It’s OK to change your mind. Did you know that? It really is.
I have had these big plans for June for many months, it involves launching an amazing new course which is delivered over 8 weeks in group coaching calls. I’ve invested in a new website and professionally written sales copy for the sales page for this group, I’m BETA testing it now with 9 amazing women and I’m so excited about the DIFFERENCE this course is going to make to people’s lives.
And now I’ve decided not to launch it until the autumn. I’ve decided to ignore all my marketing plans and money that I’ve invested in it and sit on it for another 2 months or so.
Why? Because it occurred to me that I was trying to work out how I could make my life fit around this course. Because I was stressing about having the children at home with me for 4 weeks straight over the summer AT THE SAME TIME as delivering the most important weeks of this brand new course. Because I want to be able to halve my work hours for those precious 4 weeks and have fun with the kids at the same time as running my business.
I didn’t want to be the mum who said “we can’t do that because I have to get this work done” I didn’t want to be the business owner who said “sorry I’m late with this but the kids are on holiday” I want it all. I want to be able to pack up and go to the seaside at the drop of a hat with the children and deliver amazing service to my customers. And I realised I couldn’t do that if I launched this course.
My first thought when I considered putting off the launch was to think, I can’t do that. I’ve invested too much into it, it would be wrong to change my mind now. What if people who I have spoken about the course to feel upset that I’ve changed the dates? What if my awesome marketing plan doesn’t convert as well to an autumn marketing plan?
What if, what if, what if…..
What if I run my business the way I want to? What if I decide to do what works for me and truly believe this will also work for my customers? What if I decide that I can have it all and I damned well will have it all.
What if I remember every second of every day that as much as this business is here to serve you all and to help you grow your businesses and enjoy spending time online that it is actually also built to serve me. And to serve my family. And if my own business causes me to choose between fun and work or feels inconvenient then something needs to change.
So I changed my mind. My awesome big course is now going to launch in August for a September start. Its perfect timing.
And so that my master launch plan for June doesn’t go to waste I have revived a course that I wrote most of the content for a few months ago but for various reasons it was called off. This is a course that is not delivered by live calls. It is a course that you can buy and download and work through at your own speed. The content is 90% done and by the end of this week it will be complete. THAT course is going to launch in June for a July start. Its perfect.
So don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t change your mind, even you! Your business is YOUR business and you should run it in whichever way you see fit. Don’t be afraid to shake things up and don’t feel as though you have to carry on down a certain path if you feel as though you need to go in another direction.
One of the fundamental aspects of any digital marketing campaign is to position yourself as an expert in your field, whatever that field might be.
Say you are a life coach who works with men over the age of 50 who are facing retirement and not sure how to handle the transition. You will want your target audience to know you and to come to you for advice, not only on how to handle the transition from working world to retirement but also because they know you’ll be the one who is sharing other useful information. Such as - links to sites offering voluntary work that they could consider, or a review of the best pensions out there, ideas on how to manage stress when you suddenly have more time on your hands.
They wont just come to you for the product that you are selling, they will come to you because you know them. Because you offer them value. Because you GET them and you UNDERSTAND their fears and worries and they know and trust that you will be able to help them - whether that is by your free advice, your paid services or the value that you add by sharing other info that will help them.
If all you are doing is selling online then you won’t build the relationships that you need in order to be truly successful.
The fundamentals that you need to be sharing online in order to position yourself as an expert are:
1 - your own free content
2 - other peoples free content
3 - your own paid for content
The ratio that I like to work to is that for every 1 link to your own paid for content you share 3 links to your own free content and 2 links to other people’s free content.
That means that out of 6 social media posts 1 should be selling and 3 should be your own free content. Where do you get all of this free content from?
If you don’t have a blog then you are going to find it very difficult to share any kind of free content of your own and this will damage your ability to position yourself as an expert. Blogging weekly gives you great fresh new content to share across all of your social media channels. It also very quickly gives you a backlog of content that you can continue to share, even after it has been published for a few months. As long as the topic is still relevant then still continue to share it.
If you also create graphics that contain tips and hints or testimonials from your customers then this will add to your content bank. The more free stuff that you can create, the more value you will add to your customers and the more you will have to share.
