You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 109.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove podcast. The all inclusive podcast that teaches mindset and business tools. We'll help you rise as your authentic self. Be unshakable with your emotional freedom and unstoppable in achieving any goal and living your purpose. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. If you want to put your mental health first in life, relationships and business, you've come to the right place.

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 Hi, my strong friends. All right, are you ready to get creative with your business models? There are so many ways that you can create an income for yourself that you can create a business where you can provide opportunities for other people. Whether it is collaboration opportunities, so that can create their own income through their own business or where they can get exposure and get hired to do different jobs. Or even to become employees.

You could actually create a business where you are creating jobs in this world. How amazing would that be? It's even better when you can tap into your own creativity. You can go after those missions that you have in your life, that impact that you want to give to the world. And you can do it in a way that not only provides an income for you but provides an opportunity for other people.

 

Inspiration from Multi-Talented Icon Todrick Hall

 

How amazing is that? So this episode was completely inspired by going to the Todrick Hall concert last week. If you follow me on Facebook, you got to see a couple of the pictures, my husband and my son and I, we went to it and we just had a great time.

 

For anyone that doesn't know Todrick Hall. He is a gay singer. And he sings about all things LGBT, empowerment, it's all high energy. And what he did was so phenomenal. He created a space for the LGBT community to come together, to relax with each other, to dance with each other, to listen to great music, to be inspired, and to have a no-judgment zone.

 

Oh my gosh. There are so many different types of people within the LGBT community. And judgment can run rampant. So, having a space where everybody comes together and it's a no-judgment zone.

 

Oh my gosh. Have you ever felt that you had unconditional love for yourself? That you could just show up however, and that everybody would love you? That's what it felt like to be in this concert hall. And for one, it was in a beautiful theater in LA. I was definitely expecting it to be in a large stadium because to me, Todrick Hall seems huge, like very successful and right up there with all of the major stars.

 

So I was a little surprised when I got there. And this was a theater that you would see a play put on in. It was a lot more intimate, which felt so good. There were probably about, I don't know, 300 to 500 people there and everybody felt like family. Like it was instant friendship. Now you can't get that at one of the large stadiums. If you go to a large stadiums, you're just someone in the crowd, right?

 

You know, the people that you're with, you might know the person that you bump into, you might say hi, but for the most part, everybody just kind of keeps to themselves. In a small environment like this, where it's a no judgment zone. Oh my gosh. You get to talk with everybody. In the line for the bathroom, everybody's having all of these great deep, meaningful conversations, because we can talk about all of our stuff.

 

So Todrick did this with his music. He provided a space, he brought us all together and then he spoke to us from the stage encouraging even more of this connection. Now, one of the cool things about Todrick Hall that I did not know is that he's basically an entrepreneur.

 

Now, when we see people that are singers that have music videos out there, we just assume that they've been hired by a record label and that they have some kind of a manager that takes care of all of the business stuff and they just show up and perform.

 

Well, it turns out that Todrick Hall is not a signed artist. He has to approach everything as if he's an entrepreneur. He described it as a grassroots effort. So he's basically just like me, creating things that we want to put out into the world, creating spaces, to bring people together. We're trying to make that impact on the world. The risk is completely on our shoulders. The financial investment is completely on our shoulders. We're trying to figure out all of the marketing, how to build up an audience, how to give them something that's incredibly valuable that they love, and then to offer some type of a product or service so that we can create an income for ourselves, but also that revenue that helps to fund all of those activities within our business.

 

So as I'm there watching this concert, I'm realizing Todrick had to come up with money out of his own pocket, to pay for the venue, to pay for his dancers, to create all of the marketing that goes out for his concert.

 

Plus, he has to come up with all of the money in order to create all of his records. In fact, he had pointed out the three people there in the venue that actually helped him to produce all of his music and all of his records. And he promoted them. Like he talked about who they were. He provided contact information. He highly encouraged all of us to go and hire them, too.

 

Sharing the Stage, Literally

And I love that about Todrick. He's trying to lift up other entrepreneurs too. So not only did he do this for the people that helped to produce his records, but he also did this for his dancers. He went out of his way to make sure that he was hiring LGBTQ+ dancers. What he did towards the end just blew me away. Like this adds so much to his character and why I love this guy so much.

