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This is the story of an up-and-coming entrepreneur I know — let’s call her Budding Boo.
She’s a 30-something who loves to stroll in nature, cook delicious food, and go out for karaoke nights with her new girlfriend. About 6 months ago she quit her office job, said goodbye to the cubicle she hated, and never looked back.
To replace her income, she immediately opened up a business. It started out as an events photography service — one of her other joys in life.
Budding Boo attends swanky events in trendy outfits on the reg, where she fades into the background and captures priceless moments at weddings, charity galas, and even the occasional ballroom dance competition.
Sounds like the dream, right?
Not quite.
Budding Boo prides herself on being multi-passionate and ambitious. But after 3 months of hard work turning photography from a hobby into a full-fledged business, she still wasn’t making enough to match her office job salary. (Not a big surprise — she only gave it a few months!)
So, she decided to tap into her other talents.
In addition to event photography, Budding Boo now offers couple’s cooking classes, guided nature walks, and even customer service assistance. She’s great at all of these things, but…
Managing all these offers requires a lot of frantic running around and constant focus-switching — so much so that Budding Boo is STILL not hitting her revenue goals, despite all the extra work she’s putting in.
And, naturally, she’s running out of steam. Having her focus and energy pulled in 4 different directions all the time has her feeling stressed, exhausted, confused, and afraid that maybe she’s not cut out for this entrepreneurial journey after all.
What Budding Boo doesn’t know is, she is NOT alone in her feelings, her revenue problems, or her fears.
I’ve heard a hundred different versions of this story from my clients.
On the Hello Seven Growth Scale™️, we call this stage Hello 02: Budding. At this level, you’re probably making no more than $2,000 - $4,000 per month, or $25,000 - $49,999 per year in your business. According to the U.S. Census, about 11% of women-owned businesses in the U.S. are at this level of business growth.
And in my experience, one major reason that so many marginalized entrepreneurs stay stuck at this level is because they’re afraid to FOCUS and COMMIT to just one offer.
At this stage, you’ve probably experimented with multiple offers. And don’t get me wrong — experimenting is great!
But experimentation and focusing on one thing at a time are NOT mutually exclusive.
You can pick one offer. In fact, you should. Give it time to grow. If — after really giving it a chance — it’s still not working, then you can pivot, and try something else.
It's time to start thinking about where you want to focus your attention. Ask yourself: of all the offers you’ve tried so far, which ones are the most enjoyable, the most profitable, and the most impactful to clients?
This is what successful entrepreneurs do. You identify a specific problem in the world. You develop an excellent solution. Then you bring that solution to the marketplace and sell it. Cha-ching!
The more you focus on one problem, the better you get at solving it and the faster you’ll make that coin.
And for all those multi-passionate folks out there like Budding Boo…
Yes, I know you contain multitudes. Yes, your soul is a tapestry woven with infinite threads of possibility.
And yes — you absolutely CAN commit to doing just one thing.
You can be multi-passionate in your personal time. On your days off, go salsa dancing. Ride ponies. Learn French.
You can have a multi-passionate life, but you need to start with a uni-passionate business if you want to scale to 7 figures (and then you can shift your focus, if you’d like to!).
If Budding Boo would just commit to and focus on her one core offer, then she’d see her revenue start to climb. And if you’re at this Budding stage of growing your business, this is probably true for you, too.
If you’re not sure what stage of business growth you’re at, take the Growth Scale Assessment.
Your results will include a diagnosis of the biggest problems in your business, and provide your next steps to solve those problems and scale to the next revenue level.
You’ll also get a level-specific Growth Scale Guide, which will give you key action steps you can implement today to move your business in the right direction.
Once you take the Assessment, drop me a comment with what level you’re at, and what action step you’ll be taking next to level up!
xo,
R
