This week’s podcast is all about taking your business online. I thought this would be a good topic for two reasons; Firstly, where we are right now during this pandemic means a lot of people can’t do their everyday business. Secondly, I think a lot of people are realising that they need a bigger presence online, whether they sell online or not. We will be covering the key things you need to be doing to have an online business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- If you can take your business online, it is a good way to keep income coming in during this time.
- If you can’t take your business online, can you teach it?
- Even if you can’t make money from your business right now, you can still create content.
- Keep people engaged on your social media platforms and stay on their radar.
- Give people something that they need right now through your marketing.
- You need to set up an online presence where people can find you (If you don’t already).
- There are lots of options for creating an online presence, including social media, website, landing page, sales page or a checkout page.
- You need to be consistent with your content.
- If you have the energy, use this time to get the things you never normally get chance to done or have been putting off.
- Content ideas – Blog Posts, Social Media Posts, Record Podcasts/Videos.
- Your customers/clients will come back when this is all over but they do need your help doing it themselves right now.
- Giving free advice/hints and tips will keep you in front of your audience ready for when you are up and running again.
- You need to be building your email list from today! Check out my previous episodes on building your email list using a lead magnet.
- You will need some kind of system to help you deliver your online business.
- If you offer something that can make a difference or solve a problem to your customers/clients and charged for it before then of course you should be charging for it during this time.
- Giving something away for free doesn’t always do you or the person receiving it a massive favour – when there is no investment, they are not invested.
- If you give someone something for free, they will never want to pay for it!
- You can tweak and change your offer during this time – such as a discounted rate or a shortened time offer.
- Think about coming from serving, not selling. If you have something out there that can make a difference and solve a problem, it is not wrong to try to sell it.
- We need to keep the economy moving right now.
- Ideas of how to make money right now – Sell tickets to a raffle for your services when things are back to normal, start a waitlist for your clients – ask for a deposit to secure your place, sell a product.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
Just because you can’t work in your business as normal right now, does not mean you need to stop marketing and earning an income. This isn’t going to last forever, so we just need to adapt the best we can right now to do what is best for our businesses and come out the other side of all of this!
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS
- Can you take your offline business online? – 03:00
- Ideas for businesses that can’t be taken online – 05:16
- Setting up your online presence – 07:58
- Content Ideas – 09:04
- Building your email list – 11:55
- Technology – 13:30
- Should I sell right now? – 15:29
- Ideas of things you can do to make money right now – 22:21
Transcript below
Hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? How are you managing still during this time? So as I'm recording this, we have been in lockdown about four, this is our fourth week and I have to say like I started off absolutely fine because I worked from home all the time. I'm very used to being in the house a lot. As I've said before and on previous episodes I would like go days and days and not leave the house and not even realise. But I think there's something obviously very different. And if you didn't catch last week's episode, episode 113 do go check that out with Mary Hyatt cause we talk about how to manage during these times. But I think there's something very, very different about having everybody else here. And yesterday I think it was the first day that I really felt like I needed to get out of the house.
I needed to get some of my own space because it was just getting all a little bit too much. So, but other than that I, I'm doing all right. I think I'm doing fine. I'm still cracking on with work, got lots to do in fact feel busier than ever, which is kind of odd but enjoying it all, which is good. So, uh, happy I've got that. Keep me focused, which is nice. So this week I wanted to share with you an episode about taking your business online because last week I did two live masterclasses, lots and lots of people attended. It was really good fun and basically talked through, Hey, you could take your business online now this is coming from kind of two places. Place. Number one is very much to do with where we are right now in the world during this virus and the fact that we're locked down and people can't do that everyday business and place number two is the fact of, actually for me, I love my online business.
I love the fact that I have this online business. So I think what's happening in the world right now is people are readdressing whether they can continue with their business or not, should they be going online? Should they be do something else or should they just have a bigger presence whether they sell online or not, should they just have a bigger presence in that part of the world and make sure they're making the most of it.
Can you take your offline business online?
So that's what I want to talk to you about today. I want to talk to you about how to get your business online if it's not already and the key things you need to be doing to have an online business. Okay. So let's start with the very thing. Now, if you are going to be taking a business online, I am assuming you have one of a couple of things.