If the only links back to your website that you can share are links to your static pages (home, about, work with me) then you are very quickly going to run out of content to share and you are not going to be giving your website the best chance of being seen in search engines. Frequent links to your site combined with the visitors spending time on there reading your posts is a great indicator in the successfulness of your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Be kind to your business, carve some time out once a week to create new content and look for clever ways that you can repurpose and share existing work in new ways. If you are feeling creative there are always ways that you can stretch your content out and make it go further.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I have had a big old business failure in my past, there was a time that I was really ashamed of this and decided that it was something that I didn’t want anyone to know about. But over the past 3 years (and it has been pretty much 3 years to the day that the administrators walked in on May 4th 2012) I’ve let other people tell my story for me and up until now I have never stood up and been counted, I’ve never actually stood up and said “yes I had a business failure, but that does not determine my future success”
I hosted a live Google Hangout last month where I went into detail about the 10 mistakes I made which caused my business to fail. I’ve had tonnes of positive feedback on the webinar which you can find here: The Top 10 Mistakes I Made Which Caused My 7 Figure Business To Fail
Mistake #1: Not Scalable
The business started off as a hobby which I ran in my spare time. When I took on a business partner, staff, launched more magazines and grew very quickly we didn’t do this with any proper processes in place. The way we worked when we were small wasn’t scalable to be a proper business when we were big. Now with this business I have hired an amazing project manager type person to help me ensure that all of my processes and procedures are clear and organized from the start.
Mistake #2: No Support
When my business partner left in September 2009 I was left with no support in running the business. There was never enough money to hire a financial director or any other support. I was in charge of all the staff, running the business, and everything else that goes with running a small business. From buying toilet roll to meeting with suppliers - there was nobody that I could turn to for advice or help.
Mistake #3: Too Many Products
We diversified too quickly, launched too many extra products and didn’t make sure that our existing products were properly organized before we jumped to the next new and exciting product that was bound to improve our business.
Mistake #4: No Proper Planning
Our growth was very organic and not properly planned or thought out. We made spur of the moment decisions and did not have any management reporting that would allow us to plan the next 12 months and stick to it.
Mistake #5: Hired The Wrong People
I hired my friends and family which at the time seemed like the right thing to do but in hindsight was a huge mistake. Not only because they were not necessarily suitable for the roles that they had but also because it is very difficult to pull up friends and family when they are not performing properly. And when it comes to the end and your friends and family loves their jobs that doesn’t leave you in a very good place in terms of having friends and family to support you on the loss of your business!
Mistake #6: Didn’t Value Myself
I put myself last which is a theme as I go through my life - I didn’t pay myself enough, or anything really. Officially I earned £500 a month but I think I only paid myself it every 3 or 4 months so that doesn’t really count. There was never enough money to actually pay me for my work. This made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to run a business, that I didn’t deserve to be paid for my time. Sends a very bad message.
Mistake #7: I Was Too Nice
Now some of you may find this hard to believe but its true! I put everyone else before myself (see note above about not paying myself) There were many times when I wanted to give up but I would walk into the office and look around at everyone who worked for me and think I cant stop, the are getting married soon - she is buying a house - his partner just lost her job. I felt hugely responsible for everyone else and their situations and this ended up being unfair on everyone.
Mistake #8: Head In The Sand
I ignored problems that I didn’t know how to deal with. I stuck my head in the sand and didn’t take enough action to deal with the phone calls from people chasing invoices, from the bank etc. I honestly didn’t know what to do or say and so I said nothing. This was a huge mistake, it is way better to be honest and upfront and deal with things as they happened rather than to ignore problems.
Mistake #9: Poor Communication
This is very linked to number 8. I didn’t know what to say to people so I said nothing, communication was a problem. I would go onto the forums and be attacked by questions and demands for payment, so I stopped going on there. I stopped having conversations and this made everything worse.
Mistake #10: Invoice Factoring
Handing over my sales ledger to an invoice factoring company was the final nail in my coffin. I didn’t read the small print properly, didn’t understand what I was getting myself into and they were the ones who eventually had the power to appoint administrators and close the company.
