Tag: Business Building

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What Do You Need to Change to Succeed?

One thing is evident when you do the work to research your niche, your industry, and your audience so that you can build your life-affirming business: there are things that you need to change. That’s even more true when you get real about who you are, what skills you have or lack, and are honest about your deficiencies. There is always going to be something that you need to change so that you can succeed.

 

As you work through developing your life-affirming business plan, an exercise that will help you move forward is to note where you are right now and where you want to go. Don’t just draw a line from point A to point B, though. Instead, you need to take the time to write down the steps involved in getting to point B.

 

For example, let’s say you’re a married mom of three children under nine years old. You have a 2-year-old, a five-year-old, and an 8-year-old. Your husband works away from home 60 hours a week, including travel time. You work outside the home 50 hours a week, including travel time.

 

You usually are home on weekends, but your spouse works odd hours sometimes on weekends, nights and is not reliable to help out with the kids or anything else around the house very often. You are trying to build a reselling business on Amazon FBA, Poshmark.com, eBay.com, and other platforms. Your first goal is to replace your $38,000 yearly income so that you can stop going to that job.

 

There is nothing wrong with the above scenario. If you look at it realistically, you can see clearly that you will need to create a plan uniquely designed for you, the time you have available, your budget, your goals, and other considerations to find time to build your business the way you want it to be.

 

You note that you have every intention to work for two hours a night taking pictures and making listings after you get the kids to bed by 8:30 PM weeknights and 10 PM on weekends. You also want to work four hours a day on Saturday and Sunday, shopping for and sourcing new products. But you find yourself not doing any of it. You get home, do your household chores, spend time with the kids, put them to bed, and veg on the couch until you pass out, or you find things to do that aren’t your business like laundry, dishes, mopping, and so forth.

 

Meanwhile, your business goes nowhere. What do you need to change?

 

In this case, you need to change your mindset. There is no reason you have to cook home-cooked meals or clean the house yourself. Enlist the children’s help and assign chores to your husband when he’s home. If you can, consider hiring someone to come in and help.

 

Try getting up two hours earlier and doing the listings and pictures before you’re tired from the day. That way, you get it done while you’re alert before you’ve given all you have at work. Change to only sourcing once a week on Saturday morning for as long as it takes you to spend your budget up to 5 hours, then on Sunday spend four hours organizing for pictures and listing during the week.

 

Even if you don’t get it all done during the time constraints you’ve set, you will get it done over time. Remember, there are no rules about how much you need to do each day other than meeting your goals. If it’s too hard to meet, reset your goals to be more realistic.

 

As you see, the main point of all this is to figure out where you are, where you want to be, and then working with what you have and your personality to design a path to get you to your destination. In this case, it’s going to start with listing goals, and then once you meet those, you can focus on your income goals.

How To Build A Wildly Profitable Income Stream From Home Without Lies, Hype, Manipulation or Pressure…

 

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Setting Boundaries: It’s Not Selfish to Go After What You Want

As you work on designing your life and business to match your version of a fulfilling and happy life, it’s imperative to realize that it’s not selfish to go after what you want. While it’s not selfish to make yourself happy as long as making yourself happy doesn’t include criminal or unethical activity, there are times when being so-called—selfish is good for you and good for business.

 

Stick to Your Budget

 

When most people think of sticking to a budget, they think of only money. While yes, you need to create and stick to your well-thought-out budget so that you keep your bank account healthy and can go after other things you want, remember that you have other non-money resources like your health, time, and so forth.

 

Follow Your Schedule

 

When you set up a schedule with real planning and thought about fitting in the things you want to do in life, it’s important to mostly follow your schedule. If you are having a hard time sticking to the schedule, maybe you’re not putting your plans first, or maybe you need a new schedule that is more realistic. When you develop a schedule that includes everything, including lunch with your four-year-old, data entry, exercise, and so forth, you’ll have a much more balanced life.

