The header really set me up there. What reruns of MasterChef taught me about running a business. Reruns of MasterChef? Really, Suger? MASTERCHEF!? But it’s true. Lately, I’ve been playing old episodes of MasterChef while I work and it’s permeated my brain. But from this Zombie-Level addiction has taught me a few things about business that I wanted to share.
Consider this a business guide for growth and learning extracted from my brain at midnight. Refined in the morning and sent out into the world. When you look around you, keep your eyes open, you can be inspired by anything in your business and in your life. This is one of those times. Enjoy the post, and if you know someone who might like to read it, I’d love for you to pass it on!
Ready? Business Tips from MasterChef.
Be Inventive
Everyone loves a good mystery box or invention test, right? The same goes for your business. Take a look at the ingredients you have to cook with, your Instagram feed, Facebook page or mailing list, and work out how to use them differently. Don’t just keep doing the same old thing that you’ve always done. That your competitor has always done. Find a new approach, learn a new technique and mix things up.
Start and things will fall into place
There’s a contestant who stands and reads the recipe for the fourth time. The rest of the contestants shout that he needs to get moving. They’re right. He has a plan, an idea of where he’s going, but you can’t get caught up in the starting block. Sometimes what you need to do is start. Like my YouTube channel. I had to learn a lot as I went along, I’m still learning, believe me, but if I’d never started I wouldn’t know that. I’d still be right back at the starting line with nothing to show for it.
Go beyond where you are now
As humans, some of us that overestimate our abilities and some of us who underestimate. If you tend to underestimate your abilities it can be easy to slip into your comfort zone and stay there. But, the good stuff happens outside those boundaries; you have to go outside your limits. Keep pushing, trying and experimenting. You think you’ve gotten as good as you can get? Think again, there’s always room to improve. You never know what is going to come next and where your new normal might be.
Collaborate
Business can be a lonely gig. Especially if you rise to the top of your industry or work in an isolated environment like most of us interweb types. But like the weekly Group Challenges teaches us, no woman is an island. Look for ways to collaborate with others, reach out and work in a team when you can. Not only will it fulfil whatever social need you might have, but you might just learn something new.
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So, what say you, team? Is there something in there that you can take away with you? I’d love to hear how YOU are applying these ideas and strategies to your blog or business. For me? I’m going to finalise the email I have sitting in draft proposing a collaboration project I’ve been thinking about since late last year. I’m going to reach out and see where I end up. What about you?
Has starting your business been on the list for a while now? Make this the year you actually do it. This post is designed to help you overcome some of those obstacles to just getting started. Take the leap in owning your own time. Creating your life just as you’ve always imagined it. You know, all the things and catchy phrases. What if we made THIS the year for it all to happen? Starting your business! Imagine that.
There are few things you can do or consider to get your business started sooner rather than later. Because trust me, dreams don’t wait, and time keeps ticking over. I’m hoping you can get clear on a few things, manage some of your expectations and the things getting in your way, and make this the year you go for it. Ready? Let’s talk about that!
How will you make a living?
One of the main considerations for most people starting a business is how will you make a living. How indeed? It can be not easy to imagine replacing your current income with business income. I get that. But now is the time to try. Taking the pressure off your business replacing your entire income for the early stage is a mental win.
Before you get started, it’s worth giving some thought to whether you’ll be full-time or part-time in your business to start. If you’re leaving a job, perhaps you have some annual leave owing, so find out how much that is. If you’re working for the moment, it’s time to start putting some money aside into savings.
What business are you in?
We went through this in the recent post about business planning for the new year. Maybe you skipped over that post thinking it was only for established businesses. Well, wrong. This is a great place to start to get clear on what business you are in. Because if you’re not clear, you’re never going to be able to tell someone else.
This could be THE most important step in starting your business this year. Taking the time to plan out your goals, income needs, brand voice, ideal customer and strategies for growth will literally create the foundation for your business. So don’t skip over it. Make the time, do the work, and your entire way forward will be clear.
