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The following article was published in our article directory on March 9, 2015.
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7 Ways to Stop Treating Your Business like a Hobby

Article Category: Marketing

Author Name: Candy Baswell

Are you not getting the return you expect from your business? Maybe you are treating your business as a hobby and need to redefine how you look at your business. Here is an approach you can take in 7 tips to breathe life into your business and give it the sustainable momentum you are wanting. Fair warning, it takes hard work and dedication required of a hungry entrepreneur. When you approach your business with true heart and grit, your passion and persistence will shine through turning that laid-back hobbyist you've become into a successful entrepreneur.

1

Remind yourself why you started your business in the first place.

Was it to be your own boss? Maybe you have always worked for yourself. If that's the case think of how difficult it would be if you had to close your doors and become an employee. Not a pretty picture, huh? Maybe you're like me and started your business part-time to replace your full-time income and get out of the corporate rat race. Because you are use to receiving a regular paycheck, you are easily trapped into letting your business idle along and possibly dwindle into nothing. Strengthen your desire to break away from that daily grinding job routine by creating a vision of what you want your daily routine to look like. I would like to travel to different places I have never been and work from my laptop. Madagascar anyone?

"If you talk about it, it's a dream, if you envision it, it's possible, but if you schedule it, it's real." -Tony Robbins

You probably started your business because you have a strong passion for what you do and you want to share it with the world. Find ways to motivate yourself and get that passion back. Read and learn about the success of others that are where you want be and model them.

"If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you'll achieve the same results." -Tony Robbins

2

Set definitive goals.

Setting goals helps you reach the vision of where you want to be from STEP 1. Your goal needs to have a set time frame and a specific outcome. For example, let's say your goal is to produce a monthly income from your part-time business that will allow you to quit your day job. To reach that goal you decide to create a monthly income of $10,000 a month. You plan on reaching that income level within the next 90 days. So your specific outcome is $10,000 monthly and the time frame to meet that goal is 90 days. If your goal is to quit your day job and be an entrepreneur running your own business, this is not an unrealistic goal to set. If you're wanting to obtain financial freedom to be out of debt, spend more time with your family, or even become a legacy to help others, you have got to be willing to stretch yourself in mind and body. Think about this: when have you ever accomplished something great or amazing that didn't require you to stretch or push yourself beyond your limits? Those limits are just perceived limits created by what you have come to believe.

"Don't limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve." - Mary Kay Ash

If a feat has been accomplished by any other person in the world, you can accomplish it too. Don't ever say that you can't do something. Know that you can and you will. The question is "How?" which I will address in the next step.

3

Create a plan to meet your goal.

I learned how to break down a goal into a daily goal from Dave Wood. This helps you to form a daily actionable list that will compound over time to get the desired outcome. Dave says to take your monthly income goal and divide it by 30. Using the income goal from STEP 2, we divide 10,000 by 30. That gives us a daily income goal of $333. Now you have to figure out what amount of sales equates to a monthly income goal of $10,000. For the online business I am in, small sales have the potential to upsell into larger sales. 2 sales a day allows for substainable momentum to achieve a $10,000 monthly income and actually much more than that.

So for this example, you want your daily efforts to focus on getting 2 sales a day to generate an income that averages out to $333 a day. Now that you have a daily plan to focus on, let's look at what you will actually be doing on a daily basis as part of this plan.

"A goal without a plan is just a wish." -Unknown

4

Design a daily routine that forces you to take action.

Now you have to put in the work. But what type of work do you put in that is going to make you $10,000 a month? To be a leader you need to follow the kind of leader you want to be. Follow a mentor that is living the lifestyle you want to lead. Find out what his or her daily routine is or actually what daily routine they followed that got them to where they are now. If you're wanting to transition from a day job and working your business part-time to go to NO job and working your business full-time, find a mentor that did exactly that. Whatever they did while stuck in a dead end job that allowed them to earn an income to quit that job, that's what you need to be doing. Are you coachable? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to step into your role as successful independent entrepreneur? What methods do they use to generate leads? Use those methods. Do they practice a daily routine of self-development or training? So should you. How do they market to their target audience? Incorporate those into marketing to your audience. What follow-up actions do they take with new prospects, customers, or clients? You will need initiate a follow-up method like that as well.

Figure out how much time you can dedicate to your business each day. If you work a day job this may only be 2 or 3 hours. If you're a stay-at-home mom you might could dedicate 4 or 5 hours a day around the daily routines of your kids. Set those hours to start and stop at the exact same time each day. For example you decide to dedicate 3 hours each evening from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. to your business. This doesn't mean you have to skip church on Wednesday nights. On Wednesdays you can adjust your hours to work on your business from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. The goal is to keep you on a consistent routine to grow your business.

So now how do you make the most the time you have set aside daily to focus on your business? If you have a sponsor, coach, or mentor, in your business they may be able to provide you with guidelines on the best ways to apply your time. My coach and mentor gave me guidelines based on me having 3 to 4 hours to dedicate to my business daily.