Scheduling

Say No (or Yes) with True Thought and Consideration

 

Don’t say yes or no to any request without thinking about it first. You need first to ask yourself if you even want to do it, figure out why you want to do it, what the benefits are, and then check to see if you even have time to do it. If you don’t want to do it, you can say no without guilt.

 

If you do want to and can’t, due to time or other constraints, state so and do not feel bad. If you can do it and want to do it, then you’re in the clear. But it’s imperative that you really think about it and study each question well.

 

Take Care of You First

 

This is probably the hardest for females. Women tend to put everyone else first but feel bad when they put themselves first. When it comes to your needs, always put needs before wants. Your needs come before your wants. Your needs come before someone else’s wants. This is how it should be. If you aren’t happy, healthy, and living the life you really want to live, what’s the point?

 

Prioritize Tasks, Especially Money-Making Tasks

 

As you create your schedules for your business activities, remember to prioritize any money-making tasks. The main reason is that without money you can’t do all the things you want to do that make your life worth living.

Why Every Business Needs a Business Plan

However, this doesn’t mean that you work 20 hours a day on money-making tasks. Instead, you’ll simply spend some of your time each day hard at work making money. When you designed your life, you discovered how much time you have left to make money. Use that time wisely. There is no point in spending time, for example, chatting with people on social media before you send offers to your customers.

How To Build A Wildly Profitable Income Stream From Home Without Lies, Hype, Manipulation or Pressure…

 

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What You Really Want to Know to Get Started Fast

Once you learn about yourself, figure out what you really want from your life, choose the type of business you’re going to build, and decide how you’ll run the business, you’re going to want to get started fast. Get to know who you are so that you can start a business that thrives.

 

Realize Who You Are Really

 

While you may change as you learn more about the world, you’re mostly who you are. You like to get up early, or you like to sleep late, or you’re naturally organized, or you need to practice – it’s all fine as long as you are honest with yourself about it. Nothing you know about yourself is wrong. Knowing yourself will enable you to ensure that you set up your life for success.

Components of a Business Plan

If you know that you need an extra hour each morning to fully wake up and be ready for company, then you can make sure you do just that. If you know you get nervous speaking in public, you can work on it and practice.

 

Don’t deny who you are or think you’re wrong for being who you are. Instead, work around your challenges to reach the success you desire by knowing who you are and being honest with yourself about it.

 

Understand What You Really Ultimately Want and Need from Life to Be Happy

 

Part of knowing yourself is knowing what you want out of life, not what society or your folks told you that you wanted or even needed. As long as you’re a kind person who doesn’t use others or oppress others, there is nothing about you that is wrong or bad. If you want a traditional marriage and kids, that’s great. If you want a nontraditional life, that’s great too. It’s up to you.

 

Remember to focus on tangible things you want and need like healthy food, shelter, medical care, recreation, and so forth. Be very specific about what makes a good life for you so that you can ensure it happens.

 

Know the Fundamentals of Starting a Business

 

Don’t assume you understand the laws and rules about starting a business. Educate yourself about your particular industry and niche so that you understand the way things are done. There is no need to create a new way to do things for most businesses, as someone else has already designed the best way to succeed. All you need to do is figure out how to emulate them.

 

Know What Your Best Average Day Will Look Like

 

Take some time to imagine what a given day might look like if you lived the life you wanted to live. What does it look like? What time do you usually get up in the morning, and what do you do? What do you do for work? What are you doing when you’re done with work? Describe an average day, week, month, and year so that you can work toward that ideal realistically.

 

Know What Resources You Have and Need

 

As you design your life, make a list of the resources you have and how you’re going to use them, and the resources you need. Brainstorm ways to obtain the resources you need. You’re either going to have to pay for them, create them, or otherwise work around these needs you don’t have yet in order to succeed. If you know what you have and know how to use it and know what you need and how to find it, you’ll be prepared.

 

Your Business Plan

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Don’t skip the process of writing a business plan. The business plan will help define your business as well as the day to day activities you do that make up your business. The business plan will also help organize all the marketing, advertising, and other information you need to attract your ideal customer to your offerings. It’s a necessity. Some studies indicate that creating a business plan increases the likelihood of business success.

