DEAR ENTREPRENEUR,
Starting A Business Is Easy!
It starts with an idea. You pucker up some courage, register your business, get yourself a few business cards, maybe you’ll even splash out on a new website and branding all focused on your product and/or service and then off you go … you have a business.
Ta-da!
Pretty exciting right? But the balloon is popped pretty quickly when you realise that you aren’t attracting clients who pay you moolah for your services.
Then you get down and go on a treasure hunt to find out WHY.
Enter >> Shiny Object Syndrome
You’ll be led down a lot of rabbit holes!
- Like you’re not blogging properly.
- Your google stats and SEO are shot.
- You don’t have the right website platform.
- Your email software isn’t good enough.
- You need different plugins.
- Your branding is crap.
- Your copywriting need to be improved.
- You need to sort out your inner child drama to move forward with any kind of Law Of Attraction Secrets.
The rabbit holes and lists go on and on.
(Yes, I too went down these buggers. Sometimes stayed down there for waaaay too long before coming back up again worse off than I was before).
I found myself a system that worked. It will most probably work for you and you’re looking for answers. So give it a shot yeah?
You need to answer this precisely and accurately:
WHO are you?
What do you DO?
WHY do you do it?
What do you SELL?
And WHO are you serving?
And I believe it comes down to 5 pivotal reasons:
1.Your Branding is crap
2.Systems aren’t working or structured
3.You give up too easily
4.Your mindset is shot
5.You’re not selling
Before we delve into those one-by-one here are a couple of things to consider.
People buy from people. Yes, even on Amazon. People read reviews from people. So if you’re not a person, then people won’t buy from you. Humanising your business is KEY.
It’s so important to know WHO the HECK you ARE!
And I KNOW that this isn’t an easy question to answer because you’re dynamic and changing on different steps in your journey, but at the crux of it all, you need to know you and so does your customer.
You need a product and/or service to sell to be officially called a ‘brand’. So many entrepreneurs are told they need to focus on one thing and sell that.
I don’t.
We’re friggin’ multi-passionate human beings. We have a gazillion talents and gifts and experiences and then narrowing it down to ONE thing? WTF?
I experienced this first-hand: I’m an actress-singer-dancer and half-arse comedian. I draw, am creative. Studied Photography and dabbled in Videography. I write. I muse. I entertain. I design. I philosophise. I’m a mom, a wife and pet-owner. I’m emotional and pensive.
There are too many facets to me that I want to involve in my brand.
And within my vocation, well, I don’t just want to focus on Branding OR Marketing OR Communications. I want to do ALL three! So how to focus on ONE thing?
I don’t.
Your BRANDING should be reflecting who YOU are and not your products and/or services. Which brings me to my first reason why you’re not making money in your business:
Your Branding Sucks
I’m sorry to be so blunt.
I know it hurts, especially if you’ve invested a lot of money into your branding.
But I want you to be 100% honest with yourself. Should you not be around, does your Branding reflect your soul?
Does it scream (enter your name here)?
For some, they may say hell yes! Which is BRILLIANT (then we’ll discuss other points further down) and for those who are gobsmacked. It’s time to have your soul branded, whether by me or any other competent graphic designer/illustrator. But what’s important is that it’s not your PRODUCT and/or SERVICE that stands in the foreground but YOU!
Because: People buy from people.
Btw: I have a Branding and Marketing course available if you want to go through it? Just click here.
Why is Branding so important you may ask?
Because we humans like pretty things. And pretty things we perceive as: Groomed. Self-care. Structure. Balance. Harmony. Organisation. Ideal. Fulfilling.
And the more you create advertising with branding that is mumble-jumble, you’re sending out the message that YOU are mumble-jumble.
You see, what you put in you get out.
So the more confusion you pack into your branding the more your audience will be confused an ignore your brand aka resulting in no sales.
There is also the other side. I’ve often seen GORGEOUS branding. Often where my jaw drops and I get all excited. And then I meet the person or I see how they comment online or perhaps watch a video of them and think I’m in the wrong movie.
You see, gorgeous branding and a stinky character do NOT go hand-in-hand.