Either you have a product and service or service that you currently sell offline or you have been doing in person or selling virus shop or high street shops, something like that. So that you want to take that business online or you have a business idea that you are at the stage of, could I do this online? So I'm assuming you're in one of those two places. So the first thing I ask you is if you're sat there listening to this going, I need to make money right now, I need to do something straight away. I want to ask you if you took your offline business, the thing that you can no longer do at this time, can you just do it online? So I'm talking about things like if you offer yoga in a studio, can you do yoga from a video call into people's homes?
If you are a coach and you normally coach in person, can you coach via zoom or video call and have a great example of a lady that is in my Academy and she teaches or she holds classes, sort of play activity classes for children and babies and normally she gets them all in a room together and they do yoga and they do a sign language and they sing and they play with instruments. And obviously when all this started she had to stop doing the in person stuff. And I have to say, she blows me away. I watch her social media and she's onscreen with all these babies in their own homes and they've obviously um, you know, got it sorted so they can watch what she's doing and she can see them and she is projecting the energy that she would have in person through the TV.
Ideas for businesses that can’t be taken online
And from what I can see on her social media, she's doing an amazing job and all these moms and parents that signed up to do these classes are still continuing to do them. And she's still continuing to bring in money during this time. Even though you think you would take a look at what she does and think there's no way on this earth that she can do that online and maybe she won't want to continue that when all this is over. And that's absolutely fine. It's just a case of if you can, can you take it online to continue to keep bringing in money. So if you can't take it online, so let's say you're sat there and you are a Airbnb or something where actually it's impossible for you to take that business online. So for instance, another example is having my nails done or having my hair done.
You can't take that business online. So my next question for you is, can you teach it? Now you might not want to teach it, that might not be the thing that you want to do, but right now if you're sat there thinking, I need to make money, then maybe that is the thing you need to do, whether it's a moneymaking exercise or whether it's just a content keeping in touch. And I just want to touch on that for a minute actually. So I'm a big fan of still trying to make money through this time because quite honestly my mortgage supplier is a big fan of being paid and so is the electricity and so is all the other things you pay for. So these bills are still coming out of my account so I need to still keep adding money. So I will touch on whether you should be selling it this time or how you could deal with that at this time later on.
However, right now I just want to touch on the fact of even if you can't make money doing the thing you do and you don't want to suddenly try and teach online because you know you don't want to have to sort the payment processor stuff out and all that and you have no intention of carrying it on when this is finished and the money thing isn't a massive, massive issue. There's nothing wrong with you still creating content. So let me go back to my nail example. A very lovely girl in the girl that sends a bit patronising lady, although she's much younger than me in the Academy. She does nails and obviously she can't do them while she's off or while this is happening. So one of the things that she did was we talked about the fact that I have these nails, acrylic nails, that I going to need to take them off at some point soon and I don't know how to or I have never done it because I don't have to cause I'd go and they do it.
So it was very much a case of, well, what can you do to help me right now as in not actually me but your audience. So she actually put together a video about how to take the nails off. Now you might be sat there going, well why would I teach people that? Or why do I need to give them that? But the point is she still in people's feeds, she's still adding value. She's still showing up and during this time, even though that one thing wasn't necessarily going to make her money, the fact is you don't want to fall out of their feeds. You don't want to fall off their radar. You want them to keep that engagement with you and by giving them something they need like now is super, super helpful.
Setting up your online presence
Okay, so let's go onto number two. If you're going to be having an online business now, I'm assuming, again, you have some kind of presence online, whether that be a website.
If it's not amazing, then that's fine. It doesn't matter. You know, as long as you've got something and you can make some really quick fixes, fairly simply unsure. It could just be social media accounts, it could just be some online presence somewhere. But obviously you're going to need somewhere for people to find you. So in a very quick fix way. There are obviously lots of sites out there where you can throw up a website like Wix or Squarespace. There's also things like Kajabi that obviously I use and I'll put a link to it in the show notes where you can create a website through them within seriously probably number of hours. Also they do things like landing pages. So even if you don't have a full website or you don't have the energy to think like creating a full website, you could just create a landing page or a sales page or a checkout page.
