If you’re like me, at some point in your entrepreneurial journey you’ve asked: Which tools and resources do I really need for my online business?

There’s a tendency to invest in more than what we need, simply because we’re trying to get to the bottom of things and figure it all out. What happens next is all that “over-purchasing” starts to get you stressed out on a whole other level, am I right? You’ve got all of these tools and no idea how or when to use them.

In this post I’m sharing must have online business tools that will help you scale your business without pulling your hair out! I get into more detail about some of the tools in this post, but today I want to break it down into 3 different stages for your business.

Stage 1:
The Early Years – Building Your Platform

These are the years of major overwhelm and uncertainty. You have ideas about what to do and are battling with a little bit of fear about whether it will all work out. You’re probably unsure about which tools you need right now. And you’re on a tight budget so you don’t want to overthink what you need.

Let me help. At this stage your focus should be on building a platform for your business and getting it ready for serious take-off.

The tools you need right now are ones that will help you:

• Optimize your website for gathering leads, because your website is the hub of your marketing
• Create consistent content, because content is the cornerstone of your business
• Build your email list, because, well, it’s is a must-have and you need it

1) Bluehost

This might seem like the most basic step to take, but many people don’t have a website yet.

Your website is the #1 must have online business tool. It’s the soul of your business and the cornerstone of your brand and all of your marketing. It’s where you:

• Show the world what you sell, your mission, and what you stand for.
• Drive traffic and start building real relationships with your visitors
• Build your mailing lists (a must-have for every online business!)
• Gain clarity on your business model and your message

Have I sold you yet? I hope so, friend! Your website is seriously the Swiss Army knife of your online business.

I recommend WordPress and Bluehost for hosting. It’s affordable and you can always get reach tech support, which is a huge deal when your site breaks and you need to fix it, like, now!

2) Leadpages

You need a way to collect names and emails for your content. That’s where landing pages come in. Landing pages are different from other web pages in that their goal is to do one thing: gather names and emails.

Leadpages is pretty much the go-to for landing pages. You can choose from hundreds of high-converting templates from their page builder library and they even show you the highest converting ones. They’ve got everything from squeeze pages to webinars, lead magnets, sales pages… it’s all in there. Just pick a template, change the colors, text and images, hit publish and you’re done.

If you have design and coding skills, one downside has been the lack of customization features. Their new drag and drop builder addresses this and I can’t wait to try it.

3) Thrive Leads

I use Leadpages for the forms on my landing pages and Thrive Leads for all the other opt-in forms on my site.

Thrive Leads by Thrive Themes has the same functionality as SumoMe (plus more) without the monthly subscription. You pay once for Thrive Leads and its yours. I use it to for welcome mats, pop-ups, sidebars and content upgrades throughout my site. One of the things I love most is the “states” feature where you can show different content to people who have already subscribed.

I’m such a fan of Thrive Leads that I’m going to check out their page builder to see how it compares to Leadpages. I’m also going to do a detailed tutorial to show you how to use it, so keep your eyes open for that soon.

4) Drip

When it comes to email service providers, I recommend choosing a platform that has the features you need today, plus others you can grow into as your business and your list grow. You want to be able to stick with your platform once your list reaches 1K and beyond without having to switch.

I actually use Infusionsoft and find that it has a bit more features than what I need (and a hefty price tag too). If were to start over my choice would be Drip and here’s why. Drip looks super easy to use and you can still get robust features, like the ability string multiple campaigns together and create trigger events similar to Infusionsoft. It also integrates seamlessly with Leadpages.

5) Canva

Finally, we can dig into the art of things! Canva is a great tool for non-designers to create amazing visual content. You will feel like a pro, but you don’t need to be one (yet) to use it. Create eBooks, cheat sheets, workbooks, and checklists selecting from the huge library of over 700 templates. Just pick one, add a cover image, masthead, images and overlays for only $1, style your headline, add text, branded colors, fonts, and links. The interface is user-friendly so you can just jump in there and start creating.

If you’re more familiar with Microsoft Word or Powerpoint, you can use those for digital freebies too. Some other tools are Adobe InDesign (my favorite), PicMonkey, and even Google Docs.

6) Tripod Kit + Light

I recommend placing a focus on video right from day one. Video has definitely become a major player in the content game so it makes sense to get in on the bandwagon.  Plus, it’s so much easier to record your content than it is to write it as a blog post! Articles that take me hours to write literally take me 45 minutes to record from the minute the idea pops in my head to my final take. Here’s another perk – you can take that video and turn it into a post in less than an hour. It’s all about repurposing content, am I right?

