do you think you could do something similar to my business? And so that's where the whole productizing of the service came from. So what we were doing is we were taking traditional hourly rate type services and um kind of giving them a set of features and turning it into a product with a clearly defined outcome for a fixed fee. Um, and that, and that's where Fearless business came from, so we set up the coaching practice in 2016 and um haven't looked back, back really at all. It's it's a very interesting concept, and I think something that a lot of business owners need to think about. Let's talk about first of all, what are some of the problems or pitfalls that businesses that don't productize their business, that just maintain a service business, what are some of the problems that they have when it comes time, for instance, to transition or sell their business? Um, so, so traditional service-based businesses that are selling time for money. I don't know if you've come across a book called Million Dollar Consulting, I think it's by an author called Alan Weiss, but he talks about hourly and day rates being fundamentally unethical, and there's a part of me which kind of agrees with it with what he was saying. I mean, most of us are kind of moral upstanding ethical human beings, but imagine a scenario where I imagine if I was selling you a website and I said, Bill, it's going to be 10 hours' work at $50 an hour. Uh, so you know, maybe $500 and then I come back next week and I say, oh Bill, I'm, I'm really sorry. I, I worked really hard for 10 hours and I haven't quite finished the site. Um, it's gonna be another 5 hours. Is that OK? And um, the what, what, what Alan Weiss was saying was that the simple, the mere fact that you could potentially bump up the hours and it be in the interests of the supplier, he said that that's the unethical part of it. Now most of us wouldn't do that. And I think fundamentally when you can't measure, um, measure the inputs. Um, which you can't in most service-based businesses versus what the outcomes are going to be, it actually makes it really, really difficult to sell a business. Um, and so what we found was that when we, when we started to, and, and you start off by looking, you know, broad brush averages and we'll take the website, um, example, you know, for, for a small, medium, and large business and the typical sorts of websites that they would like, how long, you know, on average would it take to build each one of, you know, bronze, silver and gold products. And then from and you might still apply the hourly rate, but what you would do is you would then say, OK, well what else can we include in that package and how can we, um, how can we systemize it so that we can actually um give everybody the same, you know, or, or a similar sort of standard of product or service each and every time that we deliver it, um, and all of a sudden what we realized was that, um, when, when our clients started doing this they could actually charge 2 or 3 times the The the rate that they were charging previously at an hourly rate because when they tell that that story and give people that value proposition, all of a sudden it's like, well, here's a clearly defined outcome, it's a fixed fee and if we have any problems, well, it's not going to cost you anything extra. and their clients absolutely love that. It's, it's, it's having that really clearly defined outcome and all of a sudden it becomes much more systemized. Um, you know, there's a very specific sort of, um, standard opera set of standard operating procedures that you have to go through in order to deliver that product. And, and really that's where the extra value, um, you know, comes in, especially if somebody's going to, uh, building a business up to sell it. You know, that makes a lot of sense and of course we've all been exposed to advisors where, you know, a minute equals an hour. And you know that, you know what I mean or we'll round that off. We'll just call that an hour. That's that's, that is how do you, how do you actually, you know, track that that um that has been of course the uh the uh the law model and and in some other um professional services that's kind of been a um. Uh, uh, a standard for a long time, uh, and in these other services, I can understand how someone might be worried about, well, how do I know how many hours it's going to take? What if, what if, uh, What if you have a business where you can do something in 5 hours and you turn it over to somebody and it's going to take them 10 hours, all of a sudden their prices double on that model, so that could be a big mistake, a big problem. What are some of the uh common mistakes that business owners make when they set their prices? So I mean one of the one of the first common mistakes is most business owners when they're first sort of stepping out into into business rather than kind of assess, you know, economically what's, you know, set their prices based on like the economics that's going to make their business work, they, the first thing they do is they go and look at the competition and so Dave's looking at Trisha. Trisha's looking at Simon, Simon's looking at Steve, and Steve's looking back at Dave and so actually with pricing there's no real like science behind pricing. Um, most people, like 95% of business owners in your in your marketplace might all be charging the same amount, but actually they might all be wrong. And so what we want to try and do is and also you know they they're all in this commoditized heavily commoditized marketplace where they think that sort of charging less is a good thing because it attracts people into their business and actually what you tend to see is those um business owners that are are charging unless they have like a really robust business model and and and the ability to scale, um, which not many small business owners do, they just don't have the knowledge or the um the systems in place in order to be able to do that. They'll, they'll start up a business and they'll be out of business within 12 months. Um, so, so what we don't want to do is look at the competition because the competition is potentially wrong and, and I always think like people always say that pricing is, um, it's either you hear the words like fixed pricing or, uh, pricing elasticity and things like that, but actually for me pricing operates along a bandwidth. So