As the year draws to an end, many people are reflecting on 2013 and what 2014 goals and aspirations they have for their life or business. It’s the perfect time to take inventory on what went well, what could have gone better, and what steps you’ll take to improve. It’s the perfect time for reinvention.
Maybe you can relate. You’re trying to figure out a way to become self-employed using all your various skills. You have so many interests that it’s hard to pick a direction, so you settle for one thing but feel like there’s too many gaps that aren’t meeting your full passions, or potential. With all these gaps, you feel invisible. You don’t show up fully in your work, and your introverted nature has you becoming a business wallflower. Or maybe it’s just me.
This is what I’ve struggled with as a multipotentialite entrepreneur. What is your “brand”? What are you an “expert” in? How can you give people value?
At some point, you may have to stop and pivot. It’s okay to change your mind, or try something else and go on a different path, or just expand the path you’re already on. Without personal clarity on your business, your potential clients will not be able to pick up on your genius, either. Re-evaluation and evolution is a necessary part of the process, and figuring out an umbrella theme for your perfect business sweet spot may not happen overnight. It might take a few iterations!
Reinvention = rebrand
My primary service is graphic/web design but I haven’t taken on an actual web design client in about a year. I mainly focus on e-book design and love it! The only thing is e-books are one off projects and don’t have much opportunity for recurring work. It’s not a very stable hustle and there are many other ways I could be making money if I only invented it and restructured my offerings and services.
The start of a new year is a great time to restructure your business. Take out what’s not working and what you don’t enjoy doing. Add new services that better match your desires and passions. Come up with offerings to better establish your brand and your expertise. Start blogging intentionally about your areas of interest to further emphasize your brand and prime people to become customers or clients.
Having a “lifestyle business” means that living your brand is the strongest way to be your brand. The idea should be effortless because being who you are is your brand. I travel and live a location independent lifestyle. I “slow travel” and bunk in one place or one country for 2-3 years and then move on. I don’t have rent, but go where people are willing to house me, or where I can find a cheap apartment for a month or two. I have “home bases” in a couple places like Cebu, Philippines, where I currently stay with my family, or Portland, Oregon, where I can stay at my parents. My next itinerary is Chiang Mai, Thailand and then Berlin, Germany (and I say itinerary loosely because I have yet to book the tickets). I never make “plans”, other than to find an apartment or to be housed by friends. I just book my tickets and show up. I make my intentions, like orders to the Universe, and see where it takes me.
Because of my passion for living a bohemian and nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle, I know I can reinvent myself as a lifestyle coach for people interested in living/traveling abroad, minimalism and starting an online business. Why haven’t I done this already? A part of me felt the “impostor syndrome”. But I’ve been at this lifestyle for three years and still going strong! When a reader of my blog personally emailed me to ask for a Skype session on the topic, I knew that I was on to something. I could really do this!
Getting clarity on your brand and purpose is an aha moment worth having. My brand is already aligned to be able to do this work, but now it feels like a clearer focus. Where once I felt I was flailing and didn’t think I could ever monetize my blog, I now have a clear offering I can work up for the new year, all under the true essence of my motto, “march to your own beat”. To brand myself as an expert, I simply live my life and blog about it, and create an e-book or e-course around the same topic (in the works).
Having multiple brands
But what if you have multiple brands? I don’t want to fully give up my design services, and I’m also about to launch a new blog about sensuality/spirituality/erotica. How do you mesh it all together so it makes sense?
Your multifaceted interests and multiple brands should enhance each other, and not deter from each brand. It should draw more of your right people in; your tribe. Branding myself on a new platform as essentially a sensual/spiritual blog will attract the right kind of clients interested in Goddess work, divine feminine, tantra, love and all the things that I’m passionate about. You don’t have to be an “expert” to start. You just need to have the interest and dedication to learn. Suddenly, reading news articles about love and relationships, and diving into books about tantra and sacred sex becomes “work” and “research” that I absolutely enjoy. If someone happens to need design work, they’ll already be likeminded and probably within my ideal client avatar; holistic, creative and heart-based!
