I started Live Your Message in 2011 and it’s hard to believe that we’ve hit our 10th anniversary (get my top 10 learnings from 10 years launching and growing my business).
10 years is a long time to be online! You may have seen the memes: what happens in an internet second… but what happens in an internet decade?
I always joke that we should count years as an online entrepreneur like dog years, meaning that even though I’m in my early 40s, I’ve been in business 70 years! Lol. 🙂
When we relaunched LiveYourMessage.com to get us ready for our next decade of serving entrepreneurs around the world…
That led to the exciting and excruciating process of re-evaluating everything we’re offering and sharing with the world and translating that down to a single homepage. The first thing people see when they meet us online.
I think of your homepage as the digital “front door” to your world and it takes some soul searching to figure out what you want that front door to be.
(Learn how to transform your website into a lean, mean, money-making machine)
So when I met with the team to unveil our new home page design offering website visitors several options so they can “choose their own adventure” and decide how they want to work with us, I didn’t expect them to shoot it down in flames!
The whole team wanted the homepage to be about just one thing — the Experience Product Masterclass, which is our signature offer.
This is a pretty big step away from what we’re doing now where we have multiple pathways and programs for people to choose from.
And as we continued talking, it became crystal clear…
While I’m deeply proud of the different transformational programs, mini courses, trainings and everything we have to offer at Live Your Message, it’s also creating a lot of confusion for our website visitors.
The truth is I’m giving people way too many choices and so they end up not knowing what to do, where to go and where to start.
The REAL Power Behind One Thing
You might have heard of the power of focusing on just one thing in your business — one product, one service, one core offer…
But here’s what I’ve come to realize as we envision our future here at Live Your Message…
The power of “one thing” isn’t so much about the thing itself… it’s really about the power of one choice.
Here’s what I mean…
I recently had a conversation with Ryan Deiss about his flagship program — DigitalMarketer Lab — which has a TON of trainings (I think they have thousands of trainings in there!).
So we were talking about customer retention, which is basically about what gets new people to stick around for the long haul, after they purchased the Lab.
When Ryan gave new customers a choice as to what to do first, engagement and retention went way down but when people were given just 1 onboarding pathway, 1 choice, 1 thing to do first, engagement and retention shot WAY up!
The reason is simple…
When there’s lots of choices, most people hesitate, most people feel confused and unsure about what to choose…
And so they choose nothing.
It’s Bold and It’s Unapologetic
When there’s just one thing, one choice — one clear pathway — for someone to start their journey with you, you’ll quickly become known for that one thing.
And giving people just one choice is especially critical when you want to scale your business because it makes everything clear, focused and simple.
And if you stop and look around, you’ll see that just about every successful entrepreneur got that way because they went with the “one thing, one choice” approach.
There’s Marie Forleo and B-School, Brooke Castillo and Life Coaching School, Stu McLaren and Tribe, Jeff Walker and The Product Launch Formula.
Every one of them gives you just one choice to start with and you either take it or leave it.
Yes, it’s bold and it’s unapologetic but it’s also what got Marie, Brooke, Ryan and Jeff all the way to 7 and 8-figures and more.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have backend offers and places for people to go after they do the one thing, it means they’ve simplified their frontend offerings so everyone starts in the same place. Because only simplicity scales.
Trying to Be Everything to Everyone
Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs don’t like giving people just one choice.
They’re trying to be everything to everyone and it’s a fantasy they hold on to.
They’re compelled to offer a ton of programs and trainings and services so they can help every single person that comes into their world, in exactly the right way.
But what ends up happening is they create a dilemma and their audience experiences paralysis by analysis.
And it’s because people already have way too many choices and decisions to make in life all the time. When you can simplify things and give your prospects one clear and compelling step forward, it really changes the game.
So up until this point, I’ve been known for creating LOTS of trainings and programs and giving my prospects lots of options. But with the LYM.com site rebuild (stay tuned for the big reveal in 2021!), we’re letting go of all-the-things and focusing on just one…
The Experience Product Masterclass.
EPM is about to become THE gateway into Live Your Message and it’s how we’ll help people 10x results in their business.
And as we move toward launching Live Your Message 3.0, you’ll find that everything is going to be a whole lot simpler than Live Your Message 2.0, even as the company continues to grow and expand.
I’ve Been Struggling For Years…
I’ll be totally honest… I’ve been struggling for years when it comes to doubling down on one thing, one choice.
As a creative, my tendency is to do more and create more and make things more complex.
But I’m learning to harness my creative energy and apply it in a different way as I focus on scaling LYM.
I’ve realized that I have to shift my creativity from designing courses, trainings and programs to creating a scalable, world-class, company.
It’s definitely outside my comfort zone, but I know it’s worth it.
My big goal is for LYM to become a $20 million a year company by 2025 and I’ve come to see that if I want to get there, I have to grow up as an entrepreneur.
I have to let go of a lot of the creations — the trainings, programs, content — that I love and get down to one thing, one choice.
So one of my favorite quotes of all time is by William Faulkner:
“In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” – William Faulkner
Faulkner was basically saying that if you want to create a masterpiece you need to be brutal about cutting all unnecessary plotlines, characters and passages you may love that don’t serve the story..
And the same is true in business. You gotta kill your darlings.
Because the only kind of business that can scale and make an impact, is the business that can simplify through systematization and streamlining and lasering in on one thing…
One choice.
Before you go…
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