Starting and running an online business is HARD.  

Whether you’re a coach, consultant, expert, or product creator, running an online business takes a lot of commitment and tenacity — and we get knocked down a lot, right?

But the businesses who thrive and grow over time are the ones who get back up time and time again, learning from every misstep and mistake along the way.

And even for the best, most committed of us, sometimes worries can creep in, so let’s clear these worries up and talk about what you can do to avoid them.

Biggest Show Takeaways:

Worry #1: I’m not good at marketing.

• Entrepreneurs often feel like there’s some secret they’re missing to make this marketing thing work. There’s this idea that you’re either born with the marketing gene — or you’re not. But what’s really at play is something else.
• The best marketers generally have two things in common, and these two things are something YOU have too.
  • They’re good at LISTENING. They listen to their audience, to the conversation their audience is having online, to their struggles, their stories, and their pains. They LISTEN closely and strategically.
  • They take that listening a step further. They write down the stories. They write down the words. They write down the phrases and create what Nikki Elledge Brown calls a “copy bank” — kind of like a piggy bank but for copy.
  • The second thing they’re good at is SOLVING PROBLEMS. After listening to their audience, people who are good at marketing take it a step further. They create offers — products, programs, services, events and more. They create an offer that solves the problem their audience already knows they have.
  • They don’t try to convince their audience they have a problem. They solve the problem their audience already knows they have.
• You don’t have to be a brilliant marketer. In fact, the best marketers are just great at listening and then providing their audience with a solution to their problems and creating a clear path for their audience to discover and buy their offer.

Worry #2: I’m too scattered.

• Do you ever feel like you spend a lot of time, money, and energy doing tons of marketing activities, like:  
  • Posting and engaging on all the social platforms?
  • Going to as many networking events as humanly possible?
  • Spending time blogging, podcasting, and/or creating videos on the regular?
  • Feeling very, very busy doing all the random acts of marketing that you’ve heard about from gurus and experts?
• Instead of taking a look at the activities to find a way to make all that hard work pay off, you turn a critical eye on yourself, blaming yourself for not being good enough or tech savvy enough or just plain old enough.
• I fell prey to this thinking, and I’d spend huge amounts of time beating myself up for not being good enough — especially in the first four-ish years of my business.
• You know what I found though? I was enough — and guess what? You are too.
• I found that I needed a system to take people from stranger to client — and that’s where marketing funnels came in and truly saved my business, my health, and my sanity.
• Once I created my marketing funnel, it was easy to see what worked and what didn’t so that I could go from random acts of marketing to creating a clear, focused, and valuable experience for my audience.

Worry #3: I don’t know my audience.

• People will often say: “I don’t know WHO to target or HOW to target them.”
• This comes from all those insane customer avatar worksheets that people are always pushing in the online space.
• I don’t care what blogs people read. I don’t care what kind of car they drive. I don’t care if they’re single or in a relationship. I don’t care if they’re living in a big city or a rural town. I don’t care if people are 25 or 75. You can’t lump everyone together based only on demographics.   
• What I DO care about — and you should too — is what PROBLEMS my audience has. What fears do they have? What stories are they telling themselves that keep them from their dreams? What are they waking up in the middle of the night worrying about?
• Finding the answer to these questions ONLY comes from being a great listener and then solving the problem you’ve discovered.
• Solve those problems by creating an engaging marketing funnel, and your audience will find you.

Worry #4: I don’t want to be salesy, sleazy, or pushy.

• When I talk about Profit Without Worry, marketing strategies, or marketing funnels, the first line of defense I hear from a lot of people is that they don’t want to be salesy, sleazy, or pushy.
• I’ve seen people teaching about marketing funnels where the goal is to get into your audience’s wallet as fast as humanly possible. In dating terms, you go from “Hey, nice to meet you” to “Let’s hook up right now” in the space of one click.
• That works for some businesses who want a churn-and-burn approach to their marketing. If they don’t care at all about their long-term relationship with their audience, more power to them.
• That’s not how I choose to engage with my audience. I think it’s worth the effort to build a marketing funnel where I’m taking my audience on a journey — an adventure to discover if I’m the person they want to learn from or not.
• It takes more work to create that journey than it does to just follow some standard machine-like template, but in my mind, it’s worth the effort.

Worry #5: I’m worried about all this time + effort to create a marketing funnel. What if it fails?

• Failure can be a big kick to the gut. I’ve had my fair share of failures in running my business. I try to share my own failures because I want you to know it’s NORMAL.
• There is not one single successful person in the world who has never failed.
• When Oprah first started in TV, her very first boss told her she was too emotional and not right for TV — and paid her HALF as much as her male co-anchor.
• Last year, Oprah went to visit Stanford Graduate School of Business where she told students: “Stop the crazy mind chatter in your head that tells you that you are not good enough.” She advised students that even when their long-term goals are unclear, the important thing is to banish self-doubt and continue forward — no matter how small the step. “The way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself: What is the next right move? Then, from that space, make the next right move and then the next right move.”
• I can’t think of a better question to ask ourselves: What is the next right move?
• The next right move is to create your own Profit Without Worry system. It takes the power away from all the noise and chatter out there about what’s working for other people and instead lets you focus on what works for you and your audience.
• Want to know which marketing funnel is right for you and your business? Take this free and easy quiz, and in less than 5 minutes you’ll know EXACTLY which funnel is right for you.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Connect with Michelle on Facebook
• Connect with Michelle on Instagram
• Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn
• Marketing Funnel Quiz: https://www.michellelevans.com/marketing-funnel-quiz/