 

The Legalities

 

One thing you’ll discover as you create your business plan is the legal parts of your business that you must get right before you get started. You may need a business license, or there may be other legal requirements that you must follow. You may need to set up sales tax payments and regular quarterly tax payments to keep your income tax up to date. You won’t know what you need until you go through the process. You need to go through that process. Don’t assume.

 

The Action

 

You need a fabulous and effective schedule of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly tasks that you will implement to ensure that you reach each goal that you set. Without acting, nothing will happen. You can talk about having a business, and you can work on your business all you want, but until you make sales, you don’t have a business. You have an idea.

 

When you know what type of business you want to start and what type of life you want to live, it’s just a matter of doing it. Live your life and build your business joyfully, knowing that you are the one in control of your destiny.

 

How To Build A Wildly Profitable Income Stream From Home Without Lies, Hype, Manipulation or Pressure…

 

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Components of a Business Plan

A business plan is an important document that was traditionally designed so the business owner could apply for and receive financial help through loans, venture capital, and other investments.

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However, the other reason for the business plan is that it will help you determine before you invest too much time and effort if your business idea is viable or not. Plus, it can be the beginning of a roadmap with daily operation tasks and activities that lead to building and growing a successful life-affirming business.

 

Executive Summary

 

This section includes the name, location, and the overall mission of your business that you want to start. You’ll want to include a full description of the product or service, how it’s situated within the market, and why yours is different. To write an excellent executive summary, you need all the information described in the other components below first. It should encapsulate everything you prove in the sections below.

 

Business Description

 

In just a few paragraphs, write an overview of your business operations and what you do. What you do, who you do it for, and why you’re different. You’ll need to research your industry and the competition, describe how the industry is right now in the current climate, and provide basic information about your business such as your name, the location, the type of structure you set up, and so forth. It should be clear to whoever needs it what you do. A good way to approach this is to describe the problem you solve for your ideal customer.

 

Market Analysis and Strategy

 

This is the section you will include your overall analysis about your industry, where you fit in, the target market, your competition, and how you will enter the market with your product or service based on what you know. Be very specific. Include the size of your audience, trending information, and info about your target customer. This is the info that you can create a customer avatar with.

 

Marketing and Sales Plan

 

This section may be one of the most important because it will define how you will do business. It will define your method for gaining customers and the like. You’ll want to discuss your product, the price of your product, the place you’ll sell it, how you’ll promote it, to whom, and mention what profit you want to achieve and how you will reach your target profit potential.

 

Competitive Analysis

 

To create this section, you’ll need to find out who your competition is, who exactly their target audience is, how they do their targeting and pricing, and marketing. You should understand how they differentiate themselves from the market so that you can find another entry point.

 

Management and Organization Description

 

In this section, you’ll want to describe and summarize your business structure, who is on your team, whether they’re employees or contractors, and so forth. This section is not actually needed unless you plan to talk to venture capitalists or seek grants. However, it is helpful for you personally to describe how your organization will work and who will do what, when, why, and how.

 

Products and Services Description

 

This area is very straight forward. Simply list and describe every product and service you will be selling. This is how you will earn money. Use all your descriptive words to describe your products and services fully. You’ll want to include cost, features (and always the benefit of that feature to your ideal customer), how you’ll distribute the product or service, and information about the target market and competition too.

Develop a Realistic Business Plan

 

Operating Plan

 

In this section, you need to be very detailed about how you’re going to run your business. What day to day tasks will be completed, and by whom, in order to be successful in this business? How much time will it take? What equipment will you use? What will change if times get hard or something happens, such as a natural disaster? Your operating plans consider possibilities so that you hopefully have a plan already in place when you need it.

 

Financial Projection and Needs

 

Not only do you need to know exactly what each part of your business costs you in terms of investment but also what it is going to earn you. This is an integral part of the plan because it will help you understand what it takes to achieve the goal you want: work-life balance and enough funds to accomplish the life you want to live.

 

Exhibits and Appendices

 

In this area, you’ll include all the documentation that goes with the summaries that you created for each section. This is the area you want to back up anything you said above with proof. Include copies of your ads, copies of your headlines, tagline, logo, and anything you use for marketing that helps support your words above.

 

It really does depend on the type of business you plan to start, whether you need to write a full business plan with the components mentioned above. If you are starting a home business, you may not need some of the financial projections that enable you to get a loan or venture capital, for example, but in general, you need at least to know what your goals are and how you’re going to reach them. When you put it in writing, it will provide a roadmap that will enable you to achieve the success you seek.

How To Build A Wildly Profitable Income Stream From Home Without Lies, Hype, Manipulation or Pressure…

 

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Questions to Ask Yourself to Figure Out What You Want

Let’s step back and think about your life and what you really want out of it as you design your business to work with your life. Most people don’t think about designing their life or their business to work best with the life they want to live.

 

Instead, they generally get training and get an entry-level job or start a business thinking it’s normal to work all the time and still not have anything extra to have fun with or invest in the future with.

 

The truly empowering and exciting fact is life doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to settle. You can change your life from right now moving forward if you simply understand what you want and figure out how to get what you want from your true starting point using goal setting techniques that require you to act.

 

  • Why Do You Exist? – This may seem like an essential question but answer it in terms of what you want to do supposedly for the rest of your life. Perhaps you exist to experience hiking every US hiking trail known? How does that tie into your business needs? Well, it means you need a business that allows you the time and resources to go hiking a lot.

 

  • What Do You Most Want to Achieve in the World? – Do you want to end hunger, stop pet abuse, or something else? It doesn’t have to tie directly into the business you start but sometimes how you earn money can be impacted by what you most want to achieve. It’s okay to make money from your achievements.

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  • What Do You Want to Be Remembered For? – Try writing your obituary to get your mind around how you want to be remembered. Sometimes it can help to design your obit for more than one audience to highlight different aspects of your personality in your heart and mind.

 

  • What Excites You? – What was the last thing you did in your life that made you forget time and just forget all your worries? Was it that time you wrote a short story in high school? What about that time you learned to build a database? Whatever it is, write it down.

 

  • What Do You Love Most? – Is there something out there already that you really love doing? Do you like gaming? Do you like watching movies? Reading books? Spending time with the elderly? Helping the less fortunate? Mountain biking? List all the things you really love doing.

 

  • Who Do You Want to Be Like? – Is there someone else that you really think has done all the things you wish you could have done? If someone has already achieved what you want, it helps follow them and learn about them.

 

  • What Do You Dislike? – Sometimes, if you cannot think of what you like, it’s easier to think about what you do not like. Make a list of things you know for a fact you dislike doing or thinking about. Dislike politics? Dislike running? Dislike filing? Dislike talking on the phone? Whatever it is, write it down.

 

  • What Do You Know You Do Not Want? – Like writing what you don’t like helps, so will writing what you know you do not want. For example, “I do not want to work more than 20 hours per week earning money.”

 

  • What’s Your Tag Line? – Create a tagline for your business but also create one for your life. This tag line can be posted prominently so that you can remember what you stand for and let that guide your choices.

 

  • How Much Time Do You Have? – When you decide on any new goal in life, it’s important to consider how much time you really have to achieve it. If you’re 50 today, that means you have less time than if you’re 20.

 

  • How Much Free Time Do You Need? – As you’re choosing a business to help fund your ideal life, think about how much free time you really want and need to be happy. Do you like being able to rest on the weekends, reading, watching movies, or do you like having a busier life?

 

  • Who Do You Wish to Spend Your Time With? – Think about the average day that you’re not working. Who do you like being around? Think about working. If you had to work with others, what type of people do you want to be around? Describe the attitude, morals, values, and principles of the people you want to spend time with.

 

  • What Do You Like Doing for Fun? – Make a list of activities you like doing for fun and recreation. These activities take time, money, and skill. It’s important for you to have the resources to do them.

