ALLISON MASLAN Q&A: How to Immediately Create a New Revenue Stream

It's Allison Maslin and welcome to Ally and you'd the business success and lifestyle show. And today we are going to talk about your strategic vision. How can you be a psychic or go into the future and see your big picture vision? We're also going to answer your question questions. So tell me, what are your biggest business challenges? Welcome to the show. I'm so excited to answer your questions. Your biggest business challenges. Business is my thing. I've been running, building, running businesses for over three decades now. I've got tons of wisdom to share and we love to help you. That is my passion, that is my purpose. And I feel that being a business owner, being an entrepreneur is such a gift. I don't know a better way to, to share your creativity, but so many. I think what it is really is that business owners are so creative. You guys have so many ideas. You know that shiny object syndrome and you, oh, I'm going to go do this and I'm going to go do this. And you're not able to dive deeply enough to get the traction that you want. So we got to kind of reign you back in and get you focused so that you can flourish. And so that is why you'll see here my green juice. Let me tell you, I've also been in the health field as a homeopath for like 20 years, and I really don't like anything green. I'm totally admitting it here, but my husband came up with this great idea that we would do this cleanse. And it's actually an amazing cleanse. It's by nectar juice. And so he picked up, came home with big bags of juice. And I'm all excited because I thought it was going to be like banana, strawberry, blueberry. No, it's apple, parsley, kale, spinach, mint, lime, cucumber, and celery. But I'm being really good. I'm downing them. I gotta drink six of these a day, people. Today is the last day. So tomorrow I'll be eating chips and salsa and cake. No, not really. Actually, I feel really good. I highly recommend it. Like, I'm thinking clearly. I've got good energy, so, yeah. So I'm gonna try to suck that down. Do we have any questions coming in?

We do. All right, first one, my challenge is finding new revenue streams.

Finding new revenue streams. Okay, so what I would love to know is what are your existing revenue streams? But sometimes what's really important is that depending on your business model, sometimes one revenue stream is great. And some businesses are very successful because they do one thing really well, right? So for instance, one of my clients has a chain of blow dry bars, you know, for ladies to get their hair done. And her business is called Just Blow Dries. That's it. They do it really well and they do financially really well. And there's no confusion to the customer. They totally get what it is. But there are other businesses that really lend themselves to the model of having several revenue streams, having money coming in from all angles. How would you like that? How would you like it when you're sleeping and money's coming in, or when you're on vacation and you're still making money in your business? That is a really cool thing. So here's the way I like to describe that. So if you want to buy a coffee machine, you could go on Amazon and buy one for like 79 bucks, right? That's the down and dirty. Get your coffee and out the door to go to work. Or you could be someone that's all about the experience.

Experience.

And you want the espresso party and you, you get the expensive model, the premium, all the bells and whistles from Starbucks, that's like 29, $2,999. Now there is a customer for both. There's a customer for the $79 model that it's more of a budget thing and it's really not that important. And then there's the other with the high price model. So with the revenue stream that you already have, what could you do to add more value? Maybe more touch points, maybe more premium luxury for that higher level customer that really wants to invest in what you have to offer, Right? And so that would be your higher price version. How can you give either more time with you just more excitement to it and then you can charge more for it. Of course you have to match what you're charging with the value that you're offering. So you've got to increase your value at the same time, take your offer and what could you do for a lower price model? What could you give that is less of you? And maybe it's, you know, maybe instead of in person, it's something that you record and you put online and it's a course, something like that. And then you've taken one, one revenue stream and you've turned it into three. All right, so there are a lot of ways to create revenue streams. The other way that you can look at it is what could you offer to a different market within your business? So one of clients I've worked with for a long time Had a. Or has a personal chef business in Fort Worth, Texas. And she does these amazing food delivery. Really healthy food. Healthy food. And so what I helped her do was to create a program where she was training other personal chefs. And she created a whole school around that. So it's still within her genre, within her knowledge, her wisdom, her background, her expertise, and even her connections. And once she let people know that she was going to be training, having this program, people were really excited about it and it created an awesome revenue stream for her that really upped her revenue. So just kind of you need to be looking at all sides of how you can take what you're doing and expand for different price points and then also maybe different markets within your market. So really good question. Any other questions coming in?

Yep, there's another one.

Okay, bring it on.

Okay. What is your best business coaching advice for someone that's stuck after two years of business with three employees?