Content Ideas
So there's lots of options for something like Kajabi. There's loads of other different ones out there as well. But like I said, this is the one that I use and I'm a big fan of. So like I said, you're going to need some presence somewhere. The next thing you're going to need is you're going to need some consistent content and I know you're going to think, geez, tracer, like honestly, yawn, yawn, yawn. You say this all the time. But I mean it. You absolutely do need consistent content. And if you've been sat there previously thinking, I'll get around to that when I'm not so busy, I'll get rained. So that when I get time, and you're sat there now with the time and the inclination, because let's be honest, just because you've got the time doesn't mean right now that we necessarily feel like going all eye on, you know, doing lives or, or showing up every single day because it is a funny atmosphere at the moment.
However, if you do have some energy, write those blog posts, create those social media posts. I've been batching podcasts, I've been interviewing people and I'm, I'm tired. You know, I am tired doing it. And it is exhausting. But it's important because when things get you know busy in a different way, they're still very busy right now. But when I am back on the road and I'm back speaking, then I'm not going to have the time to sit and do this sort of thing. So I want you to think about that consistent content and I want you to think about putting out content that helps people. Right now, like I said, the amazing Becky putting out a video showing her customers and anybody else who wanted to see it, how to take their nails off such a brilliant idea. If you're a hairdresser, why don't you put out a blog post of the top five products you think you know someone can use during this time or how to colour your own hair from home or whatever.
Now I know that you might be sat there thinking, yeah, but aren't I just giving away people how I do the thing I do? Yeah, you are effectively, but you know what? I don't want to take off my own nails and sort them out. I don't want to do my own hair. I will still, when this all finishes, go back and do the things I normally do with people. So for instance, I go for a massage every few weeks and reflexology, well, I am desperate to go and have that done, but if she emailed the hate saying, here are five ways that you can relax at home or five things to help you know, or the best massages out there that you can buy for under 20 pounds or something, then I would be interested in seeing that content because actually right now I need that help.
However, the minute this all changes, I'll be going back to her. So for those of you who can't do your thing and can't do it online, I want you to think about the types of content you can use and the types of things you can put out that will help your customers. Right now this is where they need help and this is the kind of thing that is going to keep you in front of them. And that's super, super important.
Building your email list
The next thing that you need to be doing if you have an online business is you need to be building that email list. And again, I've talked about it lots now. I did a five day email challenge or quite a few weeks ago now and it was great and it works really well and I'm thinking about doing it again and if you want to get on the wait list for that, if you head to teresaheathwareing.com/5day and then you can sign up there for the next one because that was really, really good.
Anyway, side note. So yeah, you need to be building that email list because some of you might be sat there now go in. Oh man, why didn't I do this six months ago? Because honestly, who could have predicted we'd be here right now, no one. But if this is enough to make you go, I should have done it and I'm going to jump on and do it now then. Brilliant, great. Because really the best day to start an email list or the best day to start consistent content was like a long time ago. However, if you can't go back in time, which most of us can't, um, most of us, probably all of us. Um, if you can't go back in time, then you really need to be doing it today. So start thinking about how to build that email list. And as you know, and I've done lots of different episodes on it, building an email list using a lead magnet.
In fact, I did an episode not that long ago. I'll link to it in the show notes is a perfect way to get people on your list. So again, think about that content. Think about the support you can be giving them right now and the stuff that they might want to know right now. And think about putting that in a lead magnet or a download that you can offer people.
Technology
Okay, next thing you're going to need some tech. Now we're not talking crazy tech. We're not talking stuff that you need to have been massive, huge brain and a huge IQ to deal with. We're talking sort of fairly simple and intuitive tech but you are going to need something because obviously if you're online you're going to need somehow to take a payment or send an email or have a little bit of automation and although this might scare you half to death, honestly it you need to do it whether you do it, whether you get someone else to do it, whether you get some support that's entirely up to you, but you are going to need some kind of system that helps you deliver this.
Now I've already mentioned Kajabi and this one I'm going to mention it again just because of the fact that they do everything you're going to need them to do. There are other systems out there. There are other things I've used in the past, but in all honesty, if you are getting going and you are thinking I'm going to be selling online going forward, then for me you want to pick a system like Kajabi cause it just does everything, but let's say you're just starting out and you just want to build your email list. Then you might want to look at things like MailChimp or MailerLite. Both of these are free. Both of them have the option to get people to opt in as in a form and both are fairly good at what they do. Now. They're nowhere near as good as some of the bigger and better ones like convert kit or active campaign or infusion soft or Kajabi.