This diva ring light will make it look like you’re in natural light regardless of the time of day or location. Even when natural light isn’t available, it will seem like daytime and you’ll feel (and look) like a pro on camera. While you’re at it, grab a tripod for your iPhone. You can set up a video station and be ready to record whenever!

Stage 2
The Growth Years – Course Creation

So you’re a few years into it and you’ve got some revenue coming in, your list is growing, and maybe (just maybe!) you still feel a bit overwhelmed about what to do next.

Now it’s time to move beyond selling one-on-one services and into a “one-to-many” business model. The best way to do this is to start creating online courses. These tools will help you do that:

7) Powerpoint

If your course is content-rich, you’re going to want to create a slide show for it. Even though I’m a mac person, I’ve used Powerpoint for as long as I can remember from my days as the “graphics girl” at a corporate gig. So it just works for me. If you’re a Keynoter, feel free to use that instead.

You can actually record your whole slide show from Powerpoint and Keynote, audio and all. It’s actually pretty simple to do. If you’re on a really tight budget or just getting started with courses, you might want to save yourself the extra expense of a separate app for that.

If you want to edit your videos, that’s where you’re going to get stuck. Powerpoint and Keynote do not have video editing capabilities. Which leads me to my next tool…

8) Screenflow

Screenflow is a video and screencasting app that will record your screen and is super easy to use. It will record audio from your external mic and even video from your webcam. And it’s got great editing features too. You can add text overlays, graphics, splice your video, and remove background noise, and more. If you want an even simpler solution, use Quicktime for free.

9) Blue Yeti Mic

Hah! I remember my music days when I would hole up in the studio recording vocals, switching mics, changing placements, getting all crazy about it and you know what? Sometimes a mic is just a mic. All you really need is a microphone that’s easy to use at a decent price that cuts out ambient noise.

The Yeti Mic is all of that and will make you sound like a sweet songbird for around $110. Just plug it into your laptop and you’re good to go. There’s also the Blue Snowball for about half the price. Really any mic made by Blue will give you great sound.

10) Vimeo

Once you’ve created your videos, you need to upload them to Vimeo, which is pretty straightforward. Just create an account, select your plan, and upload our videos. Depending on the size of your videos and how many you have choose the Plus or Pro plan.

11) Teachable

You made it! You’re almost there. Next you need a place to house all of your content behind a protected wall so people have to login to access it. That’s where Teachable comes in.

The interface is really simple, they’ve got a great design, you can customize and brand your school and they’ve got tutorials for how to create your first course. They even have an affiliate program which can help you get even more exposure for your courses. You can set up a school to house all of your courses, so as you go from one to many they can all site under the same roof. Everything is really well organized for a seamless and easy experience for you and your students.

Stage 3
Scaling Your Business – Automation

You’re ready to take your biz to the next level. Maybe you want to add more team members, but you still need to increase your revenue before you do that. The solution is to start scaling what you’ve already created. This is the stage to focus on automating your sales process so you can sell more with less effort.

The tools you need at this stage are about streamlining and organizing the work you’ve done so you scale quickly and easily.

12) Webinar Jam

Webinar Jam is pretty easy to use and works with Google Hangouts. There’s a one-time fee, which beats the monthly fees on other platforms like GotToWebinar and Crowdcast. Since it works with Google Hangouts you can have unlimited attendees and people will be to access the webinar on any device or browser (some of the other platforms have limitations on mobile and Safari).

The only downside is that because WJ is recording your live broadcast signal into a streaming video, there can be a delay of a few seconds. The delay is seen only on the presenter’s side. It can take a few seconds to see the questions people type in the chat box, but it’s easy enough to adjust the pace of your presentation to accommodate for the delay.

13) EverWebinar

Next, get set up to run live and automated webinars with ease! After you run your live webinar a few times and it’s working for you, the next step is to turn it into an “on-demand” webinar. That’s where EverWebinar comes in. It’s a powerful combo of webinar software and WordPress plugin that houses all of your webinars in the cloud. You’ll still have the same personal touch but your webinar will be automated.

Before you jump into automation, make sure you run through your webinar live a few times first. You want to get feedback first and tweak it until you feel like you’re really providing the value your audience needs. Also experiment with how you offer your product at the end so you can find that balance that sells without being overly salesy or icky.

