“Our intuition about the future is linear. But the reality of information technology is exponential, and that makes a profound difference. If I take 30 steps linearly, I get to 30. If I take 30 steps exponentially, I get to a billion.”
Ray Kurzweil
Welcome to part 9 in the series of articles on the 10 professional practice multipliers from the Exponential Practice Scorecard https://www.jamiesmart.com/scorecard/.
Each week I’ll be explaining them and looking at how you can leverage them to grow your practice, and here’s the thing:
Whether you’re a transformation professional or not, you’re going to discover that these 10 multipliers apply to almost everyone (at least, with a little creativity).
This week, we’ll be looking at Multiplier Number 9- Exponential Practice.
NB This is the final multiplier focused around what I call leverage: your commercial transformation. This is important because most of us have been educated for a world of jobs and employment.
We haven’t necessarily learnt the key elements you need if you want to run your own practice and work for yourself. If impact is about what people pay you for, leverage is about how you get paid, how you get scale and how you multiply your impact in a variety of ways.
Multiplier Number Nine: Exponential Practice
This is about maximizing the impact you have, the value you create, the value you receive and the enjoyment you, your team, your suppliers and your clients experience.
In the first column (the stuck column), you have few or no paying clients and don’t know how to change that. You feel hopeless and helpless about growing a practice. This is a tough one but as I’ve said before, you have reason to be hopeful. Lots of people who have exponential practices today were where you are not so long ago.
In the second column, you probably charge by the session. You see some paying clients but don’t have a steady stream of them. You wish you had a full schedule. I see this a lot among transformation professionals.
The challenge here is to realise that ‘charge by the session’ business models aren’t really conducive to significant transformation. All too often, people try and minimize the number of sessions they come for which is counterproductive as they end up not getting the results they desire.
In the third column, you grow your practice steadily and systematically. Your client-schedule is fully booked and you have a waiting list. Almost all transformation professionals who have a waiting list also have a system.
They have some approach or method for finding prospective clients, cultivating a relationship with them and educating them to the point where they’re ready and willing to make an informed buying decision.
In the fourth column, we go exponential in a variety of ways. You leverage your time, impact and income exponentially via products, packages and groups. Clients and colleagues look to you for inspiration.
That’s an important point. Your clients and colleagues look to you for inspiration. Remember I mentioned how Sam Jarman is now working with other golf pros to help them transition to coaching package models?
This is a great example of someone who has been able to leverage their time and create something that can have a bigger impact in a way that has their colleagues looking to to them for inspiration and leadership.
To make progress and improve in this practice multiplier, start by asking yourself this question:
If I could wave a magic wand and you could have your practice however you want it to be, how would you know the magic wand had worked? What would you see? What would you hear? What would you feel? How would you work? On what and with whom? What would you be doing? Where would you be doing it? Which kinds of audiences would you be be working with? What kind of impact would you be having with them?
Another question I love is the “miracle question”:
If there was a miracle tonight as you sleep, and when you woke up tomorrow, everything in your practice was exactly the way you want it to be, how would you know the miracle had taken place? What would you see? What would you hear? What would you feel? What would you experience? What would you know, that would let you know the miracle had taken place?
Now, the purpose of these questions isn’t for you to come up with specific answers necessarily. It’s for you to get reflective and start getting a sense of what you’d love your exponential practice to look like, to sound like and to feel like.
Once you have a sense of that, you can connect with your inner results creator and ask yourself: What’s the next step?
Once again, Clarity + Action = Results. Once you have a sense of where you’re headed, just take the next step and you’ll be amazed at the progress you can make.
A great example of this is Certified Clarity Trainer, Clare Tanner. Clare was already a successful executive coach when we started working together. But she wanted to teach others how to coach people within larger organizations, so she’s now running a coach training programme for leaders in one of her larger clients.
Another example is Emma McDevitt. When we first started working with her on our Coaching Package Power programme (aka Project Glasswing), she was focused on growing her 1:1 practice.
But she took the exponential practice idea to heart, and developed The Coaching Exchange, a platform that facilitates coaching sessions between both trainee and more experienced coaches. The service is taking off, and means she can leverage her time and her impact more effectively.
A final example is Stuart Anderson. Stuart is a high-value tax consultant who designs and builds the “architecture” for very wealthy clients’ investments, pensions and taxation matters.
When we first started working with Stuart, he was working hard but not getting as much leverage as he wanted. So Stuart did a Clarity CEO 1:1 Intensive https://www.jamiesmart.com/clarity-1-1-intensive/ with me, and had some really profound insights. He ended up restructuring his practice, and getting enormous leverage in the process.
He told me “I have clients falling over themselves to do business with me and have undertaken and completed three projects in the first quarter of this year that have delivered more than two years’ income.” As a result, he’s spending a lot more of his time with his family, travelling, exploring and enjoying life.
And this is really the essence of your Exponential Practice. It’s not just about multiplying your income; it’s also about multiplying your enjoyment and exponentially leveraging your time so you can do the things that really matter to you.
Project Glasswing (aka Coaching Package Power) kicked off this weekend, and we had a great time working on all this stuff.
If you’d like to be considered for a future glasswing, I’m looking for 36 very specific people:
- You are a coach, therapist or change-worker (Eg. Sports coach, psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, business coach, bodyworker etc)
- You have at least one year’s experience of working with clients (either paid, pro-bono or both)
- You probably charge by the hour, but want to use a “coaching package” model and increase your income
- You have room to work with at least one longer term contract client, starting in 2017
- You’re an enthusiastic, friendly people-person
- You have a coachable spirit, and are willing to step out of your comfort zone if necessary, and
- You can keep a secret
If that’s you, then email me at info@jamiesmart.com, and let me know where you’re located and a little about yourself (if you don’t know what to tell me about, look at the list above for inspiration). Change the subject line to “Project Glasswing JST”.
Talk to you soon!
To your increasing clarity
Big love
Jamie
Photo courtesy of Steve Snodgrass and Flickr