However, they are a great place to start. So if you are starting out then definitely go and check that out and literally go onto YouTube and Google or Google search for how to set up an email list in MailChimp or MailerLite because there'll be that many videos showing you that you really should be able to do everything you need to do online. Okay. And then the final one that I want to just bring up to you guys today, this has been a fairly short and sweet one.
Should I sell right now?
Okay. The last thing I want to look at is the question, should I sell right now? We all know there's been a lot of content out there, a lot of stuff that has come for free. So, for instance, my daughter is listening to David Williams audio books, which he has given for free. Amazing. We've got Joe Wicks doing the exercise every morning.
I'm not doing it by the way. Uh, and neither is my daughter. I just know that he's doing it every morning and he's been offering these exercises for children for free. And therefore I think it's left a big question around business owners about should we actually be charging right now? Is this in bad taste? Does it feel horrible and yucky and, and is it like almost exploiting the situation? Well, I want to ask you two questions and I want you to answer them. And I'm praying that it's a yes to both. So question number one, do you offer something that can make a difference or solve a problem? So it doesn't have to be so deep as a coaching or a business strategy or whatever. It could just be, do you sell something that can make a difference? I, you know, you've got a product that helps me get my nails off and that would make a difference.
Yes, it would. Thank you very much. So it doesn't have to be groundbreaking difference. It just has to be does it make a difference and does it solve a problem that me as your customer or whoever your customers are needs help with. So like I said, I'm guessing hopefully 100% of you sat there going, yes you do because otherwise what are you selling? You know, of course the thing you you sell is something that makes a difference. So that's the first thing I want to ask you. The next thing I want you to consider and I want to ask you, and again I'm hoping for a yes, is did you charge for it before or intend to charge for it before? So it might be that your product or service isn't out yet, or this was an idea of you were going to take your one-to-one coaching and do a group online coaching thing, but were you intending on charging for it?
Because if you were then why should I be any different? And I want to give you a couple of reasons why I think this is the case and a few thoughts I have around this. So thought number one, giving something away for free doesn't always do you or the person receiving it. A massive favour and I'll explain why. So I have done stuff for free before where I've been offered a coaching session or I've been offered something that I thought I might've needed and because it was given me for free, there was no skin in the game. I was not invested because there was no investment for me to give. However, when I've done things that I've paid a lot of money for or not even a lot of money, just some money for you are putting some skin in the game, you are putting something down that says I'm going to take this seriously.
Which then resulted in me getting results and it also resulted in the person who was selling the service to me getting results as well because we know what it's like. If you've been given something for free or you give someone something for free and there's no value, they don't do anything with it or lots of people don't do anything with it and therefore it's like the thing didn't work for them. But if they'd done the work, if they'd put the effort in, then it would have worked for them. But obviously they didn't because they didn't see the value in it. So that's the first thing. My second thing is if you give it them for free, they will never ever want to pay for it. So I definitely think in situations like now you can get away with making some changes. So for instance, you can do a smaller priced thing or you can offer a discount or you can do something in a shorter amount of time.
So let's say you normally make people sign up for six months, you might want to go with three months. So you can definitely tweak and change your offer however you're not not charging for it. So I think you can get away with saying, this is why I'm discounting it because of the situation. And then you've said it to the point where when it's all over, you can go, right now the price goes back up to normal. However, if you just give it them for free, then how likely do you think the cases that at the end of that they're then going to turn around and go, Oh yeah, now take my money cause I just don't think they will. I want you to think that you're coming from serving, not selling because if you've got something out there that can make a difference to solve a problem.
And again, you know we talked on Mary's podcast that you know, Mary's a coach. I teach people how to have online businesses. So both of us have services right now that can make a massive difference to people and therefore that's not wrong that we're trying to sell it. It's not wrong that people are trying to continue to make money in their businesses because of the fact that actually when you come from serving, and don't get me wrong, as always, there is free content. You're listening to the podcast right now, so it's not like there's nothing out there other than behind a pay wall. It's a case of here's all this free stuff. But if you want to do that work a bit closer, if you want to have a bit more impact or input with me, then it's going to cost a bit more or it's going to cost something.
