I had a pretty productive month all things considered, and I shared 16 awesome pieces of content, mostly business related, that you should really check out. So take a look at the titles below, what did you already see, what did you miss, and what you did you absolutely love?
I create this monthly recap of content to ensure that each and every one of you within my community do not miss out on the strategy, insight and advice I have to share because you never know when a blog post or a video is going to give you that one little element that will help you make tremendous connections with your ideas. That happens to me a lot actually, so I just want to make sure you don’t miss out on any topics that would be of value to you.
Also, just a thought- if you enjoy any of this content or want to help spread the word about my content because its been helpful or valuable to you in your life or business, than I highly recommend sharing any of my posts, of course, but sharing these recaps is a great way to let your friends, family or coworkers see a sampling of my content at one time! It’s like a smorgasbord of content to choose from and sharing is caring!
I hope this roundup helps you locate any content of mine you may have missed this month. I’d love to hear which content was your favorite from the month and what you’d like to see more of from me in the future. Please leave me a comment below and share your thoughts!
Well, I hope the last month has been productive for you and your goals. I know I have certainly had a jam packed month especially with my weekly live business classes happening on Saturdays. If you haven’t been following along with them, essentially, each Saturday I have been going Live on my YouTube channel and hosting a class covering an essential business topic. I know these classes aren’t for everyone, although all certainly are welcome, but I felt like sharing regular insight on business was something I could do during this challenging time to help ensure that those of you within my community with businesses or who aspire to run their own business, stay on track.
I myself have been very focused on my business as of late, as I am personally taking this unusual period of time to also buckle down and get clear on my path. Even though I have been in business for, wow, six years this month, I still don’t have it all figured out and need time to focus and plan and go over fundamental questions for my business foundation.
Since there do seem to be many of you who are following this path with me, I thought this month it would be great for me to give you a free download that helps make this process of managing our lives and our business objectives a little easier.
My CEO Strategy Day Template!
Now, I know this template isn’t exactly new, however, I have taken the template and turned it into downloadable inserts, so if you want to use the template in your planner to map our your own CEO Strategy Day, this freebie will help.
And of course, if there is anything you need from me, any questions you have for dealing with your productivity or life during this challenging time, please let me know how I can support you and bring you the solutions or resources to make things a little easier for you!
My philosophy to online business and digital marketing success is to work on the concept of iterations. Meaning, get started now with what you have, do what you can to make the most of what you’ve got to gain experience, and then update your marketing intentionally through strategic upgrades. Your business and content marketing doesn’t have to be perfect out of the gate to get started and begin growing, and using the concept of interactions means you can take your time building your business and customer base without feeling overwhelmed by perfectionism. Once your business has started selling some products or services successfully, and has begun creating regular content on platforms, then you can take the next step of investing in and upgrading your digital marketing strategically. You don’t want to upgrade everything all at once, take your time and choose upgrades that you believe will make your life easier, and help your content marketing stand out in the platforms that you use and rely on to sell. If you are at this point and ready to make some strategic investments in your content, here are 4 ways you can get started upgrading your digital marketing
Upgrade #1: Create custom branded graphics and images This was probably the first digital marketing upgrade I made for myself and my business when I was getting started because it was a small investment in my time more so than money. I’ve discussed before the perils of using graphics and images you find online for your business or blog because if you don’t own an image or it wasn’t created for your brand specifically your risking your brand recognition (and risking a lawsuit if you use copyrighted images without permission). So, if you haven’t started creating your own custom branded graphics and images yet I recommend it. Start taking your own images that are in line with your brand imagery, and start designing graphics for social platforms that use your brands specific colors, fonts and style. It might seem convenient to use in-platform design elements to send a message to your following in Instagram, for example, but as your followers scroll through their feeds or stories, nothing about those graphics will indicate your brand to them. You can take your own images on a smart phone, the cameras on them now are phenomenal and then edit the images in photo editing apps like FaceTune and Afterlight. You can create custom graphics as well in apps like Photoshop or Canva. There are lots of easy, inexpensive ways to get started creating your own customer images and graphics, so this is an upgrade you have no excuse not to make as soon as possible and it will go a long way for your brand recognition!