 

He wanted to promote his dancers so that they could get other paying gigs, too. He had a big screen up on this stage and he would have a picture of the dancer with their name and their Instagram handle. And he encouraged all of us in the audience to take as many pictures as we wanted to. He just asked that we hashtag every picture that we post with his #femulineworldtour so that it does double duty, right?

 

We get to have the pictures, the memories, but when we do that, hashtag it helps with marketing him and his tour. By allowing us to take pictures on this of the dancers and their handles on Instagram, now we could also help to promote them, but anyone who really enjoyed their dancing style, their appearance, their story, they could now reach out to them and hire them.

 

Isn't that amazing?!

 

When I first started thinking about going into business for myself, I read this really great book by Jim Collins called from Good to Great. And he had a line in there where he said, “solving problems makes you good, creating opportunities makes you great.”

 

Todrick Hall was creating opportunities for other people. I also have that as part of my business model to create opportunities for other people. Not only do I help people to get their businesses up and running, but I also have a back-in plan with retreats and online summits at some point where I'm going to give opportunities to these different business owners to come and collaborate with me.

 

They're going to also be service providers at these events that I put together. I use my podcast as another way to give opportunities for other business owners. They come on, they share their stories, and then I promote their businesses.

 

Did you ever think that someone could go on and be a music superstar and create an income for himself and for other people, by doing it as an entrepreneur? I bet you thought that you needed to do that where you get signed by a record deal. Like that's the only way, right?

 

New Creative Business Models Unlocked with Social Media

 

But that's the whole idea behind creative business models with social media, it really has opened the door for opportunity for more people. We're able as individuals to create businesses and grow them by using all of these platforms that people have created for us.

 

Todrick was able to do this for himself. Not only could he find a way to earn some income off of the music that he made, but he also has created a couple of other ways of generating a revenue stream. One is in delivering birthday messages to people. Now, I know there's been a little bit of backlash on this from when he went on big brother. But seriously, this man has to be able to fund not only his own income, but he is creating a business that provides opportunities for other people, too.

 

This is creating lots of jobs. He has to be able to generate income. He delivers birthday, customized birthday messages, and he charges for that. I think that's brilliant. At the end of his concert, he also was talking about a Peeq App. It was a great opportunity for you to actually get to meet Todrick Hall and talk with him. At most concerts, if you have a backstage pass so that you can get a chance to actually talk with the superstar, you have to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

 

With this Peeq App, they've basically created that VIP experience where you can meet someone, but instead of it being a backstage pass, which is way super expensive, you have to watch the concert from behind the stage, which is kind of sucky. You can go onto this app and you can purchase like two to three minutes with a celebrity.

 

I just went and I checked it out. And there's a whole bunch of different celebrities on there that you can meet. I didn't check out what the ticket price is yet, but I thought, wow, this is amazing. Because these folks have built up quite the social following, they do so much of their appearances for free. We don't even realize that when we're just the consumer if we haven't ventured into the entrepreneur world, we have no idea how much work celebrities are putting out into the world for free.

 

Well, if you do everything for free, you're not gonna be able to have an income to support yourself or an income to create a whole business that supports other people and creates jobs for other people. So you have to get creative.

 

I think that's pretty cool that he used the Peeq App. And then of course, he went on to create his different merchandise.

 

You can buy posters and t-shirts and mugs. And I don't know if he has little toys yet, but I know that that was probably something that he could continue to go on and do.

 

Back in 2019, when I made that official leap from corporate into being an entrepreneur, I wanted to look at what are all of the different business models out there that people are using to create an income for themselves and to build up a company where they can provide opportunities to other people.

 

And it's really interesting when you think about like merchandise and like little toys and stuff. I started to pay attention to my daughter and what she was spending her time watching and the things that she was asking me to buy. One of her favorite at things to do was to watch YouTube. And I don't know if you're a YouTube fan, or if you have family members that love YouTube, there are so many different shows that are on there that are made by just everyday human beings, like me and you.

