Page 186 - The $100 Startup_ Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love

four weeks, and then she took on a partner to manage additional appointments. A
single mother with a young child, Brooke works part-time but still earns more
than $70,000 a year from the practice.

Repeated success in different cities involved getting to know other care
providers, and Brooke noticed that some were more business-savvy than others.
By using her real-world experience, Brooke created Practice Abundance, a
training program for other wellness providers. Offering a series of support
modules and a community forum, Practice Abundance was a business course
that focused strictly on ways to improve a practice. Other resources took a very
traditional approach. In Brooke’s words, “they assume that everyone wants to
get an MBA, when the reality is that most of them just want to run their practice
better.” Brooke had diversified to two groups of people: those she served
through individual care, and her fellow caregivers who could benefit from non-
MBA business advice.

Both Nathalie and Brooke found a way to reach two different audiences: a core
group and a related group. As a business grows and the business owner begins
itching for new projects, he or she essentially has two options for self-made
franchising:

Option 1: Reach more people with the same message.
Option 2: Reach different people with a new message.

Either option is valid, and both can be rewarding. For the first option, it may
be helpful to think of the “hub-and-spoke” model when building a brand,
especially online. In this model, the hub is your main website: often an e-
commerce site where something is sold, but it could also be a blog, a community
forum, or something else. The hub is a home base with all the content curated by
you or your team and ultimately where you hope to drive new visitors, prospects,
and customers.

The spokes, also known as outposts, are all the other places where you spend
your time.* These places could include social networking sites, the comments
section of your blog or other blogs, actual meetings or networking events, or
something else. You can see how this works in the image below: