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Last Updated on June 28, 2021 by Tyler Clark
1. Set Rolling Goals
Goals setting can be incredibly powerful. I believe the trick to using it effectively in business is to have very adaptable goals.
You don’t want your goals to be too exact or set in stone.
A good mindset to have with goals in business is to set “Rolling Goals”.
Set a mini goal, move forward and expect to adjust it as you go. Yes, you do want a long term heading and strategy but for all the small stuff, set the rolling goal and put a time stamp on it.
For Example:
Try these 10 Pinterest pins this week and see if they work. If they don’t, adjust and reset in a new direction.
Business is learning as you go. Thus, your goals, outlooks and plans must change and adapt with your biz. The word “rolling” helps your goals avoid being stagnant. They’re on the move and thus can keep you moving too.
This stops you from feeling like you didn’t achieve a goal even though it wasn’t accurate anyway.
Business is a bit like trekking through a jungle.
The path isn’t perfectly straight.
Thus, you need to be adaptable and so do your goals.
2. Buy Your Online Real Estate!
Get your website domain, social accounts and hosting purchased. You also want to buy all your social media domain names. Even if you’re not going to use certain platforms, buy your name so someone else can’t take it.
This is valuable digital land and it’s likely only going to become more valuable over time.
You need to buy all the online Real Estate that you can!
Build your site on WordPress and use Bluehost for your hosting.
Use my Bluehost Link, it gets you 60% off the regular hosting price and they’re awesome. My link pays me a commission if you buy through me (at no extra cost to you) and you get great hosting and a discount. It’s a win win!
3. Start With a Loose Business Idea
This may sound like a sloppy and unfocused approach but it’s not.
What it really means is that you’re starting with some flexibility.
When I started this site, I just knew I had great content about millionaires and that I wanted to be in the business/entrepreneur industry. That’s it! That’s enough.
It will take me a really long time to see what exactly I want to specialize in and I don’t know what that’s going to be right off the bat so I give it time.
I don’t need to decide that today and neither do you.
4. Learn As You Go NOW
Learn as you go is a good tip but, it doesn’t have call to action in it. You need to learn as you go NOW. So start now and get to learning. “As You Go” is the most important part of the saying so get going now and figure out what’s out there.
Get started as soon as you can. Learning in action right now is by far the fastest way to move you forward.
5. Do NOT Create a Business Plan
Don’t create a business plan, this is far to speculative and projection based. Are you presenting to a board of investors next month? Do you have sales expectations and product release timelines?
You can’t predict the future so don’t put too much time into figuring out exactly what you’re going to do in one month, two months and 6 months down the road just yet.
Do this instead:
Use a Reactive Business Plan
A reactive business plan allows you to adapt, pivot, change and go forward in a new direction based on the results your business is getting right now.
Forget future projections, respond to what’s happening right now.
Just as we had rolling goals, we can have a rolling business plan. Plan on doing something with the business results you get today.
Isn’t that refreshing? You don’t need to extrapolate all this crap that supposedly is going to happen. Forget it.
Use what you have right in front of you.
If it’s not enough, get a mentor. Can you guess what the next tip is?
6. Get a Mentor
Follow someone, find someone, learn from someone who’s already been there.
A little bit of guidance goes a long way. If you feel like you have no direction at all, a mentor can help you figure out what to do.
If you can, find some of the leaders in your field and ask them to assess your progress thus far.
7. Connect With People
Write down 3 ways you’re going to connect with customers.
This doesn’t mean how to sell them something, it means how to communicate with them. How are you going to talk/write/reach out to them? It’s good to think about your customers this way.
It gets you out of trying to think about how to sell to them. It’s about connecting with them first, then selling to them.
Focus on connection and sales will follow.
#1. Get an email subscriber list going. This is still super powerful and the best way to connect with customers.
#2. Reach out on social media accounts and message people. Ask them how their business, cooking, designing, or blog is going. It’s that simple and it’s nice to have peers and customers to talk to.
#3. While you’re talking to them, ask them what they’re interested.
Not only will you enjoy the chat, both of you will learn a lot.
