Money and Your Online Business

Let's talk money and your online business. I know scare subject right? We all would like to have more money in our lives, but we can be scared to talk about it openly mostly for fear of judgment. Or maybe you were taught it's not polite to talk about money, because I sure was.

But Friend if you are starting out on your business journey this is one of the first things that you need to know in your business.

It’s okay to discuss money and what you think about it

Matter of fact you really should think about money and how you view it. You’ll hear so many people talking about money mindset along your business path.

Call it to woo if you want but, it’s a thing. If you truly believe in your heart of hearts that you have to work hard for money or it’s selfish to make more money. It will be.

Get to work on journaling how you really feel. Don’t follow in my super resistant footstep here friend, give in early and do the work.

I wish I could remember where this trick came from, but when I’m stuck journaling. I just write random stuff until something pops into my head that has to do about my thinking. A lot of times I will write things I’m grateful for, it helps. Another key tip here, either set a goal of journaling for three pages or set a goal of journaling for fifteen minutes. I just pulled those numbers out of thin air, feel free to pull your own numbers out that feel right to you.

Ann Bellow, my Mastermind Girl, has a Triple Your Income Journaling mini-course and she has so kindly given us a discount code Michele for a $12 discount if you’d like to check it out!

Ann has made money mindset a priority in her business and has had massive growth because of it.

Here’s another doozy

Do you set your rates at the right amount? Yes, I know this is also another really difficult topic. Man, I’m hitting on all the points today.

You’ll hear to charge your worth. Well, yes and no. You need to take into account a number of factors with this one.

Do you know what the market is charging?

This is a good indication of what people are willing to pay for this service. This one does take research, not everyone puts pricing out there, but some do. Start looking at the numbers.

What is your experience?

Do you have a ton? Just starting out? This will be a fact too. If you are able to provide a really good result in a short period of time, you can ask for more. How long will it take your client to get a return on investment from working with you?

What are your goals?

You can either set three goals such as good, better, best goals or you can set two numbers a bottom-line must reach this number to breakeven and dancing in the streets goal. I tend to set a good, better, best goals for myself and my clients.

Circling back to the mindset for a second on your goals. What is in your heart of hearts do you feel you can achieve? Because if you don’t believe you won’t receive it’s that simple. You must believe you can hit your goals.

Now that we’ve tackled the hard stuff

Let’s talk about money in your business. What makes your business a success?

If you have a profit.

Profit is all your expenses less than the amount of money that you make. Sounds easy peasy right?

Are you tracking your profit?

It may sound super simple but are you actually tracking your profit and how much you have coming into your business?

Are you budgeting your expenses each month so you really have a forecast of what you must make to cover your expenses?

As a business owner, your revenue will ebb and flow it is what it is. It’s important to forecast how much you will be spending each month.

In case you need this, make sure you include in those monthly expenses how much you will be paying yourself.

It was somewhere during year two of my business that I pulled my head out of the sand and started to really look at my numbers and what I was bringing in each month.

Where do you start?

It starts with knowing how much you bring in to your business and how much you have gone out of your business.

This will tell you if you can add that new application or if you can afford to invest in another course.

I personally like to keep this information in a Google Sheet.

Want my super simple easy-to-use money tracking template? The sign up is below. Is it time to make profit a priority in your business?

Planning for the year ahead as an online entrepreneur

by Michele | Goals, Planning-Organization-Productivity

Planning for the year ahead as an online entrepreneur

Wow, another new year is upon us, are you planning for the year ahead as an online entrepreneur?

You may resist planning in your business because the thought of it feels difficult. Friend, with even an outline of where you’d like to go and what you’d like to accomplish it, will keep you from feeling insanely busy EVERY single day.

I’m sure you’ve heard if you don’t know where you’re going how will you know when you get there. This holds true in business as well.

You’ll always have people and things that will pull you around in your business.

But, you put together a plan it will create the focus you need to move ahead. Cause I know you do not want to be in this same place next year.