I don’t regret anything that I did, I learned so much in the 5 years or so that I spent growing the business. I have learned from the mistakes that I made and am now really excited about the future again. I would say to anyone else who has made mistakes in business or who is worried about failing to stop and remember all the good things that have happened.
Don’t dwell on the negative. Stand up and be counted, do your best and if it doesn’t work then just try again.
I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I had no intention of running my own business. I was happy with my corporate job, happy working for someone else in the city of London, earning decent money and being able to go on holiday and buy new clothes when I wanted to.
I can’t work out when this changed. I think it was somewhere around my second pregnancy that I began to think there had to be more to life than this. I was married, with a 4yo and pregnant again. My life was a never ending cycle of getting onto a packed commuter train in the morning with a laptop, 4yo and large pregnant stomach and dropping my daughter off at nursery before getting back on the train into work.
I was doing the hours that I was contracted to at work but this wasn’t quite enough to keep up with everyone else, with the corporate career people. Those who had no children, or whose wives looked after their children. Who were in earlier than me and left later than me and joined in with all of the drinks and events that I couldn’t go to because I had to (chose to) leave work on time and pick up my daughter.
I remember having a vague sense of dis-satisfaction with the world. Like, really? Was this how I was going to spend the next 30 years of my life? Not quite feeling good enough at work because I had a family and not quite feeling like a good enough mum because I loved my job and didn’t want to stay at home and go to coffee mornings for ever.
Something shifted in me around this time and I began looking for something more. Something more than my 9-5 job. Something that would make my hear sing and my days have meaning. I had no idea what this was and at this time I didn’t ever imagine it would REPLACE the 9-5, I was looking for a supplement, and suddenly I ended up with a 6 course meal. I’m still not entirely sure how it happened.
What I do know is that in the space of a few years everything had changed. I went from being a full time employee in the world of banking, married, living in London, with a child and a baby on the way to being the sole director of a company which was turning over almost £2 million pounds a year, 4 children, out in the country and a not very present husband.
God it was hard. The climb from full time corporate employee with a hobby business on the side to full time business owner was dramatic, unplanned and unexpected. A few months later on the other side, the fall when I lost the business, almost went bankrupt, lost most of my friends, faced death threats and online abuse, lost my husband, home and pretty much all of my possessions was brutal.
I think I was in shock for about 2 years after all of this happened. I survived, just about. I didn’t always have money to feed the children, I rarely had money to pay the rent. I had bailiffs knocking on my door and CCJs appearing from all over the place. Left with over £60,000 of personal debt from the business failure and with no real idea of how I was going to pay this off, let alone build myself back up again, I hid from the world and got through one day at a time.
This is my story. I want to tell you about how I built that business, why it failed and how I built myself back up again. I want to share with you my mistakes, my successes and what I learned from this. Because really, if I can do this then there is no reason why you can’t do as well. I’d love to be able to inspire you to take action and to be successful, (within your own description of success) and to caution you against making the same mistakes that I did.
This is an excerpt from a book that I’m writing about my journey over the last 10 years. About how I built and lost a 7 figure business. About how I went from single, homeless and out of work with 4 children to being connected with my life purpose and rebuilt a successful online business.
If you’re interested in being one of the first to now when my book is available you can join the mailing list here.
Online and especially in social media, you have to get your message across simply and FAST! Here’s an amazing interview with Rachel Hanfling who has produced for The Oprah Show on how to simply your message!
Linked in can be invaluable for businesses in terms of connecting with other people in your industry and finding your ideal customers. It is a professional social media platform but one that is incredibly valuable in terms of making connections and increasing engagement.
Here are a few tips on how to make the most of your Linked in Profile to ensure that you are attracting the right kind of connections and growing your profile and business
Your Profile
What do you want your profile to say about you?
Set up a Linked in company page for your business
Make sure this page includes
Your companies ideal customer / connection
The pain points your customer is going through and how YOU can fix them
Your values, goals and beliefs
Your personality
Why people should work with you rather than anyone else
Add your mobile number to your LinkedIn Account
Create an amazing attention grabbing headline
Keep your summary short and interesting to read
Your profile pictures should be professional
Keep the emotion in your writing, tell them whats in it for them.
Make sure you use the right style of language for your industry
Use strong keywords
Provide value to your readers, tell them something useful in their industry
Include a natural call to action, avoid being too salesy.
