There is no blueprint for building a successful Lifestyle Medicine business.

Let’s create one together.  

Here is the 7 step approach that I am applying to my own business and the LM practitioners I am working with.

Step 1 – Define your 12 month financial goal
Step 2 – Define your time constraint
Step 3 – Calculate your target daily rate
Step 4 – Fall in love with number one
Step 5 – Fall in love with experimenting
Step 6 – Define what you can control (inputs)
Step 7 – Review your outputs and inputs twice a day
 
Let’s delve deeper into each of these.  

Step 1: Define your 12 month financial goal

How much $ do you want to make in 12 months from your Lifestyle Medicine business? Write down your answer. 

There are a lot of business coaches that promote goals like $10k a month, $100K a year, a $1 million a year. Although they offer a useful reference point, these figures are completely made up. They do not take into account your goals or unique situation.

If you are starting out, a more useful frame of reference is financial sufficiency.

Sufficiency = You make enough money to pay the bills and live your desired lifestyle.

The question then becomes, what is enough for you?

Figure out how much money you need to earn every month to cover your bills and live your desired lifestyle.

This becomes your TMR – Target Monthly Revenue.

Multiply the TMR by 12 to calculate your 12 month target.

A TMR of $5k, means you need to make $60k a year to be financially sufficient. If your TMR is $20k, then you need to make $240k a year.

Things are stressful until you reach financial sufficiency. It’s scary when you struggle to pay the bills.

When you are sufficient, you make enough money to cover your needs. It’s a beautiful thing. 

What’s your financial sufficiency goal?

The next step, if you wish, is financial surplus – making more money than you need.

If you had financial surplus, what would you do with the extra $?

“Dollars aren’t an end in themselves: money is a tool, and the usefulness of that tool depends on what you intend to do with it.” – Josh Kaufman (author of Personal MBA)
 
Step 2: Define your time constraint

How much time do you want to dedicate to achieving your financial goal?

How many weeks a year do you want to work? Write it down.
How many days a week do you want to work? Write it down.

The less time you have, the more creative and leveraged you must become.   

Step 3: Define your target daily rate

It’s time to put Step 1 and Step 2 together.  

Example:
1) Financial Goal in 12 months = $100,000
2) Time constraint:

Weeks/year = 40 weeks a year (i.e 12 weeks off a year to account for school holidays)
Days/week= 3 days (i.e. long weekend every week baby!)

A = Financial Goal in 12 months
B = Weeks per year
C = Days per week
D = Target daily rate

100,000 / 40 / 3 = $833.33

Now things are becoming tangible.

The next puzzle you need to solve is, “How do I make $833.33 a day?”

If you do that 3 days a week for 40 weeks, you will reach your $100,000 goal.

This is $100,000 over 12 months, whilst having 12 weeks off a year and having a long weekend every week you work.

I hope this is sounding achievable, because it is.  

Step 4: Fall in love with the number one

I first learnt this from entrepreneur Dan Martell. Since then, I have heard it repeated by many entrepreneurs.

Introducing, the ‘Rule of 1s’.  

To develop a viable business offering, you need one of each of the following.
–> One offering
–> One market
–> One marketing strategy
–> One sales strategy
–> One year, one day at at time  

It requires FOCUS (Follow One Course Until Success).
It requires overcoming FOMO (the fear of missing out).
It requires that you say ‘No’ to other ”opportunities’.
It requires sustained effort for at least one year.

This may seem simple. In practice, it’s rare.

Fall in love with one. 

Most people have multiple offerings that cumulatively make less then [insert financial goal].

It is better to have one offering that gets you to [insert financial goal].

“Diluted focus gets diluted results” – Rory Vaden (Entrepreneur, NYTimes Best Selling Author).  

Step 5: Fall in love with experimenting

At face value, the Rule of 1s makes sense.

You may be asking, “How do I know which one to focus on?”

Which offer is the right one?
Which market and marketing strategy would be effective?
Which sales strategy would work?
 
The answer – I don’t know, and neither do you.
 
The only way you find out is by experimenting for each tier of the Rule of 1s.

Try and learn – over and over.
1) Try stuff
2) Learn from it
3) Repeat

The faster you can cycle through this process, the faster you will figure out which one thing to focus on.  

Let’s say you are trying to figure out your one offering. The next step is to see if anyone will buy it.

If the first person you ask says ‘No’, it doesn’t mean much. 
If 10 people in a row says ‘No’, then you need to change something (e.g. the offer itself, the price point, who you are offering it to).
If out of 10 people, a few people say ‘Yes’, then maybe all you need is to ask more people.
 
A useful rule of thumb:
Once you find something that works, do more of it.
Once you find out something doesn’t work, do less of it.  

The aim is to find what works for each of the Rule of 1s.

Once you do, get focussed.
Then, do each of the 1’s over and over for at least one year. Expect magic.
 
Step 6: Define what you can control (inputs)

You have defined your outputs – A 12 month financial goal and your time constraints.

Now, let’s define your inputs.

Inputs are the regular actions that you control, which lead to progress in your LM business.

What inputs, if you commit to them for long enough, will make your outputs inevitable?
 
If you are unsure what your inputs should be, consider the 7 components of any business.

1) Value creation –> creating a ‘thing’ that helps someone else.
2) Clarifying your market –> ‘who’ needs your thing?
3) Marketing –> consistently and effectively finding a way to tell these people about your ‘thing’.
4) Sales –> offering these people your ‘thing’ in exchange for $.
6) Value delivery –> giving them the ‘thing’.
6) Finances –> making sure you have more money than you spend.  

I like to add a crucial 7th component.  

7) Personal development i.e. your business and life are limited by your own capabilities. It is worth expanding these capabilities.
 
Without 1 –> you have a hobby.
Without 2 and 3 –> you are a secret.
Without 4 –> you have no $ (not good!)
Without 5 –> you are a scam.
Without 6 –> you might run out of $ (and not see it coming).
Without 7 –> you will hit a ceiling.

If you are working on your business, consider whether you are driving progress in one of these 7 things. If the answer is ‘no’, what are you doing?!?!?

Define routines and rhythms for each of these 7 components. These become your inputs. 

If you get these inputs right, committing to them for long enough will make achieving your goals (outputs) inevitable. 
 
Step 7: Review your outputs and inputs twice a day

On a piece of paper,
–>Write down your financial goal in 12 months.
–> Write down your time constraints.
–> Write down your target daily rate.
–> Write down the inputs you will commit to on a regular basis.  

Read this paper twice a day.
For bonus points, say it out loud as you read it.
For extra bonus points, write it down twice a day.  

The world is a distracting place. There always seems to be something urgent yet non-important (e.g. email, scroll social media) to do.

Building a business is important, but it is not urgent.

Reviewing your goals twice a day will keep it front of mind.
 
If you found this useful, SUBSCRIBE to the ‘Business of Lifestyle Medicine’ newsletter on this website.

If you want help with any of the above, I am sure you find a way to get in touch 🙂

Much love to you and of course, myself.

Dr G

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My aim is to determine a blueprint for LM practitioners to reach financial sufficiency and surplus. 

I want LM to be mainstream. 

I want LM practitioners to be compensated well for it.

Let’s do this 🙂