Upgrade #2: Invest in professional camera equipment Once you get used to creating your own custom branded graphics and images, it’s time to up the ante on your visual marketing and invest in professional grade camera equipment. I’m talking about a DSLR camera, a decent lens, and perhaps some professional lights. Although a smartphone camera will take you a long way in this day and age, most popular brands use DSLR or other professional grade cameras to create their visual marketing like images and videos. If you want to learn more about the exact tools I use for my visual marketing, I will leave you a link to my Female Entrepreneur Online Business Toolkit Video where you can learn about and get links to all my must have and most used tools!
Upgrade #3: Design your own gif’s and photo/video illustrations or graphic elements If you use social media like Instagram to promote your business and stay in contact with your customers, you are going to want to eventually upgrade your brand visuals by designing your own custom gifs, and illustrations. This is something simple you can do to increase brand awareness when it comes to your social media presence. If you’re not exactly sure what this means, I am talking about those stickers and added affects you can use on your IG stories feature. For more information, definitely check out my IG Story Hacks Video for better instructions and more examples.
Upgrade #4: Work with a professional copywriter on key marketing text When you are marketing your business online, there is a lot of messaging you need to put out to your audience and although copywriting is a skill that you can develop over time, once you reach the point of making consistent income from your digital marketing, it may be time to get a little outside help and work with a professional copywriter. You won’t need them to write everything for you, but it’s good to get help from someone who knows how to write digital marketing copy for certain aspects of your business. Sales pages, key email sequences and campaign copy would be the places I would start with some professional help. You have no idea how big of an impact little changes to messaging can be, and a pro will be able to help you craft your message in a more persuasive and market friendly way. Of course, make sure you work with someone who has a good reputation and track record for getting results with other business owners in the same or similar niche as yours.
So those are four ways to upgrade your digital marketing as your business begins to grow and develop. Again, I want to stress that it is so important that if you have an idea for a business online, to get started now with what you have and do what you can and then work your way up. No one said you have to be a success overnight and if you’re worried about making mistakes, now is the time to make them while you are small and have far less eyes on your content! Use the concept of interactions to make improvements as you learn and as your business grows, and you will end up building a very sustainable business for yourself step by step! I do hope these ideas give you some key inspiration to get started with or get upgrading your own business. I would love to hear about any other ideas you have for upgrades to digital marketing that you think moves the needle, so leave me a comment below.
36 Business or Sidehustle Ideas You Can Start from Home Today!
Now more than ever, the concept of working for oneself and starting an online business is extremely appealing. With the advent of the “gig” economy, where the popularity of on demand services have shown just how easy it is to make money through an app on your phone, I believe we are about to see a revolution in the way people work. Over the next decade I firmly believe there will be less people commuting to work for the typical 9 to 5, and more people performing remote services at home and on their own schedules. The days of the structured path of college degree, corporate job security and retirement at 65 are ending and making way for a more flexible, work from home, entrepreneurial economy. So, if you have been thinking about starting your own business, but want to explore some ideas and options before getting started, here are 36 business or side hustle ideas you can start from home today!
Coaching If you are looking to get a business up and running quickly and you have an area of expertise that you could use to support others on a similar journey, becoming a coach might be a great option for you. Coaching is an area that has gained a lot of popularity in the last few years online, and you don’t necessarily need any sort of accreditation to get started, you just need a clear niche and a reliable process for working with clients to help them get clear on their goals and support their growth. Here are some common coaching business’ you might consider starting.
Life Coach
Health Coach
Nutrition Coach
Business Coach
Self Care Coach
Success Coach
Consulting As with coaching, consulting is another business or side hustle idea that you can begin with quickly if you have specialized knowledge in a specific field. The key difference here with consulting however, is that you need to have the knowledge and experience to get results for your clients. Where coaches are there for guidance and support, consultants need strategic knowledge and the confidence to make recommendations that will lead their clients to their desired outcomes. Here are some common consulting business’ you might consider starting.
