She Owns It

Celebrating, Connecting, and Supporting Women Entrepreneurs

Benefits of Writing: 11 Scientific Facts (Inforgraphic)

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Have you ever wondered why you feel so good inside whenever you write your heart out in your journal? That’s because the benefits of writing go far beyond building up your vocabulary. Writing not only eases the symptoms of mental illness but also improves your mood and manage stress levels.

And there is actual scientific evidence that supports the various psychological and wellness benefits of writing and journaling which we are to share with you in this infographic below.

The best part of writing is that you don’t need to be a creative genius or a passionate writer to benefit from writing, though I can assure you that you will join the ranks of some of the most visionary people. Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, and Leonardo da Vinci all kept journals, writing down their thoughts, ideas, sketches, musings, and jokes.

So the next time you feel stressed and overwhelmed and wish to fix your complex problems, think of writing in your journal.

In the infographic below, we present 11 science-backed benefits of writing.

Check it out before you embark on your writing journey. Even if the world fails to recognize your talent, you will ensure better memory, mental well-being, and cognitive skills.

scientific benefits of writing
This infographic about the benefits of writing was originally created by and published at https://www.syedirfanajmal.com.

How to make time for your side business (and take it full-time)

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by Camilla Hallstrom

When I first started building my business, there was one big thing that kept me back: Time. It felt like I never had the time to grow my business so that I could take it from a side business to a full-time venture. In hindsight, I know I could have done a few things more effectively and achieved my goal faster. Here they are:

1. Build the right business

To be able to quit your job as fast as possible, you need to focus on the right type of business. What do I mean? Compare an ecommerce store and a service-based business. With an ecommerce store, you need to make more money to make it profitable because you need to pay for inventory and shipping. A service-based business (like a freelance business) doesn’t come with these costs.

2. Use a skill you already have

When you’re building your business, focus on a skill you already have so that you don’t have to waste time on learning new skills. I first got started with a translation business and later a freelance writing business because those were skills I already had. This way, I could focus on getting clients (rather than acquiring new skills) from day 1.

3. Focus on the right things

One of the biggest mistakes side business owners make is to focus on the wrong things: Building a website, setting up social media accounts, blogging, and podcasting. I made this same mistake and it set me back many months. You see, when you’re first starting out, the ONE thing you should focus on is getting clients and the easiest and fastest ways to get clients. This includes tapping into your network and directly pitching clients to work with you.

4. Cut down on your time-wasters

You might be thinking: “But it’s so hard to find the time to work on my side business!” I hear you. I used to think that way, too. But then I realized just how much time I was wasting on things that weren’t really that important to me, like hanging out on social media. In fact, you can easily waste hours on these activities every day. Track your time for a few days to find those things you waste time on.

5. Get recurring clients

To build a business, you need to get clients. Unfortunately, all the time you spend on marketing and sales is unpaid. A great solution? Get as many recurring clients as you can, so clients who hire you every month, by focusing on projects that clients need help with on an ongoing basis. In my business, I focus on blog posts rather than one-off projects because this is a service clients need every month.

In the end, building your side business does take time and work. But being able to hand in your notice is well worth the effort. After all, you’re building a business for life.

 

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Camilla Hallstrom is a freelance writer who helps others start their own writing businesses and work from anywhere. Get your free PDF “The 3-Step Plan to Earning $1000 on the Side in the Next 30 Days as a Freelance Writer (Even if You Have Zero Writing Experience)”: https://www.writefromanywhere.com/.

Social Selling: Why You Should Care by Veronika Vaghina of @x_cart

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by Veronika Vaghina

Let’s see the definition of social selling, to begin with. Social selling is when entrepreneurs use social media to contact their potential customers directly (and to finally stop those evil cold callings). It’s also a way to actually find your prospects and customers and to build long term relationships with them via social networks.

An integral part of social selling is social listening. It means you should monitor how and what your prospects are saying. This way you’ll be able to influence the sale process and to benefit from it.

So why care about social selling?

