Let’s skip the obvious answers you’ll normally get, and spill the good stuff.
The typical answers you get from seasoned entrepreneurs include: outsourcing work and staying in your strengths, separating business and personal finances, niching down to find a specialization… etc.
That’s not the advice I’ll be giving in this article — though there’s value in every single one of those lessons.
Instead of giving you a recap on Business 101, I’ll be focusing on the nitty-gritty challenges you navigate when launching a business (specifically services or products, digital marketing: social media and ads) that none of my first few business mentors ever touched on.
These lessons were crucial pivoting points in my business, and I share them with the hopes they’ll bring the questions looming in your head to the forefront.
In my first few months of business, all people wanted to give me advice on was building out a winning product suite, AKA determining the services and products I would be specializing in.
Being told that I needed to build out an entire course suite with low, mid and high ticket offers was extremely daunting. I created three to four offers within my first month of launching courses and here’s what I found:
Building out an entire course suite while launching is a waste of time, and you’ll be left with products you want to change entirely within months. Trust me on this one.
After launching my first course, I realized that it wasn’t worth the price I was charging for it and the experience for the consumers was not great.
I wanted to remove it entirely from my store. I had not taken into account the accessibility and ease of use factors which were crucial aspects of my course.
My main focus at that point was to make money, and I did not put much thought into the quality of my courses. It took me three long months to realize this mistake.
Instead of creating an entire timeline of offers, you really should focus on building connections and creating an engaged community.
Whatever social media platform, Facebook group, or email list that you’re using to market your products should be your hyper fixation.
Truth is – it doesn’t matter how much of an expert you are in your course’s topics, you will not have the full picture of what your customers need until 3-6 months into selling a course.
That feedback will be crucial in building out your next offer, and you can use the momentum of your first offer to have bigger launches, excited customers and create a strategy for scaling.
This leads me into the next thing I wish someone would have told me earlier.
We live in a content-hungry culture. We can’t get enough of TikTok, Reels, Shorts, Blogs, etc. When entrepreneurs begin with a business idea, there is often an unspoken expectation to create something perfect or revolutionary.
Business is not about creating something that’s fully formed. It’s about starting with something, and iterating over & over until you’ve created something highly sought-after.
If you feel paralyzed in course creation because of what you’re seeing others do online, I highly recommend pulling out your phone and unfollowing or muting those accounts for the next few months.
Cut your scrolling time in half, create something of value, and put it out there.
You can always iterate. I update my courses regularly with new information, bonus lessons, etc. Course creation is an open, revolving door. It’s not a one-way ticket.
There are numerous practical ways of achieving this, but the most crucial thing is to always keep in mind how you can be of service to others.
If serving others isn’t something you truly desire from the bottom of your heart, creating courses may not be the right path for you.
Online businesses and digital products, in general, involve guiding others through a process to achieve results that you’ve already attained.
No one ever got to the end of their life and regretted being generous. I always air on the side of generosity, and giving away more than people are paying for.
Then, when you release a more premium offer, there’s now an incredible level of trust that they’ll put in your next product. Because you’ve overdelivered.
One of the worst realizations for me as a young business owner was realizing how terrible some of the people I looked up to were at following through.
I purchased a membership once from a mentor in my first few weeks of business, and because of how she sold it and her messaging, I was so sure this membership would help me scale and book out my business quickly.
From the moment I logged into the membership portal, I was disappointed and felt drastically let down. Unfortunately, the more and more I looked into her business, the more I saw how poorly she was delivering (not just to me).
I set boundaries that day to be very clear with my messaging, and sales pages, and to try to overdeliver and underpromise in everything that I promote.
I’d love for you to listen in to my entrepreneurship lifestyle podcast, HOW IT STARTED.
Launching March 22nd, 2024. You can head over to my podcast page to learn more.
Until next time, xo
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