 

So she has one that's called It'sFunneh. And with it's, it's a young lady and all of her siblings and they play various video games. Apparently, they record these videos and they post it every single day. They've been doing this for 10 years now, which just blows my mind. They have a huge following. They started off at the very beginning, just like Todrick, with just a couple of subscribers. And it has blown up for both of them to millions of subscribers.

 

For It'sFunneh, they have kids and adults watching their video game skits every day. And it has turned into a profitable business. They've been able to not only sell ad space on their YouTube channel, but they've also been able to create merchandise. They have posters, they have t-shirts, they have toys and it has become a million-dollar business all from just playing a video game and coming up some random scripts.

 

And I don't know if you've ever watched it, but there's not a whole lot of complexity or depth to the scripts. It's just something that is entertaining enough for people that they wanna watch it. It gives them a little escape in their day and it created a very profitable business model.

 

Creative Business Models For Life Coaches

 

Now, I wasn't someone that was going to be doing video games. I studied other people's business models. Since I'm a coach, I was studying other coaches' business models. I started off of course, with my favorite, which is Brooke Castillo's The Life Coach School. And I use something called Google Jamboards.

 

Google Jamboard is an online whiteboard that you can add sticky notes onto an extra text. It's very simple, but it helps me to map out people's business models. I can see the different P pieces I can add in metrics if I want to.

 

So that I get an idea of what is it that people are doing? What are the various pieces of their businesses? What are the individual components within everything and how do people flow through it?

 

In our last episode 108, I talked about Value Ladders. Those are those individual products and services within a business model. When I can map this all out on a Google Jamboard, I can see what everybody is doing. I've been creating these for a couple of years now. I'm building up quite the library.

 

Brooke Castillo's Life Coach School

 

In Brooke's business model, she has three main products that she sells. Which is her self-coaching scholars, her life coach certification, and her master life coach certification. There are so many more components to the pieces within each of those products. I mapped out what those are, too. Then I went on to start looking at other coaches.

 

Kara Loewenthial's The Clutch

 

I was looking at Kara Loewentheil. She has something called the Clutch, which is also a membership style of coaching.

 

Jody Moore's Be Bold Program

 

I looked at Jody Moore's Be Bold program, which is also membership.

 

I really liked the membership model because it creates something that's financially accessible and full of value. There are usually courses in it and coaching, there might be a few other things that are added in special events and stuff that people can go to.

 

Amy Porterfield's Digital Courses

 

I also mapped out Amy Porterfield's business model. She is the queen of creating digital courses. All of the products that she sells are all digital courses. She also added in a membership a couple of years back. But in order to keep her whole business up and running, she had to also put in ways of creating an audience. I have all of those pieces also mapped out because all of that is part of your business model.

 

It's how do you build up your audience? What mechanism are you using? Is there a free component? Is it a paid component? And then how do they start to navigate through your different products and services? How does that create a revenue for you? Other things that come into play are the frequency, the timing of doing these different things.

 

Some people have a product and service that you can buy at any time. It could be an off-the-shelf thing. It could be like a one on one where you can schedule time with someone. For Amy, she has one that she only offers one time a year. This really works for her because it builds up the desire throughout the year. It makes it something that's scarce. You can only get into it one time a year. And only like in a two-week window.

 

Marie Forleo's B School And Stu McLaren's Tribe Courses

 

I've seen a similar business model be used by Marie Forleo and by Stu McLaren, where they also have a digital course. And it's a really good one. Both of them B School and Tribe. Both of them are really good, but again only offered one time a year.

 

One of the other cool components that they offer and Brooke also offers as part of her business model is a live in person event. And now that COVID restrictions are falling away, we can actually go do live events. For all four of them, their live events are several hundred people. It's people that are within one of their other products. And now this is like that extra bonus. Sometimes there's an extra fee that's associated, which is great, creates another revenue stream for them. And it provides a huge opportunity for their students to be able to meet each other, to bond, to have that social wellbeing going on, and also to find collaboration partners.

 

If you're someone that loves to bring people together, you might wanna consider if doing some type of an in-person event and it doesn't have to be big. It can be small, but something that brings people together and creates a community of people that have a shared interest.