A. Spend the first hour on self-development. This is critical for anyone that wants to reach a level of success that he or she has not already achieved. Face it. If you already had the success you wanted, you probably wouldn't be reading this article. You wouldn't be treating your business like a hobby because you would know its your life line. It's ok. We all get sidetracked. Now you can get back to business even better than before.

Ask your mentor or coach for suggestions in self-development if you are not aware of any. Be open-minded and coachable. Part of being an entrepreneur is having the entrepreneur mindset. If you can't see yourself achieving the goals you've set and being successful, you won't be.

Read books, listen to audios, and watch videos that will help you maintain a mindset to focus on being successful no matter what. Tony Robbins, Les Brown, and Napoleon Hill all have books and video available over the internet. I have found "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill to be an invaluable tool in debunking the myth that being rich is only for the privileged few.

B. Dedicate the second hour creating value for your target audience. Learn what issues or problems the kind of people you want to attract to your business have. Create a blog, newsletters, YouTube videos, Facebook posts or other social media content to relate to their concerns and solve their problem. Do NOT constantly offer your product or service as a way to solve all their problems. Create trust and build relationships with your audience. Creating content over time and sharing value will help build a following for you that will build trust so when you do present an offer, its value will be appreciated. Don't be discouraged when you present an offer that people don't buy right away. According to Jon Penberthy it can take up to seeing an offer 7 times before a purchase is made.

Especially when you're in a business where you can sponsor others, don't be afraid to tell your story. If you've been through a time of struggle tell your audience so they can relate to you. Then tell them what you are doing or what you have found to overcome that struggle.

C. Now that you have something valuable to share with the world, let's market upon that for the next hour or 2. This is the time you want to dedicate to promoting activities. If your target audience is best sought after by word of mouth to friends, relatives, and co-workers, by all means do that if that is a skill you wish to master or have already. I prefer to focus where demand is more easily defined: over the internet.

Today everyone that uses a computer finds what they want online by using a search engine. Those searches could easily be directed to your content of blog posts, your articles, Facebook page, ads, YouTube videos, or anywhere else your creditable information may exists over the internet. When choosing an avenue of where to broadcast your content, know that using free traffic resources to generate leads work well over time but be sure to stay within the posting guidelines of the medium you are using especially with social media and YouTube to avoid probation or being banned.

With paid traffic sources such as solo ads, traffic brokers, Facebook ads, etc., be conscientious of reviews and recent feedback of previous customers to get the most out of your advertising dollars. Pick one or two marketing strategies being aware of what yields the best results for your time and effort. Once you hone in on a strategy you can realize consistent leads from, focus on that strategy and master it before venturing into another. Consistently focusing your efforts on one key strategy. This will allow you to become an expert over time as you discover how to leverage that strategy and make tweaks along the way.

Don't get overwhelmed by all the technical stuff of setting an online presence in motion. One thing I have learned from being an IT business analyst is when choosing software applications, less is more. The online marketing industry seems to know this best because in no other facet of business have I seen easier tools to use to quickly setup accounts and perform tasks start to finish. Usually the online tools that have the best ease of use have good support documentation as well.

5

Do weekly assessments.

In the first couple of weeks of following a new game plan, daily or at least bi-weekly assessments may be necessary to ensure your actions are focusing towards achieving your desired daily outcomes defined in STEP 3. Remember results are do not just come in the form of dollars. You're getting better at targeting your audience, following up on leads and learning new skills. If time is money, by leveraging your business online, you've earned quite a lot.

Don't be afraid to drop an email to your coach or sponsor to help see if you are on track. You don't want to completely switch gears on the daily actions you are taking if you haven't given certain ones time to cultivate. This is where drawing from the experience of a successful online mentor comes in most handy. That said, also don't completely rely on coaches, mentors, or sponsors to be at your disposal at the drop of a hat. If you chose wisely, those successful entrepreneurs are quite busy themselves. I will share more on this in STEP 7.

6

Stay motivated.

Ok so you're feeling a little like a robot. Think of it this way. The hard work you are pumping out now to put a name to your face is going to pay off big in the long run. Why? You're creating a billboard of yourself online. It's not just in one town, but multiple cities. And it's not in the same old billboard you drive by everyday. It has a fresh and inviting new ad every time you see it. Stick with your game plan and as these 90 days count down you will be astonished by the magnitude of success all your efforts have accomplished.

Spend an afternoon with your family or friends doing something fun. Know that your success is going to allow for more moments like those. Need more motivation? Check out STEP 7.

7

Surround yourself with the right community.

Join Facebook groups, email lists, webinars, conference calls, and online hangouts sponsored by successful entrepreneurs of your business or a similar business model. Send friend requests to those you want to model after or just follow them. Other members may have insights into things you may be struggling with and vice versa; you may can contribute to resolving dilemmas they're having by sharing your expertise.

Being engaged with such a community will help you stay on top of updates, strategies, and changes that may affect your business. Being in the "know" will help you create content to share with prospects or clients that will be valuable towards their decision to buy from you or join your team.

As with anything in life, you will come across obstacles you must overcome in your business. Remain passionate, consistent, and persistent and you will realize success.

Keywords: personal online brand, business plan, online marketing, self development, online strategies

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