Lying and putting on a mask is a no-go!
Consumers smell this a mile away and will destroy your brand quicker than you can imagine.
(You know this dude/dudette: Good ALWAYS prevails) 
The next reason why you’re not making any money in your business, is:
Your Systsems Aren’t Working Or Existent.
Setting up systems for your business is a must. But getting the buggers right is a talent.
Let’s first define what I mean by systems.
This includes the cogs of the machine:
- Website
- Sales / Landing pages
- Freebie / Lead Magnet / Opt-in
- Email software
- SEO
- Google Analytics
- Facebook / Instagram Ads
- Branded posts for social media or print/brochures/advertising/business cards
- Membership sites
- Email marketing
- Podcasts
- Online scheduling
- Contact forms
- Videos
- Blog posts
- Social Media Platforms
The list goes ON!
And getting all these systems into place, let alone knowing what purpose they serve takes time, error and education.
You see just because you have a website, doesn’t mean you’re going to have traffic and/or sales. Your website is your sales team when you’re not physically around. It’s not your online CV regurgitating all your achievements and how wonderful you are.
It’s your platform to let your audience know: WHO are you? What do you DO? WHY do you do it? What do you SELL? And WHO are you serving?
And this all encompassed with your Soul Brand Language.
The more the audience can get a glimpse of you, the more you would’ve sparked some Know-Like-Trust with your Brand.
Often entrepreneurs buy all these systems but are overwhelmed as to how each system should talk to one another so that it becomes ONE system rather than all these separate entities.
Know what I mean?
And as soon as there are cogs out-of-place, you’ll start losing your audience because of silly things like your systems weren’t talking to one another.
Here’s a quick example: You’re at a networking event. You meet a few people and give them your business card (no branding). Someone liked you and want to go to your website to find out more about you. They type in your URL and land on your website, which is a pretty website, but is more about you, than the person would care to inform themselves about. They click here and there on your site and then leave.
A client gone and lost.
What could you have done?
Starting from that business card, it should speak volumes without much on it ie Soul Brand. When they go to your website, there should be a correlation between the person met at the networking event, who you are (in detail), what you sell and who you serve.
The person in the foreground is ALWAYS your audience and the brand promise that you’re going to deliver to them. This usually includes your Brand Message.
Also once scanning your website, enticing your audience with a freebie (lead magnet) that would really be serving their touchpoints for being on your website. In this case, the person visiting your website wanted to ‘stalk you’ (a term I use) to see if you’re legit.
So it would be good to ensure that your portfolio, testimonials are readily seen.
That your page is pixeled so that your Facebook ads can track that person that was viewing your content to redirect perhaps to a gorgeous blog post that’s built around your Brand Awareness campaign (of a touchpoint that is really bothering your audience and they need answers to). Leading to a sign-up to get onto your mailing list for email marketing. Which should also reflect your brand language and not some copy and paste templates.
I know that this is a lot to take in.
But this is business. Learn it or outsource it.
But get it done so that you can run a business and not have the business run you.
Which brings me to my next point:
You Give Up Too Easily.
When the going gets tough, most entrepreneurs go into their sulk corner and feel sorry for themselves.
Allow yourself that time but please don’t wallow there.
God knows how many months and years I spent in that bloody corner (and I am one of the most tenacious and motivated people you’ll come across). But for some stupid reason (which I now know why), kept me in that corner and I ALWAYS gave up.
And by giving up, I don’t mean giving up on your business (although some do), I mean you give up on the idea that you had and you latch onto the next idea starting from the beginning again. Always being reactive rather than proactive.
Learn to evaluate (or get help) as to why it wasn’t working?
Because within these hiccups lies soooo much gold!
Just don’t give up!
Your Mindset Is Shot.
This one right here.
Puh!
This for me personally was probably the BIGGEST lesson that I had to learn.
For the longest time, I grew up with keeping business separate from personal.
Which it should be, but I was under the impression that business and personal (life) were two entities. Which was further from the truth.
