So you’re striving to become an entrepreneur, and you hope to one day establish your own business. Here, you’ll learn 5 steps to creating a business, and you’ll learn what you can do to make your dreams a reality.
If we’ve never met before, I’m Heather Austin from ProfessorAustin.com and The Career Club on Facebook, and here, I share simple solutions to help you build a business or launch a career you love.
To help you navigate this journey, I’ve called on a really good friend of mine, Trena Little, who also has a YouTube channel where she teaches online business owners how to leverage the power of video to grow their own business. So I’m going to let her take it away.
“Thank you, Heather, so much for having me here today on your channel. Hi, I am Trena, if you haven’t met me before. I’m a YouTube strategist on my channel, Tips with Trena. I work with a lot of creative, online business owners through one-on-one services and also through my group program, YouTube Boot Camp.
My goal is to help businesses get on YouTube to grow their business. So, Heather had asked me to jump on here and talk with you about the first 5 steps you should take in growing a business.
My business is just under 3 years old, and, let me tell you, the things I’ve learned in these 3 years my master’s degree in business could not prepare me for. So let me break down the top 5 things I think you gotta do if you are just getting started in your business or you dream of starting your own business.
Step #1 – Get on Video
The first thing you have to do is get on video. Trust me, this is a powerful way to reach your audience. When I started my business, everybody was blogging and using Instagram and Pinterest.
But I got on video. I got on YouTube.
And within 2-3 months, I was getting referenced in multiple Facebook groups as “the YouTube expert” and “the video expert.”
I had only been around for 2-3 months, and people were referencing me and referring me to people because they saw me on video and they could see, oh, she must know what she’s talking about, because she’s on video.
They can see what it’s like to work with me, and they can get to know and trust me a lot faster than any blog post or Instagram post will do for you.
So whether you decide to do IGTV or Facebook live or YouTube, you’ve got to have video in your business strategy when you are first getting started.
Step #2 – Collect Emails
The next step that is critical in starting your business is to start collecting emails. You have got to have an email list because here’s the thing: We don’t own Facebook, we don’t own Instagram, we don’t own YouTube.
They could be taken away from us at any point in time. I actually had a friend of mine who had a YouTube channel with over 30,000 subscribers. And it accidentally got deleted. That was 30,000 subscribers gone.
But she had an email list, so she was at least able to reach out to some of those people to let them know what happened. So you have got to start collecting these email addresses in case something terrible like that happens to you.
You can start with a free service like MailChimp; that’s a great place to get started. There’s also ConvertKit (which is now a different name that I don’t remember), but you’ve got to start collecting those emails. You could even get started with TypeForm or a Google Sheet to just get those emails.
Step #3 – Pick a Platform
The third step I have for you is crucial because, as a new business owner, we think we’ve got to be everywhere. We’ve got to be on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. It’s the fear of missing out, right? – FOMO.
But if you want to have a successful business, you have got to pick a platform. You cannot do all of the platforms [well]. You’ve got to pick one, focus on that, and grow that one
This is definitely something I learned. I tried to be everywhere. And what happened was I didn’t grow any platform. So when I focused on just YouTube, I started to see changes. And then what I did was I looked at my YouTube analytics to see where people were coming from.
And so from there, and based on traffic to my website, I saw Pinterest and Facebook were my biggest traffic sources to both places. So I decided the next place I would
So I did my first platform, got comfortable on that, and then I looked at what else I could add slowly, and instead of getting everything in, I just started with Pinterest and Facebook.
Step #4 – Focus on the One-on-One
The fourth step in your business is to focus on one-on-one clients. Don’t get wrapped up in the game of having passive income and starting a course and doing all of these products. You really got to build relationships and see what it is your audience really needs from you.
This is a mistake again; a lot of these are mistakes that I’ve learned from. But what you need to do is focus on one-on-one. Build and develop those relationships and figure out what they really need from you before you even start creating a course or any type of passive product. Trust me, it will pay off.
Step #5 – Set Goals
The last step that I have for you is you have got to set goals.
Here’s what happens if you don’t set goals. You end up being a squirrel chasing everything, right? There’s something shiny here, there’s something shiny there, I want to do that, that looks cool. You’ve got to set your goals, and you’ve got to plan out your quarters in advance.
This is definitely a mistake I made. Once I started making goals in my Powersheets Planner by Laura Casey, I was able to see my progress and able to reflect on them, and know exactly what I needed to do that month to hit my goals.
Otherwise, you never know if you’re getting something done or if you’re getting what you really want to do. You end up being a chicken with your head cut off.
So you have got to set goals, and you’ve got to break them down into smaller steps so you know that you are achieving them.
If you want to check out my channel, pop on over to Tips with Trena, where Heather is doing a video today where she is sharing her best tips that worked for her to grow her YouTube channel. Thanks again, Heather!”