What do you need for starting your business?
We’ve talked about money, but it’s worth knowing how much you’re going to need month by month. Sitting down and figuring that out might actually make the prospects of starting easier.
It’s not just money, though; consider what you will need in terms of resources. Not the things you want, the things you need to get started. Work out what you have and what is still missing. This goes for things like branding elements such as logos, websites and any images. If you’re planning on taking your own photos to represent your business, make sure you read our guide for taking better photos first!
As a blogger and budding photographer, there is a list a mile long of things I want. But the things I need to run my business are actually pretty small. Give me a camera, computer, the internet and a couple of pieces of software and I’m good to go. Making that list can also be an incentive too. If there are items you want, set goals or targets and buy them when you reach that milestone or goal.
To finance or not to finance?
As a start-up, you need to consider what money you are going to need to get started. Can you dip into savings, or will you need to take out a loan? Maybe it’s something you can do with very little capital to speak of. This will depend on you and the type of business you’re looking to start, obviously.
My husband started his business with a $5k credit card. Not ideal, but it got him the equipment he needed and ultimately meant the business, backed by us, had a ‘finance history’ off the bat. My business, this blog and the associated social media consultancy, was started with nothing. No nest egg or loan; I had all I needed already in the form of a laptop and a camera.
Seek advice from those who know about starting a business.
There are plenty of people who will tell you what to do. Plenty of people will tell you not to do this, play it safe and stick with your job—heaps of them. I don’t mean taking advice from those people. Maybe stop listening to them all together; they won’t help you. I mean, professionals. Actual legitimate professionals.
Find a small business accountant or financial advisor—someone who has experience in business who can advise you on the basics of setting one up. From there, you spend some time online registering things and then open bank accounts. Yes, separate ones. Yes, that’s as important as it is annoying. The best thing I ever did for any of our businesses over the years was to get a small business specialist accountant. David and his team have been invaluable to me along the way. Even though they probably have wanted to strangle me on more than one occasion.
There’s nothing as sexy as business planning, right? With the new year ticking over, it’s about time to start considering yours. That’s the way it works for me, anyway. It’s one of those things that can stay on the to-do list if you don’t just put aside the time and do it. But heading into a new year without a plan is like trying to find a pair of socks in the dark. Not impossible to achieve but not ideal.
My plans are for me. They aren’t the kind you’d use for a bank or investor, it’s a simple way to take a look at what I’m doing, what I’m offering and where I’m planning to go in the year ahead. I’ve outlined the few headers I use to prompt me as I go through this process below. At the end of the post, you’ll have a chance to download a PDF guide for getting your plan started.
Ready? Let’s get Business Planning.
Business + Branding Summary
If it’s been a while since you looked at your business in general, this is the time to do that. Why are you in business? What do you offer, and not just literally? What problems are you solving for your customer? If your business is new or you haven’t done this before, make sure you develop a simple, single line intro, that summarises what your business does and why. Some pros call this an elevator pitch. I call it the perfect Instagram bio.
Once you’ve done all that, take a look at that and make sure your branding is in line with the message you are trying to convey. Check out the prompts in the download for some key areas to review if it’s been a while since you’ve considered this part of your business.
Research + Ideal Customer
To put yourself in the best position for the upcoming year, you need to do some work around who your competitors are and what your strengths, weaknesses and unique offerings are compared to them. Getting to know what is in your marketplace, where you sit and what makes YOU special, is really important. And if you’re competitive like me, it can motivate you {once you put it aside and start running your own race}.
The second part of the research section is to develop an ideal customer profile. This can be based on a real person or 100% made up. Whatever works for you. By imagining what the ideal transaction, with the ideal person, looks like for you, you can really clarify your offerings. Not to mention it makes creating content for social media and promotion SO much easier than trying to talk to everyone all the time.
