This article is not a get rich quick scheme! So if that's your intent go buy some scam course. This is a genuine way that someone can develop the blueprint and skills required to create an online business. The aim at the start is to keep the outlay at zero, when starting out you will invest time over money. So all you'll need is social media and free websites.
First things first, what skills or value can you provide people? When you answer this, you have to be brutally honest with yourself. No need to pretend you have skills that you do not possess. If you are blanking for any valuable skills you can offer, it's time to develop a skillset (take time in developing this).
It doesn't have to complex and it doesn't have to be related to common trends.
You've got a skillset, delightful! Now you need to understand how businesses work, it's not complex. Businesses are providing a product or service, which will add real value to someone's life, in return for this value, they will deliver you the value of money. Sounds like I'm teaching you to suck eggs but it's important we go step by step. Why are you sucking eggs anyway you creep.
You're skillset is your value. The key 5 key steps now are; how will you package your skillset, who would genuinely find this skillset valuable, where are these people, most importantly how do I get their attention and finally how do I convert attention to a paying client. Again keeping it simple for a reason.
Step 1. Packaging your Skillset. In order to sell something, you have to have something to sell. Your skillset has to not only be valuable, but solve an issue in someone's life, that's so annoying that they are willing to pay to have it resolved. These people will come in different tiers, generally based on two things; how much support do they need and how much can they invest. Generally start of with 3 different packages: standard, premium & exclusive. The aim is for most people to go for the middle package, so this needs to be the most enticing one and deliver the most value for money. The exclusive package is for the people who will want to pay for the best. All 3 packages have to be sufficiently different in both price and quality. If someone pays for more they should get more.
With running a business, one thing that is key for sustainability is predictability of income. If possible you should be trying to find ways which your service can be a monthly subscription with minimum sign up time and notice period.
Step 2. Who would Genuinely want your Skillset. This is your opportunity to see if your skillset is actually valuable. Lots of people think their skillset is valuable until they try and understand who would want their skillset. Often the more specific you can be, the better. Don't get caught up in keeping your audience as wide as possible because it give you more possible clients, this doesn't not work in a start-up phase. You need to be solving a specific problem. What demographic do you think will be best suited for what you offer.
Step 3. Where are these people. You've got a type of person created, so ask yourself the most important question, where do these people place most of their online attention? Are they spending time scrolling through dog meme pages, are they following a specific celebrity? Understand where they will virtually be. So find the pages that your future client is following and look it that pages followers.
Step 4. How do you get their Attention. Firstly you'll need a social media page, Instagram is the best place to start. Establish your presence. Your aim is to look and feel like an expert in area of skillset. Which means lots of content. If you genuinely want to make this work focus at the start on putting out content everyday, then week by week try and improve one thing at a time. Top tier content and best organic reach will be through reels. So grab your phone (shoot with the back camera, common now it's not amateur hour) and start talking to the camera. Don't take time introducing what you are talking about. Get into it. If you want to earn bonus views, have a nice background, wear nice clothes (cough look your best) and use an editing app like CapCut (it's free) and change the frame every 3 seconds. If you aren't comfortable speaking to the camera, use Canva (it's free) and create carousels which will be useful to people. Don't create the content you want (this isn't about stroking your ego of how great you are), create that actually helps your future client. Just give at the start, don't ask yet.
If you are struggling for ideas, find people who run a similar business and take inspiration (copy) from their content. Create a bio that is clear of what you do. Use highlights to help people understand your packages (maybe don't include price). Make sure you've got a good scroll of content on your feed which looks professional. Start to learn about how you can optimise content, google search the followings; geotags, hashtags and best posting times.
Step 5. Converting Attention to Paying Clients. At the start I would strongly suggest you focus on delivering value only, for a minimum of a month. Make sure that you deliver content that not only provides useful information but helps people know you. Let's face it, there's loads of businesses that will be doing what you do, you are key in building trust, so people feel they are buying from a person not just a business.
Okay so you have a few likes and a few video views. This is awesome! Now comes adding in 'call to action' cues, this means you want to give people the opportunity to enquire about your service/product. Start putting prompts in your stories, this starts to seperate people who are engaged in your stories. Place more call to actions in your content, up until now the focus has only been deliver value. Now we can start to incorporate at the end of content 'book in for a free consultation'. Giving someone an option to go further. Find the places where your future clients are (we did this earlier), go follow the ones you think could be or like or comment on their content. Start messaging people who you know to get use cases. Imagine for a second you are buying something, what are the key things that will make you buy it? Usually the key is can I guarantee what I'm buying will solve my problem, the closer to guaranteeing this the better. The way you can do this is use cases, social proof that what you do delivers the desirable results.Post about these results.
Over time you will develop clients. Your aim is that when they have that moment of need, that you and your services comes to the top of their mind. Remember that people always overestimate what they can do in a short period of time and they underestimate what they can do over a long period of time. Play the long game, do things right and you will get there.
Comments