Day 20/21 - I Should Have Avoided these 3 things.

Over the past 19 days (phew!), I’ve shared a varied selection of select thoughts and experiences along my 17-year entrepreneurial career.

Today, I want to dial it down to online entrepreneurship. I started out primarily growing my copywriting business online. Back then, the internet (and opportunities) was not the same as it is today. It was also harder to find a good paying writing gig for example.

I sourced a lot of my first clients online using platforms like Elance and Odesk that then merged and became Upwork. All of you, who keep inboxing about online writing gigs check out Upwork.

Locally, copywriting as a service (which is how I began) was primarily offered on an agency model, meaning people didn’t understand what copywriters did and only ad agencies had them in house for their tv and radio ads. At least, I don’t quite remember meeting local freelance copywriters when I started Say Cheese Writers. That was in 2007.

As the space grew, I transitioned and began to target local clients. A couple of years later, for varied reasons, I reverted back to servicing clients online and hopefully one day, I will transition into a full-blown digital nomad. My dreams are still valid.

Hence, while I’ve run a number of offline ventures in my colorful entrepreneurial career, my leaning and focus, especially as a work-at-home-mom is building 100% online. That’s what my #boldentreprenuer series (and newsletter) is actually about. Helping entrepreneurs primarily grow and scale their businesses online.

Now what I discovered about trying to build your business online is, it’s quite different and can get overwhelming. I recall at the start going all out trying to learn everything all out once.

It’s great to become a student in your field, however if I could do it all over again I would do things slightly differently. Things that in hindsight, would have made my journey easier.

For example:

1. Having CLARITY.

Not having clarity cost me many years of trying to implement what I thought was a great vision for my business but with poor sustainability.

When starting out you can have a great vision, or know where you want to go, you may even already have clients and seeing things progress but lack clarity.

Maybe you want to offer consulting services or offer online training courses; if you aren’t clear about the exact steps to be followed from point A to your vision you will struggle or worse, fail.

Say for example you are on Instagram, or you’re blogging, or running a podcast on YouTube, etc. before you get too far ahead of yourself with the ‘set up’ process, take a step back and evaluate what exactly you are doing. How does your Instagram strategy impact what you’re doing with your email strategy and how can you transform an IG follower to to a buying client.

It’s important too as the late Steve Jobs said ‘connect the dots’ that tie everything together.

In the beginning of my journey, I found myself super busy being super busy. Doing all these amazing things to try elevating my brand without first asking myself ‘WHY am I actually doing these things?’ It wasn’t until I started reaching out for help. Taking to mentors, taking courses, did I begin to see what I was doing wrong and where I was overreaching. I discovered while I was making sales, there were many gaps.

Like I didn’t actually know how to move an Instagram follower into a buying customer. How do I leverage my blogging skills to build my online community and or a Facebook group. Etc. How does all this activity fit into my overall business strategy, which at the time and today still is NUMBERS.

Listen. It’s cool to say I’m an online entrepreneur. But if everything I do; time spent is not leading to a strategic and defined goal, I’m wasting my time, and if servicing clients, I’m wasting theirs too.

In essence, don’t just create content for the sake of it or because your neighbor is on TikTok earning lions, you too need to go hunt those lions. Questions you should be asking instead are: will being on TikTok right now, move the needle forward in my business, right now? If not now, when or what can I do right now that is most beneficial? Such questions give clarity.

2. Having a ROAD MAP.

When I started out, I was trying to implement all the wrong strategies at the wrong time. I was buying multiple webinar courses and Fb Ad courses, etc when I still didn’t have clarity on my vision.

Like anything, there’s a road map to online business success.

Over the years, I’ve borrowed ideas and developed my own a success road map that works for me. It basically consists of some six different business strategies from launch of business, to scaling. What am I saying? As hinted earlier, don’t become an ‘online business success’ information junkie. First, take time to VALIDATE your business idea. Avoid rushing into a host of ‘strategies’ blindly. Remember that there are specific sequential steps needed for an online business to move from launch to scale.

3. Spending money in all the WRONG places.

It’s easy to get “tool crazy”. You want to only invest in things that will generate ROI, which means going into your purchases with a clear idea what you’re going to get out of it. Again, be clear on your numbers and what you’re going to be spending on what. To do this strategically, and depending on where your business is at, you may need to ask for help. Reach out to people already doing this well. Talk to your mentors and your peers. What are they using or what have they found helpful and then make an educated decision on where you will be spending your money.

#21daysofentrepreneurs