 

  • What Do You Like Spending Money on Without Guilt? – When you spend money, what makes you not think about it? If you spend money on something and you dislike it, consider whether you need to or not. If you don’t mind, consider what type of budget you need for it.

 

  • What Does Your Ideal Life Look Like in Five Years? – If you started right now with what you have and what you know, what will your life look like in five years, ideally? Describe it using as many descriptive words as you can.

 

  • Which Famous Quote Defines Your Moral Perspective? – You can have more than one quote that resonates and describes your moral perspective. Collect a few so that you can look at them when you need a reminder.

 

Answering these questions is just the start. The answers give you insight into the goals you will set for your business and your life. These goals can work together simultaneously to help you build a business that really does work with your life.

 

How To Build A Wildly Profitable Income Stream From Home Without Lies, Hype, Manipulation or Pressure…

 

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The Areas of Life You Need to Design for Success

Let’s start strong and talk about the areas of life you need to design to ensure your success. Often people never think about how each decision affects how their life will actually look and be in practice. If you want a particular lifestyle, you must think about how each choice impacts your desires.

the purpose

There are eight areas of life that you need to design purposefully for success:

 

  • Career and Business – What you do for money will have a massive impact on your life. It will inform every single choice you make. It will make the difference on whether you can afford the lifestyle you desire or not, and even whether you can maintain your health or not realistically.

 

  • Health and Fitness – Your health and fitness level are important because if you’re unhealthy and not fit in the right way for the life you want to experience, it’ll be hard to do. For example, if you want to spend the weekends camping and boating, you’ll want to maintain a healthy weight so you can keep doing it.

13 WAYS WALKING CAN BENEFIT YOU

  • Relationships and Social Life – What kind of social life do you envision, and can you afford to have that life? What about your significant relationships, such as your life partner, spouse, or your relationship with your children? These are all impacted by the rest of your life choices due to how it affects your health, finances, and so forth.

 

  • Finances – Did you choose the right career or business to fund the type of lifestyle you desire? What about time? Do you have enough time left after earning money to do the things that are important to you?

 

  • Personal and Spiritual Development – Do you have time to work on your personal life and spiritual and emotional development? Everyone needs time for self-care, including learning about themselves and taking care of themselves through eating right, exercise, going to the doctor regularly, and even doing things that are considered optional, like getting facials or massages.

 

  • Hobbies and Fun – What type of things do you want to do for fun, and what hobbies, if any, would you like to participate in? Does your business or career allow you to accomplish having fun and doing your hobbies too?

 

  • Home and Environment – What type of home do you want to live in? Do you want to live in the city in a condo, a house, or do you want to live in the country? Do you prefer to rent, or do you want to buy? What type of environment do you want?

 

  • Community Involvement – Where do you see yourself in terms of your community? Do you want to be involved in your church, or do you want to feed the poor or take care of stray animals in your area? What do you want to have the time and funds to do in your community?

 

Go through each of these areas and write a summary about how you envision your life in each of these areas. Then be very specific about what it will cost you in terms of time and resources to achieve the ideal life you’re designing for yourself. Do not make assumptions. Look up how much something costs, ask people who have done it how long it takes, and get real information so that you’re not just guessing. The idea is to design a life that you really want to live, but that is realistic for you to achieve.

 

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Outsourcing: The Key to Success for The Life Affirming Entrepreneur

When you set out to build your business, one thing was clear. You wanted a business that provided the income you needed while not overtaking your life. You want time to live all aspects of your life to the fullest, and you don’t want to work all the time and miss out on the joy of life. You want business success, and your success includes living a full and rich life in all ways and all aspects. In other words, you want to build a successful business while still enjoying life. The key to being able to do that is outsourcing.

Create a community of entrpreneurs

There are many reasons to outsource, but the two most important that come to mind are the ability to free up your time so you can focus on your goals and business planning and also to add key resources and skills to your offers. Well planned outsourcing can improve your efficiency, cut costs, speed up product creation, and give you time to focus on the important planning and directing that a business owner does aside from doing the actual tasks in the business.