Note: One platform I want to try soon and is worth mentioning: Webinar Ninja. It seems super easy to use and you can run live and automated webinars all in one, so you don’t need to buy two products. I’ll update this post once I give it a try.

14) Click Funnels

Click Funnels is like Leadpages’ bigger sister. It’s more like a funnel builder than a landing page builder. You choose a funnel and it will set up a sequence of pages for you (which you can add to, edit, or delete). So let’s say you’re hosting a webinar, it will create every page you need for that webinar. It’s easy to put sophisticated and high-performing pages together so that your campaigns convert at a high level.

15) Infusionsoft

I know I said earlier that Infusionsoft has more features than I need. It’s still a platform that totally rocks! It integrates a CRM, eCommerce and marketing automation all in one. Basically, you can automate your entire business there. Once you have the basics down with Drip (or Mailchimp or Aweber), it’s worth looking into.

Every Stage – Organization

16) Asana

A tool like Asana will help you manage your projects and get tons of stuff done. I’ve used other project management tools like Basecamp but this one is so much better! Plus, It’s free for up to 15 users! My virtual assistant and I know exactly what we’re working on and I can easily view tasks in their calendar, so I k now if what she’s working on and if she needs more to do! I can also prioritize tasks so she knows what to focus on each day.

Working this way also forces me to think through each task involved with a project, so inside of a Course project, for instance, I have itemized tasks and an estimate of time needed to complete.

17) Dropbox

This is a must for any business. Dropbox is a cloud-based server that will house all of your project files. You can assign access to different folders for any person on your team so that everyone is working from one central place. Files sync automatically as they’re updated so there’s version control. You can also easily restore deleted files or prior versions.

18) 1Password

You memorized your password, now you can’t remember what the heck it is, am I right? I’ve updated my password so many times on sooo many different sites, there’s no way I can keep track anymore! 1Password is a password management tool that solves all of that for you. All you need to remember is one password and that will unlock the vault to all the others. Total time-saver.

19) Evernote

Evernote is awesome! At first I had a hard time using it. I thought maybe I’d write my posts in there to keep them organized, but that didn’t work so well for me mainly because I like to see the files and have multiple pages up on my screen when I’m writing. Plus, the formatting can be sticky. But I DO love it as a way to store articles, post ideas, passwords, email sequences. Basically, anything I know I’ll want to reference but don’t need right away. I save keywords, fonts I like, tracking pixel codes, that sort of thing. And the Evernote Clipper is a fast and easy way to save and tag articles I find interesting but may not have time to read right away (so much better than bookmarking!)

What are your must have online business tools?

 

Branding is definitely about more than your logo and brand identity, but let’s face it, your logo is going to symbolize your brand more than anything else. So it pays to ask yourself the right questions before you start creating a logo.

Keep in mind that a logo isn’t supposed to be a fancy, ornate statement that describes what you do. The purpose of a logo is to identify rather than to explain, which simply means that what’s important is what the logo represents — your brand.

Here are five steps to creating a logo that does that:

1) Know what you’re looking for

Before you start working with a designer, ask yourself these questions:

• What product or service do you sell and who are your customers?
• How do you want to portray yourself to others? Friendly? Professional?
• How do you want people to feel about your image? Inspired? Happy? Energetic?
• Where will you use your logo? Just your website and social media, or on flyers too?
• Will you need it for signage? On t-shirts? Will you need merchandising or tags?

This is where a bit of due diligence can really pay off and save you money. By answering these questions you’ll get an idea of which fonts to work with and whether to keep the design simple or more graphic. And you’ll get designs out of the gate that are closer to what you’re looking for.

2) Make it instantly recognizable

The shapes, colors and fonts used in your logo design should be unique and noticeably different from other logos within your market. Look at your competitors’ logos and make sure you’re not infringing on any copyrights. If you think your logo design is too close to that of your competitor, make sure you make the adjustments you need to differentiate it. The last thing you want is to find out that a health club down the road has a logo that looks just like yours. Taking the extra effort to create a unique, instantly recognizable logo will pay off in the end.

3) Keep it simple

Simple is the way to go, especially when you look at your brand from a high level. A logo represents your brand, but there are other elements that weigh in. If you make your logo too ornate, you don’t leave much room for your content, posts and images to do their part. You want everything working together to tell your story, so keep it open and leave room for other elements to do their part.

