What Lights You Up?

“Sylvia” started her consulting business after being downsized twice. She was determined to take the reins and direct her own future.

A year in, she’d built a handful of client relationships and made about 75% of her former earnings. Not too shabby for Year 1.

But she was exhausted and frustrated and couldn’t pinpoint why.

Our deep dive discovered the culprit pretty quickly. Her favorite word with prospective clients was “yes”.

Which in Sylvia’s case means she’d spent 90% of her time developing and delivering corporate group training programs.

There was just one problem.

She DETESTED group training.

Turns out it was one-to-one coaching that truly floated her boat. And her almost magically compelling sweet-spot? Leaders of color in financial services.

The minute—almost the second—she got that, she lit up like a Christmas tree.

Suddenly she had a clear-eyed view of exactly whom she wanted to work with—and on what. It gave her the language (not to mention the motivation) to say no to the work and the people that didn’t fit.

She gulped hard and raised her rates—because niching her offerings made her value proposition crystal clear.

A year later she’d almost doubled her income.

What she drilled down to—was clarity.

Clarity about what lights her up.

Clarity about her ideal audience.

Clarity about when to say yes and when to say hell no.

Only then could she exquisitely fine-tune her sales and marketing.

And only then did her business really take off.

So before you spend a dime on packaging and marketing and “selling” the brand that is you, you’ve got to start with the most important thing. The thing that underpins all that you do.

What lights you up?

And what would it feel like to spend your day doing that?

It will take courage.

It will take insight.

But you can do it too.

What lights you up?