Income + Growth Goals
I listened to the Jenna Kutcher podcast about setting your pricing and there was a great tip in there about working out what your income goals are. Goal Digger is a great podcast in general, make sure you add it to your list.
I’m going to paraphrase it, excuse me Ms. Kutcher, I’ll do my best. You need to work out what it costs you to live for a year. Your expenses including any holidays, superannuation, taxation or savings. Once you know that, it puts you in a strong position for knowing how many clients you need {or want} at what price to fulfil that goal.
Don’t go into another year blind, with a figure plucked from your backside, for what it is you want to generate in income this year. Do the work, you might be surprised at how achievable your goals are when you take the time to figure it out. I mean, who hasn’t decided they NEED $15k a month when really it’s more like $7k… Just me? Awkward.
Marketing + Growth
What’s your plan for growing your business for the coming year? This is the section where you consider what you will be doing to market your business. This is such an important part of your business planning, but it’s often done week by week or even day by day. In small business, we tend to hit the ground running and only consider marketing when times are slow.
Don’t let that be you.
Where do you want to be at the end of the year? Do you have a customer/client number goal or a financial goal? Do you really know what you want the outcome to be at the end of the year? Hopefully you do, otherwise, you need to head back to that section and get clearer.
Content Strategy
Once you have a plan for marketing and promotion, then it’s time to decide what sort of content you’ll need and for where. If your strategy is Facebook and the local paper the content you will need will be very different to someone planning to source clients on Instagram or using YouTube to promote their business. Makes sense, right?
Make a plan for each ‘platform’ including what you’ll need, the timeframes and whether you’re going to produce it yourself or outsource it. If there’s one thing we need to get used to in modern business, it’s that our businesses are going to chew through content, without a plan, we are always going to be chasing our tails.
I’ve put together a simple business planning guide for you to use. Think of it less as a roadmap and more of a mud map. It’ll show you a few key markers so you can use the tips above and plan out your year in business. The file is in my Dropbox {you don’t have to sign up to download} just click the link to open the PDF and it’s all yours. Enjoy! Leave me a comment below if you’re business planning this week, I’d love to hear from you.
When it comes to blogging there is only ever three questions I get asked. The one that this post centres around is how do you make money on your blog? Especially since at various stages throughout my career it’s been my full-time job. I don’t blame anyone for asking that. I love to talk about money and business, so let’s do that.
In this video, I take you piece by piece through anything that I’ve used now, or in the past to generate money. Even if it wasn’t much! I did this to not only answer that question but so that you can start to create a business plan for your blog. As far as I’m concerned, the more transparent I can be, the shorter the learning curve will be for you.
How to make money on your blog!
Let’s break that video down a little, shall we?
My income streams include the following;
Paid Content
There are two main ways I generate income with paid content; on my blog and off of my blog. There are the opportunities to do editorial style content in the form of blog posts, photographs or crafting shares for other social media platforms. Then there are the times when brands are looking for me to create content for their blog or social media. Whatever the end location of the post, I always stand for being compensated for my time.
Ad Revenue
Ad revenue is one of those things that used to make up a larger portion of my income but has basically been replaced. From using Ad Networks such as AdSense to delivering my own banner ads using third parties or Paypal. Ad revenue isn’t something to be sneezed at, but no longer makes up a part of my income strategy. I’m just not that into it.
Affiliate
For me, this is the fastest-growing income stream on my blog. Long neglected I have been working with Skimlinks (so easy!) to increase my revenue by over 500% (from not much to more than a little, haha). For a fashion and lifestyle blog, there isn’t a more effective, but less intrusive, way to generate income from the activities you were doing anyway. By taking a percentage of sales referred from your blog, everyone wins.
eBooks and Courses
Creating my own eBooks {and courses, one day} is one of those long-term strategies for the blog. Over the years I’ve built up a bit of a library of books and workbooks that I’m proud of. As I move forward I hope to continue to add to that range and increase the offering. If you’ve never checked them out, pop over and take a look. Let’s just say, I didn’t really pick one subject and stick to it. Haha.