 

Just like Todrick did he brought together the LGBTQ+ community. That's eventually something that I will also be doing in my business model. I always had long-range goals of having retreats of various sizes. I think I've already told you that I've been going through retreat training because I wanna make sure that I can do really good retreats. And these retreats can be small, like 10 people, or it can be large. Eventually, I want to create somewhere. It's several thousands of people, but that's gonna be way down the line.

 

Tiffany Werhner's Moments of Clarity Radio Show

 

Another creative business model that I saw was from my friend, Tiffany Werhner. She has a radio show called moments of clarity. She has a mission to end the stigma mental health. You know, I love her. We both find mental health very, very important. She's a licensed mental health counselor. She takes on one-on-one clients, but she wanted to make a bigger impact on the world and she needed to open up another revenue stream because when you can only take one-on-one clients, there's only so many that you can fit in the week. And when you have a family to support, sometimes that revenue might not be enough for taking care of your family or for the other things that you want to do in your business.

 

And for that bigger impact that you wanna make.

 

Tiffany more than five years ago came up with the idea of creating a radio show. She has a radio show like a traditional radio show that you can listen to on the radio in your car, it gets broadcast out to five different states.

 

She had to learn, what does it take to put on a radio show? And with that she's providing opportunities for the general population to come on to be interviewed about their mental health, to tell their stories and the of things that they've used that have helped them. She also has celebrities and more well-known people come on that are also willing to talk about mental health and any struggles that they've had.

 

Both the everyday folks and the celebrities are doing their part in helping to end the stigma on mental health. Now how this has created a revenue stream for her is that as she gets more and more listeners, there are more companies that would like to advertise their products and services on her radio station. She's good at finding other companies that also align with her mission and they provide products and services that compliment it. Because she and these other business owners have the same set of people that they want to provide services for.

 

All of the services might be different because any individual has multiple needs in their life. Tiffany extended her radio show to go onto YouTube. People that, again, like YouTube can go and watch it live. So now there's a video component, which is great. She gets more and more subscribers there which opens her up to being able to allow advertisers to come onto her YouTube channel. Just like It'sFunneh, and I think Todrick might have that ability also with his videos.

 

I'm sure that anytime you've gone onto YouTube, you've seen ads pop up. I think that happens for me for just about anything I go look up, there's always ads. Well, everybody that's out there creating all of this content and uploading it to YouTube for free. If their content is that good people are going to subscribe. The more subscribers now they can sell advertising space.

 

With YouTube, YouTube is the one that matches up the companies that wanna do the advertising to the person that has the channel. YouTube of course gets some of that advertising money, but the person creating the content also gets some of that advertising money. It's a win-win situation for everybody. And it's great revenue opportunity for you. Anyone can create stuff to put on YouTube. As long as the content is something that is valuable to other people, and to enough people like if you get enough subscribers, then this becomes possible for you.

 

Other people also do this with their website. If they can create enough valuable content on their website, that they're driving up a whole bunch of traffic, then Google, they want to help pair you up with advertisers. Google ads can be placed on your website or pop up on your website and you get some of the revenue that comes from that advertising money.

 

You can also do it yourself so that you don't even have to split any of those revenue with Google. You can offer advertising space on your website all by yourself and offer that directly to other businesses that share the same ideal customer as you.

 

If you have a website that you put videos on, or maybe a blog that people find very helpful, or a podcast just like this, you can start to drive up all of the traffic that comes there. And then you open yourself up to a revenue stream, which is providing a platform for people to advertise on.

 

Oprah's Daily Insider Subscription

 

I've been delighted lately with some of the Facebook ads that are popping up because it's showing me that even big-name celebrities are starting to do some of the same business models as us coaches. I saw Oprah had an ad that came out.

 

She is doing something that involves a monthly live-streamed class. She's basically using Zoom just like most coaches do. She's offering this at a low monthly subscription price of $25. So once a month, everybody that has enrolled, they get to come onto zoom. Everybody's face is there on Zoom with Oprah.

 

Oprah is sharing content with them, whatever her topic is for the live stream. And then she's giving people an opportunity to raise their hand and interact with her directly. This is a great revenue stream. It also gives people that sense of community and so many people that wanted to have a chance to talk with Oprah because Oprah's like the best, most well-known life coach in the whole world that has changed so many people's lives. Here's a great opportunity for everybody.