Design Consultant
Business Consultant
Management Consultant
Financial Consultant
Style Consultant
Family Life Consultant
Writing As much as we live in a visually driven society, everywhere you look you will find the written word, and if you have strong written communication skills, you could use them to create a business. Don’t underestimate the amount of small business owners out there who desperately need help with various writing tasks in their businesses, and if you want to use your skills for your own benefit, there are plenty of ways to use your writing skills to earn an income through product or content creation. Here are a few business ideas you might consider if you are interested in writing.
Assisting As I eluded to already, there is a tremendous market online for small business support services, and just because writing might not be your strong suit doesn’t mean you don’t have other skills or qualities that would be valuable in creating your own business around assisting other businesses. Here are a few b2b (business-to-business) style ideas that are always in high demand.
Virtual Assistant
Bookkeeper
Project Manager
Marketing Coordinator
Video Editing
Content Planning
Creating Are you a natural born creator? If you love taking an artistic idea from vision to fruition you might want to consider starting a business around your craft. As with writing, creating is a skill that you can use as the basis for your own business or to provide a service to others. Here are a few creative business ideas you might want to consider starting.
Crafts
Artwork
Music
Graphic Design
Build Websites
Photography
Teaching Some people, myself included, are just natural born teachers. They can take a subject and break it down in a way that makes it manageable for others to understand and learn. And depending on the areas you have a skill in teaching, you can create any number of information based tools to help share you skills with others. Here are a few teaching based business ideas that you can use to create products or content that you can sell online.
Video Lectures
ECourse
YouTube video series
Virtual Master Class
Tutoring
Podcast
So, those are 36 business or side hustle ideas you can start from home today. I hope this list gave you some inspiration for a business you could begin for yourself utilizing your natural talents and interests. I’d love to hear which appeal to you and which you might want me to provide more information on in the future!
As I am writing this post, I have now spent over five weeks in social isolation at home due to the recent world pandemic, and I know each of you are likely in the same situation. At this point, it looks like some countries might begin loosening social distancing regulations soon, but we’re still going to be inside for a while longer and I wanted to share with you how I’ve been spending my time at home productively, to give you some ideas or inspiration for how you also could make good use of this time.
First let’s talk about my mindset during this pandemic, because I think its good to start with your head in the right place. I know there is a lot of anxiety going around, and fear for our health, safety and future economic security, but I pretty much refuse to give into that fear and lack mentality. Things aren’t perfect right now, thats true, and it feels like there is a lot of uncertainty in the world, sure, but honestly, life itself is a lot of uncertainty. Nothing has really changed about that, anyone could leave us at any moment, we could loose our financial security because of a job loss or downturn in an industry or market, really the only thing that has changed is that we are now seeing the truth. The world was never a certain place. I get that can be frightening for people. Humans have what is called a cognitive need for closure, which means we like to know what’s going on, we like to understand situations, good or bad, we don’t like to be left hanging with unknowns. Right now, the world seems like a big unknown, but I promise you, just as life is filled with uncertainty, it also has a persistent way of fighting on. When we look at history we know this is true. After world wars and pandemics in the past, we have been faced again with prosperity. Things will get better, they will go back to normal, nothing lasts forever. Because every time we overcome a hurdle, we are better for it.
So, I’m not feeding into the false idea that we should be afraid or worried- all of that is a waste of time and energy. Honestly, if we really did have significant cause for worry, worrying would be the absolute worst use of our energy in that situation. We need to keep calm cool heads. Which is why I’ve been doing a lot of meditation during this time. To keep myself calm and focused, and grounded in my knowing that this is just a temporary situation, a construction that is going to lead to new expansion.
Task #1: Meditate daily Spending just 30 minutes a day in the morning when you wake up or just before you fall asleep relaxing to a meditation track will do wonders for managing any anxiety or stress that you might be experiencing during this time. YouTube has free meditations for every situation, so I recommend using one of those to start.
