3 steps and 29 tools - A guide to become a Solopreneur by the end of this weekend
We're going to make good on our promise for you to become a Solopreneur by the end of this weekend.
That means we want you to have this info in about 7 minutes so you can get started ASAP.
We know there are tons of great businesses out there waiting to happen, but we've found that most of them never get started because people don't know WHERE to start.
Then the idea is lost, gone forever.
We're here to create that spark.
To nudge would-be Solopreneurs in the right direction.
We've organized this guide into 3 steps with tools for each one. Each step represents the important "departments" in your business to focus on, and in this order:
- Finance
- Operations
- Sales/Marketing
This is meant to be a "start" - a framework to get whatever brilliant idea you have off the ground and into something. Enjoy...
STEP 1 - Finance
This is an obvious first step as you will need to decide HOW you are going to finance your business.
Depending on what business you are starting you may not need much, but you will need something to pay for the basics.
Here are your options:
- Your own investment
- Great advice on this topic here from our friends at Shopify here - https://www.shopify.com/blog/investing-in-your-business
- Bank loan
- This is how you apply for a bank loan in simple terms https://www.finder.com/personal-loans-how-to-apply
- Credit card
- Nobody better to give you the most up to date info on small business credit cards than Nerd Wallet - https://www.nerdwallet.com/best/credit-cards/small-business
- Crowdfunding
- Here are all of the best crowdfunding options available - https://www.crowdfunding.com/
- SBA loan
- You will have to qualify but here is the info - https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans
- Microloan
- We didn’t know much about it either - https://www.inc.com/guides/secure-microloan.html
- Raise money from family/friends
- Some great advice on this topic here - https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228103
In any case, make sure you decide what your investment is going to be and stick to it.
Be realistic but also give yourself a chance to succeed.
Once you have your financing in place, keep a separate bank account and credit card for your business so as not to mix your business finances with your personal finances.
STEP 2 - Operations
We've separated these into 3 buckets:
Email, Website and Data:
This is more important than you may think.
Your email provider should be able to include your domain name such as “[email protected]” vs just “[email protected]”.
Our advice? Do yourself a favor and just use google’s email service, Gsuite - https://gsuite.google.com/
WEBSITE
This one will differ depending on whether you’re selling a service, physical products or informational products.
We’ve broken down our recommendations for each type of business:
Service business:
- Wordpress - https://wordpress.com/
- Wix - https://www.wix.com/
Physical products business:
- Shopify - https://www.shopify.com/
Informational products business:
- Kajabi - https://kajabi.com/ (from $169/month)
- Teachable - https://teachable.com/ (from $29/month)
- Learnworlds - https://www.learnworlds.com/ (from $24/month)
No matter what business or website type you choose, you will need hosting. We prefer GoDaddy as it’s very straightforward and inexpensive. You can have your domain name up and running in no time:
- GoDaddy - https://www.godaddy.com/
DATA
You’ll want to make sure you are capturing and managing your data right out of the gates.
You’ll need a place to keep your ideas, marketing assets, sales copy, research links, login info and everything else organized.
For this it’s hard to beat Google Drive.
With one free service you can create documents, spreadsheets, drawings and store files. It’s simple and free.
-Google Drive - https://www.google.com/drive/
Next..
STEP 3 - Sales/Marketing
There are a TON of options out there to help you with your sales and marketing efforts.
We’ve chosen the ones that will get most businesses out of the gates the fastest with the strongest results.
We’ve separated them into 3 buckets and in this order:
Research, Craft, Deliver
RESEARCH - Identify the how, where, who, when, what of getting exposure for your business
- Discover what people are searching for to see how much competition you have using Google Trends - https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US
- Find keywords related to your business that you can rank for - Ubersuggest - https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/
- Check out the Facebook groups related to your industry - https://www.facebook.com/help/1629740080681586
- Find the circles you should be part of on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/186/find-and-join-a-linkedin-group?lang=en
- Gain clarity by asking questions to industry leaders on Quora - https://www.quora.com/
CRAFT - Create a kick-ass, clear and concise message about who you are, what you do, and most importantly WHY you do it.
For example, integrating video content marketing is a very important aspect to grow your business online right now. If you need more convincing here are a TON of video marketing statistics that you should be aware of. You can easily outsource the video content or you can just learn how to create them on your own.
Here are some others, such as:
- How to master copywriting: https://www.quicksprout.com/complete-guide-to-copywriting/
- How to design almost anything: https://www.canva.com/
- How to record a podcast - https://rachelcorbett.com.au/record-podcast/
- Outsource all of this - https://www.fiverr.com/
DELIVER - Decide on what channels and methods you will use to deliver your message to future customers:
Email Marketing:
These are the best in the biz for sending emails to your email list.
- AdWeber - https://www.aweber.com/users/
- MailChimp - https://mailchimp.com/
And while we're on the topic, it's good to get started early on gathering emails from prospective clients and customers as soon as you can. Here is a great article on this topic - https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/killer-email-list/
Online Advertising:
These are our favorite articles for the fastest results on the most popular platforms:
- Google Adwords - https://www.wordstream.com/how-to-use-google-adwords
- Facebook - https://adespresso.com/guides/facebook-ads-beginner/facebook-manager-campaign-setup/
- Instagram - https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-advertising/
- LinkedIn - https://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media/linkedin-advertising-guide/
- YouTube - https://blog.hootsuite.com/youtube-advertising/
Content Marketing:
It’s super important to be publishing your content as much as possible. It may not be great at first, but keep at it and over time you will get better as you get more and more published out there. Plus, it will help you define your message, your audience, and is something you can do for FREE right now.
This will be a very useful article for you to read - https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-marketing
Referral Program:
This is where we come in.
We'll keep it short and sweet since you can learn more about what we do on our site at https://www.referralprogrampros.com but a referral program is the single most effective way to generate new customers for any small business.
If you've had any referral program ideas in the past, this is a great place to start as nothing beats word of mouth these days.
Feel free to contact us at [email protected] as we are always eager to help up and coming small businesses like yours!