 

And then the final one that I wanted to share with you was a bit of a surprise to me.

 

Tarek El Moussa's Education Program

 

I was not expecting to see a Facebook ad for a digital class from Tarek El Moussa. I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name, right, but he had one of those house flipping shows on HGTV. He had it with his ex-wife Christina. They were always so good at flipping these houses. I watched this show for such a long time and they started off when they were first married, so they're getting their revenue to support their family from getting paid, to be on this show for a skill that they were already pretty good at.

 

And then of course, they're investing their money in buying these houses, flipping it. And then they get the profit from, you know, whatever they sold it minus all of their expenses. That was their revenue stream for the longest time. And if you ever watch the show, you know, that they went through a divorce, they decided that they were such good business partners, that they would keep doing the show.

 

So HGTV kept doing the show and they kept having that revenue stream. Well, they finally decided that they're not gonna do the show anymore. So they can still flip houses, I don't think they're gonna flip houses together anymore. So that was part of why the show wasn't gonna work anymore.

 

The show revenue stream has dried up. They can each go their own separate way and still flip houses, although they each contributed part of the work and part of the design skills for flipping the houses. Now they're gonna have to find someone that brings in that complementary skillset.

 

But what Tarek realized was that there are other ways to generate income, including creating digital courses, Homeschooled by Tarek. This goes back to me talking about Amy Porterfield. She has her digital course academy that she only opens up once a year, where she teaches everybody how to create a digital course and then how to market that successfully within everything that I teach, I go through the whole business model.

 

If people wanna do to digital courses, I help them to create those too and all of the marketing with it. Anyway. So Tarek has a Facebook ad that showed up in my feed, it was his smallest digital course. It's obviously not the big one because he has one that is priced at less than a hundred dollars he's giving away for free right now.

 

With any kind of a sales funnel, which is a way where you get people to first come into your world, your entrepreneur world, with all of your different products and services, you usually start with a lower-priced offering. That's what he's doing by creating this small digital course, that would normally be about a hundred bucks, but he's giving it away for free. Now people can come in, they can explore what it's like to learn from Tarek on how to flip houses.

 

This is a great value. This is something that can be really helpful for people that are considering doing this. They might have watched his TV shows, but now he's gonna give you some of that granular. Like how do you actually do this?

 

If you wanna create an income this way. Amazing. And I'm sure that at some point that will open up to other offers that he has, that will probably give you even more information on how to do it. I don't know if eventually he's gonna do like live workshops or work with people, one-on-one or any of that. I can't wait to explore what the rest of his business model includes.

 

Tools & Systems To Build Your Business Model

 

But you can get super creative. It all depends on what impact you want to have on the world. What are some of the skills that you already have? Some of the skills could just be that you're able to gather people together and lead them through activities.

 

And then it's just a matter of finding out what activities people are interested in. Maybe you have a skill that you used in a previous job that now you can repurpose and work as a consultant and partner up with other companies, just doing that one part. That way they don't have to have the overhead of an employee to carry out the job. They can still get that deliverable done. 

 

If you have knowledge that you think other people could use, and it might not even be knowledge on how to create their own revenue stream, it could just be knowledge on how to do something like I've seen people do digital courses on how to create training plans for elementary schools students. I've seen courses on, on how to knit an afghan, and people are creating these digital courses and marketing it and selling it and making a revenue stream for themselves just off of knowledge that they had.

 

The possibilities are endless. It's so great. I love that there are so many opportunities for us as individuals to learn how to do business, to package up our knowledge and our skills in a variety of different ways and generate an income source for ourselves and to even go beyond that and create job opportunities for other people.

 

When I work with people, I get to share with them some of these Jamboards that I've created all of the different business models that I've been mapping out over the years, I'm actually working on a new digital course to include in my unshakeable business co-lab membership, which is going to go live in the next couple of months. This is a revamp of my unshakeable programs. I'm combining them into one, so that any gender can join any gender that is interested in building a business. This will give a great opportunity.

 

And so one of the courses of many is on business models. I'm going to share all of the different ones that I've mapped out so that it gets those creative juices going. And you understand how you build up your audience, how you get clients and how they flow through your business model, how it generates an income for you.