Now that we have our heads in the right place, let me explain a bit about my strategy during this period of time. Strangely enough, I truly believe that this reordering of the world is an opportunity for each of us to take our focus off the outside world and outer expectations, and start focusing inward. How many times have you or I said “I wish I had more time for x?” X being some long held personal goal, project or objective that you just didn’t have time for in the busy-ness of our former lives. Well, guess what? Now, stuck at home all day, we have an opportunity to focus on those other goals. While the past five weeks haven’t been an all expenses paid vacation, the new challenge of making life work from home has also come with great new opportunities. The vast majority of us now no longer have a commute, regular social obligations, events or other distractions on our time. So, if you are home feeling a little stir crazy running out of ideas of things to do, it’s time to put your energy into that project you’ve been putting off. I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking that this is the perfect time for me to focus on my health and the back end of my business. I can’t go out to eat, I’m not distracted by dinners or brunches with friends who might derail a diet, so I should focus on sticking to my meal plan and getting in shape. With the economy taking a hit, although I am very blessed that my business hasn’t been affected, I should take this opportunity to take a step back and work on those lingering tasks and upgrades I’ve been putting off for too long. Focus less on selling and more on what I can do to create better systems that will eventually make my life easier in the future. That would really be a productive use of time right now for me, so determine what would be a productive use of time for you. How can you use this time to set a goal, map out a plan and track an objective that will make your life better once we are on the other side of this pandemic?
The final thing I’ve been doing during this pandemic to help me stay motivated and productive is having video dates with friends and family. I don’t know about you, but before the pandemic hit I remember shaking my head at all the memes that would go around poking fun at how people would make plans with friends but then either cancel or prefer to stay home. I know you have seen at least a few of these graphics yourself, and I have definitely been on both sides of that situation. Having friends cancel on me at the last minute because they don’t want to go out or personally feeling too drained to get myself up and ready for a night out. I feel like what is happening with social distancing is almost like all those memes have finally come to fruition. All our social calendars are clear, we are all spending quiet evenings at home. As much as I would say I have been taking well to the social isolation, I know that I do need social interaction to keep sane. For the first few weeks this wasn’t a priority, but after a friend invited me to my first pandemic girls night via zoom, I realized that I had been sorely missing social activities. So, I have been prioritizing them now. It really has made such a difference just to see and talk to people, and scheduling a date out ahead of time gives you something to look forward to in a time when all the days of the week start to blur together.
Task #3: Schedule a weekly video date with a friend or family member. Don’t just play this by ear, set a scheduled day and time to devote to this so you have something to look forward to and to get ready for. Put a but of effort in getting ready, especially if you haven’t had many reasons to get yourself dressed up to be on camera.
So, that is how I have been spending my time productively during the pandemic. I hope this post gave you some inspiration for things you could do while you are stuck at home to continue living your best life! I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to, so leave me a comment below, and check out my Live Events schedule and consider joining me for my next free class to hang out and learn together!
Recently, as part of my content marketing strategy, I’ve been reaching back into the archives for my platforms to identify and reuse some older pieces of content. If you are an OG follower, perhaps you noticed this, but my guess is that most of you had no clue I was doing this and have done this from time to time. So, today I wanted to explain more about this strategy to you by sharing 5 reasons why reusing content is great for your business!
Reason #1: Reusing old content saves you time and energy on content creation
I don’t know about your editorial calendar but mine is back on a pretty tight schedule. Three blog posts, a new video, and at least one email a week. That’s a lot of content to produce on a weekly basis. And of course, that’s not even bringing social media posts into consideration. Of course, not each and every piece of content is wholly unique. I have some consistent messages that I reiterate, but the truth is much of my content is created the week it goes out and that takes a lot of time, creative ideas and energy to make happen. So, when I can find and reuse an old piece of my content, it conserves some of that energy for higher priority work. This may look like reposting an old blog post, using a blog post as an outline for a video script (or visa versa) or reworking a blog post for an email and although I don’t replace 100% of my content creation with old posts, just integrating one old piece a week into my calendar is a major time saver!
