24 Assets: Create a digital, scalable, valuable and fun business that will thrive in a fast changing world

by Daniel Priestley

If a person knows they want a lifestyle business, they need to hire a few people, but avoid a team of more than 12, which will require management and leadership. They should also avoid setting expectations within their team of high growth and hierarchical structure, instead emphasising fun, flexibility and variety.

lifestyle business with a team of 3–12 people, a Key Person of Influence at the helm and lots of digital assets. This will still give you high revenue per person, great income and the ability to reach many thousands of people with your message.

A lifestyle business is lean, dynamic, portable and geared towards maximising income for the owners. It keeps stress and overheads low. The focus is to enjoy life, build stability and have enough income to create wealth through diversified assets.

Every business must solve a problem in a commercial way and stick around long enough to succeed over time.

Discovering value is finding the intersection of three ingredients – something that

others perceive as valuable, you enjoy doing and is commercially viable.

In reality, it’s quite easy to test if you’ve created value or not – make a sale. The simplest approach is to get 10 targeted prospects in a room, present them with an offer on a PowerPoint slide-deck and see how many part with their credit card details. If two out of ten people sign up for a £2,000 package, you’ve probably hit on something of value and you can proceed to develop your product or service to meet the need you’ve discovered.

Key Person of Influence embodying the vision and values of your business, pitching powerfully and enrolling others into this vision. If an influencer has a powerful message, the world becomes their

oyster as soon as they create digital assets such as content,

media and pr...

To achieve influence, focus on developing and communicating unique insights, and master the 5Ps of influence: Pitching: the ability to powerfully describe what you do and why it’s valuable Publishing: the ability to write and distribute materials about what you do and why it’s valuable Products: the ability to deliver value consistently in a scalable way Profile: the ability to be known, liked and trusted in the eyes of your market Partnerships: the ability to enrol other people and organisations to cooperate in the implementation of your vision.

up with demand, your diary fills up months in

You’ve figured out your secret sauce and now there’s a queue forming for it. At this point, formalise the assets of your business so that you can scale up to meet this demand for more people in more places.

This is about turning what you do into a high-quality digital asset that can scale. If you are excellent at telling stories, get those stories into a book, a video, a podcast and a blog. If your team culture has a magic spark, codify what causes it. If you have a gift for generating leads and sales, explore it and document it.

Intellectual property. The business lays claim to, or is known for, valuable ideas, methods or defensible intellectual property rights. Brand assets. The business is known, liked and trusted by a loyal group of fans who are unlikely to switch to a new brand. Market assets. The business can sell products, disseminate ideas or be present to a large group of potential buyers faster and more cheaply than others in the same market. Product assets. The business has created unique products and services that are either difficult to replicate or difficult to compete with. Systems assets. The business has a set of systems and processes that allow it to run more efficiently than its rivals while still delivering the same or better quality. Culture assets. The business is able to attract, retain, develop and manage good people at a lower cost than its competitors.

Funding assets. The business is able to raise capital or borrow money on better terms than its competitors.

a way to measure and improve all the key areas of your ecosystem, bringing together the various business disciplines into a single dashboard.

How might we do this for environment?

RAPID ACTION STEPS Collate all your blogs and articles into one document directory so they can be easily found and used.

Produce a professional report that showcases your ideas, stories, diagrams and methods. Create a shared folder in your company for capturing images, video and audio files that can be used at a later date. Register all your social media profiles even if you don’t intend on using them yet. Book an appointment with an IP Lawyer to discuss what your business could potentially register and own.

build brand assets, focus on three key areas: the philosophy, the identity and the ambassadors of the brand.

For

your philosophy to be an asset it must be

highly distinctive and clearly...

Your brand needs to have documented values and a clear vision that’s easy to find. Display your philosophy on your website,

your office walls, your packaging, within your employee

handbooks and all over your s...

It should be easy for your customers to identify what you stand for and w...

Consistency and repetition build a brand identity. I

choose one font and two colours for the whole brand, avoid colour-coding products and get rid of anything that caused confusion.

Consistent beats clever when it comes to a brand.

Of course a brand should be intelligent and leverage the vision and values that you’ve chosen,

You can run events with brand ambassadors to galvanise their impact. These events create photo opportunities, videos, podcasts and other brand building materials that end up on your website and social media profiles.

A well-run event can have an uplifting effect on your business for the six months leading up to it and the six months after – one event can give you a year of benefits.

Ambassadors create value by embodying

the philosophy of your brand, and scale through

their digital profile and social me...

RAPID ACTION STEPS Write down three of your unique philosophies about your industry and publish them on your website. Visit www.charitywater.org/media/ and explore the philosophy and the identity of this unique brand. Make a list of celebrities or teams you would love to sponsor if money was no object. Find ambassadors you can afford who embody your philosophy.

‘Your brand is an asset that you should build and cultivate with focus and care. If you get it right, your brand can take you

into new markets, new territories and enable

you to launch new products an...

Small companies should think big about their brands from the early days and then live and breathe those intentions with clear...

the businesses that end up successfully ‘owning their market’ are not the ones that imagine the large, nebulous mass of people out there looking to buy something, but those that recognise the nuances and details that matter to each individual.

Having market assets allows you to communicate, sell products and disseminate ideas to the right people quickly, powerfully and at a lower cost than others in your industry. Your most valuable market assets are positioning, channels and data.

Your position in the market normally revolves around key questions people ask before they make a purchase: Who is the best quality (normally implying either durability or cutting edge features, depending on industry)? Who is the most affordable (cheap or available on finance terms)? Who is the most convenient (either close in proximity or delivered rapidly to where you are)?

Who is the most trusted or reliable (usually

a long-standing brand with a track record of positive reviews)? Who is the most delightful (often associated with personali...

There are four main ways to position yourself and generate an asset:

Awards.

Accreditations.

Associations.