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Buying Fake Followers Can Ruin Your Business

Getting thousands of fans and followers on social media requires a lot of time and effort. For some, it may take several months. For others, however, a year would pass by and their follower count is still less than 500. But if someone offered to help boost your follower count by 10,000 in exchange of $20, would you grab the offer? It’s cheap! It can be tempting to buy fake followers, but please resist the urge to do so.

Having more followers can make you look popular, but it can negatively affect your business in a variety of ways. Here’s how buying fake followers can ruin your business.

It can ruin your reputation

Having more followers may help you feel good about yourself. It also makes you look popular in the eyes of potential and current customers. However, seeing your follower count jump from 100 to 10,000 in a matter of days will make people suspicious. Your credibility can be seriously compromised by buying fake followers.

It prevents you from reaching your audience

Social media provides a great opportunity for you to engage with your fans and followers and build a relationship with them. Since most of the followers you buy are bots, they won’t contribute to your engagement.

If you are using Facebook as your main social channel, then having fake followers will work against you. You see, Facebook has a fancy algorithm in which pages will only reach a certain percentage of their followers. If you have 10,000 fans and only 50 of them share, like or comment on your post, they’ll conclude that you are producing low quality content. As a result, people will be seeing your posts less frequently. Building a large number of followers who won’t be able to see your posts is a waste of time and money.

It hinders you from analyzing your true fan base

To help you create an effective social media marketing campaign, you will need to analyze the behavior of your target audience. Which type of content do they engage with the most? Which topics are they most interested in? How old are your fans? Where do they live? The answers to these questions will help you plan future content.

If majority of your followers aren’t real people, then it will prevent you from understanding your real fans and build a better marketing strategy.

 

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Setting your Social Media Goals

Social Media Marketing is increasingly important for your business. It creates an avenue through which you can directly connect with your customers. Additionally, it forms a bridge between your business and your potential clients to make building a sales pipeline an easier and more effective task than some tactics of the past (e.g. cold calling).

Social media gives your company transparency and allows potential customers to more clearly understand the differences between you and your competitors. Social media is a way to create a voice for your company and a way to listen to your consumer’s concerns. The real-time data your business can collect through social media completely revolutionizes the connection between businesses and consumers.

Social Media Marketing Goals

Reasons why Social Media should be your secret weapon: Technology has transformed how entrepreneurs connect with their clients, customers and stay on top of the industry. Generally speaking, most businesses use social media to promote their business and boost their sales. Some even use it to make a difference and allow their business to grow. Now, entrepreneurs have to understand that this social media craze is not just a fad. As a matter of fact, it can be considered as a secret weapon if you know how to implement it correctly. Here are a few reasons why you should get on board.Before you begin to post information to social media channels, your business needs to define its specific goals that it is looking to achieve by leveraging social media. To effectively manage a social media campaign for your business, you must first be able to define how you are going to measure results. A goal of “increasing website visitors who view more than 3 pages” is an excellent goal.

Your social media campaign and its goals should align with your business’s overall marketing plan (which should tie in with the goals of your business). Once these goals are established, they will be used in every part of your social media strategy. Stay at a high level with your goals right now, you can make them more specific in the next section.

See a number of example goals below. These will get you started so you can write strong SMART goals.

  • Research and learning
  • Lead generation
  • Increase E-commerce sales
  • Increase store traffic
  • Increase brand or issue awareness
  • Reputation management
  • Get your Likes to talk about you (word of mouth)
  • Reach a youth audience
  • Promote an event
  • Build excitement prior to an event
  • Get people to take a particular action
  • Draw traffic to a particular online resource
  • Build your email list
  • Solicit donations for your organization
  • Get supporters to solicit donations for you
  • Recruit volunteers
  • Brand your staff as experts on a cause or issue
  • Get your constituents to talk to each other
  • Build a community around an event or topic
  • Get feedback from your constituents
  • Keep your supporters updated on events
  • Increase relevant visitor traffic and page rankings
  • Let supporters publicly support your cause
  • Disseminate information about an issue or topic
  • Recruit new members, advocates or patrons
  • Support a particular group of members, alumni, etc.
  • Tell stories about the work you do
  • Get press coverage
  • Connect with other like-minded organizations
  • Change hearts and minds on a particular topic
  • Gather photos or videos from supporters
  • Understand what people are saying about you
  • Keep up to date with a particular issue
  • Coordinate people in an action or a project

How will you Measure Success?