8. Hammer Out Your Communication Mediums
This means figure out how you’re going to communicate. As a sports coach, I love doing videos. However, I don’t have a studio and it rains where I live 9 months out of the year.
It’s going to be a really tough medium for me to use for now. That doesn’t mean I can’t make videos but, it’s just a little tougher. So, I personally didn’t want this to be my main form of communication. I wanted writing to be the main form because I can always do that. No weather or lack of studio will stop me.
This goes for your social sites too. Where is the best social site for you going to be? What’s the best way for you to communicate? It’s ok if you want to use two but I would suggest 3 as a max.
9. Do Your Legal
All sites need proper legal disclosures, Terms of Use, Privacy Policies and Disclaimers to help protect them in this world. You want to make sure you’re getting covered and managing your risk while online. This is a very important step when developing your online business.
There may be a need to incorporate or operate as a sole proprietorship too. Licensing, certifications and insurance are also possible things you may need. Look into this before you get your business going.
10. Mind Your Business Structure
You’ve already done something huge regarding business structure: You’ve started an online business.
This gives you unlimited reach to customers across the globe.
This is huge.
Now what if you decide to do one on one consulting online?
You’re now limited to only those people you can see during the day before you get too tired to look at the screen.
Be careful to maintain a structure that allows you to see more than just one on one clients. Don’t limit your potential.
11. What Are You Already Good at Selling?
Is there something people already come to you for? For me, it was always fitness advice.
Just the other day, while I was chipping on the practice green, someone came up to me and asked “What’s your secret?”. If you have something like this in your quiver already, it may be a great item to go forward with in business.
You may not credit it as being special because it comes naturally to you but, don’t discount it. It could be a very valuable commodity to others. Think about offering it or how you can use it in a possible business.
12. Have a General Idea of How to Get Paid But Don’t Corner Yourself.
You should have a general idea of how you’ll get paid but don’t worry too much about this at the start.
If you’re going to start a blog, you can run ads, offer affiliate links, create your own products or services and so on. That being said, don’t get caught up in rigidly picking one.
For Example:
I have a favorite finance blog I visit routinely. I’ve read every article on the blog –many of them 2 or 3 times.
I would love for the owner to create a product about his investing methods.
On the other hand, I would never care in a million years if he recommended an affiliate product.
I would venture a guess that many of his other readers feel the same way.
I even emailed him to tell him this!
So had he gone the route of developing an affiliate program, it might not have been the best direction.
13. Put Some Time Into Picking Your Niche
Yes it’s a redundant tip but you’ve got to do it right. Pick too small and you won’t get any customers. Go too big and you won’t be able to penetrate the market. I’ve done websites in small niches and though I loved the topic, there just weren’t enough people to support the work I was doing.
If you can only get $200-300 dollars a month from a niche, you risk converting everyone that’s willing to buy really quickly. You can dry up the pool really quickly in small niches.
I’d say the risk of a small niche is greater than that of a bigger niche market. Try to find something that isn’t too small but isn’t too big and completely saturated (aka, the print on demand T-Shirt Market).
Bonus Tip: #1 Spend Like an Absolute Shark
Shark’s are sharp animals, they only boot it when there’s something worth attacking.
The rest of the time, they conserve their energy.
You want to do the same. Conserve both your energy and your money!
Do not spend big everywhere. Conserve your energy until it’s absolutely worth expending it.
Even then, expend it very carefully.
Lots of blogs make big money way before they look “good”.
Here’s an idea, go to www.archive.org and search your favorite blog.
The site will show you snapshots of the history of the blog. You’ll see what it looked like when it first started.
Bonus Tip: #2 Figure Who’s just in Front of You
As a coach, I always had to get athletes to stop looking at the best players in their sport. Those players were too far ahead of them.
It’s better to figure who’s doing it a bit better than you and follow them. It’s tough to see what the step a 100o feet ahead but it’s really easy to see what the ones a few ahead can look like.
If you’re looking to make a $1000 a month online, try and find a few people that are making $1500-$2500 online.
This is tougher than you might think.
We can all find the top plays in the game but who’s on their way up? That’s your competition.
Find them and learn from them.
Best of Wealth,
Tyler.
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