Reflection

Reflecting on the things that worked, areas of improvement and dropping what you need to walk away from.

What was really successful this past year? What did you achieve?

What didn’t go as smoothly as you hoped this past year? What challenges did you face and overcome or not overcome?

What pulled your attention away from your goal?

What were the numbers?

Gather all the status of your business. How many followers you have on your social media accounts.

What was your profit, expense, income, clients?

You’ll want to make sure that you’re measuring your progress.

What is the vision for the next year?

What’s the vision for your business?

Do you have an idea of where you want to be in three years? Come on, it’s time to write down the vision you have for business, where are you going?

From your three-year vision, what can you do in the upcoming year to move in that direction?

Let Me Guide You Through An Annual Plan

Firstly, pull out the calendar and figure out the actual number of working days you’ll have in the quarter. What days do you plan to take time off for vacation, rest or leisure?

Block those days off in your calendar now.

Secondly, grab your notebook it’s time to create an exhausting list of all the projects that you want to accomplish in the next year. When I say exhausted, I mean get it all out even those crazy ideas. No project is too small or simple for the list. Write down everything that pops into your head, without any judgment.

What projects are in aligned with your vision

With your exhausted list of ideas, which projects do you feel is the most aligned with the vision and mission of your online business. Next, go on and cross off anything on your list that is unaligned or doesn’t bring a sense of joy.

Then, circle all the ideas that you feel are aligned with the vision of your online business and rank each of the tasks by importance to you and your ideal clients. This will aid in where you need to start.

Each quarter will be assigned three projects to achieve! Basically, one per month. Start with the projects that have the most impact on the growth of your online business or is the quickest path to cash. Either highlight the three tasks for Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 with a different color or note the Q in front of the task.

Mindmap the Quarters

My favorite way to create a plan is, to begin with, a mindmap. I’ve talked about mindmap previously in the post if you’d like to read it.

In the center of a new sheet of paper pick one of the ideas from your list. This is how you start your mindmap.

Circle your idea in the center of your page and begin to create lines off of this idea with all the items that need to take place in order to bring it to completion. Then create small accomplishable tasks off of items that need to be completed.

For example, if one project in the next quarter is to create a new opt-in. You’ll need a landing page for one of the items. What are the small accomplishable daily tasks to create a landing page? Here are a few ideas.

Find images
Write Copy
Create Wireframe

What else do you need to do?

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Little Side Note

If you’re planning to create a new offering this should be your single focus for the one whole quarter.

Get it scheduled

If you have a project management system you can set this all up inside, so that you know what to do when. If not, a paper calendar or Bullet Journal will work just fine.

At the top, write out your online business mission, vision, and goals for the first quarter. Under this breaks it into three columns. One for each project.

Looking at your list if you had to pick just one project what would it be?

Start with that one.

Under the Project Header

Now we are going to put in all the tasks that need to be completed by who and when. Will you need any resources, such as a new software application, to complete the task?

Not all the tasks must be completed by you. It’s very important that you stay in your lane and delegate out the tasks that can be done by someone else.

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Simple Steps To Creating A Sales Funnel

by Michele | Online Business, Content Marketing

Simple Steps To Creating A Sales Funnel

Before we dive into the simple steps to creating a sales funnel. Let’s cover the basics, just in case you're new to the online business world.

Really, what are sales funnel anyway

Sales funnels are the path that a potential customer will go through. In other words, because the path to purchase look like a normal everyday funnel. Wide on the top and small at the button.

I’m about to lay down shocking news here. In spite of all your efforts, not everyone that starts in the sales process with end up a client. Formerly, in my career as a sales rep, I was excited if one in ten leads converted into a client. Ya, I know.

On the positive side, if you’re working one to one your funnel doesn’t need to be huge to start.

Know, Like and Trust

As a result, getting clients to work with you has more to do with know, like, and trust verse selling in your online business. Therefore, if the word sales cause you to break out into hives think of it as a relationship funnel.