  1. Teach your sales and marketing teams to use the information people give. Let’s be honest: today people share a lot on their social media (sometimes they even overshare). From a sales perspective, it’s a good thing as your prospects are giving you all the information about their needs — you just shouldn’t ignore it.
  2. No more cold calling. One more point: social selling can replace cold calling. And in terms of building relationships, cold calling doesn’t do any good. Some statistics to prove it: 9/10 of decision-makers don’t answer to cold calls.
  3. The funnel becomes more effective. If social selling is a part of your marketing funnel, it’ll make lead generation easier and more productive for you.
  4. Your potential customers always remember about you. Well, they do in case you remind them about yourself on a regular basis: they can be following your updates, participating in some of your social media activities, they can see your sponsored content or a friend’s mention of your company. Either way, if you are online you can be found.
  5. It’s your opportunity to build a reputation. You decide who you want to be: your tone of voice, your offers, your style. And please, no bots: it’ll influence your professional and personal brand. You should show your sales prospects that there are real people behind your brand.
  6. Your competitors are already there. What are you waiting for? For most salespeople, social selling tools are critical for sales performance. No wonder: I can hardly imagine a company not present on social media.

There are some basic steps to get started with social selling. Let’s check them out:

  • Create content & make people trust you
  • Widen your network
  • Communicate with existing customers
  • Find new customers in social media groups
  • Check out what your competitors are doing; change your strategy if needed
  • Engage with other companies

Your social selling success depends on the relationships you build with your audience. And one of the best ways to do it is to follow the tips below. This way you can be there for your prospects with relevant offers.

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Veronika is a Marketing Manager at X-Cart. The company provides X-Cart, an open-source eCommerce platform, along with the full range of services for online business. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking and reading.

Trust Your Team to Grow Your Business by Katrina Petersen of @crooked_steeple

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by Katrina Petersen

It’s not always easy to trust, especially when it comes to your business. But without trust, you’re on a fast track to burnout. I should know. I bought a historic church and tried to turn it into a premier wedding and event space all by myself.

In my defense, I had good reason not to trust other people. Until recently, I’d been business partners with my husband. We co-owned a property management company together. Then we got divorced, and the divorce got messy. Really messy. As in, I had to take out a restraining order on the father of my children. That kind of messy. It’s no wonder I wasn’t feeling warm and fuzzy about handing portions of my business over to strangers.

So, I threw myself into my new business. The building was in rough shape. It had been privately owned for almost 20 years. First it had been used as a man cave. There was a pool table where the altar used to be and that owner converted the church kitchen into an apartment. Then it was music store and performance hall. The owners had done their best, but the apartment had been pretty much neglected and there was a to-do list longer than a Maine winter.

When I did ask for help, I was careful not to give anyone too much power over the business. I would make all of the decisions. I would approve the designs, pick paint colors, critique and nitpick until everything was just so. I had this idea that I needed to do this on my own. I needed to do the work and if I worked hard enough it would come.

To be clear, buying a dilapidated but historically significant church wasn’t exactly on my bucket list. It just seemed like the right building at the right time. I didn’t have a ton of cash and the owners were willing to do owner financing to help make the sale possible.

So there I am, sweating, dirty, all alone in this 170 year old building while my kids were at daycare and I thought, “What am I doing?”

Actually, it was like someone had slapped me and yelled in my face. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” It was an epiphany. I could renovate this space and turn it into a beautiful, uniquely Maine event hall. I absolutely could. But not alone. I needed help. I needed to trust the small team I’d been building. They were professionals and I could let them do what they were best at.

Now the work gets done and I get to spend more time with my kids. Crooked Steeple Hall is booking events for 2020 and beyond. I thought I needed to be in the middle of everything or my business would fall apart, but it turns out that what I really needed to do was trust.

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Katrina Petersen was a property manager and event planner before she purchased Crooked Steeple Hall and started building her dream business. Located in the historic town of Winterport, Maine, Crooked Steeple Hall hosts weddings, receptions, town-hall debates, and other unique events.

October is “National Women’s Small Business Month.” Here’s some advice from two women who have been there and done that.

