25. What Is Your ROA, Return On Advantage?

by | Aug 24, 2020 | Podcast

📈Measuring your return on advantage. 03:33
🆙 Your ROA is also measured based on client earning potential. 03:47
🕹What is at stake as an entrepreneur. 06:22
💬 Applying ROA to any business. 07:16
🤝 Establishing a long-term partnership with your clients based on ROA. 07:32

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What Is Your ROA, Return On Advantage?

In today’s episode, Deb talks about the importance of measuring your return on advantage (ROA). She explains the difference between ROA and ROI and positioning yourself as giving your client a distinct advantage.

What is your ROA? While many coaches and consultants talk about Return On Investment, you have an opportunity to stand out in your market when you bring your clients to an understanding of the Return On Advantage of working with you. It goes beyond the shorter-term Return On Investment to the lifetime value of the change that you bring. This is new territory and you want to grab your journal so that you can let this sink in and begin to have more powerful closing conversations with your ideal clients.

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If you are here for the first time, welcome home. This is where you get to fill your bucket with innovative ideas and strategies to succeed as a first-time entrepreneur or after kissing corporate goodbye. It’s a rewarding journey and not necessarily an easy one. My job is to help you excel, pass the starting gate and start building some real momentum in replacing your income by embracing your value, packaging your skills and creating a lifestyle that you choose. It’s exhilarating, rewarding and not for the faint of heart. If you’re a big thinker and a calculated risk-taker, you are in the right place at the perfect time.

If you’re a loyal reader, I want to hear from you. Please reach out on socials, @DebBoulanger. I’m pretty easy to find on Google or email me to share your questions at Deb@TheGreatDoOver.com. In case you don’t know, I’m also the Founder of The Launch Lab For Women Entrepreneurs. We’ve been busy in The Launch Lab with a cohort of corporate leaders who are carving out new paths as consultants, coaches, and other service providers with the desire to make an impact through their work with no limits on how they spend their time or how much money they can earn. It is a fabulous journey. If you’re interested in learning more, you can go to LaunchLabAccelerator.com and check out our program. There’s a cohort and I’d love for you to be part of that tribe.

As an entrepreneur, you have ultimate control of your time, your income and your impact.

We’re talking about ROA, Return On Advantage. This came to me as I was working with Julie Cabezas, who is my amazing partner in crime. Her company is called Copy Crimes. She’s a strategic copywriter with an eye toward creating compelling engagement with your audience. We’ve been cooking up some amazing new tools and training that will be available to you. Stay tuned to the Life After Corporate Facebook Group for more of that.

While many coaches and consultants talk about the ROI working with them, they’re mostly talking about short-term gains. They might say something like, “If you work with me, you’ll be able to build out a 5- or 6-figure launch.” Meaning that by learning their methodology or strategy, you’ll be able to immediately let’s say, 10x the value of what you invested in their course or program. Don’t get me wrong, 10x-ing your return is an amazing ROI, but you might not have the hard dollar or immediate financial return on the work that you do for your clients. How do you position yourself as giving your clients a distinct advantage?

Let’s take the scenario of a career coach. If you’re working with someone who’s looking for a job, you might be able to help them find a position that better fits their desire for their ideal work situation. Maybe you help them get a promotion or a bump up in their salary. That has a distinct, immediate value, both in terms of the emotional value of feeling great about landing this opportunity. The boost in confidence and income are all real, tangible returns.

What is the long-term advantage of that one major move? If you increase someone’s earning potential or help them jump up a level, that has a compounded lifetime return. From this point forward, their earning potential is cumulatively higher than it was before they started working with you. That might result in more than $10,000 or $20,000 in a bump up in salary. That could equate to hundreds of thousands or $1 million over the course of their career.

LACO 25 | Return On Advantage

Return On Advantage: Think about the longer-term return on advantage and bring this into your sales conversations with your potential customers.

 

Similarly, if you work with people to become better leaders, what is the Return On Advantage for being a better leader? Think about that. They have more confidence in their presence and more impact with their leadership and mentoring of other great leaders that will also carry on and mentor other great leaders. Great leaders tend to have a bigger financial impact on the companies they work for. Can you see how this is translating into a legacy or ripple effect on the work that you do for the clients and companies that you work for? This applies to you too. In the corporate world, you are likely making a high 5- or 6-figure salary. You had a singular focus on delivering value to one company’s mission. You were rewarded based on your performance and ability to navigate corporate politics. Let’s not go there.

As an entrepreneur, you have ultimate control of your time, income and impact. What is the Return On Advantage for investing in your own success? Is it building a 7- or 8-figure business beyond the 6-figure paycheck you left behind? Is it being able to spend more time with your family or travel more, which has a direct impact on your happiness? Is it a new level of confidence, belief in yourself and skills that you’ve never experienced before? The personal growth and confidence that come from this level of success are priceless. You can apply this to any business, whether you’re a health coach, you have an accounting practice, provide legal or financial advice.

Instead of thinking of the short-term ROI, think about the longer-term Return On Advantage. Bring this into your sales conversations with your potential customers. This longer-term view of the impact you will have together is something that will make you stand out from the rest and position you as a longer-term partner with the clients that you work with. How will you have this conversation with your potential clients about the ROA of the work that you will do together? I’d love to hear from you in the Life After Corporate Facebook Group. If this struck a particular chord with you, please consider leaving a review in iTunes and let others know the value of this show. If you haven’t yet read episode 24, The Five Most Common Pricing Mistakes New Entrepreneurs Make, keep reading. That’s your next stop. That’s it for now. Until next time.

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