Simple logos are also easy to read. If you keep your design simple and bold, it will be just as readable as a favicon as it is on a trade show banner. You want it too look good in black and white and in color, so stay away from gradients and textures.

4) Focus on one main graphic element

Designing a simple logo doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice creativity. Experiment with typographic treatments like Verizon and bold designs like FedEx. If your company name fits, you can play with a graphic design like Starbucks. Whichever direction you decide to go in, keep in mind that your logo shouldn’t have more than one graphic element, whether it’s incorporated into typography or integrated as a separate mark. Too many graphic elements will not only make your company look confused, it will also it be difficult to work your logo in with other branding and marketing initiatives.

5) Choose an appropriate font

Choosing a font for your logo can be just as important as the overall design itself. If you’re in finance, for example, your font should convey trust, credibility and confidence. So you would choose a sans-serif font that is simple and elegant. You’d also want to choose a font family with different weights, such as light, medium and heavy so you can play with it. And your color palette would be more sophisticated rather than bright.

 

You know that if you want more subscribers to read your emails, you have to become a bit of an expert at writing persuasive copy. So you spend hours comparing subject lines and preheaders before you publish. Then you track the number of subscribers who opened each one, because you know that those open rates are the holy grail of email marketing.

But what happens when your email doesn’t make it to the inbox? Both you and your readers miss out. It’s hard to track open rates accurately when your emails go straight to spam, so how will you really know what you need to improve? Your subscribers miss out too. They lose an opportunity to learn and grow from your communications.

I ran into this issue with a newsletter campaign recently. I use Constant Contact for my health & fitness business. Not because it’s my email marketing tool of choice, but because it integrates well with a member portal we use and I can automate communications with new member sign-ups.

I ran a slew of tests on our newsletter and noticed that emails were landing in Gmail’s promotion tab more than a few times. This is basically Google’s way of marking your email as junk mail. So if you’re noticing a significant decrease in open rate, it may be directly related to the way this filtering works. And it isn’t limited to Google – some emails were going straight to Outlook’s junk folder also.

After hunting down answers and doing some A/B testing, I finally got them out of the promotions folder and into Gmail’s primary folder. Here’s what one email looked like initially:

 

We had an image in the top to capture people’s attention right away. And further down, I added a link to the post, my brother’s image and bio with more links, and prominent buttons going to our website:

 

It turns out that we had to ditch those creative elements and calls to action in order to make it to the primary inbox. Here’s what it looked liked after editing, reshaping, tweaking, and testing:

 

That’s it. A plain text email and bingo – it was in the inbox on both Gmail and Outlook. When I stripped away everything else but text and one simple link, the email had a much better chance of landing in the primary folder.

Two other things seemed to make a difference:

It goes without saying that you can’t remove the Unsubscribe link because email marketing tools must conform to spam laws. But there’s a difference between using one simple unsubscribe link at the end of your email, and a whole slew of links that Constant Contact includes. Here’s an example:

That adds a total of five links to my email instead of just one. In Google’s eyes, multiple links are an indication that your email is promotional. How many links would you really send to a friend, right? At the same time, you need to include a link to your post or product in your email. Bottom line, your emails will have two links when they’re published: your link and the unsubscribe link.

What you don’t want is your email marketing platform to include more than just that one unsubscribe button (without giving you control to edit and remove them). I think the five links in this case are unique to Constant Contact because it’s not the case with MailChimp or Infusionsoft. Both of these marketing platforms will allow you to include one simple unsubscribe link and that’s it.

The other thing that seemed to make a difference was the subject line itself. All things being equal, changing the subject line from “Here’s a Delicious Way to End Your Summer” to “Checking in to see how you’re doing” increased the likelihood of it making its way the primary folder. This was a quick subject line I used to test, and it’s interesting to note that the first one seems more formal with the initial caps. The second one seems more like something you’d say to a friend and uses the sentence case.

This shows you the influence subject lines have on:

1. open rates from email recipients
2. landing in the primary inbox of subscribers

It’s just one more reason to A/B test your subject lines. Not only is your ability to persuade readers key if you want them to open them, but it looks like it’s a factor in whether or not your emails are seen at all. Check out this post for tips on writing killer subject lines.

Based on this test, here are my quick tips for getting your email read and opened (aka stay out of the junk folder):

Personalize your email

This is pretty straightforward. Use the mail merge tool in your platform to add the contact’s first name so that it seems like you’re already a connection. After all, you’re a person talking to another person and not a business. When you address someone by name they’re more likely to pay attention. And it makes Google happy.