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by Julie Miner and Jaime Venditti

People always ask when we will get sick of talking to each other because we are always communicating. But what they don’t realize is that we’re a team that continually elevates each other’s vision into achievements.

Ten years ago, we were young women who had spent our careers in New York politics, alliance development, and public relations. However, we had grown tired of working for men who offered lower income as compared with less-qualified male colleagues and we were ready to be our own bosses. So, after months of developing spreadsheets and business plans, we jumped head-first into launching our own company, which was based out of our homes and we were the only employees.

We created a plan of action wherein success was the only option. We focused on getting out into the market and securing new business fast in the hopes that – one day soon – we could pay ourselves modest salaries and expand. Most importantly, we recognized we had a niche and believed in our skills and abilities.

Eventually, we carved out a lane for ourselves, hired staff, delivered for our clients, and helped some good causes and honest businesses seeking expertise and advice. Now, a full decade later, J Strategies is a multi-million-dollar company with over twenty employees, three offices in two states, and a suite of services available to clients up and down the east coast.

Despite our success, we have not forgotten where we started nor the hurdles we faced in doing so. As other women entrepreneurs know, we met some challenges when we launched. We had potential clients chuckle when we submitted proposals with price tags similar to our male counterparts. Despite our non-traditional office of young women in yoga pants working on laptops, we delivered creative, out-of-the-box solutions for clients. We looked for that level of problem-solving in employees and have recruited some of the hardest working, smartest, and tenacious professionals in New York. The firm now has both men and women, but we are proud to be one of the few majority-female firms.

October is “National Women’s Small Business Month,” a time to recognize and commend the more than 12 million American women entrepreneurs who fuel the future of our economy. We both wish there had been female mentors offering counsel in the beginning. So, in no particular order, here is advice to women in business looking to start something great:

  • Tune out negative voices. This is your passion, not theirs. So, don’t let the naysayers tell you what you can’t do. Follow your dream, but make sure you create a comprehensive business plan that expects the unexpected – you need to make sure you can overcome obstacles.
  • Don’t undervalue your services. Many service-oriented firms often make the mistake of offering what they do for less money because they are not confident their expertise is worth what the market dictates, especially as a start-up. First, you have to understand what that market rate is for services. Do homework. Make sure you know what others are getting for their time before you put a value on yours. Never underestimate your potential for growth or the value of what you bring to the table.
  • Choose Your Style. For far too long women have believed they have to mimic men in business or be overly aggressive toward other women to be taken seriously in the workplace. We both have dynamic personalities, and we do not hide them. A large part of our success is our ability to relate to others and be approachable. Women are often told to suffocate their nuances to be taken seriously. Own who you are and use it to drive results. You alone set the tone and culture for your business, nobody else.
  • Improving Yourself Never Stops. After ten years as business owners, we are always learning. With an office in Albany, another in New York City and one more in Boston, running a company which tripled in under a year was a challenge. So, we made it a priority to improve ourselves. We read, we listen to podcasts, we watch Ted Talks, we speak to entrepreneurs in similar circumstances to see how they did it. No one is done learning. Don’t think that you can stop just because you hung up a shingle.
  • Foster the Workforce That You Want. We decided to create a company that would actively tackle inherent bias and workforce discrimination. We created merit-based, fair pay structures, flexible schedules, and an environment that motivates every employee to reach higher. We invest in professional development that stresses communication and cultural competency. From this, we have cultivated a phenomenal team.

Being a small business owner is tough but being a woman who owns a small business can be even tougher. Pursue your passion but keep your eye on the prize and remain focused on your mission and success will follow. We hope what we have achieved will be the norm for the next generation of women and they will be writing about conquering something even greater.

 

Julie Miner is a Managing Partner and CEO, and Jaime Venditti is a Managing Partner and President of J Strategies, Inc., a New York and New England-based communications and government relations firm specializing in alliance development, media relations, lobbying, social media, brand reputation management and event planning and execution.

 

 

4 Digital Marketing Tips to Help Startups Establish a Solid Online Presence and Achieve Success by @AlmaCausey

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by Alma Causey

Starting your business is a big achievement; it gives you a sense of accomplishment and pride. However, when the congratulatory session is over, and the real work begins, there is just a lot of hard work that you would need to put in to make everything work, and ensure you succeed.