Now that you have identified the top three goals for your social media campaign it is important to set benchmarks so that you know if your campaign was a success. If your goal is to attract more people to your website, the success will be measured by an increase of people to the site which can be done by using Google Analytics. However, if a majority of these new people are leaving the site without taking action (i.e. placing an order or calling for more information) then it is hard to say if the campaign was a success. This is why it is very important to set specific foals (i.e. increase the number of sales by 10% annually through our website).

Instructions: Here, we will break down the goals into more specific, measurable outcomes. Below, restate the top three goals you defined above so they are:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Time-based

What are your social media goals?

Social Media Goal #1: _____________________________________________________________

Social Media Goal #2: _____________________________________________________________

Social Media Goal #3: _____________________________________________________________

Examples:

  • Realty Elite seeks to increase the number of leads from social media by 20% over the next 12 months through the use of valuable content, Facebook Ads, and client support. This will be measured monthly.
  • We want to increase our referral rate to 95% (a simple survey will measure this) by the end of this year so we will invite all former clients to our Facebook page.
  • We want to get picked up by 5 local media outlets by the end of this year so we are going to build a communications strategy and start executing in 30 days.

Setting your social media goals. Before you begin to post information to social media channels, your business needs to define its specific goals that it is looking to achieve by leveraging social media. To effectively manage a social media campaign for your business, you must first be able to define how you are going to measure results. A goal of “increasing website visitors who view more than 3 pages” is an excellent goal.

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10 Ways To Build Your Online Reputation

This post is updated from December, 2010.

Social media presents a unique opportunity for anyone to develop a personal or business reputation to build their careers, boost sales and increase relationships. The key is to leverage the tools of the Social Media to effectively build your online reputation. You need to understand what your goals and intentions are in order to be successful.

Here are 10 ways you can be successful in this journey, so you can achieve your short and long term goals rather than waste time:

1. Be aware.Continually listen to conversations happening across the Web related to your career or business and learn from the content you read, listen to, or view online. Social media success depends as much on listening as it does on publishing.

2. Be focused.Define your niche and focus the majority of your social media participation on conversations and content related to that area of focus. A focused brand is more powerful than a broad brand. Always lead with your strengths on the social media and be consistent in your content and conversations in order to successfully build your online reputation.

3. Be authentic.Your social media participation is useless if your content and conversations read like corporate rhetoric or a promotional brochure. Instead, be real and be human. Imagine you’re speaking with your audience in person rather than online and adjust your content and tone to match your target audience’s needs and expectations for you based on your brand promise. This is where videos can be a great tool for people to really know who you are.

4. Be trustworthy.Honesty is an essential part of building your online reputation using the tools of the social media. Transparency isn’t just a buzz word, it’s a strategic imperative, which should apply to your social media participation as well as all other aspects of your career or business.

5. Be meaningful.The content you publish on social media must be useful and meaningful to your target audience or there is no reason for them to read it or start a dialogue with you about it. Furthermore, if your content doesn’t add value to your audience’s lives, they won’t talk about it and share it with their own audiences.

6. Be “non-self-promotional.”No one will want to read your content or interact with you on the social media if your content and conversations read like a marketing pitch. Follow the 90-10 rule of marketing and spend 90% or more of your time in social media activities that are not self-promotional and only 10% or less on activities that are self-promotional. When you do want to directly try to get more exposure to build your online reputation, you can do so without annoying other people.

