I spent a year investing too much time, money and energy trying to figure out this whole online biz world, and then everything I had learned finally clicked, and I quit my job and replaced my income within 90 days.
In reflecting on everything I’ve learned through this experience, I came up with a list of things that I would tell a close friend right now if they asked me what I’ve learned that could help them.
What I hope to do here is share some wisdom to anyone who is where I was last year, or anyone who feels overwhelmed by all the options and pitches they see everywhere for courses and programs about marketing and online business. I’m telling you now because I wish someone would have been honest and told me these truths about online business a year ago.
I want to save you some time, give you some hope, and probably get some interesting conversations going.
Okay, here are 8 things I wish someone could have told me last year:
1. People who need to make money shouldn’t make blogging their core activity. There are two kinds of people that blogging is great for, and it’s not the person who needs to make money in the next 3-6, or even 9 months. For more on this, check out the YouTube video I just posted about it: The Honest Truth about Blogging.
2. All you need to make money is Dubsado, Stripe, Zoom, and Calendly, and all four are free to get started. I made up this system, and used it to replace my income. For the details on this strategy, check out my video: The Honest Truth about How to Make Real Money Online.
3. If you know you’ll want to get into courses, products, and memberships and build email funnels, it’s worth it to start with Kajabi instead of WordPress. I started with WordPress, a pile of plugins, Teachable, LeadPages, and Drip, and then did more research and replaced all of them with Kajabi, it saves me a ton of time, costs the same, is built for mobile, and positions you to scale your business once you are ready.
4. If you want to start making real money soon, spend 0% of your time on affiliate promotions, links, strategies, etc. At this stage in your business, your time is just seriously way too valuable and your network is too small.
5. Spend a ton of time networking and talking to people, until you figure these things out: who you are and what you do, how you can best provide value, and who needs that from you and will pay you for it.
6. The only daily habit you absolutely need is journaling. I cannot overstate the importance in entrepreneurship of learning to listen to yourself and to recognize, own and prioritize your own voice. It can be astonishingly hard to figure out who you are and what you want, and then to deal with all the mental obstacles that come up as you take bold and courageous steps to go where you’ve never gone before. Journaling helps you with all of this, and more. Just do it, start NOW.
7. There is no one size fits all formula, but all you need is the one strategy that is right for you. That, and the discipline to focus on it. In order to have the right strategy, and stick to it and fight your inner demons, you need wisdom, accountability, and mindset support, and that’s where coaching comes in.
8. Invest in a coach instead of a bunch of courses. This is the biggest mindset shift that took me a long time to realize. You think you can’t afford to spend money on a person and their opinion, and you think you need more information. But the opposite is actually true. You have nearly everything you need already inside you. You don’t need anymore information. The only thing you do need is the right coach. The best investment you can make is in the right person to support and guide you on your journey, in focus, discipline, and strategy, as well as in mindset and shifting your thoughts and beliefs.
This is part of the reason that I’ve decided to focus as a marketer on offering coaching, because I believe that one-on-one coaching is truly the best service I can offer, and the best investment you can make, to change your life and help you take the next big step in your business, whether that is getting off the ground, finding your next few clients, or even creating a course if that is the right way for you to serve your audience.
I want to help you identify the one idea that has the most potential to change your life in the next 90 days, and then coach you through the process of accomplishing it.
If you’re interested in that, let’s get on a free discovery call and chat about it: https://calendly.com/alicia-eichmann/discovery-call.
Alicia Eichmann