If you can find a commonality between your ideal clients over your multiple brands you’ll be able to tie them together. Create a landing page, or sign up with about.me as the social hub of everything you do and provide a concise bio and links to your multiple brands.
Your Turn
How do you approach rebranding, reinvention or having multiple brands?
Janet this is good, I especially love the pic. I’m currently doing this re-branding in my business. What I’ve done is take a piece of my former business and drilled down on that aspect.
For example, I worked with busy Moms (last 6 years) to help them with time management. What I found was that it wasn’t that they really had problems with their time, it was that they didn’t value themselves or their time enough to set boundaries.
Thus, my new theme was born…women living boldly by tapping into their inner courage, desire for creative exploration, and tons of support (among one another). All the things that my former clients wanted/needed.
I dropped the time management piece because I found once the women decided to not care what anyone else thought, they found the time to do what they wanted and drop the things they didn’t.
I also dropped the Mom piece because all women could use a dose of support and encouragement to live boldly. In fact, many women came to me that weren’t Moms.
Overall I can’t yet speak to how well received this will go over with my current network but I’m dedicated to building a new community if necessary.
I’d love to hear how others have done this!
Great article again Janet. I’m nomadic too – I just spent 9 months travelling around Asia and I’ve been home a month now, and a month too long. I came back because I needed to see my nephews and to feel ‘grounded’ for a while, but I’m ready to fly off again. The only dilemma is that I want to establish a business or a stream of income before I leave, so I feel a bit like a caged bird right now while I try and figure out which of my interests to pursue. The great thing about this site is that it reminds me it’s ok to have all these interests, and that I’ll figure something out soon!
wow, that’s a long time traveling! Hope that our paths can cross in SE asia sometime. I’ll be in Thailand next month. How did you fund your trip? I’ve got online income to sustain my lifestyle. Actually looking to start coaching people interested in living nomadic/expat abroad and how to start an online biz if you’re interested. 🙂 That will be my new offering for 2014 but right now I have it in pay what you can mode! I also have to go home to recharge. I try to at least once a year.
I funded it with savings – I’m quite good at not spending money unnecessarily so I saved enough to travel for 2 or 3 years if I really wanted to, but I prefer to keep some savings back for serious future things like buying an apartment one day. So in reality I could still travel for another year, but it makes me uncomfortable just spending with nothing coming in which is why I want to establish an income stream, even if it’s small to begin with.
Travel is something I always love to explore more and given my current (rent free) lifestyle its weird to think about buying or even renting an apartment/house but there is that sense that eventually you’d have to settle down. There are perpetual travelers who sustain the suitcase lifestyle for years.. my favorite is Wandering Earl. It’s all about finding your travel style. I don’t think I’d want to be a perpetual traveler as a longterm lifestyle (couple years at most). Eventually I guess I would like to settle down at least long enough for a family, and then travel with them as well! 😉
My main income streams atm are writing, ebook design, and social media manager! it’s actually really good for multipotentialites. 🙂
Hi Janet,
It’s really great to read posts like this and have that “ahhhh, I’m not such a freak” moment! I’ve been nomadic too for the past five years, only for me, the idea of developing an online business just didn’t happen until, um, two months ago. Whoops! So here I am, getting stuck into translation and writing (my combo) and digging deep. I really like your theme and I think it’ll resonate with a lot of women out there…
I’m really interested to know how people sustain their nomadic lifestyle without some sort of business! I stayed put for 2 years in Manila trying to build my business but now it’s time to move on!
Thanks! I feel like I finally found my zone of genius vs. zone of competence or zone of excellence (It’s concepts from the book The Big Leap which I HIGHLY recommend). Finally, I add my passions (travel, expat, women wanderers) to my skills and I’ve got a better business model 😛