7. Be accessible and responsive.An important part of building your online reputation via social media participation is understanding that it’s not all about you. Instead, you need to spend a great deal of time acknowledging other people on the social media in order to build a relationship with them. In other words, they need to understand that you care about them, too. You need to respond to questions, comments on your blog, tweets, and so on.

8. Be reciprocating.You can’t expect people to reach out to you and share your content on the social media and not return the favor. If someone engages with you on your blog, Twitter, Facebook or another social media destination, then you can’t ignore that person — just as you wouldn’t ignore someone in a face-to-face situation. For example, you also need to leave comments on other people’s blogs, share their content on Twitter and Facebook, and more. You can’t operate in a silo on the social media and expect to be successful.

9. Be uncontrolling.The thought of giving up control and letting your content, conversations and name spread across the Web can be frightening. However, without the sharing of content and interactive dialogue that happens on social media, your online reputation cannot develop. You have to be willing to give up control and let people share and talk about you and your content in order for your online reputation to grow. Don’t worry about negative buzz about you, your brand, or your business. There is always a way to react to negativity on the social media.

10. Be involved.Don’t spend all of your time in one place. While quality is more important than quantity when it comes to building an authentic reputation online, you do need to spread your wings and be social. Focus on other avenues such as a blog, YouTube, Google Buzz, Backlinks, and much more. You need to use all aspects of Internet Marketing in order to see return.

10 ways to build your online reputation: 10 ways you can be successful in this journey, so you can achieve your short and long term goals rather than waste time.

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Putting Together a Social Media Schedule

This is updated from a post on Oct 26, 2010.

One of the most important parts of being active in the social media world is taking responsibility for your Facebook, Twitter, and any other internet marketing outlets you have. When we put our posts out and we like other peoples posts that is a good start to taking responsibility. When we send out Newsletters or email marketing campaigns we want other people to read them right?

Well it is a two sided road; I mean we all have to put in our efforts to read other peoples stuff as well. My tip for that is picking your inner circle of people and people you have made a power partner and start by reading their newsletters and/or emails. The same thing goes with our social media posts. We want people reading our post, tweets, events, questions etc. also emailing us wanting to work with us or learn more about what we do. We have to do that with others. The one thing I always say about social media is it brings people, communities, and companies together all over the world.

So how do we do that? It is easy . . . we put together a weekly schedule and then we implement it into our routine just like checking emails, and making calls.

Monday- Using www.Hootsuite.com schedule your posts to go out onto your Facebook personal page, Facebook business page, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Ping.fm. Using my post before this one to help first create your strategy so you know what you need to post on your social media profiles and when. (Schedule an hour and a half to start)

Tuesday- Login to Facebook and add 10 people into your business list, research these people. Find people that have common interest or maybe looking for your services and put them into the business list you created. Then get onto Twitter or Twellow and search for your Keywords or location. You can search for people using keywords or type in keywords people would use to find YOU and add 50 people. (Schedule about 45 min to start, once you get the hang of it you can probably get it done in 30 min)

Wednesday– Spend some time on LinkedIn checking emails and finding people you may know and ask them to connect with you. (Schedule 45 min)

Thursday- Login to Facebook and add 10 people into your business list, research these people. Find people that have common interest or maybe looking for your services and put them into the business list you created. Then get onto Twitter or Twellow and search for your Keywords or location. You can search for people using keywords or type in keywords people would use to find YOU and add 50 people. (Schedule about 45 min to start, once you get the hang of it you can probably get it done in 30 min)

Friday – Repeat what you have done Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We are going to add another step into today, Once you are done adding people on Facebook and Twitter you want to go back to Facebook and go to your page, under your logo you will find a tab that says “Suggest to Friends” Click on that and then click the drop down tab to your list you made once that list pulls up on the top right hand side it will say “Select All” hit that and then send invitations. What this is doing is asking all the people you have been adding as friends to become a fan of your page!