Keep your branding similar to your other social media platforms
Use a profile picture with a clear background
Link your twitter and Facebook accounts
Add in examples of your work to your profile.
Building Your Network
Only invite people to connect if you know them
Keep the people you connect with relevant to your goals
Ask people who know you well for recommendations
Offer recommendations to people who you have worked with in the past.
Make the most of the get introduced to feature to grow your network
Search for new connections with LinkedIn’s search feature
Check to see who has viewed your profile, and get in touch with them
Keep looking at the people you may know section regularly to find new connections.
Using LinkedIn Groups
Join any groups that are relevant to your industry and goals
Create a group of your own
Constantly engage in the groups and ask and answer questions
Offer value, be of service - help people.
Engagement
Keep your status updated regularly
Promote your blog posts
Include calls to action in your posts and shares
Post during work hours rather than evenings and weekends
Having just spent a morning teaching a room full of ambitious business people in the Ciy of London all about creating their own Digital Marketing strategy I thought I would share with you the best way to get started with building your business online.
Social Media for business is very different to Social Media for fun. If you’re on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram just for the the fun of it then you can be a lot more relaxed with what you post and how you share information. You can spend 1 hours sharing videos of cats or photos of what you had for breakfast without any problems whatsoever.
If you are looking to grow your business, build your brand and be successful online with a business social media account then you need to have a plan. It doesn’t have to be a hugely complicated plan, Im all about coming up with something that works for you and that is perfect for your business RIGHT NOW. That’s not to say it will still be perfect for your business in a month’s time but if it works for you now then that’s great.
The 3 things that you need to remember all the time when working on your businesses social media presence are:
Branding. Make sure that all of your social accounts are branded correctly, with the same image and look and feel as your website.
Consistency. Choose a posting schedule that works for you and stick to it. If you can only blog once a month then that’s great, don’t start off by saying that you want to post 10 times a day on twitter unless you are confident that you can maintain it.
Content. Share your own content, share content from other people. Share amazing awesome content and give good value to your followers and you will build a tribe of dedicated customers more quickly than you can imagine.
A digital marketing strategy can be really simple. Start with a blank piece of paper and write at the top of it what your goal is over the next 3-6 months in terms of you social media. Do you want to double your mailing list subscribers Increase the hits to your website? Maybe your goal is to set up and brand and use all of your social media accounts Whatever your goal is, write it down and make it SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and with a time attached to it)
Next you need to understand who your target customer is. Write down who you are trying to attract to you with your social media campaign. What size business are they? Where do they shop if they are an individual? What social media platforms do they use? What time of day are they online? You can never know too much about your ideal client, write it all down.
Which social media platforms will you use. Write them down. Linkedin, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest - which are right for your business.
Then lets look at how often you will share information on each. Write it down. Be realistic, don’t over stretch.
Now lets look at what you are going to share. You really need a strong blog in order to be able to share your own content, decide how often you can commit to blogging and write it down.
In addition to your blog make a list of all the there pages on your website and write 2/3 different ways that you can link to each page. So 2/3 for your about me page, 2/3 to your testimonials page. The more content you have the better.
You also need to be sharing other people’s content. Make a list of all the places you could go to find industry relevant news to share. The Huffington Post is a good one as are some of the main news sites. Think niche, are you part of a professional body or organisation, can you share articles form them as well?
Your digital marketing strategy is now taking shape. Print off a blank calendar and start to mark on there the days that you are going to post on each platform. Make it easy for yourself not to forget. Make it part of your routine, every morning after breakfast or at lunchtime or when you stop for the day - make it easy to remember your social media and it will become part of your routine.
The final area to consider is reporting, how often are you going to check your progress and see what needs to be changed? I recommend monthly - make a list of the key metrics you want to monitor and pop these into an excel spreadsheet. Once a month take a few minutes and just check in to see how you are doing with meeting your goals.
The main thing to remember is to be flexible, yes your goals might change and that’s OK. If something doesn’t seem to be working, do it differently - its your business and its OK to change and do things differently every day if you have to until you find what works for you.
Don’t be afraid to take action every day, small steps lead to big achievements.
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