 

Outsourcing helps your business:

 

  • Scale Up Faster – When you use strategic outsourcing, you can scale up when needed, but you can also shrink when needed without affecting your business. Outsourcing means you use a contractor that is not an employee, so you only use them when you need them, which is after you get the work.

 

  • Boost Resources – If you need a resource that you don’t have yourself, you can use other people to gain it. For example, if you realize you need to redo the coding on your website outside the basics, you can hire someone to do it and keep them on speed dial whenever you need them—no need to learn to code when you can outsource.

 

  • Free Up Your Time – As a business owner, you have a lot to do, and you need to save your talent for doing things only you can do. If someone else can do it without sacrificing quality or anyone noticing it’s not you, then you should seek to let someone else do it, so you free up your time to do what you do best or to spend time with friends, family, or doing fun things.

 

  • Improves Your Offers – The truth is someone else can probably do some things better than you. Because of that, if you outsource to the right people for the right things, you can improve your offers, thus improving your customer satisfaction exponentially.

 

To Outsource Successfully:

 

  • Define the Scope and Schedule Clearly – Before you even search for the person, define what you want them to do. It’s better to work with someone who is already an expert, so you just hand it over, but you don’t want to outsource an entire project to one person. Instead, define it and choose each step along the way.

 

  • Evaluate Contractors Carefully – Look at references, examples, and always make sure they are who they say they are. Even if you are recommended a particular person by someone else, check them out thoroughly to avoid problems.

 

  • Choose Based on Skill and Expertise Over Price – Don’t always hire people based on the least expensive price. Sometimes a lower price is indicative of inexperience, and it may take them longer. Sometimes a higher price ends up being a lower price due to time and expertise.

 

  • Start Small – Don’t outsource an entire massive important project to a new contractor at first. Instead, choose a small thing to work on to find out how well they meet deadlines and stand by their work.

 

Outsourcing is the biggest key to your freedom. Remember that anything you need to be done can be done by someone else. You really can hire experts remotely for a lot less than you think and increase the capabilities of your business fast.

 

 How To Build A Wildly Profitable Income Stream From Home Without Lies, Hype, Manipulation or Pressure…

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What Resources Do I Need to Live the Good Life?

As you plan your future business and get ready to create your business plan, you need to understand what resources you need to live the good life you want. You don’t want your business to interfere with it. In fact, you want your business to provide the good life you want. It’s not an either-or choice if you think about all this in advance.

believe

What is a resource? A resource can be either internal or external. For example, you have internal resources such as your own knowledge, skills, qualities, habits, techniques, your own funds, and things you’ve learned over time. External sources may include your access to people in the know, books, software, funds, and so forth.

 

When you look at your vision board and the goals you’ve set for each of the eight areas of life, what resources do you really need? Some resources you come across will be required, and some will be desired but not out and out required.

 

Let’s remember the eight areas of life and show an example of the possible resources you need for each area. I included some ideas for you to get you started. This is not comprehensive because it’s hard to know what any one person may have or need as this is very individual, so try to answer this for yourself using the example.

 

Career and Business

 

Resources I have:

  • Coaching Certification
  • Time Management Skills
  • Networking Skills
  • Writing Skills
  • Computer
  • Coaching Software
  • Online Communities
  • Mastermind Group
  • $5000 Start-Up Funding

 

Resources I need:

  • Programming Skills
  • Email Marketing Software
  • A Website
  • An Office Space
  • Clients

 

Health and Fitness

 

Resources I have:

  • A Good Mindset
  • Gym Membership
  • Good Shoes
  • My Best Friend (Motivation)
  • $400 Monthly Budget

 

Resources I need:

  • Medical Insurance
  • Regular Dental Care
  • Healthy Grocery Budget
  • Full House Water Filter

 

Relationships and Social Life

 

Resources I have:

  • A supportive spouse
  • Three great kids
  • Backyard Pool
  • A Healthy Outlook
  • Good Communication Skills

 

Resources I need:

  • Bigger Dining Room Table
  • A Vacation Home
  • Time

 

Finances

 

Resources I have:

  • $5000 Startup Cash
  • A Business Idea
  • A Personal Budget

 

Resources I need:

  • Bookkeeping Software
  • A CPA
  • A Business Plan
  • A Retirement Plan

 

Personal and Spiritual Development

 

Resources I have:

  • My church
  • My book club group
  • My community
  • My health

 

Resources I need:

  • Books
  • Counselor
  • Like-Minded People

 

Hobbies and Fun

 

Add what you have and what you need to ensure you can do your hobbies and have fun.