if you were to take something like coaching, you know my industry for example, where Um, if you know what to search on YouTube, you can actually go and get coaching for free because there's a gazillion hours worth of content out there, like amazing content, but most people don't really know what they're looking for. So kind of that, but there's a ton of videos and they're free, and then you kind of then move up through kind of e-courses and then group programs, group and online programs. Then you move into the kind of expert and guru and transformational space and then finally you end up with a guy called Tony Robbins who's a million dollars a year to work with. So actually the pricing bandwidth is somewhere between 0 and a million dollars a year. If that makes sense. And, and obviously, the, the, the lower the price, the higher the competition. So actually, if you put your prices up, there are less people competing in your ocean. Um, and, and also what I found is that, um, and but, but the thing is like most people are just too afraid to put their prices up, hence, hence why we call the program Fearless business because it's all about um making those decisions in business and fearing them ever so slightly less because it's then that you step outside your comfort zone and you start to see the rewards from that that sacrifice. Interesting, very interesting. And, and yeah, that would be, I would imagine for some they would say, well, I'd rather work, um, I'd rather have work than have the problem of, of being over, you know, feeling overpriced and, and are there, are there mistakes around, for instance, promising too much or not um not being clear about what your offering is and where it ends in in that type of a scenario and where it turns into maybe a and a, you know, an add on kind of a service like I think one of the things we hear about in a lot of service companies is, you know, it started off like a $5000 job and then the customer kept changing and changing and changing. So when you productize, can you, can you eliminate some of that and kind of put a box around it, if you will. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we, we work on the principle that pretty much every service-based business can create just 3 to 5 core products that will satisfy 80% to 90% of their potential market, their clients, and you know, with a very, very specific set of features and very clearly defined outcomes. And there'll be broad brush averages like the example which I used, you know, for websites, you know, small, medium, and large, or you might have like a brochure style website, a blogging website, and an e-commerce website. So you can kind of like there are standardized products that you can create which will satisfy 80% to 90% of the marketplace. And actually what what we found is the 10 to 20%, you know, um, who either sit between products or want something customized, they, they tend to fall into the category that are. Uh, are gonna potentially, you know, they might actually need that, but actually do we necessarily need to service, um, those clients because more often than not, you know, those, those clients tend to be the ones that end up taking way too much time like you said, they change their mind and they want extra things and then don't understand fully why it's gonna cost more money, um, and I suppose the other, the other, the flip side to this as well is, um, like business is all about, it's a learning process. And so fair enough if you, if you have one project which overruns and maybe you suck it up and don't, don't necessarily take the um don't, you know, don't allow the client to take the hit, but you should learn from that. So you shouldn't then go out and make the same mistake again and actually maybe need to tighten up the parameters a little bit so that actually you know what you are selling fits within that, you know, those 3 to 5 core products that's really clearly defined. Wonderful, great, great information, great, great tips. I really appreciate that. I think our listeners do too. Uh, thanks so much for that, Robin. Now tell us a little bit about what does it mean to be a fearless, to be fearless in business. So Fearless is, is, um, where it came from. I made a statement when I was doing a talk a few years back, and Fearless isn't about being reckless at all. What Fearless is about is about fearing those things in business ever so slightly less that are holding you back. So it's not like when, you know, imagine if you're on the plains of Africa and you've got to walk down to the river every day to get water and you might get eaten by a lion or a crocodile or something. In business there's not much that there's not many decisions that you can make that are gonna end up in you being eaten, so, so there isn't really that much to be afraid of, but yet we tell ourselves stories. So Seneca once said there was a police car going past. Seneca once said that things are much worse than, um, our imagination than they are in reality. And it's very much the case in, in, um, business and so especially when it comes to something like pricing because when it comes to pricing, people are just afraid of getting rejected. So if we put our prices up, nobody's going to buy from us. And actually, you know, um, when we take people through our process, we actually have a three step process for it, but when we take clients through the process, um, and we get them to just validate different price points over a certain period of time. And then we compile all of that data and bring it back and more often than not they've actually sold something at a higher price point than what they were selling it at for and they come back and say oh my gosh, that was easy. I can't believe I was so afraid of putting the prices up um and yes conversion rates might go down, so they might get fewer clients but I think a lot of business owners, um, you know, especially in the consultancy, you know, coaching space, um, expert businesses. And they're kind of super intelligent people, but they're rushing around all the time like busy falls just trying to get as much work as they possibly can. And I think a lot of them actually would benefit from probably having, you know, if they could double the income but half the clients and probably be able to, you know, deliver a much better quality product as a result of it. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I understand exactly what you're saying, and I think that you're, you're right, it's just getting over that hump of fear. Now I'd be, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about your books. You've got a couple books on your website, Robin, that one is called Take Your Shot. Is that your latest book? And tell us about that. Yeah, so take your shots, my latest book. So that was it was a story about one of my first coaching clients actually, a guy who I got to know quite well called Russ who was a sort of struggling golf professional, and I wanted to, I wrote the book because I wanted to, and I wanted to keep it like very personal and very emotive, so I actually tell it as a parable, and I tell Russ's story, you know, in first person, and he meets this coach called David who funny enough I've kind of modeled on myself, but probably me in 20 years' time, for example. Um, and so, so basically through the book it's a short book, it's only 100 pages long, so it's only a couple of hours to read, but we go through sort of 5 of the core principles around fearless business and how Russ productized his his golf lessons to a point whereby he could he could start to expand his business and then start achieving some of his more personal goals, which was to actually get out and coach other golf professionals this process and get speaking engagements and travel with his wife and family, so. Um, so yeah, so it's called Take Your Shot. It's on, um, it's, it's on Amazon and all over the place and a, a little gift, um, cos I want, I, I, I get such great feedback, um, from people who've read Take Your Shot. They've been able, it's got actionable stuff in there and I want to get it into as many hands as possible so you can either, either support, support the calls and get, get it on Amazon or, um, if you wanted to get a hold of a copy, I've got, um, if you head on over to fearless.biz, um, there's a resources section where you can also download it as well. Do appreciate that. And you have another book on there I noticed um about uh people who might want to start an online business called Online Business Startup. Tell us about that one. Yeah, so that that was a that was an interesting one actually. That that was sort of the turning point for me between my marketing business and then shifting into the coaching business. So it's kind of visits, you know, it does what it says on the tin. It's about starting up an online business, but it's split into three parts. So the first part is kind of when I first started my business, it was like one of those things where you kind of just learn on the job and you kind of make mistakes and struggle, and 8 years later you think, oh gosh, I wish there was a book which somebody had put all of this stuff into. You know, from from day one that I could have referred back to. So I kind of took all of the stuff that I'd learned and dumped it into online business startup, but it's very much about, um, if you're thinking about engaging with a a creative business, a web designer, a branding expert or somebody like that, it's about sort of what sort of, you know, what's your business need to look like, um, what sort of things do you do you need to consider when you're kind of engaging a creative, um, and then how are you going to promote your business once they've helped you to launch it. Um, and I think it's, it's, um, sold, uh, you know, 5 figures, like tens of thousands of copies, not quite into the six figures just yet, but, um, it's a very popular book, and, um, uh, yeah, it started me on my sort of coaching journey. Very exciting. You know, it's great stuff that your your tips and your, your strategies and ideas you've brought to us today are obviously, you know, very grounded, make a lot of sense, and sometimes that's exactly what what people need is someone who can talk to them and be a fearless coach. And you know, one of it it sounds to me like anybody who's out there who's thinking about, you know, how can I Change things up. Um, maybe I need to talk to someone who would benefit from talking to you, Robin. What's the best way for our listeners to get in touch with you? Yeah, absolutely. So I've got two websites. So the first one is Robin Waite. That's wait with an E on the end of it.com and also fearless.biz. I've got a few free resources on Fearless.biz as well, so just a few downloads and videos and things like that talking about sort of products and pricing and And whatnot and then um also I've got my YouTube channel which is um I think it's Robin M M for Mark Wait, um, and you can just Google Robin Waite, you'll you'll find all sorts of stuff stuff on there about me, um, hopefully in the first few pages of Google, all good, I might add. Yeah, yeah, it's all, it's great stuff. I'm on your website right now looking at it and you know one of the things I see on here that hits me between the eyes is on one of the pages it says, are you leaving money on the table? Robin will help you find missed opportunities by recognizing which of the three most common pricing mistakes you're making. identify the identify the limiting beliefs and fears that are holding you back. Developing your products into assets that attract new high value clients. So Robin, it's really great to meet you this way, and I really appreciate you coming on and telling our listeners about what you do and how they can develop a fearless business. Thank you so much for joining me today. Oh, it's an absolute pleasure, Bill. Thank you very much for having me on the show. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio. Hey friend, I know how it feels, waking up exhausted after multiple trips to the bathroom and feeling embarrassed by sudden leaks. I used to be constantly on edge, searching for a restroom whenever I was out. Then I discovered better woman. I was skeptical at first, but two months in. Everything changed. I experienced improved bladder control. No more heart-stopping moments when I laugh or sneeze, less urge to go, deeper and more restful sleep. I finally felt like myself again, confident and in control. Better Woman is natural, effective, and trusted by women for over 25 years. Ready to take back your control? Head over to Bebetternow.com to order your supply today. That's Bebetternow.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Users directed individual results may vary.