In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are leaving their jobs so that they can build businesses that they’re excited about. This isn’t surprising. After all, a global crisis of this scale is bound to force people to question the way they’re living their lives. As it turns out, many people find the idea of working for themselves more fulfilling than working to build someone else’s dream. What’s more, people love the idea of building a remote business that they can work from anywhere in the world. This gives them the freedom to globetrot as much as they want to. With popular destinations like Dubai, Spain and Mexico unrolling new digital nomad visas, this life is more accessible than it was before.
As more and more people leave the 9-5 grind to build businesses from scratch, it’s becoming apparent that there are no resources that offer step-by-step advice to guide them through the journey. As a result, new entrepreneurs find themselves scrambling to piece together bits and pieces of advice from different places. This endless search for the perfect manual to building an online business can take away from the peace of mind the life of an online entrepreneur is supposed to offer.
Drawing from their experience in business ownership and wellness, Emily Toft and Blair Quane have compiled a free resource library for entrepreneurs who want to build successful online businesses. This library is designed to serve people who are just launching a new business for the first time, as well as those growing an established online business. Their website – emilyandblair.com – boasts over 270 articles and a rich collection of downloads, references and recommendations. With these resources, emilyandblair.com guides entrepreneurs through the entire journey from launching an LLC right through to selling their website. At emilyandblair.com, you can find all the advice, guides and tools you would need at any journey of your online business journey in one place. What’s more, you can access all these resources for free!
Since emilyandblair.com doesn’t charge a fee, anyone can access the website from anywhere in the world. The resource library is divided into Journey Steps that cover the stages most entrepreneurs go though in starting and growing their online businesses. As an entrepreneur, you can easily navigate through these steps using the navigator in the side bar of each article or by using the right-hand bullets or the navigation pane located in the side bar of each article. You can simply decide where you are in the process or what information you require before diving into the content. If you’re starting from scratch, you can start with Step 1 and work your way through to the end.
Emily and Blair also host a podcast – Elevating Business – for entrepreneurs who need extra help with the everyday aspects of running a business. In addition to business advice and how-to guides, Emily and Blair highlight some products software or services that you can use in particular stages of your entrepreneurship journey.
In order to run a successful business, you need a brilliant team of employees who you can rely on. This is especially the case if you want to scale fast. For an entrepreneur who is looking to invest more time and energy in growing the business, hiring the wrong people can be a costly mistake. After all, this throws you into an endless cycle of hiring and firing which not only consumes time but is also emotionally draining.
If you want to get your hiring right the first time round, then you need to spend extra time streamlining the hiring process. Firstly, you should start off with a detailed job description, highlighting exactly what you’re looking for in the ideal employee and what your idea of success at work looks like. Too many entrepreneurs make the mistake of building a vague job description that leave you wading through a pool of unqualified candidates to find the person you’re looking for. Instead of doing this and creating more work for yourself, do it right from the start – be clear about your expectations.
With a detailed job description, applicants can decide whether they’re qualified enough to apply and you’ll end up with a smaller and better targeted pool of applicants to interview. During the interview process, keep things natural. Try to make it feel more like a conversation than an interrogation. Ask each applicant about things that you haven’t already learned about them from their resumé – this will give you a better sense of who they are off paper and whether they will be a good fit for your team. Finally, when you settle on your top candidates, take time to understand their expectations too. Find out what they need from you so that you can keep them long-term. Do they want higher pay? More days off? More vacation time? More perks? Find out what they need and figure out how to give it to them without running a loss. After all, dealing with high employee turnover will cost you a lot of time and energy that could’ve otherwise been invested in growing the business.
Once you’ve hired a winning team, it’s important to find ways to motivate your employees. After all, happy employees can be the best brand ambassadors, especially if they interact directly with your clients. Celebrate your employees for the hard work they put in every day, so that they can see where they are making a difference. An employee who is excited to come to work every day because they know they’re contributing something meaningful to the business will give their job their all. They’re also less likely to just up and leave.
When you quit your 9-5 job, you also lose a reliable source of income. For what might be the first time ever, you have to rely on yourself for a stable income. This requires you to develop a product that people will care enough about to spend money on and figure out how to earn a profit from your sales. Many entrepreneurs who are just starting out struggle to pay themselves because it’s all they can manage to pay their employees and invest what’s left back into the business.
The key to proper cashflow management is budgeting and developing sustainable payment systems. Setting up a budget will help you understand how much money it takes to run your business efficiently. With this knowledge, you can set a fair price for your products that not only attracts consumers but also helps you renumerate your staff, invest money into growing the business and pay yourself a stable income that can finance your lifestyle.
Time management is a daily struggle for entrepreneurs who wear many hats. In reality, most first-time entrepreneurs wear all the hats. After all, your business is your baby, and you can’t just trust anyone to take care of this baby. Unfortunately, entrepreneurs who believe this get burnt out while overpaying employees who aren’t living up to their potential. In order to manage your time well and balance the tasks fairly across the team, you need to do the following:
Set long-term and short-term goals for your business and break these down into monthly, weekly and daily tasks.
Eliminate any tasks that don’t align with your end goals.
Delegate tasks that someone else can do reasonably well to other members of your team.
Most of the time, when you first start out with a new business, cash is tight and your dreams are big. That’s okay. This isn’t a reason to panic. Rather than focusing on making thousands of dollars in sales and striking it rich right out the gate, focus on delighting your first few customers. Yes, we get it. You want to grow your audience immediately. However, you shouldn’t lose sight of your current customers simply because you’re trying to get more customers. After all, a customer who feels neglected will walk away and find another brand to give their money to. On the other hand, a customer who feels valued will do lots of free word-of-mouth advertising for your brand. By offering your existing customers the best experience, you will actually get more customers as their friends and family come to check you out.
While the life of an online entrepreneur can be challenging, with the right resources, these problems can easily be solved. That’s exactly what Emily and Blair are offering you at emilyandblair.com.
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