 

Home and Environment

 

What do you have already that makes your home environment the way you want it, and what do you need to improve it based on your lifestyle goals?

 

Community Involvement

 

The same thing goes here, list all the resources you have and that you need to achieve the results you desire.

 

Some of the resources you need you may not have yet, or you may not even be sure what they are yet, but as you move along, you’ll discover what is needed, and you can add those to the list of resources you need. Make sure you create your resource list based on what you have available first and then what you need to acquire for each of the areas of life you want to design and improve.

 

Understanding exactly what you need for success in each of the eight areas of life will help you ensure that you are working toward your goal in a way that makes it possible to succeed. If you don’t have the resource yet, you can use the information you’re gathering to set up a plan to get those resources.

How To Build A Wildly Profitable Income Stream From Home Without Lies, Hype, Manipulation or Pressure…

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18 Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

As you get started building your email list, it’s imperative that you work to avoid the problems others have with email marketing. Email marketing is not dead. Email marketing is still “where the money is,” and there is no doubt about that. The stats are clear. Email marketing will, when done right, produce a high return on investment of 38 to 40 times what you spend.

  1. Not Spending Time Writing Better Subject Lines – Each time you create an email, make it a practice to write at least ten potential subject lines. The practice of doing that will help you create more effective subject lines improving opens and conversions.

 

  1. Avoiding Two-Way Communication from Subscribers – The days of anonymity online is over. If you’re not open about who you are and allow two-way communication in the email, your audience will not trust you.

 

  1. Focusing on Promotion Over Education – Email marketing doesn’t have to be the hard sell. Instead, it should be a gentle way of educating, informing, and engaging with your audience. When you do that, they trust you and will follow your lead.

Nothing Is Done Until You Track Your Metrics

  1. Not Creating Lead Magnets for Each Stage of The Buyer’s Journey – A generic lead magnet or freebie is not going to cut it. You need to create lead magnets that speak to your ideal customer where they are on their personal journey.

 

  1. Not Sending Useful Emails Often – Once you get someone to sign up for your list, don’t ignore them. Welcome them, educate them, inform them, and pique their curiosity about your offers with the information you offer.

 

  1. Forgetting to Include a CTA That Makes Sense – Even emails that aren’t focused on making a sale should include a CTA such as “share,” “respond,” or go read that blog post or something to direct the reader what to do next.

 

  1. Not Understanding How All Your Content Marketing Works Together – Email marketing is part of your overall content marketing strategy. The content you create in email, your blog, and elsewhere can all be repurposed and used.

 

  1. Trying to Reinvent the Wheel – There are many experts out there who have already figured out the tricks to get the most out of email marketing. Don’t think you have to do it your own way. Instead, do it the professional way by studying what industry experts do.

 

  1. Avoiding the Numbers and What They Teach You – The data you collect with analytics is imperative to the success of your business. Use that data that you can collect to get things right.

 

  1. Not Building an Email List – Some people think you don’t need email today, but you do. Email marketing is an essential component of all businesses today.

 

  1. Not Setting Then Meeting Subscriber Expectations Early – From the day someone signs up for your list, you should welcome them and let them know what to expect. When you then follow up with what you said you’d do, they start to trust you more.

 

  1. Creating Unprofessional Sloppy Messages – While you don’t have to be an English professor to craft persuasive messages, do check your spelling and your grammar to ensure that your audience understands. Ensure it also looks appealing the way you have it laid out so that it’s easier to consume.