Now this is what I do and share with people you are more than welcome to move it around however it works for you. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions of things that have helped you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Putting together a weekly social media schedule: ne of the most important parts of being active in the social media world is taking responsibility for your Facebook, Twitter, and any other internet marketing outlets you have. When we put our posts out and we like other peoples posts that is a good start to taking responsibility. When we send out Newsletters or email marketing campaigns we want other people to read them right?

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Website in a Weekend [New Course]

We are so excited to launch our second course, which launches June 9: Website in a Weekend!

This course is geared toward the do-it-yourself-er  who is tech savvy, but just doesn’t know how to stylize and create a WordPress Website. We’ll be starting with the basics of purchasing hosting and installing WordPress and the Enfold theme, followed by selecting brand colors and fonts. At this point, I’ll bring your through creating captivating pages, inserting forms, and best practices for your website content.

The Website in a Weekend course includes self-paced lectures, handouts, tutorials, and step by step guides.

Over the course of June 23, 24, 25, I will be working with a select group of solopreneurs, marketing teams, business owners, bloggers, and those with brilliant ideas to create their dream websites. Prior to the weekend, I will host a free welcome webinar (registration below) to help you decide if you are a candidate for the Website in a Weekend course. I simplify the entire website design process, but still require individuals to be motivate and have some knowledge of technology.

For this weekend you will have access to me via the Members Only Facebook Group where I will be answering questions live. There is also the option for additional support that we can add on should you need it beyond this intensive weekend.

What’s Included in Website in a Weekend?

 

Module 1: Setting the Stage

Before you even start building your website, you need to think about your website and business as a whole. Here you will be guided through:

  • Defining your business
  • Researching your competitors
  • Thinking big

Module 2: Branding your Business

Without brand standards, your entire presence can feel disjoint. This is an integral piece to any marketing and can transform your website from blah to a true masterpiece. We will provide a:

  • Values tool to gain clarity on your person (and business) values
  • Font pairing workbook to select your core business fonts
  • Colors overview and step by step how to choose the colors that define your business
  • Overview of images and and overall feeling of your brand

Module 3: Your Website Content

We aren’t quite at setting up your website yet! Before you even create that first page of your site, it works best to know what pages you need and already have the content for those pages. Here you will:

  • Use a workbook to select the must-have pages on your site
  • Begin writing the content for these pages
  • Understand effective calls to action on your pages

You will also receive templates to write:

  • Your  About Page
  • Services Pages
  • Product Pages

Module 4: Website Layout and Wireframe

Finally, let’s think about your website design. Here we will work through:

  • Identifying the elements of other websites that you are drawn to
  • Constructing your page hierarchy (which pages are parent pages  vs subpages)
  • Building a wireframe (or visual layout of your website)

Module 5: Let’s Get to Building

As long as you have a guide and think only one step at a time, the technical side of building your site can actually be a breeze! You’ve already completed the tough stuff. Now we just need to work through putting the elements together. In this module we:

  • Purchase hosting and your domain if you haven’t already
  • Install Worpress and upload the Enfold theme (for $75, I am happy to complete this step for you)
  • Follow our Step by Step guide to checking your WordPress settings from hosting through to final design
  • Complete an overview of widgets on your site
  • Have access to numerous templates for page designs
  • Access to a guide to use additional elements in the Enfold theme

Why Enfold?

We love the Enfold theme and have found it customizes to really any design you desire without needing to add additional plugins or touch the code. From photographers to business consultants, technology companies and chiropracters, this theme does it all!

Module 6: Plugins

Though Enfold does it all, we have a list of plugins that we recommend for all websites to increase the search engine optimization, optimize your lead funnel, and more. This module

  • Walks you through the concept of a Plugin
  • Gives access to the top plugins we use for clients

Blog posts and articles are meant to be reused! Think of a typical blog you write, is there a list or bullets? Do you break the content up into multiple segments? Are there different ways to phrase the blog title? Your blog post can be recycled as social media posts and shared to other networks in its entirety.

Module 7: Forms, Freebies, and Subscribers

Congratulations! You have a beautiful, branded website to which you are empowered to make changes! A website is an ever-morphing project that can continue to grow as you write blog posts, expand your services, and create resources for prospects. The last piece of the puzzle is to set your business up for success using forms, freebies, and subscribers. Here you will:

  • Understand why freebies on your site are more than just giving information away for free
  • Receive step-by-step information on how to create and embed forms on your site using MailChimp
  • A sneak peak into Convert Kit for those looking to take their subscriber list to a new level
  • Templates for creating your own EBooks, Infographics, and more!

Once you complete the Website in a Weekend course, you will continue to have complete access to all the lectures, resources, handouts, and tools. Additionally, you will keep your membership to the Website in a Weekend Facebook Group for additional support from my team and other businesses that have been through the process of designing and building their website!

Website in a Weekend course: This course is geared toward the do-it-yourself-er who is tech savvy, but just doesn’t know how to stylize and create a WordPress Website. We’ll be starting with the basics of purchasing hosting and installing WordPress and the Enfold theme, followed by selecting brand colors and fonts. At this point, I’ll bring your through creating captivating pages, inserting forms, and best practices for your website content.

Next Steps? Join the Free Welcome Webinar on:

June 17, 2017 at 8 am Mountain Time (10 am ET)

On June 17th at 9 AM Mountain Time, join us for a Free Webinar to get started on your website design project. This course is designed for a specific group of people who are motivated and technically savvy enough to build their own website with guidance and over site from a WordPress website specialist. It is for the individual who has the goal of showing off their new site by July 4.

In this Free Webinar, you will have a clear sense of if the Website in a Weekend course is for you. You will also receive the first handouts for:

  • Beginning to organize your content
  • Brainstorming website design elements that you can’t live without
  • and more.

I know you are a busy professional, and taking time away from your business, family, and life two weekends in a row is a lot to ask! Because of this, even in the free June 17 webinar, I’ll be providing an in depth overview of exactly what you need to get started on a website design project.

 

Reserve your Seat Today

Enter your name and email address below to reserve your seat for the Website in a Weekend Welcome Webinar on June 17 at 8 am Mountain Time (10 am ET).

WordPress in a Weekend Pricing

 

Register for June 23, 24, 25 Launch

Lifetime access to all course materials including:

  • Lectures
  • Handouts
  • Step-by-step guides
  • Tutorials
  • Member only Facebook Group
  • Ability to build your site in 3 days

Only $397 




Or 2 Payments of $198.50




Additional Support with Course

Lifetime access to all course materials with additional add-on support:

  • Two 30 minute personal phone calls to work through your individual questions
  • One hour website development to tackle technical troubles including inserting layout elements, uploading theme, changing formatting and CSS.
  • Add-on: $400

Only $797 




Or 2 Payments of $398.50




Website in a Weekend course: This course is geared toward the do-it-yourself-er who is tech savvy, but just doesn’t know how to stylize and create a WordPress Website. We’ll be starting with the basics of purchasing hosting and installing WordPress and the Enfold theme, followed by selecting brand colors and fonts. At this point, I’ll bring your through creating captivating pages, inserting forms, and best practices for your website content.

Website in a Weekend: This course is geared toward the do-it-yourself-er who is tech savvy, but just doesn't know how to stylize and create a WordPress Website. We'll be starting with the basics of purchasing hosting and installing WordPress and the Enfold theme, followed by selecting brand colors and fonts. At this point, I'll bring your through creating captivating pages, inserting forms, and best practices for your website content.

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Simple Tips to Optimize Your Website

[This blog post is updated from March 8, 2016]

Optimizing your website properly is crucial to improving your site’s rank in search engines, as well as driving more potential customers to it.

Are you satisfied with your website’s performance? If not, then we urge to you to try these tips for optimizing your website.

Title tags matter

Title tags play an important role in optimizing your site. A title tag tells both the visitors and search engines what the page is all about.

A title that is highly relevant to the page it refers to will provide better usability and optimization for your search engine ranking. People won’t stay on your site if there’s no relevance and you’ll lose ranking in the end. The title tag should also be unique.

Select common-sense keywords

A search engine’s job is to refer users to websites and contents that are relevant to what they are looking for. If you run a chocolate chip cookie business and you want your website on the first page of Google, then you need to write blogs that are related to this topic. Use keywords like chocolate chips, chocolate, sweets, baked goods and desserts. When incorporating keywords into your content, make sure they sound natural to the reader.

Write great content

Dedicate some time to write content that are useful and engaging for humans. As Google’s algorithm become increasingly complex and intelligent, it is no longer sufficient to create content, stuff it with keywords and publish them to your site. If you want to your content to rank in search engines, you need to provide visitors with relevant and well-written content. Remember, content still reigns as the king in the world of search engine optimization.

Continuous testing and measuring

The process of optimization is not a one-time process. It requires tuning, maintenance, as well as constant testing and measuring. Something as simple as testing the layout of your landing page, the wording of your call-to-action or the images you’re using can do wonders for your click-through rates.

 

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Mistakes That Will Kill Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

Nearly every brand use social media to engage with their audience and build brand awareness. It has become an important and necessary tactic in online marketing. While social media plays a huge role in a business’ success, committing some mistakes may produce the opposite effect.

Here are 4 mistakes that will kill your social media marketing campaign.

Talking too much about your brand

Most business owners use social media to increase brand awareness. After all, it’s a great place to promote your products and let people know about what’s happening about your business. While it’s fine to do this from time to time, please refrain from bombarding your fans and followers with too much information about your business.

Use social media to engage with your fans and followers. It should be a two-way communication. Share some tips, ask questions, encourage them to share their experience with your business etc. Your audience will also appreciate it if you share content that are informative, funny or interesting.

Creating accounts on too many platforms

We all know that social media platforms allow you to reach new people. But given the number of social channels available today, you may find it hard to manage all of these accounts at the same time. To maximize your social media efforts, we recommend that you focus on platforms where your target audience are. It is better to have a good presence on 2 social channels than a lacklustre presence on 5.

If your target audience are teens to young adults, consider focusing your efforts on Instagram and Snapchat. If you are looking to engage with business professionals, LinkedIn is the best option for you.

Ignoring reviews

Most people like to share their feedbacks on social media. If it’s a good feedback, then it would be really helpful for your business. If it’s a negative feedback, it may or it may not hurt your business. It actually depends on how you handle it.

When faced with a negative feedback, it is best to respond to it and ask the person to discuss matters privately. This will give people the impression that you care about your customers. When done right, you can rectify the issue at hand and turn the situation into a positive one. Never ignore negative reviews. Rather, use it as a way to improve your services.

Very little interaction

As a small business owner, we understand that you have a lot on your plate. But in order to see positive results from you social media marketing campaign, make sure you stay active. While we’re not suggesting that you should stay online 24/7, try to allot at least 2 to 3 hours of your day responding to comments, answering messages and interacting with people. If you don’t engage with them, then they’ll forget about you eventually.

Mistakes That Will Kill Your Social Media Marketing Campaign. Nearly every brand use social media to engage with their audience and build brand awareness. It has become an important and necessary tactic in online marketing. While social media plays a huge role in a business’ success, committing some mistakes may produce the opposite effect. Here are 4 mistakes that will kill your social media marketing campaign.

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No Plan B – 4 Tips to Jumping into Business Ownership

“The best fights are those fought by those without a Plan B.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Jumping into business ownership is daunting. How do you know when it is time to let go of your previous life? How can you be sure that your new endeavor will lead to success? The truth is, there is no end-all, be-all advice regarding the right time to jump all in or whether or not you will be successful. There are things you can do, however, that can increase the odds of fulfilling your dreams.

