Making the shift to focus on providing value meant that I couldn’t provide everything to everyone because in many cases, others could solve a specific problem better than I could. By being committed to providing the most value, sometimes it meant referring this business instead of taking it for myself.

It was less money for me, but I knew the client would get better results. It meant that when I met with potential clients and they had a problem that I didn’t solve, I would say “Sorry, I can’t help you, I don’t solve that particular problem but I know someone who does,” instead of saying: “Sure I can solve that problem for you!” then getting to the office and trying to figure out what to do…

When I made this shift my business and personal life totally changed. I started getting more referrals, attracting better clients and I would wake up more energized and excited.

Crazy thing is, the more I focused on providing value, money started to flow into my life.

2. Niche down and solve a specific problem for a specific market as soon as possible.

Solving everyone’s problems is the fastest way to get burned out and stifle your business growth. As soon as I decided to solve a specific problem for a specific niche, my business really started to take off.

My creativity soared, I was less stressed and I could charge more because I knew what I was providing was valuable. You might not be able to niche off right away, but my advice is to do it as fast as possible.

3. Build your perfect life, not the life others tell you you should live. This sounds cliché, but for so long I tried to live the life of the folks I looked up to and I didn’t even realize it. I was really unhappy and I couldn’t figure out why.

So one day sat down and wrote out what my perfect day would look like. Then I made a list of all the things that made me really excited. I had to be really honest with myself, and in doing so I realized there were some things I was really good at but that didn’t make me happy or fulfilled. When I finished this list, I realized I had to make some major changes in my business.

For a while it was chaos. I had to take some scary leaps into the unknown. But when I finally did make those scary changes, my life was so much more fulfilling.

Disclaimer: While these things worked for me, they might not be a great fit for everyone…But, if you resonate with any of these, there’s a good chance it might work for you 🙂

One step at a time,

Aaron