Your business endeavors are bound to surprise you…

Saturday night didn’t quite go as planned… As a local Torontonian of 11 years, I still had never been to the Distillery District Christmas Market. Now that we are traveling full-time everyone I know in Toronto was saying, “you gotta take Brian!” So that was the plan… I had to take my Texan man to this iconic Toronto event. Until we got there… The rain had just started coming down pretty good, and with the lake effect, it was bone-chilling. Surprised by the massive amount of people, and the sea of humans lined up to get into The Distillery District… I figured it was a line for a club or a restaurant. Nope. Supposedly on weekends, you need a ticket to get in.

Glad to hear the business owners at the Christmas Market are doing SO well they need to sell tickets on weekends. I was a bit bummed I hadn’t done better research, and just took Brian there. Admittedly, I’m not a very good tour guide. In my defense, while I lived in T.O I never did touristy things so I figured we could march right in.

Back to the story… So we had to find a place to go. On the way to The Distillery, we noticed something going on at Nathan Phillips Square so we headed there.

Noticing other business models is key to your success…

Immediately when we arrived at Nathan Phillips Square we were serenaded with familiar music. A couple of members of the Lemon Bucket Orchestra (and a former member) were playing their hearts out under a little tent. They were fantastic as always. After their set, we chatted for a few moments and asked them how we could share their music with our peeps, and how to tag them. Turns out all three of them are freelancers. I thought that was pretty cool, to BE a musician, and make money from what you love doing. I would have loved to learn more about what they were each doing, but they were freezing so they had to go warm their hands before their next set. (Watch our YouTube Video & check the description to get more details on them.)

As I looked around I couldn’t help but notice all of the little vendors at this Christmas Festival in the Square. What a bunch of troopers to be out on such a soggy night. Brian + I made a few observations:

1. All of these physical businesses came out regardless of the weather
2. Some business owners were there themselves (and freelancers too)
3. Others had hired people to represent their businesses

Something to think about as a business owner…

As a business owner, you get to choose your business model. Which simply means how you run the show, what kind of schedule you have, the environment you work in, and how you earn revenue.

Physical business owners have a few options. At the beginning of building your business, you will likely be the one doing most of the work. So in the case of a Christmas Market, regardless of what you are selling, you would likely be there at your own booth. You could be making food in a Food Truck. You could be selling handmade crafts. You could even be running a game.

Once you have been in business for a while, assuming the business is going well, your Christmas Market experience may evolve into you hiring people to work it for you, so you don’t have to stand out in the soggy weather. BUT let’s say the weather is nice & snowy, and you want to BE there… You could do both. You could sit on the sidelines sometimes while others run your biz, or other days you could be more hands one doing the things you love.

Could you optimize your physical business, by leveraging the internet…

Why yes you could. Let’s say you are like our freelancing, musical friends, that I mentioned earlier. Maybe you are a music teacher. Have you ever thought of taking your knowledge, and turning it into eCourses? Digital info products are such an awesome way to leverage the internet. You could have thousands of people all over the world learning from you while you are doing other things you love. You may still love one on one classes, but maybe you have to work around the clock to make a comfortable living. Creating digital info products is the ultimate way to free up your time.

Maybe you make something edible, or some kind of handicraft. Have you ever thought about sourcing companies that could help you go bigger? You could open up an online store, have other people helping you create the product, and ship your awesome products all over the world.

BEing a physical business owner is awesome… BUT…

If you are anything like Brian + I, being tied to just one place isn’t what we want right now. We are curious about seeing the world, and BEing where we want, when we want. You may want that too…

The nice thing is, you can BE so creative when building a business in the online space, and your reach is multiplied infinitely. You aren’t slugging physical products, or yourself from one place to another. There are many ways to outsource work that you may have been doing on your own. If you are willing to cough up your secret fudge recipe or let someone else write that blog post for you. LOL

There are far too many scenarios to go over here in this blog post, but there are many creative ways to take an offline business and turn it into a thriving online business. OR do what Brian + I do… Run the whole darn thing online, and avoid soggy situations. (Which is truly a no strings attached business model.)

Back to noticing other business models & why it’s the key to your success…

As a business owner, or someone who is curious about becoming a business owner… You need to know what you want. Know what you want your days to look like. What kind of tasks are you doing? What kind of environment are you working in? You get to choose!

If you need some guidance, we are here for you. That is exactly why we created The Exclusive Tribe For Entrepreneurs, to guide & give you a step-by-step Road Map so you know what’s coming up in each stage of your business. It all starts with goal setting, and our eCourse Get Your Goals On is a no BS approach to setting measurable goals. Good news… When you grab the BEAP Membership to the Exclusive Tribe… You get ALL of our eCourses for FREE with the membership because it doesn’t stop at goal setting.

We look forward to helping you reach your goals in the Tribe.