Tough love ahead. If I were to ask you if you wanted to be the “Walmart” of your industry, what would you say? 100% of my clients would say, “hell no!” 

That’s what my client Marla said when I asked everyone this question on the bi-weekly Capacity Shift™ group call. She’d joined the program because even after being in business for eight years and getting considerable media exposure, she still couldn’t make more than $80,000 a year. Something was up.

Have you been inside a Walmart recently? The last time I went, it was like a free-for-all of random things from A to Z. It’s a grocery store, home improvement, clothing store, and Bed Bath and Beyond all in one.

Now, if you’re looking for bargain bin prices and resolving all your shopping needs in one place, I guess it’s a good option. I avoid shopping there because of how they treat their employees. And the items I buy there don’t last very long. 

But I highly doubt you’d come to me and say, “Lisa, help me; I want to be known as the Walmart of my industry or among my family and friends.” 

Yet, it’s exactly what Marla’s business was positioned as. She’d recently had a big TV show appearance with international exposure and was stunned to discover very few people signed up to work with her after. Why? The culprit became apparent when I checked out her website. 

There was every kind of offering imaginable on there. Marla’s work was about helping women connect to their intuition through self-care. But her “work with me” page had everything from business coaching programs to programs about running virtual retreats, self-study products about raising your prices, and more. 

It was as overwhelming as walking into a Walmart on a Saturday afternoon. No wonder no one was buying much from her, and she had been stuck at the same plateau for years. Confused and overwhelmed people end up shutting down and not choosing anything at all.

I told Marla, “looking at your site, and I don’t even know who you are and what you stand for. I don’t know if I should come to you for business advice, pricing advice, retreat advice, or how to deepen into my intuition. I just want to click away because you’re making me work way too hard to understand if you’re the right service provider for me or what might be the right program for me.”

I was really curious as to why Marla had so many offers. Her response: “well, over the years, I’ve just copied what other coaches did, which made them successful. So if I saw someone launch a program on virtual retreats, I just offered a similar program for cheaper, thinking people would choose my program as a result. And I thought it would make me money since it made money for the people I copied it from.”

That’s not how it works. What works for one person is not going to work for you if it’s not actually aligned with YOUR purpose and unique energy blueprint. 

You and I could launch the same program at the same time, and if it’s not aligned with my purpose, you will outsell me every. Single. Time. Energetically speaking, clients and customers can feel when you’re aligned with what you’re selling. 

When you are, what you’re offering up is magnetic. When you’re not, people can subconsciously feel you’re not deeply aligned about what you’re offering up, no matter how many fireworks displays you put on. People aren’t going to give you their full-time attention or financial investment if they feel you’re not aligned. 

Looking to what everyone else is doing and basing what you offer on that . . . is a Purpose Capacity™ issue. You don’t know who you are because you’re trying to be all things to everyone. And I don’t just mean in your business because not everyone reading this is a business owner.

Ever filled out a dating profile and tried to make yourself likable to everyone? It never works, and a streamlined dating profile very specific about who you are and what you’re working for. In scenario A, you’ll get many random “Hi” messages from people who aren’t your match at all. But quantity doesn’t mean quality. In scenario B, you’ll get targeted messages from people who were drawn to your uniqueness. You won’t waste time sifting through messages from people who aren’t aligned.

Similarly, people in your life may take you for granted and assume you can handle less-than-stellar treatment from them because you’ve positioned yourself as the “I’ll be everything to you and put up with anything because I stand for nothing” person.

This stance is why it’s important to expand your Purpose Capacity. If you aren’t clear on what you stand for and you’re afraid of owning it because you might “lose people,”…then you’re just positioning yourself like a Walmart. A sort of okay, everything to everyone, run-of-the-mill discount store. I know you’re much more interested in being Telfar than Walmart.

Do you want your business, co-workers, or your relationships to treat you like a Walmart? Why, when I land on your website, do I have the option of purchasing 72 classes plus toilet paper and cat food? Why do you “negotiate” with clients or people who treat you like one? 

Because you’re afraid to stand in your purposefully, loading too many offers onto your business that have zero alignments with your purpose, being everything to everyone instead of being the best at what you do . . . these are Purpose Capacity issues. 

When you have so many offers, people don’t understand what you do. Fewer people buy, and the ones who make a purchase feel disappointed because they wanted cat food and sold them health coaching. 

You can extrapolate this metaphor out to practically every relationship in your life, too. Don’t put down you love camping and only stay at luxury hotels on your dating profile if what you really like is staying at Airbnb. You’ll end up on dates with people who want to take you camping when you just want to go for a walk and have a deep conversation. 

Don’t make yourself available for everyone’s problems when you barely have enough room to deal with your own.

Stand for something, or stand for nothing—your choice.

PS: if you’re ready to stand for something and go from Walmart to being Gucci, we’re working on Purpose Capacity this month in Capacity Shift™. Learn more and enroll here.