Tip 1: Plan, plan, plan

Creating a road map for your business is integral to your success. Not only do you need to know where you are starting from, but you also need to know what your goals are for month 1, month 6, 1 year, and 5 years. Working through these goals can help you to understand what you need to do to reach them. From here, write a list of the top activities that in the end will lead to you reaching your goals. For example, in my business, we need clients. Most of our clients come from personal relationships, referrals, and outbound marketing. In order to be successful, each week I need to reach more prospects or referral partners. Even if I’m swamped with current projects, I need to make sure I am continually touching new businesses.

In addition to planning for how you will get your first clients, you also need to plan your offerings. Create a list of all the services you can provide and create sample bundles or packages. What if someone only needs help with one aspect of what you provide, how will you charge? What if they want something you haven’t thought of, but have the skills to tackle, will you create a custom service offering for that client?

When I started out, I thought I would only be offering data analysis for marketing efforts. I thought I would be helping clients to understand what works and what doesn’t work as a way to tailor their marketing efforts. Though this is something I do, I was able to listen to my tribe and completely shift my messaging and packages to align with what the market actually needed.

Regardless of how much planning you do, your business plan is going to change.

“We should always have a plan B, but at the same time, treat plan A like it were our only option.”
― Izey Victoria Odiase

Tip 2: Surround yourself with positivity, but not naivety

We all have cheerleaders. Often in business, however, these cheerleaders are wrong to not give push back. Your idea may not actually be all that great. This isn’t to say that you can’t make it in business, it’s just that someone who always agrees with you isn’t going to get you to the place where you will find the most successes.

Though you need to remove negative energy of people pulling you back and second guessing your move to entrepreneurship, you need to also make sure that the positive energy you are surround yourself in is made of people who have been through your same journey and can help give push back when you are approaching a common pitfall. The people you surround yourself with will have a direct effect on your ability to succeed. Find mentors and other business owners who can talk you through marketing, technology, hiring and firing, taxes, etc.

blogging your business

Tip 3: Don’t have a Plan B

Here I mean don’t plan on needing your plan b. Jump head first into your business and don’t get distracted. Though your offerings may change, you need to stay course that you are now a business owner. The most successful businesses take shifts in the market in stride, but never second guess their decision to be in business.

“I don’t believe we should carry backup
plans in life’s suitcase—

they’re too easy to unpack
like living a life in yoga pants,
so comfortable our hips spread
into new timezones…”
― Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum

Tip 4: Have backup funds to support you as you jump in

Try not to jump ship unless you have some residual income, clients, or savings already in place. As a new business, you don’t want to feel as though you need to work with every prospect you meet and you don’t want to come across as though you are begging for the next gig. Though being on the verge of bankruptcy can motivate some, most of us will become distracted from our daily activities if you need to constantly worry about money.  Additionally, make sure you have truthful discussions with your spouse about how spending and budgeting will need to change and be realistic about startup expenses. Things always take longer and cost more than you initially estimate.

Tip 5: Throw all this advice away (except the part about listening to your market)

If you know it is time to jump into your own business, just do it. You only live life once, why not make it the most fulfilling life you can. I think the number one reason why people decide to be a business owner is that they are worried about security, health insurance, managing their time, but when you just jump into it, you learn to make things work.

I didn’t set out to be a business owner, but somehow freelancing turned into a full time income. Now I can’t get enough. I encourage all of you with a business idea to give it a shot. Start taking on clients on the side or developing your MVP (minimum viable product). Keep your salary, but work towards being self sufficient. In the end you will thank your employer for funding your budding business.

Best of Luck!

NO PLAN B - “The best fights are those fought by those without a Plan B.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana Jumping into business ownership is daunting. How do you know when it is time to let go of your previous life? How can you be sure that your new endeavor will lead to success? The truth is, there is no end-all, be-all advice regarding the right time to jump all in or whether or not you will be successful. There are things you can do, however, that can increase the odds of fulfilling your dreams.

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