How to Figure Out What You Really Want to Do: 7 Steps to Build Your Dream Business
Hey, you. Yeah, you over there who has this passion that fuels your soul. This passion that you think deep down inside might just be able to turn into a business, but you’re maybe more than a little bit nervous about even thinking that. I mean, who makes money from doing something they actually love? We do. And so can you. We believe in treating your business (what you might be calling a hobby) like a business from day zero. Before we had clients or raving customers. Before it helped pay the bills and allowed us to work from home and make our own schedule. Before we had to pay quarterly taxes and consider an LLC. Before any of that, we decided that this little ole passion was going to be a full blown, soul fulfilling, freaking profitable business.
Once you establish that this passion of yours can be a profitable business it’s a lot easier to make crystal clear decisions regarding your business. Should you invest in that program? What about blogging? What social media channel should you be on? Should you focus on list building and email marketing? When you’re clearly able to see where you want your business to take you, you’ll know within seconds how much time you should be spending and in what areas you should be focusing. Until you get to that point mentally, you’re just “trying things”. We know it’s easier to tell people “I’m trying it out and seeing where it’ll lead me.” It’s harder to own what you’re doing and what you want it to become.
So the first step is done. You’re ready and willing to go head on into this whole creative small business owner thing and totally rock it. What comes next?
You’re armed with passion, now let’s get you the tools to make it all happen. While there are loads of tools (softwares, apps, products, and systems) that we use every day to make our jobs easier, there are a select few that we absolutely couldn’t live without. Swipe them, use them, love them and watch them help you save time and knock some major things off the ole to-do list. We’re all about working smarter, not harder.
ConvertKit: Our favorite and handiest email service provider. We’re all about investing in things that make the most sense for your business. Email marketing makes sense and shows about a $44 return for every $1 spent, so it’s clearly worth your time and money.
Pic-Tap-Go: The easiest, fastest and most powerful iPhone editor available. For just $1.99 you’ll be able to edit your smartphone pics in a way that mimics the quality of DSLR images. This is the only editing app we use to edit on the go. It’s the key factor in how we’ve been able to create a consistent and professional looking Instagram feed across the board.
WebinarJam: This is how we run our webinars and it’s been one of the biggest game changers in our business. When we were running webinars every month the first 5 months of our business, we doubled our list every single time. This has been a huge factor in the growth and engagement of “our people” on our list.
Teachable: The simplest and quickest way to get your course online. We host all of our programs over on Teachable and love the ease in which we can go from idea to money making course super fast. Their drag and drop functionality mean you don’t need to learn code before you can sell online. Teachable has been a huge factor in our growth here at TCC.
Want to know what else we use to make our business run smoothly? We’ve got a bag of virtual goodies ready and waiting for you right over here.
Now that you know you’re gonna make this happen and you know the tools that are gonna help get you there, when does it all happen? Well, now we have to take a long hard look at our day and week. We know you’re probably still at that full time job (outside the home), or chasing the kids and the laundry, which is a (sometimes additional) full time job in and of itself. You’ve got to make concise decisions in a timely manner in order for you to see the most movement. Well, before we can actually start penciling stuff in, you first need to plan out and write down how you want your week to look different. What would it look like if you actually gave your business your all? What would happen if you took a Tuesday off?
Are you going to be building a business that’s going to need your attention 24/7/365, or will you set up systems that can work behind the scenes when you aren’t there?
This is where it’s going to be super easy to look at what everyone else is able to do in their business. You’ll look at their Instagram feeds or read their newsletter thinking that they have bigger budgets, more time, better results and richer clients. This comparison corner is not a fun place to be, and you’ll start to feel bad if it doesn’t seem like you’re catching up. This is when we urge you to think about what’s going to work for you and your family or situation, not what works for others.
If you can only give 30 minutes a day, make it a damn good 30 minutes.
In order to make it a damn good 30 minutes, you need to be eliminating as many steps as possible for each and every task. It may not make sense for you to outsource someone else to do certain tasks, but you could automate it. We’ve been able to find so many steps in our everyday (some big, some tiny) to automate, and that has in turn found us so much time in our day.
Now, you’ve got things automated and running in the background. You’ve gotten some things off your plate so you can focus on moving your business forward. But there are still everyday tasks that need your attention. You still need a place for brainstorming, big dreaming, planning and doing. Where to do all that?
We personally use (and recommend) Trello. This is our go-to powerhouse that enables us to not only dream big, but get our everyday to-do’s done. It’s how we function as a two CEO business, communicate with our team, plan our launches, blog posts and podcasts episodes and check in our growth as things progress.
Ready for your final step? This one is pivotal. It’s dramatic. It’s huge. It’s the hardest.
You just need to do the damn thing. And then do it again.
Make a plan then follow through. Dream the dreams then turn them into action steps. Don’t just say you want to have a dream business, build it. Establish your hobby like a business from day one and reap the benefits.
Will they come overnight? Absolutely not. But will they come at all if you don’t treat every single day as if they will? Absolutely not.
If following through isn’t your forte (hey, we see you creative) then let us help you. We know that sometimes our right brained friends can stay in the clouds and convince themselves that their big scary dreams can’t happen. But we know that they can.
Here’s the bottom line: we believe in you, your passion and your success. We want to be your biggest (and loudest) cheerleaders in everything you do. We want this world to be filled to the brim with people loving their jobs instead of hating them. We want to help form new generations of people working creatively and with so freaking much passion that it runs out their eyeballs. We think you’re ready to be a part of that.
If you’re ready to see some movement in your business and be proud of what you get to do every single day we want you inside our brand new (FREE) course Spark Your Creativity: 7 Steps to Ignite Your Business. Here’s what we’re breaking down:
Why your passion needs a purpose
More tools to be more productive and badass apps to help you cut the crap
The mistakes we’ve made and the things that can totally kill your vibe
How to plan your dream week and how it can totally shift how your business runs
The secret sauce behind our success (and how you can totally copy it)
The best way to make goals that get done
Hundreds of creatives have already chosen to take these steps and are ready to see big changes in their creative business. Will you be the next one?