So like I said, I think from, if you think from coming from serving, not selling and the value that they will put in it and the value that you would put into it if you are paying. The other thing I want to say is that we need to keep the economy moving. And I know I'm really cautious to say any of these things if I'm honest, but honestly we do. I still continue to pay for things where I can and where is possible. You know, obviously I can't have my head and I can't have my nails done. However, I'm not sat here expecting to get anything for free right now. I am fully expecting any service, any product, anything I need and want, I expect to pay for it. So, like I said, I think those are my kind of thoughts around it really that as long as we feel like we're serving, as long as we feel there's a benefit to our service or our product, then why shouldn't we charge for it.
Also, if you're sat there asking yourself the question, should I sell your not the kind of person who's trying to rip people off, the people who are trying to absolutely exploit the situation and rip people off. Don't sit there and second guess whether it's okay to sell right now because they know in their heads that the way they're doing it is not the right way. So like I said, I think if you're even asking yourself that question, then you are definitely not trying to explain the situation and therefore you're not the sort of person that should worry about selling right now.
Ideas of things you can do to make money right now
So to finish off, I want to just give you a few random ideas and creative thoughts that I've had in terms of different ways that you could make money right now, especially if you're in a business that can't do the thing you do.
So likes of the beauty industry really does come into this. So one of the shorter term things that you can do is you could sell tickets to a raffle and this raffle could be for your services when it's back to normal. Okay, so like I said, I go and have reflexology and a massage every few weeks. If the woman he did that did a raffle and gave me the opportunity to win, I don't know, my next five massages for free and my raffle ticket was 50 pounds, I would absolutely take the risk in that because 50 pounds compared to them. The potential of getting the next five or 10 massages free is huge or you could do, I saw a great one where they did nails for life and again, it's about the injection of cash right now that you need. If you are short on money right now, then granted you don't want to oversell yourself so that when all this kicks off you're then back working for nothing.
But there are definitely things that you could do. There's definitely ideas or things because let's say, you know, she gave me 10 massages for free and she sold a ticket for 50 pounds each and she sold 50 tickets. That's a huge injection of cash to her business right now. And that's 10 massages, which is about an and a bit so 10 hours that she's having to give away for effectively free. But of course it's not free. It's been paid for by the raffles. So I would think about having a raffle. I think that's been a really, really good idea and I've seen it done very successfully. The other thing that you can do, and I'm going to be honest and say that this is actually my husband's idea, is very good of him, was to come up with a wait list. So again, if your beauty or hair or anything where we are going to definitely want this service the minute we can do it.
And you're going to have a queue of people waiting to come and do this thing. So obviously I can only assume that the minute my hairdresser starts again, everybody's going to be like, I want an appointment, I want appointment. So why not have a wait list? Why not say to secure your place on the wait list, it's five pounds or it's 10 pounds. And it might be that you know, you then get the money off your treatment or it might just be that that's a deposit or that's a kind of price you paid to get on the wait list. But then what happens is once she then wants, she can start again. She then goes through order of who was on the wait list at what point and offers them their appointments first. So that could be another idea. The other thing that you could do, which Becky, who I've already talked about in this podcast did, is we talked about offering a product.
So like I said, she does nails, she can't do nails. People are going to have, they're going to be coming off. And I said to her, I know you don't normally sell a product, but what if you sold a kit cause you've got all this stuff because obviously she does nails a small kit of all the things I need to take my nails off. And she did and she jumped on it really quickly and within probably a day or two of organising, it should solve five. Now again, that's not what she's going to necessarily do going forward, but it still keeps her in favour. It keeps her in front of our audience and there's a small injection of cash by selling something. You could offer group programmes, you can offer online events. So like I said, there's lots of little creative ideas that people are doing where you can try and continue to make money in your business.
So I really hope this has been helpful. Like I said, have thrown a load of different ideas at you if you're sat there struggling thinking, I know I need to be online, but I'm not sure how, then please do come and check out the Academy. This is very much the theme of where we're working at the moment and we're helping lots of people quickly get to where they need to be and also make some money. So I would love to welcome you in there. So if you do want to go and check that out, it's teresaheathwareing.com/academy. Thank you so very much for listening and I will see you this time next week.
