SDH 438: 6 Steps to Launching Your Online Business in 2021 with Amanda Boleyn

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Welcome back my friends! In this podcast episode I’m going to walk you through the 6 steps that I believe will help you *finally* launch your online business in 2021. These steps are the ones that will help move you from your corporate 9-5 to becoming your own boss. They are not one-and-done. These steps require daily commitment to show up, regardless of your current circumstances and results, because part of being a successful business owner is embodying who she is before it physically manifests.

After interviewing hundreds of women, and along with my own personal journey to building an online business, there are 6 core steps and success principles that I have identified. Time and time again, guests have brought up these themes throughout their interview and have stated that these themes have played a role in their success so make sure you are paying attention and be ready to take notes!

1.Master Your Mindset

This is key. We talk a lot about mastering your mindset on She Did It Her Way podcast because it is crucial in getting the results you want in your life and business. A common hurdle I see with new business owners is getting themselves comfortable with taking massive action. Maybe you’re tuning in today and you have an idea of the business you want to launch or you’ve taken some action but have found yourself more in the space of dabbling. Meaning, when you take action, it isn’t an “all in” mentality...it is taken from a place of hesitation and trepidation.

Here’s the thing, if you’ve found that maybe you’ve stalled out in the past, dabbled, or haven’t created the results you’ve wanted, that is okay. The default is to shame yourself, get frustrated and upset and think “I’m not cut out for this”. You haven’t taken action yet, what makes you think this is going to be different this time around? You’ve wasted so much time.” and so on. Those thoughts that lead to frustration, shaming, irritation do not serve you. You want to create your present and future reality from your future, not your past. What you did or didn’t do in your past doesn’t matter and it does not serve you to hold on to it.

You have permission to let it go.

You may find yourself holding onto the shame and frustration because it’s what is comfortable. Instead, practice having your own back. Mastering your mindset isn’t something where you sign up for a 6 week course and then you’re done. It is constant work. The more you increase your mental capacity and use tools to sharpen it, the greater capacity you have for things to flow into your work.

Your results are in a direct relationship with your thoughts. The thoughts you think today create your future for tomorrow. If you’re not taking action and can’t motivate yourself, then I invite you to join Elevate University. It is an accountability membership that helps you get out of your own way and into action. We unpack these mental constructs so you can start taking massive action and achieve the results you want. Maybe you’ve signed up for courses and programs in the past and had the best of intentions of going through them but they’re collecting virtual dust...then my friend...head to shediditherway.com/elevate and sign up for Elevate University it will change your life. Promise.

Takeaway: If you have a goal or a result that you want to achieve not achieving, unpack that thought that is driving the feeling you feel that causes you to take action or not.

2. Invest In Yourself

The quickest path to success is finding someone who is already doing what you want to do and going directly to the source. For example, if you want to learn how to build a virtual assistant business, then find someone who has a successful VA business and enroll in their program and course. If you want to launch a profitable podcast from the start enroll in my podcast course, Podcast Your Way where I walk you through step-by-step how to launch your podcast in 30 days.

The time and energy you save by having someone tell you exactly how to do something you want to do is worth the investment. Investing in yourself doesn’t have to mean spending thousands of dollars either. There are low-cost, high value programs. Elevate University at the time of this recording is $67/month but the value there is 10X from the live coaching, monthly trainings and core content.

3. Validate Your Business Before You Leap

Once you know the business you want to create, always validate before you leap. The tendency might be to think, “I’ll figure it out once I quit and have more time.” The pitfall that people make is thinking that time is their problem. Time is not the problem, it is how you think about the time you have and what you do with the time you have. If you don’t have strong time management tools now, then when you do get more time, you’ll still run into the challenge of not having enough time. You also may find yourself in a bit of shock because you have so much time that you don’t know what to do with it.

Getting yourself to validate your business prior to leap does a couple of things;

It helps build your confidence in your ability to get clients because once you get one, there is always more where that came from
It helps you understand HOW to get more clients and
It feeds into getting more clarity on your pricing.

I’ve shared in previous podcast episodes the importance of understanding your leap number - how much do you need to make in your business that signals it is time to leap. You want to make sure you are doing math on how much money you need to make in order to make that leap and validating your business will help keep you accountable in doing so. I have seen many entrepreneurs make their leap and the most successful ‘leapers’ (if you will) are the ones that built their business on the side of their full-time job; with kids, 60-hour week jobs, you name it. Their ability to build their business alongside their full-time job set them up for success when they finally made their leap.

Takeaway: Find your leap number and make the goal to validate your business before leaping.

4. Get Your Money and Legal House in Order

***DISCLAIMER I AM NOT AN ACCOUNTANT, NOR AM I A LAWYER. WHAT I SHARE IS FROM MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.***

Keep your business and personal money separate. Whether that is through completely separate banking accounts or different checking accounts within your personal banking. Incorporate your business to protect your personal assets.

Create a Google spreadsheet and keep track of what you spend on business expenses and money that comes in. This is the quickest and easiest way to get started without overcomplicating it.

Part of your Elevate University membership gives you access to last year’s She Did It Her Way Summit content, which includes a Google sheet template from one of the speakers, Tess Wicks and a course regarding all things legal.

5. Play the Long Game

Building a business takes time. We recommend mentally committing to your business for 5 years. Any time frame shorter than that can create frustration when your business isn’t where you believe it should be. Playing the long-game also allows you to make long-term decisions vs decisions based on outcomes when things don’t go the way you planned. Another reason to build and validate your business while you’re working full-time.

6.Detach From the Outcome

When you’re starting out as a business owner, everything matters so much and everything is magnified. When you have a discovery call with a potential client that doesn’t result in a paid client, you’re crushed. When you do your first “failed” launch and no one signs up, it is heartbreaking. But over time you learn that those “failed” launches are a) not truly failures, they are learning experiences and b) part of the process, everyone goes through them. The sooner you detach from the outcome, the sooner you stop making decisions based on the outcomes and start making decisions based on your vision and your future self.

Takeaway: When you make decisions from your future self, you begin to act as if you already are where you want to be and you accelerate the process of bringing what you want into your life.

Thank you so much for joining me again this week.

Until next time, keep doing it your way!

Insights:

“The quickest path to success is finding someone who is already doing what you want to do and going directly to the source.“
“The time and energy you save by having someone tell you exactly how to do something you want to do is worth the investment.”
“Your results are in a direct relationship with your thoughts.”
“You want to make sure you are doing math on how much money you need to make in order to make that leap and validating your business will help keep you accountable in doing so.”