Building a relationship with your soulmate client is easy. It’s important to realize that building a relationship online is not any different than building any other relationship.

In fact, it will follow the same path, you meet, you get to know each other, you decide you like to hang out and the more you hang out the more you trust each other.

When you’re building a sales funnel you’ll make sure that you are doing the same things you would do to building any long-lasting connection.

How you meet

Connecting with your soulmate client online will happen in a variety of ways. For example, It may be through social media, google search, or the biggest is a referral or introduction from one of your mutual online friends.

It’s visibility…

Heed my advice, get visible. You guessed it, I didn’t do this right away in any consistent manner.

The best sales advice ever, you can’t hope your way to a sale.

As much as I hoped for my soulmate client to stumble upon my content and instantly fall in love with me. It didn’t happen that way.

To emphasize to all of those in the back row, if you’re not putting yourself out there, how will anyone, let alone your soulmate client, know what you offer?

So long as you stay in your own little world you’ll have a difficult time connecting with people that you have a true bond with.

These are the people that you’re drawn too, the people that you’d like to serve. If you’re not visible and putting yourself out there how will they find you? So get out and mingle.

If you happened to miss it before, visibility was an area that I struggle with, I really love to have my head down checking all the things off the to-do list.

Once I added networking to my to-do list this is when things shifted in my business because Friend if you do not let people know about your great services you not sharing your gifts.

Overcoming…

Overcoming visibility phobia can only be done by facing fear. Stop lurking in Facebook groups and actually share your wonderful knowledge. Find hashtags on Instagram to follow and begin to engage.

A great way to do this is with a virtual coffee chat, in short, these chats are a no pitch, no pressure chat to get to know each other.

Prefer face to face? Search for local Meet Ups.

Stop assuming that people know what you know. Share your special self.

Trust will come…

Provide valuable content on social media. What would make the life of your soulmate client easier? Figure this out and share it.

Create and Share

Create a piece of free content to give them in exchange for an email address.

Then continue to wow them with valuable content that they will find useful in their business. Keep in mind that you want your free content to be in line with the services you offer.

For example, I help build plans. Creating a sales funnel would start with a plan of action. Well, you could start without a plan, but it may not be the most efficient use of your time and I would predict spinning wheels in your future.

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Little Side Note

In the book, Building A Story Brand by Donald Miller he gives this formula for crafting each nurturing email.

One, talk about a problem. Two, explain a plan to solve the problem. Three, describe how life can look for the reader once the problem is solved.

If you’ve not read this book, make it the next book you read.

Build A Nurturing Series

Okay, but you start to say “I can’t do that.” Say you can and you will.

First let me say, this does not need to be complicated, actually make it simple and quick.

Second, open up a google document and start typing. List out all the struggles that you’ve heard from your soulmate clients on coffee chats, in facebook groups, pay attention in the post chats what are they talking about. Now write how you would solve the problem. Repeat this three times. Put this into an automated sequence in MailChimp or Mailerlite. Two very simple and free tools that you can use for your email service provider.

Third, in that same google document write the fourth email. This one will be a sales email with an ask or call to action.

Before you get all anxious, you need to do this because no one else will do it for you. In the online world, you either attract or repel. Trust me, if you repel its not a big deal. We aren’t in a popularity contest. This is about creating a connection to your soulmate client that has been praying for your service.

Put it on repeat

Just like your favorite song, put your nurturing series on repeat. In the same fashion as before, It’s three gives and one ask.

That’s the simple steps to creating a sales funnel.

Get'em while they last

Planning is my superpower! Would you like help in mapping and accomplishing your commitments?

Each month I open up a limited number of spots to work one-on-one with heart-centered entrepreneurs to create a roadmap to their dreams.

How is this done? With a ninety-day commitment plan. A ninety-day commitment plan breaks down all the to-dos that need to happen to achieve your commitment.

The ninety-day commitment plan includes a three-hour planning intensive along with thirty-six accountability check-ins to ultimately take your vision from do to done. Say you can and you will!

Tell me about you and let's chat!

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