Use the standard letter format

Keep your emails looking personal, as if they came from a friend. Make the reader feel like you’re talking directly to them. This will gets you higher open rates, plus you stand a better chance of converting readers when your email doesn’t come across as being a sales pitch or deal.

Don’t use images

Images make your email look pretty, but Gmail sees them as a sign of a promotion. It makes sense, because you really wouldn’t be inserting a photo into an email you shoot off to a friend or colleague. You’ll definitely increase readership by dropping pictures. The old ways of using email newsletters go against Gmail’s policies, so keep that in mind if you want to stay out of the promotions tab.

No more than one link

The point of the email is usually to drive traffic to your website, right? So, the prudent thing to do is write an exclusive email and give the reader reasons why they should click that link. Make it all natural and smooth of course. Now don’t get me wrong, you can get away with more than 1 link, but it’s not guaranteed you will survive the Google filter.

Watch for links in your preheader and signature too. The more links you have the more chance you have of winding up in the spam or promotions folder.

Shorter is better

Keep the email short and to the point. The longer it is, the less likely it is to make it to the primary folder.

Don’t sound salesy

If you want the email to go to the inbox, stay away from anything that sounds salesy. Terms like these are a red flag to Google that you’re promoting something:

• Free
• Help
• % off
• Reminder
• Weight loss
• Make $
• Explode your business
• Deals
• More like this…

These types of buzz words will definitely increase the likelihood of the email landing in the promotions or junk folder.

How important is all this, really?

This is a trade-off between readership and conversions in my opinion. Ultimately, you need to decide based on your content and your business goals. You may prefer to stick with their branded newsletter format. If your business is highly visual and images will have a big impact on your readers, it probably makes sense. On the other hand, if you’re sending links to your blog posts, you may not need anything more than a commentary and a link.

After all of this testing, I’ve decided for now to toss the dice on some (not all) of our emails. There are times when using the standard newsletter format works best and we have to cross our fingers that Gmail recipients will open the promotions tab. When I’m promoting a new blog post, I’m fine with the all text format. Since they’re content driven, all I need is a commentary and a link to the article.

Keep in mind that you may not see a difference in open rates at all, or you may find that the branded format actually performs better. Some of it will depend on what percentage of your subscribers are Gmail users and the platform they’re using to read their emails. They may use an email reader to access their email rather than the Gmail interface, in which case the promotions tab isn’t an issue.

Just another reason you need to test. And test. And test again. That’s really the only way to determine whether  branded or faux plain text emails perform better.

 

 

 

 

This blog post is about how to write a business plan for your blog or small business. And of course, why you need one and HOW to create one that you will actually follow and use to achieve your goals.

A business plan is important because it gives you a road map for your business, so that you know exactly what to do and where you’re going. I waited two years to write one and definitely wish I had done it sooner.

Here’s why they’re important:

• They help you visualize your future business. It’s kind of like writing a script for a third act in a play, and your business is the star. What role do you want it to play?
• Validate your concept
• Set realistic expectations about your resources and your budget
• Give you a clear picture of how you will market your business and get to the next level
• See the exact steps you need to take in your business so you can accomplish your goals
• Foresee future challenges so that you can plan ahead for them
• Develop repeatable processes for your business and your brand
• Set a benchmark to analyze and evaluate your growth
• See gaps in your business model and refine your strategy

There’s a lot in this list and it may seem overwhelming at first and that’s okay. Take your time as you go through each step and have fun with it.

What I do when I write a business plan is give myself a time frame to work on it, and what gets done is what gets done. Kind of like saying This window is open right now. At 5pm it’s going to shut and it’s not going to open again. Great way to make sure you don’t get stuck in planning mode too long. The thing that will stop you from achieving success faster than anything else is NOT STARTING, so give yourself a cut-off to get it done and move on.

Here are the steps to write an effective business plan:

1) Create a document for your business plan.

Before we look at what to include in a business plan, keep in mind that planning your business is a fluid process. The first thing you want to do is to create a document in your favorite computer program. Two important things to point out here:

1. You want that you can modify the document throughout the year as you learn more about your biz, your goals, and your audience. You’re going to view your business plan every 3 months, because that’s how you’re going to work your goals and track your progress. So every 3 months you’re editing, tweaking, and updating your goals and steps.
2. You definitely want to keep the doc somewhere you can easily get to it, like Evernote or Google Docs. Don’t tuck it away where you can’t find it again!

