The flimsy nature of ideas-based businesses

That is: your lived experiences, education and training in your field.

As a coach or consultant, your thinking is the product you sell.

Clients pay for your ideas, beliefs and perspectives and there are many benefits to running this kind of operation. Benefits such as location independence (I’m writing from Mallorca right now, for example). Benefits such as low overhead costs, minimal set up fees and a lack of physical ‘stuff’ to manage, carry around, keep track of.

But I’ve seen a very common problem under the surface of these businesses, having run one for six years and supported many founders to run theirs.

Founders of ideas-based businesses often struggle to hold onto their business.

They can feel amorphous. Ephemeral. Flimsy.

Without hard, physical edges, teams, offices or equipment to hold onto, they can evade even the person in charge as to their whereabouts.

Where does this business start?

Where does it end?

Where does it live?

A business like this shape shifts. Its weight, shape and gravity depend on the day or month in question. As its founder, your brain, self-belief and energy are the very make up of the business.

The cost of being amorphous

If you’re moving through moments of doubt or a lack of clarity, the amorphous nature of the business really reveals itself.

I see this in coaching sessions.

Take a recent client example, let’s call her Rachel but she’s one of many similar conversations.

Rachel and I were making great progress on her business plans in sessions. We’d landed on her positioning, One Big Idea, plans for an event series, a launch campaign and how to reach the people she most wanted to serve.

Her private coaching space in Notion was fast filling up, with notes, comments, documents and the momentum was palpable.

Then she took a break, went away with her family, and came back to our sessions, feeling a bit lost. The clarity and conviction she’d had had erased itself gradually during the days away. Not a complete 180 turn, but a feeling of distance had crept in.

During our conversation, we rebuilt that clarity, the plans resurfaced, and so did her conviction.

She told me “I feel like I lost touch with this mission and my role, but I’ve been reminded of it again today”.

How is that possible? Just a short break, and the entire foundation of the business faltered.

It’s possible because when the business lives in your head, when it’s built on your ideas, it’s liable to float away if you don’t weigh it down. It can get swept up and away with other obligations, stresses or worries.

I distinctly remember saying to my own coach in 2020: “I don’t really know what constitutes my business. Is it just this Instagram page?” to which she laughed and asked me, "Well, where does your business live?”

Clients have asked for my help building a ‘centre of gravity’ for their Authority-led business. Wanting somewhere to go to see it, touch it, understand it.

Without this centre of gravity, following any period of challenge, it becomes all too easy to lose sight of the work. If you lose two main clients one after the other, it can feel like your clothes got swept away with the tide whilst you were swimming at sea. Out there, naked and exposed.

Your ideas need a home for you to come back to, to remind yourself of your own grand vision, beliefs and brilliance. To stay in motion even when things feel uncertain (and they will, because welcome to entrepreneurship). To build on the progress you’ve built with your work, with clients, with advancing your thinking, learning and capacity.

Without it, the line between being a badass business owner, and someone looking for work, gets far too thin.

Your ideas need anchors.

You can weigh down your amorphous, ideas-based business with anchors.

Thankfully, Rachel’s plans did have a home outside of her. They lived in our shared Notion page and in my head, too. I was there to share the mental load.

I think of these as anchors.

Honestly, this is a very big part of what coaching offers: another brain and human perspective to hold space for your ideas, beliefs and perspectives. A mirror reflecting your brilliance back to you.

As you can see in Rachel’s case, with her relatively new business, there was not much else to anchor it because these plans were not yet fulfilled. But in time, they will be, and her business will have other anchors.

So what are those potential anchors?

If you’ve been nodding along at the ephemeral nature of your own business and desire to hold it down, here’s some suggested anchors you might want to consider.

• Your clients.

  • The work you do with clients is your main anchor. There should always be a shared space for you to keep reflections and progress notes about what you’re doing with them. For their benefit of course, but as we’ve seen, also for yours.

• Your network

  • The people you encounter on this journey are all individual anchors, if they know about you and your business. The more people who know you, the heavier the shared mental load becomes. How are you tracking these relationships? A CRM? Email list?

• Your Body of Work

  • When you sell your thinking as the product, you’ll want to showcase that thinking for others to try before they buy. Your Body of Work plays this role. More than just ‘content’, it's your thinking in the form of articles or even books, assets, whitepapers, series, etc. This mega guide is not only part of my own Body of Work but teaches you how to build yours. I also encourage all Authority Entrepreneurs to write their Hero Piece, aka the essay that articulates their One Big Idea in long-form.

• Your Frameworks

  • Related to your Body of Work, is the methodology or approach you use to take your clients through. One of the most rewarding moves I made last year was ‘immortalising’ my ideas in the form of The Authority Manifesto. 80+ pages of guidance on growing your Authority-led business. Currently only available to Authority Club members, leave your details to stay in the loop for upcoming opportunities to get involved.

• Your Events

  • Whether online or offline, any time you bring people together, you’re creating a shared anchor and tangible reason to share your ideas and perspectives.

• Your Space

  • Whether you work from home or an office, you can build a space for your work that reflects your depth of thought. Collating books, postcards, client thank yous, awards, etc., in one place will give you a sense of pride from which to anchor.

• Your Online Presence

  • Your website, social media, branding, and photos all exist to showcase your clear positioning, approach, and vision for your business, as well as hopefully case studies and testimonials from happy clients. Many make the mistake of thinking a beautiful brand is the business itself, but it's pure decoration without these other anchors in place.

• A Digital Home

  • Maintaining your business operations with the right systems, workflows and tools is key for getting work done, of course, but also offers you a window to peer into and see all that you’ve created. I use Notion for this and have plenty of Notion consultants to recommend who can help if you’re trying to get yours in place.

• Your Team

  • Hiring help, mentors, coaches and suppliers are powerful anchors. They remind you of your greatness, share the mental load, and help usher in momentum and progress you can’t hope to only achieve solo

All of this takes work, of course it does and it should.

Good businesses are built by founders who have put in the reps, time and time again. Who have built something with substance. Just because your business is your ideas, that doesn’t make it intangible.

As writer of Working Theories, Anu wrote in this viral essay Make Something Heavy, “We're creating more than ever, but it weighs nothing”. She says we don’t just make heavy things, but we become someone who is able to make heavy things in the process.

Make your business heavy so that you can point to it, feel its shape, and let your business carry you on down days or hard times. Let it show you proof of your own prior brilliance.

This business might just be your life’s work.

Let’s anchor it down properly, shall we?

If you’re curious about 1-1 support, you can apply for coaching here. Or if its a group programme like Authority Club or Authority Letters that’s caught your eye, sign up to this waitlist for upcoming dates.

Until next time,

Ellen