Why You Should Separate Yourself From Your Business

Kevin Shabaar Smith Author

You are not your business and you are not your product.

This weekend I was talking to a friend of mine about business.

We were talking about when we first started and some of the first pieces of business advice that we were given.

I want to share mine with you.  

I remember the first time I hired a consultant to come in and talk to me. This is when I started my brick and mortar consulting business. 

And he was a marketing consultant that I I'll never forget.

His name was Dave, and before the meeting ever even happened, I remember thinking:

"okay,I want to be careful here. I don't want to get sucked into anything I don't want to do. I don't want to  spend thousands of dollars on empty advice."

My guard was just up.

He came in the conference room, and we both sat down.


I explained to him at the time I was doing these trainings for revenue.  I'd get these groups of people together and business leaders and we conduct leadership and business training and things like that....kind of like a paid peer networking and training service

I told him about it and he looked at me and he said:

"the first thing that's important that I share with you is that right now you don't have a real business."

And right then, my guard went on hyper-alert, everything went up, my defenses went up. I was thinking...

"what do you mean? I don't have a business? Of course. I have a business."

He's responded, "

"well, you don't have a product here. You do things to make money. And that's all good. But you're really just self-employed. You're not really a business owner. You don't have a business here."

And so I got really defensive and as you can imagine, that meeting ended quickly.

But then as, as time went by, I realized that he was absolutely right....

I didn't have a business.

If, if you follow my business page, the coaching business simplified, or you're in The Workroom™ mastermind group, you'll hear me say a lot of times...

you are not your business.

You are not your product.

Now, a lot of people say, "well, Kevin, you know, we always hear about the sing about know like trust and personal branding"

YES!, And all of that is important.

You do want people to know like, and trust you, but it's not important because you ARE the business.  It's important because you're the representative and the chief ambassador of the business and people are trusting you to show them the way!

You can still deliver the product, but in your mind and the minds of the clients, the product is separate.

A Different Perspective...

Think about it this way...

think about a client you just signed up, or maybe you're in the process of kind of working with, to onboard.

If that person could snap their fingers, or if they could wave a magic wand and in one second could have their problem solved without working any further with you....

Do you think that they would take that quick solution?

Heck yeah!!  Of course they would!

Because it's about the problem and the solution.

They are trusting you to deliver the solution at that moment in time...but it's about the solution.

And so the product and you are seperate.  And that's a good thing!

Why?

Why It's Important to separate...

Because if you can't separate yourself from your product in your mind...you'll never be able to separate yourself from your business...and that means you'll never b e able to scale.

Scaling a coaching or consulting business is about getting to a place where the business can operate and grow without you having to always be the one at the wheel.  But if you ARE the business, it can only go as far as the time, resources and effort that YOU have on a daily basis...and has you know...that is very limited!

So you want to make sure you're really careful about the way you approach your coaching business or consulting business.s

I see a lot of people falling into the mindset trap here. 

And it doesn't happen overnight.  It comes with time, so be patient.  But just keep it in minds as you take steps towards growth.  Keep a mental separation between you and your business.


And I know you may be thinking "Kevin, I've just started out, I don't even have a product yet!"

That's ok...totally Kool and the Gang.

But just remember, you solution IS your product. You may just not have figured out the pathway of packaging it yet.  You just haven't yet turned your process into your product.

If need any help getting there, just reach out. In the meantime, just give that some room for consideration.

Take A Different Approach

Think about what you're doing today...

Whatever you're working on today in your business...

Think, okay, how can you package this activity so I can hand it off to somebody else?

Would I be able to hand it off to someone else?

Have I designed it in a way that can be handed off?

Do I have something in place to make sure that someone else would be able to do it?

(Think checklist, processes, systems, etc)

...Or am I just randomly doing these activities?

If the latter is true, then we want to start organizing our activities as though we needed to pass it off to someone else next week.

So you can do that even if you're just starting and you're not even building your team yet. It's a mindset hack!

Most people struggle to delegate, right?

It's because they don't have that activity structured in a way that they can handle it off and still feel as though they have any control over the outcome.

So, so if you ever find yourself in a position where you're just struggling to delegate stuff...either to a team member, or maybe a VA or maybe another coach...

...think about what I'm saying about separating yourself from the business and the product.

If you have any questions, you know where to find me!

Take Care!

guys, I will talk to you later. Have a wonderful, wonderful day.