Is this what you want to say?

To make it extra easy for you, I’ve created a sample business template you can customize for your biz! Just click the button below to grab it.

PLEASE NOTE: In order to be able to edit and customize it yourself, when you’re viewing the template go to File and Make a copy, or you can simply download it as a Word doc or copy and paste it to your favorite program!

2) Client Summary

One of the hardest things can be identifying your one ideal customer. Everyone from solopreneurs to the biggest brands and corporations struggle with this one.

I think what makes it hard is fear:

• Fear that if you focus on one ideal customer, you may actually lose business
• If you let go of trying to be all things to all people, you’re going to wind up being one thing to no one
• The customers you really want won’t want to work with you

But in reality, the exact opposite is true. When you zero in on your ideal customer, you naturally become a magnet for them. They know right away that you’re a good fit for them and start seeking you out vs you hunting them down.

You probably have a good idea who your target audience is. Most of my clients can say things like, “I’m targeting professional high income women with children.”

Well ok.

What do you do with that? You say it. Write it down on paper. Make a mental note of it when you need clarity. And then you completely forget about it. Because it doesn’t really MEAN anything.

If you’re going to catch the attention of your ideal customers, you have to be besties with them. That’s just the way it works. Beyond their age, title, gender and all the basic stuff, you have to know things like:

• The way they see themselves
• Issues they struggle with
• Problems they have
• How they feel
• What their average day looks like
• Things they want to achieve

For help with your one person, check out this video.

Need help with this? I’ve got a free customer avatar template right here that will walk you through exactly how to get clear on your ideal customer and the true value you provide!

3) Brand Summary

Now that you’ve gotten clear on your ideal customer, it’s time to create a summary of your business. You’re going to want to create two “statements”:

A vision statement (the long term vision you have your business)
A mission statement (how you plan to achieve it)

The vision statement is part of your strategic plan and it’s just for you. This is where you dream big. Where do you see your business going? What difference will you make for your customers and for your own life? Make it passionate and emotional. Visualize your success, what your day looks like, what car you’re driving, what kind of customers you have, all of it.

Here’s what mine looks like: My vision is to create a clear and direct path for business owners and entrepreneurs to build a profitable online business.

The mission statement is about how you’re going to achieve your vision statement. Here’s where you want to document why your business exists, meaning:

• What specifically do you do?
• How do you do it?
• Who do you do it for?
• What value are you providing?

My mission statement looks like this: I support this by providing education and training about growing an online brand, supplemented by creative and marketing support to achieve it.

Next steps
In case you want to know, your next step from here is to take these two statements and create a value proposition. Think of it like this: your mission and vision statements are for you. The value prop is for your customers. It’s your 30-second pitch and the message that gives people a reason to choose you over a competitor. If you need help with this, check out this post.

Here’s something I need to point out because it’s easy to get stuck when you’re writing brand statements:

Vision and mission statements will get you absolutely nowhere without the right product/market fit, which we’ll cover later on. People have to want what you have. What I mean by this is that your business will be shaped more by how people perceive it, not by how you perceive it. So until you test the waters, you won’t know if your vision aligns with what they want or need. Or you may realize that you have to adjust how you deliver your vision.

Point is, don’t spend too much time wondering how to write a business plan or perfecting “statements” until you validate your concept.

Brand look and feel
All strong brands are consistent and strategic with their visual identity. So think about how you want readers and customers to feel on your site. What do you want your brand to say about you? What voice do you want to write in? What will you show people? What types of pictures will you use? What graphic elements or fonts will you use? Take all those notes and turn them into a brand style guide, so people will recognize your brand. All your brand elements should have a cohesive look everywhere – blog, website, email, signatures, business card, sales pages, social — all of it.

4) Validate your idea and your market

Two things you need to dig into here:

Market size: The market you’re targeting must be large enough to sustain your revenue goals.
Product/market fit: There needs to be a sufficient demand within that market for what you do.

When you can place a check next to both of these, you’ve got market validation. If you can’t, save yourself the headache and move on to a different market. I’ll give you an example:

For my design business, I was all set to target health clubs. Since there’s literally a gym on every corner where I live, it seemed like a no brainer. The problem? Turns out that gyms don’t care so much about marketing. For whatever reason, it’s just a not a priority for them. So it would have taken me a ton of work to get even one gym customer. And since the market didn’t inherently value my services, I wouldn’t be able to charge enough to meet my revenue goals. What this means for gyms is:

Size of the market: Check.
Product/market fit: X.

