There are tons and tons of articles out there about how to create a successful online business. TONS. And most of them have some pretty darn good tactical advice you can implement and probably see results. 

But you know what? Unless you’re brand new in the online business space, no one has a profitability challenge. They just don’t know any tactics. 

Nothing is stopping you from printing flyers and putting them up at every house of worship, community center, and library in your city, right? 

The truth is there are so many potential things out there that you and I could do that it’s a bit overwhelming to figure out how to do all.the.things. or even what things we should be doing, right? 

So let’s simplify it today. Let’s talk about simply laying the foundation for a profitable business — and it really comes down to one big question.

Biggest Show Takeaways:

• The one big question: What problem are you solving? (Before you roll your eyes, hear me out.) 
• It’s normal for business owners to think there’s some sort of action, some marketing secret, someTHING we need to do in order to get out there and finally have the tide turned on our business being profitable. 
• Here’s what I learned from all my failures: It doesn’t matter how many marketing things you do. It doesn’t matter how many emails you send, podcasts you appear on, videos you create, social media posts you do — none of that matters if you don’t solve a problem your audience wants to solve. 
• Keys to a profitable business:
  • #1. Listen to Your Audience. 
    • What problems are they talking about? What questions do they have? What products, services, or experiences are they searching for? What are their frustrations? 
    • Spend the time to get to know your audience intimately. Know what they dream about. Know what they fear. Know what stories they’ve heard others tell — good and bad. Know the problem they have AND how they describe that problem. Know what that problem is costing them. 
    • Until you can answer these questions clearly and with confidence, you’re not going to have a profitable business.
  • #2. Validate Offers with Your Audience. 
    • If you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time, you’ve heard me talk about my mini offers — little baby offers that are $200 or less and take two hours or less to deliver. 
    • THIS is how you validate your offer. THIS is how you figure out if you’ve got something people want to buy. 
    • The only way you’ll ever market your offers with confidence and create consistent profitability is to VALIDATE that your audience wants to buy what you’ve created. (I was interviewed by Amy Porterfield and did a whole blog post on this if you’d like to see it at www.michellelevans.com/amy.) 
    • Try to sell a teensy, tiny piece of what you want to offer. See if anyone buys. See what they like about it. See what else they wish was offered. Get some testimonials. 
    • When you’re trying something new, be sure to validate, validate, validate before dumping a ton of time, money, and effort into something that is unproven and untested. 
  • #3. Get Some Proof Points
    • You need more than just a flashy sales page, an email series, or a hope and a prayer. You need examples. You need stories. You need testimonials. You need an approach that delivers results.
    • I’m not a “fake it until you make it” person. I think that’s stealing from your potential clients AND it puts you in a bad position as a business owner. 
    • I AM for diving in and creating a framework or approach to solve the problem you want to help your audience solve. 
    • When I was still doing a lot of coaching, the clients I was working with wanted RESULTS. They wanted a program. They wanted exercises and action steps to work on towards reaching a goal. Otherwise, the coaching felt pointless and unfocused. 
    • I quickly tested out a specific action-oriented approach to moving my clients into the results they wanted instead of just having conversations. Pretty soon, I had over 30 coaching clients — even though I’d raised my prices to from $25 a month to $150 a session. 
• The key to having a profitable business is understanding the problem your audience is looking to solve. When you have an offer your audience wants to pay to solve, all you have to do is go find them, and show them you can solve their problem. 
• If you don’t have an offer they want, you’re going to waste a lot of time, money, and heartache trying to sell to no one. 
• Create Profit Without Worry — one system at a time. I’ll show you how to attract a steady flow of buyers without all the hustle with this free download →  5 Steps To Profit Without Worry.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• www.MichelleLEvans.com/amy 
• Connect on Facebook
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Connect on Instagram
• Create Profit Without Worry — one system at a time with this free download →  5 Steps To Profit Without Worry.