Most of us recognise that to grow our business we’re probably going to need to access some outside support that will help through teaching us things we don’t know, coaching us, offering us accountability etc.

This support can come in lots of different forms that all work in different ways, and therefore suit different people in different ways.

In this post I’m going to talk about the four key types of support you can access to grow your business and some of the pros and cons as well as my experiences of identifying which kinds of support are best for me.

Hopefully this post will help you think about how you most enjoy being supported and where you tend to get the best results. Let’s jump in!

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The different forms of support you can access

There are 4 main forms of support you can access in your business as detailed below. What I often find is that they aren’t always super clear cut, so a group programme will have elements of a self study course and Done for You might have elements of 1:1, but it’s helpful to think about each of these methods and consider in what ways they work well for you or where they become a struggle.

Self study

Self study is your typical courses and programmes where you can work through the materials at your own pace. These can work really well if you enjoy flexibility to work on things when you like and in your own time. But you might struggle with it if you need some external accountability to actually move through the teachings.

I struggle with some courses and find others are great for me and the difference tends to come down to how the course is presented. I like things to be highly actionable and straight to the point. If there’s just too much in there then it can feel overwhelming to me.

Group and Community Based Support

This is typically live rounds, group programmes, memberships etc. These can work super well for you if you enjoy that community element and find that it improves your accountability when you’re working on something ‘live’ with others.

Personally, my experience of this kind of support really varies. I struggle to engage in bigger groups as they feel a bit overwhelming and I don’t end up having the head space, so smaller groups often are better for me.

1:1

Of course this is all about directly working with someone one on one. This can be really helpful because the support offered is highly individualised and personalised so it can be much more time effective (no watching hours of trainings and not really getting what you need from it) and the accountability can often be very effective in helping you take action.

If you enjoy feeling seen and supported (like I do!) then 1:1 is probably the best way to be supported in your business.

Done for You

Done for you may sit to the side of the other forms of support I’ve mentioned but it really is an important one to consider. Basically this is when you pay someone to just do it for you!

This can often be more effective than learning something in a course and then having to apply it and do it yourself. It can be faster and give you a more professional result.

For example, you could do a course on Instagram and work to implement what you learn, or you could give your whole Instagram marketing over to a social media manager.

Investment costs

Obviously the investment levels of all the things listed above can vary massively. But generally speaking, self study courses and programmes are lower cost progressing to some skilled Done for You services being the higher level of investment. This is based on how passive v how time and skill / labour intensive something is. But like I said, within the online industry there’s huge variations.

What this does sometimes mean is that courses / programmes / memberships etc are more readily invested in because they are a lower cost but then you struggle to get the results when perhaps you would have been better off investing in something 1:1 or even done for you.

My experiences

I’ve had support at every single level listed above over the last few years and I’ve slowly started to recognise the ways in which I’m best supported in terms of how that support feels and the results I get.

Like I said, short, actionable and to the point courses and programmes work well for me as does 1:1 and in come circumstances Done for You.

What I did earlier this year was just book a one off 1:1 session with Sarah Moon to talk about some specific SEO questions I had. This was a much better investment than just doing a course because I got exactly what I needed in an hour instead of trawling through a course for hours on end.

Reminder that 1:1 can sometimes be one off sessions if that’s all you need, it doesn’t always need to be a full package. I offer a 90 minute ‘pick my brains’ style Clarity Call and a 2 hour full Business Strategy Session.

Next steps

I hope that has been helpful in getting you thinking about how you’re best supported and which form tends to work best for you. Like I said earlier, it took a few years of trying things out to really learn what worked for me, but now I’m so much more confident about the investment decisions I make when seeking support for me and my business.

I’d love to know how you feel your best supported, let me know in the comments!

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