Okay, so best business advice of what you're feeling stuck. So probably you're feeling stuck because you've just, you know, like you've taken it as far as you can with the way that you're doing it. So stuck could mean a lot of things. Stuck could be depressed, maybe that you're feeling stuck because you're not doing what you got into business for in the first place. Maybe you had a passion and you had a hobby, something that you love, and you got into business because you love pies, and you just decided that you're going to be a pie baker and you make all these pies and then you find that you're up at 2 in the morning making pies and then you're sick of pie, you're feeling stuck. So you got to get back in touch with what excited you in the first place was probably the creativity around it, coming up with the ideas. So how can you get your team to help you with all the stuff that doesn't really fascinate you or excite you, and you elevate yourself to work on the things that you love in your business. And what that's going to do is give you more energy and enthusiasm around what you're doing again. Then you're going to go out there and tell more people and bring more customers. It may also be that you're feeling stuck because even though you have some people to help you, you're still doing way too much. If you're the only one bringing in revenue within your business, you're going to cap off at what you can do. I don't know what you're bringing in. But let's say you have a consulting business and you're seeing people all day long, you know, eight to five or even later, back to back. And I know because I've done that before, you're going to cap off at about 500,000, and probably before then, you'll just conk over from complete exhaustion and burnout. And so you got to find other ways to leverage yourself. And that means either getting a team of people or doing things where you're taking your product and reaching more people at one time. Does that make sense? I mean, these are all the things that we do. How I help entrepreneurs grow their business, and I have a whole team, and we work with entrepreneurs all over the country. So if you want to learn more about that, all you got to do is go to my website, which is alisonmaslin.com and we have an incredible private coaching and mastermind program called the Pinnacle. And our business owners in there, they fast track their success, they multiply their revenue, and they have so much more fun because we have a community of entrepreneurs that all collaborate and support each other. So I'm going to talk about creating your strategic vision, and then, hey, guys, if there's more questions that come in, let me know. Do you guys want to hear about the strategic vision? Yeah. Let's keep it live. Are we gonna get some shots back over here, too?

All right, since you just brought up your Pinnacle mastermind group, we have a question about that.

Oh, go for it. Yeah. Okay. Another question came in. Segue.

Are you available, Allison, for one on one coaching?