Reason #2: Most of your audience isn’t seeing everything you’ve created
Believe it or not, as much as your current audience may love what you produce, the vast majority of them aren’t seeing everything you create. That means, they likely missed some older posts that you worked really hard on at the time, so serving them up some older ideas will still seem new and fresh to the majority of your following. This is especially true if you’ve been creating for years and have a backlog of old content just sitting their unloved. Yes, thanks to SEO those great posts aren’t completely covered in cobwebs, but by reposting or repurposing that content you will get extra life out of it.
Reason #3: Reposting is a great way to update content or test out different keywords
Although a majority of my content is evergreen, meaning that it is applicable to the right audience at any time of the year and doesn’t necessarily show it’s age, it is still a good idea to keep some key content up to date. This is something I like to do with old blog posts that may walkthrough older versions of my inserts. The post itself may perform well in terms of SEO but old pictures or examples can date the content, and older links can be broken or lead to no where. Reposting is a great way to keep valuable content up to date and at the same time, test out new keywords on your content as well. This is a strategy you will often see me use on post or video titles. I will change the title of a blog post during an update and post the new information, then see if the new title with slightly different keywords performs better or worse than the original title.
Reason #4: If content didn’t perform well on one platform it may do better on another
Sometimes we work hard to create valuable content but it flops. One reason that may have happened is because the content itself wasn’t right for the platform. Perhaps you created a youtube video that would have done better on Instagram, or recorded a podcast that should have been a blog post. Factors across platforms vary and some content just performs better in certain settings. So, if you took the time to create some great content, but you don’t see it getting the attention you believe it deserves, repurpose it to another platform and see if it does better somewhere else. Although most of my content and platforms are pretty consistent, I find that I have a slightly different audience on my Instagram, Blog and YouTube. It doesn’t matter how much I cross promote my platforms, different people will prefer different styles of content, and perhaps that underperforming post can be quickly repurposed and shared elsewhere to a warmer reception.
Reason #5: If content performed well, repurpose it on other platforms
Likewise, sometimes we create content that does very very well on a platform. In which case we know we hit the nail on the head with the topic and value and there is really no reason not to share it on other platforms. Don’t worry about cannibalizing SEO, overall it’s always better to share a message that resonates with your audience as much as possible. Plus, you don’t have to reuse the entire piece of content. If you have a video or blog post that does well, take the main message and share it on social or another platform. Consider summarizing longer content and then redirecting your audience to view the full content elsewhere. You just want to get as much mileage out of the successful content as possible because it is marketing gold!
So, those are five very excellent reasons why I like to reuse or repurpose old content from my archives and why I think this is a strategy you should consider as well. Of course, I’m not talking about making all your content ongoing a repost of something old, but reusing some old pieces in new ways along with new original ideas can be a great way to manage your time, energy and expectations as a content creator! I’d love to hear how this strategy works for you, so do leave me a comment below with your thoughts!
Today I want to talk to you about a very common situation that people face when they are setting and working towards their goals. The situation is this: you are busy, doing the work, executing, but you’re still not hitting your goal. You are trying, their is effort and organization, but the results aren’t coming.
I know when I talk about setting goals and working towards objectives, it can seen overly simplified sometimes. See the goal, set the precise objective, make sure it’s a SMART goal, and then do the work, but sometimes we can go through that process in earnest and it gets us no where.
So, I wanted to share with you my take on why this happens.
From experience with hundreds of productivity students, I have seen first hand that when we are taking action but not seeing the results, the primary issue is that your plans were made on expectations not actions.
What do I mean by this?
Sometimes we can set goals against outcomes that we can affect, but don’t have complete control over. We believe if we do x we can achieve y result. And while that may be true, when we set goals against our expectation of results and not against the precise actions we will take, we can find ourselves in situations where we don’t meet the result.
Let’s consider an example.