You need to do the same for your business. Spend some time researching potential markets before you start going after them. You just need to know that there are enough people who need what you have and are willing to pay for it, so that you can meet your revenue goals in a time frame that works for you.

5) Competitive analysis

Whew! You’re doing great. We’re just about done creating a business plan step by step…

Now, this next step can pull you into a rabbit-hole if you’re not careful! Like the brand statements I mentioned earlier, the problem with competitive analysis is that the focus is on competitors instead of your customers. What I’ve learned is that there are a ton of people out there doing a ton of things, and how you stand out is really a matter of how much (and how) you put yourself out there.

Still, you want to be aware of who else is in your space. Who do you like, who you don’t like? Don’t copy other people, but even the best artists take inspiration from other artists and then make it their own. That’s what you should do with competitor analysis.

Take a look at their pricing, their offers, their processes, how they move people from the “get to know you” stage to becoming a customer. You can use what you learn to model your own offers and services.

Be careful not to compare yourself to your competitors. You’re starting out and they’re probably halfway to the finish line. Just take a look so you have a better idea of where you fit in the market and how you want people to perceive your brand.

6) Business Goals

So now it’s time to move past the warm and fuzzy side of planning and get your hands a little dirty. If you’re going to be in business, you need to know what breakeven and profitability look like.

How much do you need to make right now, so that you can be in business at all, and how much do you want to make tomorrow, when you scale your business beyond startup?

To figure it out, first make a note of all your operating and overhead costs (rent, utilities, supplies, support, hosting fees, cost of goods, travel, payroll, marketing, and so on). Yes, you need a marketing budget – doesn’t have to be huge, but you need it.

Write down everything you can think of around maintaining your business. You’d be surprised at how costs can creep when you’re not looking! Make a note of variable costs vs fixed costs. It’s good to know where the floor is and how much wiggle room you have.

What you’re going for is to establish a breakeven point first, and then project how much profit you want to make in years 2, 5 and even 10.

How will you hit your goals?
Now that you know what your financial story is, you want to map out specific tasks to achieve your goals. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you know there’s a big difference between saying I want to lose some weight and I want to lose 5 pounds in one month.

If you’re going to hit your goal, you need to reverse-engineer it. What specific tasks will help you achieve it? Hold yourself accountable and write down specific numbers. What exactly do you want to achieve and in what time frame? Do you want 20 subscribers? 100 Twitter followers? 3 new clients? In 2 months? One Year? You get the idea.

Click the button below to grab a copy of the business plan template so you can start reaching your goals!

7) Services and Products

Making money online is all about having sales funnels. And the best way to create sales funnels is to have some idea about the products you are going to offer, both today and tomorrow. Ideally, you want to manage the way people experience your products and services, AND how quickly you meet your revenue goals.

What services do you offer right now? What about down the road, do you have ideas for that? Will you sell products? Make a list of your current and future products. Your goal is to tie both your content and your process together into a sales process that lets people get to Know, Like and Trust you, and then Try and Buy. Basically, you want to create a process for how people will experience your products and services.

A good way to do this is by bundling them into packages. For example:

• Intro Package: Free Consultation, Strategy Call or Freebie. Your goal here is to introduce people to your brand with tons of free info.
• Trial Package: Low-Cost Analysis, Masterclass, Bootcamp, Ebook – get them to commit to an inexpensive transaction with you.
• Standard Packages: Basic, Premium & VIP based on scope, needs, and budget
• Recurring Packages: Nothing beats guaranteed monthly revenue. What services/products can you offer on a recurring basis now and in the future?

Bottom line, different customers will have different needs, interests and budgets. A solopreneur or small business owner is not going to be able to afford the same price structure as a larger corporation. By lining up your packages ahead of time you can meet their needs and your goals at the same time.

8) Pricing

If anyone knows how crucial pricing is, it’s yours truly! In the early days of my design business, I was throwing estimates out there that were all over the place. Some were super low and some were outrageously high. What I did was start out with high pricing and then I’d just drop them for customers with smaller budgets.

There’s nothing wrong with this, except that I would deliver the same exact end product, regardless of whether my price was high or low. So most of the time I wound up doing way too much work for very little income. I didn’t think ahead for different price points and budgets.

Part of this comes from needing customers. There’s a tendency to do whatever it takes to make a sale, and when you’re on the spot a lot of times it can come down to price. Which is why you need those packages.