Something I forgot to mention in the video was that you can also be an affiliate for other bloggers eBooks and courses. If you’re interested in a certain subject or already do a lot of talking about a product, you should reach out and ask for an affiliate program or link. I did this early on with Sarah Wilson ‘I Quit Sugar’ books and they were excellent because I was already talking about it.
Workshops and Consulting
Last, but not least, absolutely not least, is the work I do behind the scenes. As a builder of websites, social media consultant and workshop-type person. Which, is a pretty long description but it’s got a lot of stuff to cover. I love doing workshops and consulting because blogging and social media is something I could talk about for days. There’s really no better way that I know of to make a living than doing something you love. I’m a lucky girl indeed.
And that, my friend, is how I make money on my blog. I’ve covered off on everything that I’ve given a shot over the years and tried to detail why I still use them or not. I hope you find it helpful, or at least interesting. Let me know if you have any questions {I tried to cover off on the ones you asked on Facebook or Instagram within the video}.
A new year is almost upon us, my friends. And as most of you know I’m a planner. So, it’s time for my to set goals for the year ahead. Setting goals can be as simple or as complicated as you make it. One year I simply had one phrase “Make Yourself Proud” as my goal for the year. But if you want to get a little more complicated. If you wanted to plan things out a little more deeply. Then do I have a plan for you? Come at me, right? Exciting. Drag out a fresh notebook, crack the spine if it has one {mmmm, stationary!} and get ready to answer the following for yourself. Do it in one sitting if you can. Take the time and really get excited about what could be coming up for you next year.
Ready to set goals for the new year? Let’s do this thing!
Did you set goals, have a word for the year or make a plan last year?
Yes or no?
How did that work out for you?
If you went free-range without a plan, describe how you feel about that.
How was last year awesome?
In what way was last year SO not awesome?
What are three things you enjoyed about last year and would like more of this year?
What are three things you didn’t enjoy last year and would like less of this year?
Now make sure you are on a completely new page.
Just in case you get the urge to tear out ‘last year’ and toss it away later never to be seen again.
Then answer the following questions;
What are three things you would like to achieve for yourself this year?
Break those three things down a little further into what that REALLY looks like. Get visual, describe it, doodle on the page, do anything that reminds you of how you’d achieve that, by what date, who will help you and what you’ll need to do, change and let go of to make it.
What are three things are you giving up this year? And why.
Get really detailed about why you’re giving up, why it was important enough to include here and who will be party of it all coming together for you.
For the questions below be detailed. Say as much as you want to, draw some cute pictures, cut and paste, whatever. Take some time to really dream, go a little nuts and whatever you do include something that you think would be pretty darn tricky to pull off in one year. Dream big my pretties. 😉
What are your family goals?
What are your health and wellness goals?
What are your financial goals?
What are your work goals?
What are your goals for improving your life and the lives of those around you?
Describe yourself at the end of the year. Who are you, what do you have, what do you look and feel like. Who is there with you, what have you experienced, done, and achieved. Who is this year?
Now for some of you it’s going to be hard to really let loose doing this exercise and set goals that excite you. Maybe there’s been one too many crap years filled with disappointment and sadness. Maybe you just think it’s all a bunch of woo woo nonsense. Whatever it is, I double dare you to put that aside for as long as it takes you to write all this in your notebook. Leave it in the corner, it’ll be there waiting if you want to pick it back up. The good news is, you might not want to. Not if you leave your heart on that notebook page.
And then, my friends, this coming year will be whatever you say it will be. Look back on the second and third sections when you can. Don’t worry if you don’t. Just set about living your life and enjoying it. It’s funny how these things work. Take this simple challenge this year and you’ll see. Goal setting is cake. Easy peasy.