You would like to grow your following on a social platform, let’s say Instagram. So, you set the goal to hit your first 1,000 followers in 90 days. Now, realistically, that’s feasible. Someone getting started with Instagram right now could reach a following of 1,000 subscribers in a 90 day period for sure. However reasonable this expectation is, though, it’s not actually a good objective to set. The reason being, you can’t control whether 1,000 people hit follow. All you can do is post great content in order to attract those followers. So, really the proper objective to set in this situation is something like “post daily to a specific niche on IG for 90 days.” That is something you can do and you have control over, you don’t have control over whether people follow you or not.
Let’s try another example.
This time, you set the goal to sell 100 copies of your ebook this month. Again, you’re not the one controlling the outcome here. So you work and you work, write blog posts, make content, send emails, all that jazz, and at the end of the month, your sales goal comes up short. It’s a disappointment for sure, doing all that work and not hitting the target, but that’s because your target was for an outcome you didn’t control. So, next time, you choose a different target. Make a sales pitch to 100 target customers in your audience. As they say in sales, “if you want to make a million dollars, seek first to help a million people.” This is practical advice, because you can’t control how many people purchase your product but you can control how many people you reach out and pitch to. What this might look like practically would vary depending on your business. For someone it may be sending DMs to followers on IG, for another it may mean hosting some live streams where you can talk to followers on an individual level. Yet another business owner might open their schedule to free 15 minute consults. There is certainly work involved in each of these situations, but the objective is within your control and focused on the actions you will take, not the actions others will take.
Do you see the shift in approach necessary here? That we are going to change the objectives we set to be based on our own actions and not based on the expected or anticipated actions of others. We can’t control other people, but we can control ourselves. Once you make this shift you will see more and more than your work pays off. And when it doesn’t you can see where your shortcomings directly led to your results.
No more guessing or wondering what went wrong. When you set objectives against your own actions, you will know exactly what went right and what went wrong. You will either meet your own expectations or you will not, but you will see how your choices impact your results.
So, I hope you found this article enlightening, especially if you are someone who struggles to meet their objectives. I would love to hear how this advice and information helps you change your personal productivity strategies, so please do leave me a comment and share your thoughts.
There is a lot of chatter out there in terms of different advice or strategies for marketing your business. It can definitely be overwhelming deciding where to start, what your strategy is going to be and which platforms to use, but there is one single element of your marketing that you have to have in place before you even get to those questions. In fact, this one marketing element is the single factor that is going to help you choose those strategies, those platforms and nearly every single element of your brand marketing.
That number one most essential marketing element is your Ideal Customer Avatar. Also known as an ideal or target customer profile, however you want to think about it, this is a model for the precise customer you are looking to attract, sell to and serve.
Knowing your Ideal Customer Avatar is the step one for all business marketing, but if you have already started your business and still haven’t clearly defined that ideal customer yet there are many problems that doing so can solve.
Defining your ideal customer avatar will help you:
Choose the right platforms to use
Build an audience
Grow a stagnant audience
Increase engagement from your existing audience
Create content ideas
Fill your editorial calendar
Secure new leads and sales
Identify new products or services to expand your revenue
Determine your price structure for your products and services
That’s like every element of your business marketing, right?
I know it might sound too good to be true, but I’m totally serious when I say that having this one marketing element decided on, knowing who your idea customer is, can impact everything about the direction and success of your business. This is such an important aspect of all businesses that in order to fully explain this concept and help you define your customer avatar, I have built a free video workshop on the topic that I highly recommend you watch and take notes on immediately!
I can’t wait to hear how this simple marketing element transforms your business and your brand marketing for the better. Let me know how it goes and if you have further questions I can address for you on the concept!
7 Foolproof Strategies for Growing a Follow on Any Platform
There are a lot of platforms online these days and as much as I know it would be popular to teach in-depth on each one and exploit the secrets to grow a following with it, after evaluating many different platforms, I understand the real secret is that growing a following on any platform involves the exact same strategies. Yep! Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are not specific secrets for each individual platform, if you want to grow a following on Twitter, it’s the same as growing a following on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok! And the reason is clear, because people are the same no matter which platform they are using. Fundamentally speaking, the same things that draw attention, spark curiosity, and precipitate loyalty on one platform will work for them all, because they draw on human nature. So, today I’m going to share with you the seven foolproof strategies for growing your following on any platform so you can get to work growing a following on the platform of your choosing!
