I ran a design studio for six years doing 1:1 client work. The sort of work that most of you do.
I was good at it and I was fully booked. I was making decent money but my time was also completely maxed out. I knew that the only way to make more money was to do what the typical "business coach" tells you, which is some version of hire a team, take on bigger projects, raise your prices, do sales calls, take an office space and scale, scale, scale!!!
I tried some it like raising my fees, getting more selective with clients and streamlining my processes and all of that helped a bit, but I was still trading time for money and there was still a ceiling on what I could earn and how "free" I could ever be.
What I actually wanted was something that scaled without being tied to my time. A business model I could build once and that would keep running whether I was working or not. I wanted to "make money while I slept" which sounds like a cliche but is the best way of describing what I was after.
So I stopped trying to optimise a model that wasn't going to give me what I wanted and built something completely different instead...an online business that runs on about two hours a day, has generated over $13 million in revenue, has 52,000 students and is operated by just me, my husband and a VA (with no meetings and no live anything).
None of what I've done has happened by following conventional business advice, in fact I've done almost the opposite of what the "gurus" would tell you to do.
Here are my 8 rules...
1: No meetings:
I’m allergic to anything in my diary. Coaching calls don’t work for me, I don’t like programs with live Q&As and memberships with regular scheduled content make me feel trapped. Everything in my business happens async i.e. it gets created on my schedule and consumed on someone else’s. I make sure all my programs are designed so that nobody needs me live to get value or outcomes. That doesn't mean I don't provide exceptional customer service (I do!). If you write me an email you'll find I almost always answer in a few hours (unless I'm sleeping), but the work happens on my schedule, not on other people's.
2: No staff:
I don't have staff and never will. I don't want to be someone's boss or have anyone depend on me to pay their rent/mortgage. If something needs doing and my husband or I can't automate it or systematise it, we don't do it. We have a virtual assistant who works a few hours a week and that is the full extent of our team. In order to run a business with 52,000 students and no staff we rely heavily on automations and, more recently, AI. We are very good at systems and automation!!
3: No live launches:
My courses and templates are available every day. People buy them when they need them and everything sits there evergreen. Live launches are stressful and can feel super spammy, so I am not a fan of working like that.
4: No recurring revenue:
I once closed a business coaching program that I wasn’t enjoying and refunded $300K to all the members. I learned that anything that needs me to show up month after month feels like a trap, so I now avoid business models like this.
5: No sacrificing my life for the business:
I strength train 6 days a week and walk 5-10km daily. My husband does Jiu Jitsu 3-4 days a week and strength trains a few times as well. We've been home with our boys since they were little and there are no issues when school holidays come around or the boys get sick, because we have flexibility in our schedule. We know we could probably grow our business to $10 million a year if we were willing to compromise on some of the rules I'm listing here, but then we lose the freedom we've spent so much time trying to build. So we choose to stay at a few million per year instead. The business gurus think this kind of thinking is crazy but I think having a huge team and working 60 hours a week is crazy.
6: No coaching/consulting:
I am constantly asked to do business coaching but for me it's too many meetings and makes me feel responsible for other peoples’ businesses (who then take no action anyway). I also learned from six years of interior design client work how relentless 1:1 services are and I have zero interest in going back to that. So I only make products people can buy and use without a 1:1 meeting.
7: No partnerships:
I’ve been approached by people I hugely admire to do partnerships, but I know myself well and I don’t play nicely with others 🤣 My husband and I make fast decisions because there’s only two of us. Adding others slows things down. I have been VERY tempted to do collaborations or joint businesses a few times now though. This is a tricky one!
8: No complicated funnels:
I hate spammy tripwires or elaborate funnels. Simple has always worked better for my business. People find me, they consume some of my content and if they like what I do they buy something. That is the entire "funnel" my business works on. That means I spend a lot of time and effort creating as much high quality content as I can. This is a core part of what makes my business successful.
All the "business gurus" tell you to hire a team, scale up and get more clients. If that's what you want, go for it! But if what you actually want is to build something around your life rather than sacrifice your life for your business, it's worth knowing that there is another way.
I went in the opposite direction to almost everyone and ended up with the daily freedom I wanted AND a business that's changed my family's life.