Because what happens in one area reflects in another area (These are the Seven Universal Principles)
So if you’re believing you’re a loser in business, you’ll most certainly be the loser in your personal life for example; always attracting the wrong type of partner or being played down in your family and being walked all over.
When you take on the role to become an entrepreneur and run a business it goes without saying that your life (or personal) will be involved too. And they mirror each other constantly.
And this is a BIGGIE when it comes to the reasons why you’re not making money in your business.
You may be super cautious about investing money in your website or systems or branding or even a workshop because it all costs money. And you don’t have the money now. And when you get clients THEN you can invest that money in (fill in the blank). But first, you need to be sure that someone buys so that you and your business are validated and are making money.
Here’s a run-down of what’s happening mentally and within the Universal laws:
If you are super cautious to invest in someone else, why should your audience invest in you?
Who told you in your life, that if you invest in your business (or YOU) that it’s too much of a risk and that you’re not ‘worth’ it?
Money coming in is a reflection of how you value YOURSELF.
Money is energy and needs a purpose.
So where in your life were you told that in order to be VALIDATED and have SELF-WORTH, that it could only be done through earning MONEY?
Can you see where I’m going with this?
It’s mind-blowing stuff, I know.
But this is the thing: We’ve been brought up to believe all these beliefs within our business and ourselves. And we limit ourselves by attracting clients who will pay for our services because somewhere along our lives, we were taught the opposite.
Disclaimer: This is called shadow-work and is WONDERFUL. Because your shadows have brought you this far in life. And now you’re at a standpoint. And in order to grow, you need to now experience the flipside of that shadow work. It may seem hard and scary. But to be honest, wanting different results by doing the same things? This isn’t going to happen. Either you step out of your comfort zone and expand and become that leader who CAN make an impact in the world or you stay where you are and believe that nothing is possible without money.
And lastly,
You’re Not Selling
Selling has been given a bad name, as with business consultants or bankers and the likes. But there really can be a lot of fun in selling with EASE! You see what entrepreneurs tend to do is sell their products once or twice or a few weeks and then give up because no-one’s biting the bait.
That’s not selling.
Selling includes visualizing, setting intentions, focusing on that which you WANT and not giving up until you’re sold out.
It needs to set your soul on fire and you need to be passionate about the selling.
As soon as you find it a chore, boring and soul-sucking, that’s exactly what you’re going to be vibrating to your audience. And who the heck wants to buy THAT?!
Selling involves so many wonderful steps, like creating a campaign (an awareness or sales campaign), setting goals and intentions, visualizing, writing copy that lights up your soul, talking directly to your soul group so that they know that THIS is the product and/or service for them and coming from a place of love – not only for yourself but also for your soul client and soul brand.
I’m not sprinkling this selling stuff with fairy dust and making it sound better than what it should be. It really CAN be like this. But when you’re ONLY accustomed to selling the ‘hard’ way: push, grind, hustle, then the opposite sounds rather bizarre – right?
But let’s be honest … what the heck do you have to lose?
You’re not making money now.
And you want to make money.
So it’s time you cut the fat from your entrepreneur story and face the facts: It’s time to get to know you, your soul group, your products and/or services and your brand – all from the inside-out.
And learn to market your business with ease rather than push.
I could clearly go on-and-on rambling on about this topic because I FRIGGIN’ LOVE IT!
But you have things to do…
So here are a few things where you can up your game (choose one or all):
- I have a Branding and Marketing course for you to work through (this is the real deal)
- Join the Wonderland Visionary Hub
- Buy my book Soul’d Out: Your Guide To Finding Your Life Purpose (the core of your Brand)
- Join my Facebook Group where we BRING BACK SOCIAL.
Also, you can follow my craziness and leadership on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and my Podcast (available on Spotify, iTunes, Soundcloud).
Now it’s over to you Visionary.
I know that you can do this, otherwise, you wouldn’t have read up to here. You have that fire in you and you WANT IT ALL. And you CAN have it all.
Only it’s going to take a bit of time…but when you’re in good company TIME FLIES!
Drop me a message below and let me know how you enjoyed this article and if it helped in any way?
So much love and attention to you Visionary
Love Sashka