#1. Get clear on your branding and messaging
Whenever you start with an online platform, its important that you have your branding and messaging worked out to inform the types of content you will be sharing or creating on that platform as well as the specific audience you will be trying to attract. If you have a business or personal brand outside of this platform and this is going to be an extension of it, you will use that. If you don’t have anything else going on and this is going to be a fresh start, spend some time understanding what your goals are for the platforms, what you are trying to accomplish, why you want to accomplish it and how you plan to accomplish it. In terms of messaging, keep it simple. Have a clear, easy to understand purpose that you demonstrate through your content.
#2. Learn how to properly use the platform
You can’t expect to grow a following on a platform if you are using it wrong. That is to say, you are using it in a way that’s a departure from what people usually expect of that platform. Do your research, find out how the platform is used and then check out some of your favorite personalities or brands on the platform. Often times big brands or notable personalities are at the forefront of innovation for a platform, so check out what other big timers are doing and learn from their example what works and what doesn’t.
#3. Determine your perfect balance of content curation vs content creation
When it comes to most platforms, the content you share will either be your original work or content you have shared from others, which is commonly known as curated content. On most platforms, users will balance content curation and content creation, but their is no magic formula for a perfect balance. Some users have accounts that are all original, some have all curated and many mix both. Find what you are comfortable with and try to stick to it!
#4. Get on a consistent posting schedule
Speaking of sticking to what you are comfortable with, the same goes for your posting schedule. Unfortunately, there are no foolproof rules for when to post content to a specific platform for significant success. Yes, you can look up popular posting times and stick to those, but it doesn’t seem to make a significant difference for most people. What does make a difference however, is defining your posting schedule, the precise days and times you will be posting, and sticking to that consistently. Consistency breeds loyalty on all platforms, and the more loyal followers you have, the faster you will grow!
#5. Cater to a community on the platform
Although it’s great to be a niche brand, even the most unique are still a subset of some larger community online. Make sure you know what community your brand belongs to, and keep up with that community in terms of the trends in how they use the platform and by following or engaging with people in that community regularly. No need to become a copy or start obsessively following the trends, but understanding where your greater community is headed is a great way to stay on the same page with them, and if you can find a way to work the trends into your content in a way that’s natural to you- the more success you will have!
#6. Interact with others on the platform
On any platform, interaction will garner you respect a favor among your followers. Just like consistency, interaction, by replying to comments and also engaging independently with others in your community, will help to build loyalty. The best way to do this is to have a genuine interest in the platform you are using and to go to it, not just to post content but to also consume the content of others. When you really enjoy a platform and use it regularly, it shows, and your following will grow the more you go out and engage!
#7. Make sure your content is valuable
When it comes down to it, people will follow you on a platform if your content is valuable to them. Meaning that it gives them something they want, like information, inspiration, or entertainment. All valuable content online can be boiled down to one of those three buckets (information, inspiration or entertainment) and as long as you are sharing content that either gives people information they are looking for, makes them feel good or keeps them entertained, your following will grow!
Oh course, when it comes to growing a following on any platform, you are going to need a foolproof planning tool that gives you the ability to brainstorm, outline and map out your content and marketing plans across all your platforms. That’s precisely why I designed the CEO Strategy Planner with a set of defined content planning inserts to streamline this process for you!