 

One of the things that I use when I work with people is of course, the Google Jamboard, because then we flush out all of the ideas that they have for a business model that would work for them. I also use Strategyzer Business Model Canvas because it does a great job of replacing the old-fashioned business plans. It creates a one-pager where you can see all of the important things for a business model and where your revenue streams are coming in versus what all of your business costs are, so that you can start working on being profitable.

 

For each of the products. We also use Strategyzer's Lean Value Canvas. We wanna be profitable in our businesses, right? This also means that any of the products and services that we create, we wanna make sure that those are profitable. By using the Lean Value Canvas, we're making sure that we're getting very specific on what problem we're solving with that product and service and how the rest of it flows together.

 

And then one of the things I've added in which I've been experimenting with, because you know I love experiments. So far, I'm really loving it. And this is the profit-first system that was developed by Mike Michalowicz. This is a way to make sure that you're actually earning a steady income, because that's one of the hardest parts as an entrepreneur. There are fluctuations in how the revenue comes in and there are dry spells and there are peaks and valleys.

 

Using this system helps to level it out. It also helps to ensure that you have profit at the end, instead of doing your taxes and you're doing a profit and loss statement and you're like, all right, it shows that I have a profit and you look at your bank account and there's no money in there. It's like, where'd the profit go? Using the system makes sure that the profit is there, make sure that you're getting your steady stream of income every month so that you can take care of yourself and your family. It also sets you up really well for making sure that your taxes are covered, your expenses are covered and you're minimizing your expenses so that you're actually creating a profit.

 

I've seen way too many entrepreneurs come in and they get so excited about all of the different things that they can throw in and offer to their clients. And then they're really worried about what they're charging that they end up making a lot of money because they've created something super valuable, but their expenses that went into it are so high that there's hardly any profit. Or worse yet, there's like no profit.

 

Oh my gosh. Especially in this retreat class that I've been going through, that's been one of my biggest concerns is how do I put on a retreat that is financially accessible to people, but also provides an income for myself. Because I appreciate she gave this eye-opening thing that to put on one retreat takes at least 100 hours of preparation. That's a lot of effort to go into. And I remember talking with a previous client who would put on retreats and I think she had said that she making about $250 profit on it. Oh my gosh, it just breaks my heart.

 

Now that I'm realizing a hundred hours of work. If your profit is only $250, then of course it's gonna be hard to maintain a business and an income that's sustainable if you don't have of those profits all dialed in. Right?

 

Spending a lot of time, making sure that all of the stuff that we're doing in our businesses is profitable. You're in business to create an income for yourself and possibly for other people, a business is supposed to be profitable. It's not supposed to be all just funded out of your pocket because eventually all of your savings will dry up. You wanna make sure that everything is all lined up. Anyway. I hope that this episode has gotten your creative juices going, given you an idea of some things that are possible, maybe even opened your eyes that you can start to look in the world and see what are other people's business models?

 

And it can be your local business owner on the corner that has a brick and mortar. It could be someone that's online. It could be a celebrity but pay attention. What are all of the different things that they're doing and how is it that they're generating income for themselves?

 

If you are interested in exploring your business model and all of the different pieces that go into it, how to make it profitable, how to tap into your creativity. I would love to talk with you. I invite you to reach out for free consultation appointment with me. You can go to my website at MyFreedomGrove.com. Go to the contact me page on there is a schedule where you can pick a time for us to meet. We can talk about what you already have. If you're already an entrepreneur, or if you're considering being an entrepreneur, we can explore a lot of different options for what would be perfect for you.

 

All right, my friends, I hope you have a great week. Get out there. Be creative. Look around, see what's available. It's gonna be amazing. I'll talk with you soon. Bye-bye.

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Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove podcast.  I can't wait to work with you directly. I'll help you to be your authentic self, to have amazing relationships and to live your purpose. I invite you to check out Unshakable Men and Unshakable Women. The Unshakable programs will give you all of the tools, the coaching and the community to help you rise in life, relationships, and business. To learn more, go to my freedom grove.com/workwithme. I can't wait to see you there.