In today’s robust and increasingly fast-paced corporate environment, there is nothing more vital than to stay digitally relevant and connected to your target audience all over the globe. You have to understand that remaining a step ahead of your competition while maintaining your brand image has become a bit of a challenge.

This is essentially where digital marketing and online strategies come into play. It is the most relevant and important methodology to maintain, nurture, grow, and expand your online footprint. However, to ensure that you are able to successfully implement your digital strategies, and make sure they stay as effective as possible, you will require the necessary tools and branding elements.

For example, without a good logo design, nobody would know who you are. A great logo design is the face of your business online and a bedrock to your long-term marketing efforts.

4 absolutely important digital marketing essentials to help startups succeed

  1. Create and maintain consistent brand identity and image

One of the most surefire methods to propel your online awareness is to ensure you have a sophisticated and relevant brand image developed throughout your entire marketing channels as well as communication.

The first step to making this happen is to invest in great logo design. While there are software you can use to design your own logo, it is important to refer to professionals who can really inspire next level logo concepts that are unique and vital for 21st century customers.

The main goal of a logo is to display your brand’s identity and the ideology of your business. While logos are typically very small in size and design, the task they are burdened with is immense. You see, your logo will become the primary face of your business in the online stratosphere as well as your digital marketing channels and social networking platforms.

A proper logo design is in line with your company’s attitude, culture, and objectives. It relays a straightforward message to your customers, telling them what you are about. So, for example, if you have a whimsical logo design, your attitude should reflect the same.

For instance, if you run an online leather store or a trendy shoe company, the logo should reflect your creativity, your zeal to provide top-notch and trendy products, and your strive to deliver customization and quality.

A logo design should never send out mixed messages; you need your target audience to recognize you, to trust you, and to remember you.

  1. Provide your target audience with a positive and easy user experience

To boost and consistently propel your brand awareness, you must be able to adequately reach your online target audience. Next, it is important to stay connected to them, building trust, and maintain a lasting relationship. You have to continuously strive to inspire them and compel them to stay attached to your brand. So the next important digital strategy for startups is to get a website designed. To provide seamless, transparent, and positive user experience, your website must:

  • Have fast loading speeds
  • Have an intuitive, responsive and streamlined navigation menu
  • Have chatbots for effective and on-time customer representations and communication
  • Have relevant, unique and informative content (this also includes having a digital newsletter and an email campaign to further solidify your bond with your target audience)
  1. Post creative and unique content

After you successfully reach your online customer base and have piqued their interest in your brand, the next step is to constantly publish a steady stream of unique and highly relevant and curated content. The content should both be both video and the written word.

The primary objective of posting fresh content is two-fold; you will need it to accurately and clearly state the main purpose and mission of your brand. The second would be to keep engaging with your customers, ensuring they do not lose interest in your brand.

Content is vital to any digital marketing campaign, however, keep in mind that your content should always add value for your target audience. It should be informative, and each piece should highlight how your product or service can help them. In addition, it is also vital to keep your content short and to the point.

  1. Leverage the power of popular social media platforms

Social media networks will play a significantly instrumental role in propelling your online presence. They will expand your reach and demographics quickly, and you would even be able to do this in real-time.

Using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest will help enhance your brand awareness, convert potential clients into sales, and boost your lead generation.

In addition, it will also help increase your search engine rankings. Therefore, you cannot afford to miss investing in social media marketing. It acts as a larger augmentation of your overall digital marketing efforts.

Think about it, it doesn’t matter how unique and top-notch your content, what good can it possibly do for you if it doesn’t reach your target audience? You would be surprised to know that when it comes to open rate metrics, Facebook Messenger provides an 88% open rate.

Moreover, according to the same research, the click through rate of Facebook Messenger is 56%! What this basically means is that your target audience will more likely open links if you send it to them via the Facebook Messenger app.