Each package reflects a different scope of work. Basic and premium packages will require less work than a VIP package and should be priced accordingly. Fewer people will have the budget for VIP and that’s okay. At higher price points, it’s not a volume play. What you don’t want to do is sell customers a basic and deliver a VIP.

Make sure you price each package so that it:

• Makes both you and your customers happy (not just one or the other)
• Accurately reflects the true value of what you’re providing
• Has a decent profit margin so you don’t hit burn out
• Provides you enough income to help meet your revenue goals

Another thing to keep in mind is how you’ll produce each package. Will you hire people or will you do it yourself? How long will it take to deliver and at what rate? What things will you outsource? What things will you do yourself? Factor those rates into your pricing.

9) Marketing Plan

The universe wants you to succeed! People want and need new services and products like yours. So when you think about it, all you need is visibility so the universe knows you exist.

I stumbled on this quote the other day and it’s so simple but sooooo true:

Startups don’t fail because they don’t have a product, they fail because they don’t have customers.

I’ve seen many people put time and effort into developing their brands, their products, throwing money at things like infrastructure, inventory, materials, and staff, and then have absolutely no plan for sales and marketing. Just a few months ago a friend of mine closed her fashion design business after years of developing her line, getting line sheets together, working with printers, the whole nine. In all that time, what she never did was contact stores, send samples to bloggers, blog, dig into Pinterest or Instagram. Nothing.

href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrepreneurship”>Being an entrepreneur means you need to follow all the steps to starting your own business. And one of those steps is to become an expert at marketing. Period.

I’m not saying you have to become a full blown marketing expert or excel at every technique. But you do have to commit to rolling up your sleeves, testing out a few tactics, and then leaning on the ones that work. This post on 100 different ways to market your business will give you some great ideas to get started.

Think about how you’ll structure each day so that you carve out time for marketing and lead generation. Your mindset should be to split your time equally between product development/client work and marketing.

Quickest way to get customers today. How can you set yourself up for success today and in the long term? What will you do right now to spread the word about your brand? For example, you could email or call people you know, do local speaking events, connect with people on LinkedIn, join Facebook groups. Think about the easiest, fastest path to getting customers now. Write down every possible strategy you can think of, and then choose the least expensive, quickest path to test out.

Future growth. What else will you do in the next 6-12 months to spread the word out about your brand?

Social media/content strategy. Based on what you know about your ideal customer, what are the best channels to reach them? Write down what your strategy will be for each. For instance, you could write something like, “spend 10 minutes a day liking, interacting and comment on Pinterest and post at least 1 pin a day.” Look at how other brands are presenting their content and think about what types of content you’ll share. Do you notice some posts that stand out more than others? Write down how frequently you’ll blog and what you’ll write about. You should check out this post for some great ideas!

Your email list plan. If you don’t have a list, it’s time to start growing one! Start making a plan to grow your list. Think about things like content upgrades, webinars, email marketing providers. This post will help you get started with building your list.

10) Workflows

Workflows, baby, that’s where it’s at. They’re such a time saver! With so many things to juggle, setting up systems and workflows will help you automate those tasks that you do over and over. You might be tempted to skip over this, but please don’t. It will save you pain and frustration down the road, plus it’ll make things run smoother, I promise!

Automating tasks. Think about things that you do over and over again, like email marketing, outreach, billing, presentations, proposals, blog title images, editing photos, social media, blog posts. Walk through your workflow for each of these. Can you create templates for your photos, proposals, and presentations? How can you schedule your posts ahead of time? If you’re emailing prospects, what software can you use to automate it so that you can reach more people quicker?

Social media + blogging. Come up with a plan for blogging and posting on social media. How often will you post? What will you write about and how frequently. Consistency here is what’s going to make your readers trust you and help you build an audience.

Your process. Branding your processes is a huge time saver in the long run and ensures consistency. Take some time to write down each and every step of your different processes. Examples of processes include how you onboard a new client, and the exact steps you take with them from start to finish.

Your schedule. Consistency and taking action are really important for growing your business! Try to schedule your day so that you’re doing the same things each day so you get into a routine. For instance, schedule time for client work, time for marketing, blogging, and time to develop future products. Try to stick to it as closely as possible.

There you have it! I hope these steps cover everything you want to know about how to write a business plan. Remember, don’t get stuck. Keep movin’ forward! Time to build a life you love and enjoy the thrill of being your own boss!

Grab the business plan template below to get started!