 

  1. Being Too Much Like a Stereotypical Used Car Salesperson – While there is a time and place for the hard sell in email marketing, most of the time, you want the messages to be a lot more subtle and not harp on selling but on information instead.

 

  1. Not Using All the Tools of The Trade – Don’t try to do email marketing with your personal email or your business email platforms. Instead, use a professional platform that is set up to automate that has a good reputation.

 

  1. Forgetting That Most People Use Mobile Devices Now – Most people check email now using their smartphone, not a PC. Your messages need to be readable on a small screen, and the CTAS needs to work that way too.

 

  1. Sending Too Many Images – Images are fine but make sure you use the alt text information so that if they have a slow connection, a description shows up around what the image is that encourages them to keep reading.

 

  1. Not Setting Clear and Realistic Goals – When you start building your list, you need to know why and what you expect the results to be. If you want to get, 1000 subscribers don’t just say 1000 subscribers without setting a time limit and a method for doing it.

 

  1. Not Monetizing Your Messages – If you don’t monetize your email list, you won’t earn money from it. At least every three or four emails, send something that can earn money from your subscribers that solves a problem for them.

 

Email marketing is the most effective form of marketing ever created. No matter how big or small your business, email marketing can make all the difference. Start building your email list now because, in the future, it will pay off exponentially.

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Nothing Is Done Until You Track Your Metrics

As you work toward building a strong and highly converting email list, one of the ways you can know you’re doing things effectively is to track the numbers. Your metrics are the key to knowing what works and what doesn’t work for your unique situation. The following metrics should be tracked.

email marketing

  • Click-Through Rate – Knowing how many people who open the email are clicking through to at least look at whatever you’re trying to communicate with them helps you know if your initial messaging is persuasive enough.

 

  • Conversion Rate – Knowing how many people answer your CTAs compared to how many people are clicking through is a number that is important to know because it helps signal whether you’ve done an excellent job targeting your ideal customer or not.

 

  • Bounce Rate – How many of your emails are bouncing and not being delivered? That can signal an issue with your email messages and might signal a problem with how you’re collecting email addresses if they don’t work.

 

  • List Growth Rate – How fast are you growing your list? If you know this number, you can project based on your activity how fast you can grow your list to where you want it to be.

 

  • Sharing / Forwarding / Engagement – One key performance indicator that helps you know if you’re doing a good job targeting your audience is how many of them want to share, forward, or engage with your messages compared to how many who open them.

 

  • Return on Investment – How much money can you trace directly to your email messages and email list compared to how much you have invested or spent on the system?

 

  • Open Rate – Out of all the emails you send, how many are opened on average? If you send out one email to all 1000 subscribers, what percentage opens it? How does this number compare to the industry standard?

 

  • Unsubscribe Rate – When you send messages to your audience, how likely are they to unsubscribe? Sometimes marketers get nervous about causing their subscribers to unsubscribe and stop sending messages. This is a mistake. You want your messages to segment and weed out uninterested parties. If your unsub rate is high, you may have a targeting issue.

 

  • Spam Compliance – Your email autoresponder has a way to test each message for spam issues, plus you can look in the back office and find out if anyone’s complained about your messages. Understanding what triggers spam issues can help you avoid this problem.

 

  • Revenue Per Email – Knowing how much you earn on average for each email you send to your list subscribers can be very motivating to help you send even more useful messages to them.

How to Optimize Your Email Subject Lines

  • Revenue Per Subscriber – How much revenue on average do you earn per subscriber on your list? This number will go up as you get better at targeting and is a great number to be aware of so you can understand how much you need to invest to reach your goals.

 

Check your numbers before each campaign as well as periodically during the campaign to ensure that you are doing what you can to achieve your goals. The only way to be sure is to get the data because your hypotheses can be wrong. It’s always better to know exactly what is working and what is not working rather than make assumptions.

 

How To Build A Wildly Profitable Income Stream From Home Without Lies, Hype, Manipulation or Pressure…

 

https://flawlessfreedom.com