The Bottom Line

A well-thought out and precision-based digital marketing campaign for startups, one that appeals to your customer base, will always help propel your online presence and growth rate. In order to connect with your target audience with efficiency and relevancy, nothing is more important than a streamlined focus on developing a consistent brand image.

 

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Alma Causey is a Freelance writer by day and sports fan by night. She writes about tech education and health related issues. Live simply, give generously, watch football and a technology lover.

From Beyonce, to Coco Chanel, to Maya Angelou, The Daily Rituals of Famous Women

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Have you ever wondered how some of the most famous and important women in history have lived their daily lives?

In 2019, where the line between life and work is becoming more and more blurred, could we take inspiration from empowering women of the past and present?

For instance, Martha Stewart packs a lot of into the first hours of her day, before getting down to business. Whereas the life of a pop star is a little more non-conventional, for instance Lady Gaga opts to spend her mornings writing music so she can take afternoons to mentally prepare herself for performing in the evening.

From Beyonce, to Coco Chanel, to Maya Angelou, we’ve taken a look at 36 rituals of famous women:

Find the complete report here.

SOURCES

About BodyLogicMD

Founded in 2003, BodyLogicMD physician-owned practices make up the nation’s largest and fastest growing network of highly-trained practitioners specializing in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Integrated with comprehensive wellness strategies, BodyLogicMD’s medically-supervised treatment plans are for men and women suffering from hormonal imbalance and conditions of aging, such as menopause and andropause.

About NeoMam Studios

NeoMam Studios is a creative studio based in the UK on a mission to create digital content that online audiences will want to share.

How to Promote Your Online Business on Quora by Veronika Vaghina of @x_cart

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by Veronika Vaghina

Let me guess: you are an online business owner who is always looking for a new way to promote your online store or a person who is only thinking of starting a shop. Well then, you’re in the right place as today I want you to consider Quora as a part of your content strategy (spoiler: it’s free & effective). Let’s start!

What Is Quora?

Quora is an American Q&A site where everyone can ask anyone any question and get a decent answer.

If you have never heard about this website, you need to check this link out first. There you’ll learn how this website works, where you find your topics, why people adore it so much and how you can benefit from using it.

How to Promote Your Online Business on Quora?

Create a Quora account, fill in the information, add a link to the website you want to promote in bio.

Choose topics that reflect your niche and your target audience’s interests. Subscribe to the topics to see the new questions and answers, follow questions and subscribe to the users already registered on Quora. In other words, join the community.

Think of the information that you could share: your blog posts, tutorials, or just something you’re good at.

Then look for the questions where this information could be used as an informative answer that actually helps people. This is the key point of Quora marketing: it doesn’t matter how desperate you are in your attempts to promote your business. The first thing you should care about is being useful. People will upvote a good answer and, let’s be honest, it helps not to get banned.

Add links to your website and mention your brand in the answers you write. You should be careful here as it’s easy to get banned. So make sure this exact link is in the right place and brings real value. A seamlessly added link does not make you think for even a moment that you just want to promote your business.

Create a content plan. The more often you answer, the more views you get. Try to answer at least once a week.

Add examples & pictures. These answers get more upvotes and also appear in Quora Digests more often. (To find out what Quora Digest is and how to get in there read the article mentioned above).

Repeat the steps, notice what works better for your business. Change your plan on the go if necessary.

I’ve described an affordable way to get more traffic to your website. Of course, there’s an opportunity, too (but I’m not talking about it this time). It’s up to you now — to follow the tips or to wait for another opportunity. Good luck!

 

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Veronika is a Marketing Manager at X-Cart. The company provides X-Cart, an open-source eCommerce platform, along with the full range of services for online business. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking and reading.

How to enhance your finances using your feminine gift? by @MoneyCoach_AR

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by Alejandra Rojas

For so long in my life, I’ve watched the money field being dominated by masculine attitudes. I recalled watching coworkers yelling to the other one “I’m killing it” when investing under excitement and buying items to feed their masculinity.

I remember having a conversation with a coworker about the future. You know the “What have you plan for the future?” conversation. He asked me what I’d planned to do in a few years, but almost without space for an answer, he started to lecture me about what to do with my money.