Am I available for one on one coaching? I do one on one coaching within our Pinnacle global network. Absolutely. So contact us for that. And as I said, just go to alisonmaslin.com and you'll see all the information there. But thanks for the question. I'd love to help you. Any others? All right, so let's talk about strategic vision. And what the heck is a strategic vision? I actually call it your big picture vision. One of the biggest mistakes, I would say, that business owners make is this. Exactly. And tell me if this is you. You. You get an idea, you want to get it out there, and then you're not getting the traction that you want. And then you get frustrated, or maybe you even get fearful because you have bills to pay, payroll to make, and then you say, oh, I'm going to just do this marketing plan and this marketing plan, and you're just kind of grabbing at straws, but you're not working within a Cohesive, strategic plan, Right? So how do we create the plan? First of all, you have to think about what is it that you're really wanting to create in your business? I mean, what is the big picture? Where do you see yourself instead of just looking at the day or the week or month ahead? We which is important. But first you have to think about where are you going, right? So it's like if you were to get into an Uber or a taxi or whatever, and you said, I don't really know where I want to go, but you know, someplace nice and you're not going to get very far, right? But when you know where you're going, you feel confident, you feel clarity, you feel like, you know that feeling like, yeah, I get it. My feet are on the ground. I'm excited. Let's make this happen, right? So here's what you want to do. I want you to imagine, okay? And to do this, you need to get away from your everyday. You need to get out of the office. Somewhere in nature is the best. I live right across the beach in San Diego. But if you've got some nature around that you can go be in the, you know, in the trees, in the mountains, whatever that is for you and just disconnect. And what I want you to do is kind of close your eyes and meditate and think about if resources were no issue, if you had all the money at your disposable to invest in your business, right? I'm not talking about, you know, just taken off. I mean, actually creating a business. Where would you be three years from now? Now I say three years and not five years is because three years is, you know, it's pretty doable, right? Like you can see three years from now. So I want you to imagine, like, think about how exciting you're painting a picture. You have a clean slate and you get to design it however you want. If you were to step into your life, fly in on a time machine three years from today, what would it look like? How would you be spending your time? If you walked into the office that you wanted, how you wanted it to look, who would be the employees, your team members? Who would you be talking to? If you could just dream up these people that were helping you on your team create your vision, who would they be and what kind of conversations would you be having? What would you be talking to them about? What would your customers what would you be talking to your customers to about? What would they be saying about you? What would the media be saying about you? What would it look like in your bank account? How would you be? What kind of offerings would you be sharing with your clients? You get what I'm saying here? Like, I want you to get into it as if it is real. And I know our head gets in the way, going, well, I know I'd love this, but I can't really afford it or that would never happen to me. I want you to just shut all of that off. If resources were no issue, what kind of business would you create? What would you walk into? And you can even take a big sketch pad and. And just draw. I mean, stick people, I don't care. You know, but just be as imaginative, as creative. Allow yourself, give yourself permission to do that. All right, so that's step one. What would it be? What would it feel like, look like, sound like as real as you can get it? Okay? Then what you're going to do is you're going to reverse engineer it. You're going to start with the end in mind. Three years from now, you know, in May of 2000, where are we? 19. And this is your life, okay? And your business and your team and the impact you're making. Then you want to work backwards and say, if that's my big picture vision, what do I need to do to. To make that a reality? All right? I call those steps your milesteps. Those are the big things that have to happen to make your big picture vision a reality. All right? They're milestones because they're big. And sometimes they could take a month, sometimes they could take a year or more. So what I want you to do is write those down. So here's a chart that I have here. So first you're going to write, you know, you draw your big picture vision, and then you can write a story about it here. Okay? You can do this on your, you know, on your own pad of paper. That's your big picture vision. Then your mile steps, can you get up closer? Can you show this? Your milestones are the big steps, right, that have to happen now. Those are the big projects. And sometimes, Sometimes you get overwhelmed because you have all this in your head. When you write it down and you see it visually, it's so much easier to swallow. Then you take those milestones. So let's say the big picture vision is find the office that you want. Or maybe it's even that you want to buy a building. I've had several clients end up doing that. And because it's a great investment, or maybe it's about building your team, or maybe it's about, you know, doing research and development about your product, whatever that is. You're going to write those down, and then you break those down into even smaller steps that you're going to take every day. And I call those mini feats. They're mini feats, little feats, bite size steps of accomplishment. So that you actually do it. Because sometimes we think of something so big and we procrastinate. How many of you are procrastinators? How many of you, let's be honest, okay? You're like, yeah, I'll get to it next week and next week or next month, next year, and it doesn't happen. But if you take the milestep and you break it down into baby steps and you just do three a day. Three baby steps a day. They could be 10 minutes each. That's 30 minutes a day. That's 21 steps towards your milesteps in one week. You can do that. I know you can. So, you know, I mean, watch one less football game or one less. What is one of the big shows right now? Game of Thrones. I know my husband's addicted to that show. So, like, one less version of that. And just do your mini feeds. You know how you're going to feel? You're going to feel amazing. You're going to feel a sense of accomplishment. You did it. And you're moving towards your strategic vision. Let's do it, people. Let's make it happen. I know you have it in you. All right. Just how incredible would that be that in 2019, that you're living in this big picture vision that you created? When you write it down, when you make it visual, it becomes real. That's what happens. Cool.

We have a question about that.

Okay, what's the question? Bring it on.

Speaking of big vision, if you want to start a business, how do you get funding?

You want to say that one more time?

How can you get funding to start a business? If your vision is to create a.

Business, how do you start? Okay, so that's a really good question. And I think that's where a lot of people get stuck. You feel like that you have to have funding to start a business. You and I have had. I have built 10 companies over the years, and only one of the 10 did I need to get financing for when I got started. So what I will say to you is that you need to just go out there and sell. You need to go get customers. You know, when Steve Jobs, he talks about that he did not have any financing when they were first, you know, building those computers in their garage. And the way that they made money was they went out and got customers. They sold computers. So it's. It's a little challenging to get financing when you're just getting started. And you could get an angel investor, you know, you could do a Kickstarter campaign. I'm not saying that you can't do that. Great. But a lot of people don't realize this is that even when they get, like a million dollars of funding, guess what? You actually have to do the work. And if you don't haven't done the baby steps and really have been working hard and to put a foundation in your business, all that money goes away, and it's not totally your business anymore. You have somebody else investing in your business and. And you've given away, you know, depends. Some people give away a lot of their ownership. So, look, I was a single mom and starting out, and I had zero money, and I'm talking zero. I had everyone around me telling me to go get a job, and who did I think I was? And that just was. I was like, I'm going to show them. I'm doing it anyway, so don't wait till you have to get the funding. All right. She's holding up the sign like I'm talking too much. 24 minutes. All right. Are we having fun? Yes. Okay. All right. I hope you all enjoyed this. Remember, do your strategic vision. Go off and give yourself the gift. Bless you. Go drink your juice, and next time, I will see you next time on Ally and you. Bye, everybody.

Ciao.

Sam.