We live in a world that presents multiple choices to us daily. From the different variations of yogurt in the grocery store, to the endless options of TV and movie streaming online, we are presented with more choices in our lives than ever before. What a problem to have, right?!
However, when it comes to running a business, the not-so-fun reality is that lots of choices can equal no action.
Many entrepreneurs make things harder than they need to be. This comes from a vulnerable place: they just want to grow their business faster, do better, and prove themselves. But often business owners think that sacrificing their own well-being is part of the process. They throw themselves into every little thing they believe might help grow the business, begin to feel overwhelmed, lose traction, and then find they aren’t actually getting anywhere, despite working very hard.
The Power of One Method
The answer, stressed-out-woman-on-a-mission, is a simple method that will help grow your business and other aspects of your life: The Power of One. This key strategy is about doing less–more intentionally. And that’s a powerful concept for women in business.
At first, it can feel a bit counter-productive to slow down in order to speed up. But that creates the space we need to connect with our truth, our values, our preferences, and to allow our intuition to guide our decisions. Then we are more likely to trust ourselves and our business, while actually enjoying the process. At the end of the day, success without feeling good, isn’t worth it!
The Power of One at Use in Different Applications
Before we dive into how you will put the Power of One to work for you, let’s see how it’s used in ways you may not expect.
Teachers have used the Power of One strategy in their classroom to calm their class down and achieve group focus on a topic. The strategy merely works with the natural behavior of children and directs it towards a common goal. Teachers have used the Power of One for something as simple as getting the children to line up for recess, gathering materials for a project, or storing items at the end of the school day.
The teacher asks one child to model the desired behavior first, in front of the class. This puts the focus on one person that everyone watches, and there’s an inherent desire for the child who is modeling the behavior, to do it correctly. Once shown, the rest of the class has a desire to prove they can do the task just as well themselves. More often than not, the other children follow the example exactly. Their focus is on doing one thing well.
The Power of One can be used in many facets of life: a new health and fitness routine, tackling a room reorganization project, or figuring out your financial strategy, to name a few examples. The main idea is always the same: focus on one thing, and you will start to see results. If you start with fifteen different goals in mind and many different avenues to obtain those goals, it will take you much longer to get anywhere, if you get anywhere at all. Often, you feel too overwhelmed and throw in the towel on the project completely.
Simplify to Amplify
Every entrepreneur gets a big boost of confidence when they achieve their first sale. We at Thrive Virtual call that the proof of concept. Once your proof of concept occurs, then you have everything you need to scale the business to your desired result.
To achieve your proof of concept, we apply The Power of One as our Simplify to Amplify Strategy. When we do less, but with more intention, it allows us to be free from constant learning mode. Which means we aren’t jumping from strategy to strategy and we can go beyond the ‘figure-it-out’ phase. Staying in the ‘figure-it-out’ phase for too long actually begins to postpone results and erodes our confidence. You want to simplify your business plan and amplify your impact.
We all know that women tend to try and do too much, all at once, but it’s having the opposite effect of what we want. It’s hindering progress. Even worse, we beat ourselves up along the way!
So, let’s take a look at how you can implement the Power of One for your business. We’ll show you how knowing what to do, in what order, equals freedom.
The Power of One Methodology
One Core Offer: Get clear on your one, main, amazing offer that represents your business model. Define it, build it, know it like the back of your hand. Be able to explain your core offer easily and succinctly.
One Ideal Client: Take the time to identify who your ideal client is, based on your core offer. Build out their buyer persona. What are their demographics? What problem or challenge are they trying to solve?
One Content and Marketing Strategy
Once you know what problem you can solve for your ideal client, put that to use in one content and marketing strategy. Get specific with your content and tailor it towards your offer and your client. Clearly demonstrate the benefit of your product/service to your potential client.
One Email List Build Approach
Choose one method to build your email list and become a master at it. Figure out the best way to obtain prospect information that goes into your list, and then just rinse and repeat.
One Sales Process
There are many different sales processes out there that you can follow. Find one that makes sense for you, customize it to your business, and employ it religiously.
Simple Really Works
You don’t have to do everything. You don’t have to chase everything. In fact, doing so only waters down your efforts. Remember: Simple really works! Focusing on one thing will be what allows you to gain traction.
The Power of One can serve as a compass for making decisions for both the present and the future and can help us achieve balance in our efforts. When you use this methodology, you will know with total confidence that what you’re doing is 100% effective, and that one key ingredient is ingrained across all significant parts of your business.