Starting an Endeavor? Ready to Grow? Go Small!

Purpose of today's training is to learn more about how to win big by going small. And this is a little webinar training that I developed through some, a workshop that I did in the Bootstrappers Workshop, one of Seth Godin's online programs, um, because there were a lot of people getting stuck in how to get their bootstrapped endeavor off the ground, how to get started or how to make progress. And so I think that this is something that we probably all come— have to come to terms with at one point or another. Even when we get off to a good start, we can feel like we're getting stalled along the way. And oftentimes I feel that, that is because we are reaching too far ahead and that what we need to do in those moments is to zoom out, look at the big picture, but then think about the next smallest step that we can take into the possibility that we're trying to correct, uh, trying to create. So the process is going to be outlined, um, very in a, in a detailed fashion and a PDF that's attached to this, uh, lesson in inside the Mastermind product. And it is based on this idea that an action process to get you to help you endeavor better is made up of 3 parts. The smallest viable step, the smallest viable audience, and the smallest viable offer, also known as the SVS, SVA, and SVO. And so the conventional wisdom, of course, is that, you know, you should go big or go home, and everything is about scale, scale, scale, reach, reach, reach. But I find that following this advice is precisely what helps people get in their own way, because when things don't have a big impact, we tend to feel like we're not having any impact when that's in fact not the case. That big impacts come when we are engaged in the process of step by step by step, drip by drip by drip, day by day by day, efforts that are done with consistency and with frequency and are done with compassion and are done with intention and integrity. So it's easy to hide in big dreams, it's easy to hide in big plans and get lost spinning cycles and collecting dots and getting your ducks in a row. But you don't need new tools, you don't need new training, you need to put yourself on the hook and get going. And the best way to do that is to start with the smallest viable step, your SVS. This idea is, I came up with when I was engaged in a conversation with the Akimbo Provost, Marie Schott, who is Provost of all Seth Godin's online programs. I was interviewing her for the Creative On Purpose broadcast. She talked about this idea that she has of taking the smallest, the next smallest step on a day-to-day basis. So the next smallest viable step is just what it sounds like. You have lots and lots of choices for what you can do next. And when you're looking at the choices on a day-to-day basis, what I find to be really, really useful is to look at all the options and then quickly determine what is the option, what is the step that I can take here right now today that will propel me the furthest and the fastest into the possibility that I'm trying to connect. Choose your SVS, your smallest viable step, and then you must must take it. An SVS that's not acted upon is not an SVS. It's just another missed opportunity. So choose the next smallest viable step. Take that step. Pay attention to what happens next. Think about it, reflect, iterate, revise, come up with your next smallest viable step, choose it, and take it over and over and over again. Again, drip by drip by drip, step by step by step, day by day by day on a consistent frequent daily basis, we make progress into the possibility we hope to accomplish. After SVS, we need to be really mindful and intentional about selecting our SVA. This comes right from the work of Seth Godin in The Marketing Seminar, and then this is his best-selling book, This Is Marketing. The SVA, the smallest viable audience. Whatever possibility you're stepping into, your endeavor, um, is going to happen by taking small viable steps with and for your SVA, a group of individuals that are interested, enrolled, and invested in what you have to offer. This is not your tribe. Your tribe can be made up of, or your audience, your tribe or audience is made up of all sorts of people that like you, that maybe have given you permission to talk to them, but there's very few of those that are going to actually put themselves on the hook and invest in what you have to offer. And so you need to, uh, be really, um, selective about who that audience is. It should be an audience that energizes and excites you. It should not be an audience that exhausts you or infuriates you. You need to earn their attention and their awareness and their permission and their trust and their enrollment and their investment. And you do that through the SVS approach, through earning, uh, through earning their trust, enrollment, and investment through consistent and deliberate engagement. So the idea is just identify a group of people you already know whose lives would be enhanced by colliding with what you and your work has to offer, and then putting yourself on the hook, making promises to deliver the goods, whatever that is, your product or service your broadcast, your blog, whatever it is, you have to put yourself on the hook for delivering it and delivering value. Make it help those that you seek to serve. And then the last thing is the smallest viable offer. So an audience that is interested in your, in your endeavor is obviously great, but you'll need some of those people to actually invest in what you're doing if it's going to be viable and sustainable. So once you've identified you've got your SVA and you've got your SVSs going, you want to develop your smallest viable offer. This is a term of my own creation. Minimal viable offering might be another one, or MVP, minimal viable product, is another way it's, it's articulated. An SVO, smallest viable offer, is not the product or service you've already built and you simply want to sell, and it's not the product or service you will build. If there— it's— I'm sorry, it is the product or service that you will build if there's enough interest and investment from your SVA. Don't write a book, don't write a speech, don't build a course, don't build a community, don't buy equipment, don't buy a building— not yet. Instead, build a landing page, put a buy now button on it. Landing page describes what you're going to build, what you're going to deliver. It's the promise that you're you're making when people sign up. And then that— so again, the landing page just articulates a small but valuable offer that you'll make good on when you get what Seth Godin calls your first 10. 10 paying customers, 10 people that hit that buy now button at whatever value you create. I would make it something in the neighborhood of starting with a $10 offer, say. When you get the requisite number of signups for your little webinar presentation or the little community that you're building, um, then you can build that product or service. Again, it should have been small, should be something that's a value of $10 or so. Build it in a day, build it over the weekend, deliver it. And then again, pay attention to what happens next. How do people engage with it? Do they find it valuable? How can it be improved? What do you need to do to iterate and revise it and do it again? Okay. SVS, SVA, SVO. Smallest viable step, smallest viable audience, smallest viable offer. This is the process by which I have built Creative on Purpose and gone from a product project that was only costing me money to, to an offering or to a platform that now earns me money on a day-to-day basis. It doesn't have to earn a lot. It just has to earn enough to allow me to get up and do this work again the next day. And this is the process that, that has worked for me. I am quite sure that it will work for you. Going small does not mean that you lack vision or ambition. Going small is the posture of a professional who wishes to serve the right people with intention and integrity and cares enough to put in the time and effort to pay attention to their dreams and desires. So what small step can you take today to serve a small group of people with a small offer that helps them get started with going where they want to go? All right. Hope you enjoyed that training. We'll see you around.