How to Find Focus as a Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur
Today I want to talk to you about finding focus as a multi-passionate entrepreneur because this is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. I do consider myself to be a multi-passionate entrepreneur. I’m someone who enjoys a wide variety of different creative endeavors and strives to fold them all together into my business. Practical skills I enjoy such as writing and blogging, photography or videography and designing. Plus multiple interests I pursue regularly, productivity and planning topics, success and entrepreneurship, but also metaphysics and spirituality. There are so many different things I’m passionate about and I’ve been lucky enough to figure out a way to pull those all together into one business. Now this is also a really important topic to me because within my Empire Building Online Business Program, I work with a lot of business owners who consider themselves to be multi-passionate entrepreneurs as well. They’re either in a stage of business where they’re trying to start their business or they’ve already begun their business and they’re trying to figure out the next step, but because they’re multi-passionate and they have all these great ideas and creative visions, they have a hard time focusing on what they need to work on next. So, this is something that I deal with personally on a day-to-day basis. Not just by myself but with my clients as well. So, today I want to share a strategy that I use and recommend for anyone looking to find focus and who considers themselves to be a creative multi-passionate individual!
The first thing I want you to do if you are someone who has a lot of different ideas and you’re trying to determine what to work on first is to go ahead and write down all those ideas. Do you a brain dump if you will of everything that interests you, ever clever business idea and concept. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Once you’ve written them all down I want you to go one step further and I want you to write down all the tasks and actions you currently have that pertain to that idea or to that product/project you want to create. Whatever this new endeavor is, I want you to write everything out that you already have thought about. All the plans don’t have to be solidified, they don’t have to be things you know you want to do, just ideas you’ve had that pertain to this concept. I want you to get it all out of your head and onto paper so we can sort through it.
Now, while you are writing out this list of ideas and putting together supporting ideas that will go with it, I want you to make sure you pay attention to two things. I want you to be able to identify why it is that you are interested in this project or in this concept specifically, and I want you to identify what your goals are for this project. What is it going to bring to your business? What is it going to do for you? Is this a new revenue opportunity? Is this a new promotional opportunity? How does this fit into your business? You need to be able to identify those two things- why is it something that is interesting to you and how does it fit in your business! These are very important questions that you’re going to want to answer because I cannot tell you the amount of times I have had an idea, rushed into working on it, didn’t ask myself the big-picture questions ahead of time, and by the time all the work was done I looked at the project I was working on and said to myself “I don’t actually think that this belongs in my business, I don’t really see where this fits.” It was just something that was exciting and I wanted to act on immediately, but I really didn’t think it through. I didn’t think about it’s place in my business, in terms of development and timing, and why it was important to me. So, you want to make sure you have those two points clearly outlined for each of the projects that are currently vying for your attention.
The next thing I want you to do is take each one of those projects and rank them based on some very specific criteria. Number one, I want you to rank them based on which idea is the most fully formed. So what idea actually seems like you’ve been able to work through a lot of it already- which of these ideas do you think is the most fully formed and seems like a viable option? Number two, I want you to rank each idea based on which will be the easiest to execute on. Which idea has a quick turnaround time or you know needs the least amount of work? What idea can you get up and running quickly? I want you to go and think about that and rank your ideas based on this criteria as well. Now, the third and final criterial I want you to rank each idea for is how profitable or how easy it would be for you to generate income from this idea. Is this idea a new revenue source or just something promotional? The easier it is to make money from your idea, the higher up the rank it should be!
Once you have your ideas ranked by these three criteria, I want you to start identifying which ones seem to be the best ideas based on how you’ve ranked them. You’ll probably have some on your list that float to the top as good ideas, and then you will have some that fall to the bottom as less practical. Once you have eliminated the less practical ideas, and hopefully your list is down to a few solid contenders, do a gut check and determine which idea feels right for you to work on. Remember, you could theoretically have a page full of great ideas, but the point of this exercise isn’t to deter you from good ideas, rather, the point is to help you choose where to focus your time and energy next. You can always come back to this list and work on the next project once your first idea is complete, but the point is to find a single idea to focus on and complete because we can only do one thing at a time!
If creating a focused and cohesive plan for your business is a topic that is a high priority to you, I want to let you know about a tool I have developed precisely for that purpose. The CEO Strategy Planner. It is my ultimate business planning tool, a set of 60+ undated, print on demand designs that will guide you through the often overwhelming process of business planning. If you need help getting all your creative ideas out of your head, and onto paper so you can get down to business, the CEO Strategy Planner is the tool you need!
