What if You Get Hit by a Bus?

Published by Matt Church – Founder on 5 October 2023

So much of what you do running a commercially successful thought leaders practice is dependent on your mojo.

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Making sure you feel up to the work is super important. While this is often seen as a point of failure by business advisors, we think it’s a benefit. In software language, it’s a feature in the system not a bug in the software.  

Advisors will often say to practice operators that …

‘You need to get your name off the door!’
‘You need to watch out that the business is not reliant on you!’
‘What will you do if you get hit by a bus?’

And while I understand why they might say this, you are never planning on selling a practice built around your name and reputation and if you run it correctly, you are drawing 70% or more of your turnover as take-home. No need to ever sell it. 

A practice is not a business, regardless of the point of view of your business advisors.

So what’s the answer to each of these well-meaning bad bits of advice?

Don’t hide behind some ‘XYZ consulting business name’ when it’s just you. Become a subject-matter-expert who is well-positioned and able to pivot their offers in a more agile way as you. The strategy we teach is around yourname.com.

The practice is totally reliant on you. We want you to be in such demand that there is a waitlist for your time. You are a world-class neurosurgeon with a backlist of people you can help. Shift the game from volume, outbound sales, and marketing that drives business and rather become an order taker who picks and chooses the work they want to do.

Finally, you do need to stay healthy and safe. AND in the early days, make sure you have enough life insurance to cover your investments. A good legal will with all your powers of attorney in place. Health insurance and at least three months of operating costs in your bank account. I get this is not always in place to start with but it should be eventually. Oh, and stay away from fast-moving buses. 

SO, what’s the benefit? Well, you get to do work you love, with people you like in a way that works for you. The time freedom afforded by a practice is priceless. A well-run practice generates for you the freedom to do great things that matter. Your whole way of being is about working smart, leveraged, and on projects and things that juice you. You do have to back yourself and there are no guarantees it will work. But I reckon the false security of some other choices is not worth the paper it’s written on. 

Also, it forces you to be kind and good to you. You can’t drag yourself through sleepless nights, working weekends, and then face up to the creative delivery a practice demands. You must be full of self-care, extreme self-care. I love that my practice asks that of me so that I can do the work it demands. I need to be well-read, well-rested, and in good shape, in a state of open loving awareness to run a million-dollar practice. Anything less makes it unsustainable! How good is that? I wish that for you too.

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