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Page 34 GO IT ALONE!
Deborah Fischman owns Food and Balance (www.FoodandBalance.com), located in South Salem, New York. Fischman, who is also a full-time mother, was looking for a business endeavor she could operate from home that meshed with her family responsibilities, her passions, and her skills. She studied at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City and now provides counseling to people who “know they could feel and be healthier if they adopted different food and lifestyle choices.” She started her business by providing clients with a 6-month program that included two individual sessions each month and one group cooking class. As she has been building her business, Fischman has started to focus on two factors: (1) Does she have something of continuing value that she can offer clients who have finished her 6-month program? (2) Can she leverage what’s unique about her services in order to get more out of her time? Fischman’s solution is worthy of note. She has found that her cooking classes serve multiple functions for clients: reinforce the goals developed in one-on-one sessions; provide attendees, who share common goals and interests, a support network; and provide a fun, social occasion. To leverage her time and create an ongoing income stream, Fischman is planning to offer clients who have finished her 6-month program the opportunity to pay a modest monthly fee in order to continue attending her cooking classes and receive other benefits (such as an e-mail newsletter with appropriate recipes and nutrition tips.) In effect, Fischman is now creating a hybrid business model: Her base business is highly time-dependent, but she is adding services that offer high value to her customers, are far more leveraged (as measured by her revenues per hour of work), and provide a means for her to increase her income.
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GO IT ALONE! Copyright 2004 by Bruce Judson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
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