He didn’t bother to ask what I wanted for my life, what made me happy; he was just in a rush to give me indications on what I needed to follow to succeed. He went from investing in the stock market to applying for the X credit card that gave me cash back on trips and restaurants. And of course, he emphasises I had to spend as much as possible on it so I could upgrade my status on it.

The thing is that the situations didn’t resonate with me at all. The idea of extravaganza/ “I can rule the world” because I have money, was definitely not what I wanted to focus.

Instead, I needed to bring the best value possible to my life using the tools I’ve studied for, finances. I thought about money as something that should be meaningful for our soul and not just a superficial item, knowledge or action.

As a woman who appreciates the things for the value they can bring in our lives, I was determined to find how money can mean something more than what people are used to.

That coffee conversation for me was crucial to understanding that, of course, we do have different perceptions and understanding about the ways to live and manage our lives. But, as women, we have a fantastic strength inside us that enables us to live a more meaningful money journey, and we need to use it.

So, ever since that coffee talk, I started to work on finances with that female feeling based on a purpose. I was asking myself what role money should play in my life. And I came across with five things that enhanced my feminine gift to bring meaning to my life.

1. Setting up goals with my soul.

If I wanted to change something within my environment, I had to start by changing myself. I was not any longer willing to pursue a vague and vanish success goal for anyone else but me.

I had to close my self and be the most selfish that I’ve been for years to think about what made me and just me happy. What was the success I wanted to seek and how that would contribute to be the person I wanted to be.

I was not any longer looking to satisfy someone else ideal life; I was decided to look inside my head the dreams and ideas that encourage my soul to make them happen.

2. Being grateful for what I have.

Starting my day by saying three things I’m grateful for, connects me with myself.
Part of being more intentional and bringing purpose to my life was to recognise everything that I’ve achieved so far. Without starting my days without being grateful, I just continued with the practice of asking for more without appreciating what I already had.

Not recognizing what I had made me lose sight of the moment, and the whole essence of what I was working for was wasted. I was determined to use my feminine sense to recognize the essential things I had in my life.

3. Setting up boundaries to talk about the money.

I get it! I work on finances, I need to see money most of my time, but there is something else more significant than the money I had to focus.

While discovering that something, I took my home as my safe place to reconnect with myself and find the purpose I was looking for.

I set boundaries within my home and myself to have money points free zones. Areas at home that should be just to connect with myself and with the dreams I had.

I was determined to take power out from money and drive happiness and joy to my life beyond everything.

4. Focus on transmitting my happy thoughts.

It is not really a thing that we often do, but it is that feminine side of positivism and acting from a place of happiness what got me to start sharing all my happy thoughts. Because I do believe we are what we talk. By speaking, we can transmit what we think, and what we believe is what define us.

I focused on transmitting happy thoughts instead of going on circles over problems or money matters. If I couldn’t change the past, then I had to make sure I learned my lesson to avoid the same mistake twice. But crying o braking my mindset over it wouldn’t change anything.

People say women are quick learners, and once we’ve learned the lesson, we are ready to move forward in any aspect of our lives, so I figured money should not be any different.

5. Expressing my point of view.

Later on, I understood I had contributed to keeping the masculine understanding of money on my environment.

Well yes!! if every time people were talking about it, and I just limited myself to listen without expressing my point of view, I was just letting that masculine point of view flowed all over the place.

Honestly, nobody will notice your different ideas if you don’t speak up. I was determined to stop that! Besides, if a woman is determined to be heard, she can sure do it.

So I took a step forward on the conversations and started finding my voice about money issues within my self, my family and the public.

But you know what I found? More people, many women and men, resonated with my ideas every time more. It was just incredible how people felt a lot more comfortable talking about their dreams, their happiness rather than the numbers on their bank account.

 

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Alejandra Rojas is a financial coach who helps millennial women unlock their wealth potential through mindset and money management techniques. Access Alejandra’s Free Finance Roadmap and get started achieving your dreams.

3 Easy Steps to an Expert-Based Business

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by Cheryl Garrison

So you want to start a business but you’re not sure what type of business to start and how to get it started. You’re not alone. I get tons of inquiries from women, especially those over 50, who are ready to assert their independence and become their own boss but can’t seem to find the business they want to start. They dabble in and out of network marketing or direct sales and find that they don’t truly have a passion to build a team or host parties! The idea of having a business becomes more and more frustrating and they are at the point of giving up on this long-held dream. Does this sound like you?

Good news. More and more women are finding that the business they’ve been wanting to start is literally inside of them. It’s their talent, knowledge and passion – the thing they love to do and can do with ease. It’s called starting an expert-based business.

According to market trends, over 33% of businesses started are businesses that evolve from prior experience. This includes businesses like freelancing, independent contracting, consulting and virtual assistance. Many of these businesses are started at home and are more likely to succeed. Personally, I ran a successful consultant business from home for over 15 years. It was based on my work experience and passion as a corporate and technical writer. I was able to raise my three children (now adults) and earn a significant high five-figure income annually.

How did I do it and how can you take your expertise and passion and turn it into a viable and successful home-based business? Below I share three steps you can take to get your expert-based business started and get you on the road to success from home.

Step 1: Be clear on the type of business you wish to start – Many people are knowledgeable about something. In fact, most of us have multiple talents and passions and it is sometimes hard to narrow them down and know your true expertise. Do a quick expertise inventory. Simply get a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle and on one side write all the experience that you have. It can be from current or past corporate jobs, hobbies, volunteering, and education – just brainstorm all of your experience. On the opposite side, write all the things you are passionate about, the things you LOVE to do. You might be very knowledgeable about accounting but truly love teaching. This might lead you to creating an online class on how to keep accurate accounting records in a small business. This exercise has led many people to start lasting businesses.

Step 2: Position yourself as the expert – As I said earlier, most of us are experts at something. But, until someone knows our expertise, our unique and special gifts remain unknown. How do you get people to know that you are knowledgeable in a certain area? You tell them. You tell them online, offline, every chance you get. Some of the most notable ways people are establishing themselves as authorities or experts in their field include:

  • Writing a Book – Writing a book about your field of expertise is instant credibility. Luckily, in today’s digital world, it has gotten easier to get your book on the market through self-publishing, vanity press and ebooks. Decide on the book you want to write and then get busy writing it. ‘
  • Hosting an online podcast/FB LIVE – Establish your expertise by hosting weekly or monthly podcasts/FB LIVEs where you can share “how-to” tips. This is merely a way to keep your message in front of your audience and allow them to see you in the position as expert.
  • Obtaining speaking engagements – Get on the stage as much as possible to establish your credibility. Your local chamber of commerce has opportunities as well as women groups and conferences in your community.

Step 3: Share your Story – The final step is to create a platform for sharing your knowledge with a pre-defined audience. How will you deliver the message? You might decide to create an online course, do live webinars, or conduct one-on-one coaching.

How will you reach them? You might decide to create a social media strategy for Facebook and Instagram. Your offline strategy could be attending networking events.

The three steps referenced here are a quick overview of ways to get your expert-based business started. Remember, starting any business requires clarity, planning and a no-excuse attitude. Follow these steps and you will be well on your way to being your own boss. To your Success!

 

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Cheryl Garrison is a business coach, speaker, author and champion for women over 50. Her desire is to help women re-invent themselves through business ownership. She encourages women over 50 to take their decades of skills and expertise and turn the into a thriving business. For more than 30 years, Cheryl has been an entrepreneur and has earned well over a million dollars from her various ventures. As a business owner, she was awarded numerous Business Excellence awards.

She has been a featured speaker at several women’s conferences and networking events. She is the author of two books: Re-Invent Yourself and From Expert to Entrepreneur. Most recently, Cheryl published her first magazine for women over 50, 50Something Lifestyle Magazine.

As a coach, Cheryl works one-on-one with her clients in addition to group training and masterminds.’

Cheryl created 50Something LIfestyle to help women deal with the “now what”.  Just because we are 50Something, it doesn’t mean that we are ready to be done. We are strong, vibrant women ready to create the lifestyle of our dreams?