Business

The ability to get things done quickly seems to be one of the most sought-after skills for busy entrepreneurs.

One of the things business owners have in common – regardless of their industry, how many people they have working for them, what new projects they take on, etc. – turns out to be the quest to work smarter, not harder.

If you want to finish your tasks faster and to have more time to do all the other things on your list and to live your life at the same time, here are some time-saving tips that will help you out:

1. Reassess your to-do list.

Working smarter and saving time is mostly about working only on what’s necessary. But even if we eliminate unproductive activities from our days, and projects that get us nowhere, there’s more.

So I urge you to take a closer look at what you do daily, and ask yourself whether each activity you dedicate time to is giving you the results you desire. You may realize that something you’ve been working on for a long time isn’t getting you anywhere, although it still sounds like a good idea. Well, if you want to get better at time management and improve your efficiency, such items must be removed from your list.

2. Save time on scheduling meetings and appointments.

Try out  automation software that does all the work for you. No need to waste time communicating with potential clients excessively and exchanging unnecessary emails until you find when you’re both available.

With tools like Calendly and Acuity Scheduling you just share when you’re available for a meeting, and the client can book an appointment depending on their availability.

3. Always prioritize.

Sometimes we spend so much time working on random tasks, that at the end of the day, the important tasks don’t get done. Chances are you’ll feel disappointed, and although tired and emotionally exhausted, you still haven’t moved forward with our projects and goals.

So prioritize, every day. Define the most important tasks for each day (the ones directly related to your objectives), and start working on them first thing in the morning.

Set no more than 3, though. In most cases, if you don’t procrastinate and know how to make the most of your morning, you’ll have completed them before noon. That will make you feel good about yourself and see results from your efforts pretty soon.

4. Review your day every evening.

That’s a powerful practice many successful people swear by. Assessing how you spent your day at the end of each one will help you always stay on track, never miss anything important, and easily think of ways to optimize your approach.

When reviewing, think about what you worked on today, how you performed and how you feel about it. List anything you couldn’t finish on time and try to understand why that happened. Also, see how long each activity took and whether it could have been done more quickly.

Then, turn these into ideas on how to be more productive in the future. If you apply one new strategy each day, you’ll boost your efficiency in no time.

5. Deadlines.

Deadlines are powerful. When you’re your own boss, however, there’s no one to give you one. But still, having a fixed date and time when something must be finished helps your mind overcome procrastination and magically get it done right before this deadline.

Because you want to keep everything under control, you’ll never allow yourself to miss a deadline. What’s more, you can set them in advance so that you’re always ready with the work a day or a few earlier.

That makes you disciplined and you start managing your time much more effectively.

6. Outsource.

Last but not least, even if you’re not at that stage in your business yes, you need to delegate some of the work.

Here we’ve summarized why outsourcing matters so much and what aspects of the work you can outsource.

Believe it or not, there are experts in any field that can take care of aspects of your business you don’t need to deal with anymore, and thus let you focus on strategies for growth, for example.

With these 6 time management tips you can easily save yourself tens of hours each week. That will give you time to rest and take care of yourself (which will boost your productivity in return), to spend time with loved ones, to learn new skills and master what you’re good at, and even give new projects a try.

Social media can become one of your best friends and the most powerful tools that will grow your business and personal brand, but only if used right. Okay, so you know that your potential customers are on social media. You just need to get in front of their eyes in a way that’s not pushy, but grabs attention and aims at forming a genuine relationship with them.

Unlike what many companies are doing, social media marketing is a long-term strategy. So forget about setting up an account and automating it. Instead, prepare to invest a lot of time on each specific channel where your target audience hangs out. It will take weeks and even months before you see results in terms of new customers, subscribers and users.

Here are some things to keep in mind to leverage the power of social media for your business:

1. Be authentic.

Don’t make your products sound better than they are, don’t overdo it when talking about yourself or your mission, don’t buy followers and don’t keep posting about or asking for money. On social media, it works better if you’re real. If not, people will simply stop following you and go check out a more interesting profile of one of your competitors.

What does it mean to be authentic online?

Start by posting inspirational content but adding a personal touch to it, like a description under the post where you share a story that taught you a life lesson. Create and post behind-the-scenes photos and videos to show the funny side of the work, to make people familiar with what’s going on in the office and/or during meetings, or just upload photos from daily life that you find interesting to show  that you’re more than a brand. People connect with people.

2. Engagement is one of the key metrics.

The number of followers you have isn’t that important. Some have hundreds of thousands of them but only a tiny percent of these are commenting, liking or visiting the website. Engagement is what you should be aiming for.

It can happen by creating quality content, posting consistently, asking questions, personally contacting some users or like-minded business owners or potential partners to thank them, also sharing the things you read that other people have written, or products and tools you find useful that hep you get a lot done.

Use hashtags on Instagram, follow people in the same niche on Twitter, pay for targeted ads on Facebook, and include all the important information about who you are and what you do on LinkedIn – all these will help you find the right people.

3. Add value.

Before you start expecting many followers to visit your profile and like what you have to offer, you’ll need to put something on the table, for free. and build a name for yourself. Giving comes before getting anything out of it. So leave the financial goals behind and focus on creating, sharing and providing value now.

In your profile, mention a few words about yourself and your business but also how it helps people. Share the solution, not the product or service.

Create motivational image quotes yourself, or have someone do it for you. Make them original, add your logo, and share them with the world without expecting anything in return.

Run contests with giveaways. Let the prize be one of your products, a free consultation or chat with you, or using your software free for the first few months. That’s how you get people interested and still make your products and services more popular.

And share the links on social media. Even send a message individually to the people who are most engaged with your content and who you know will like your posts.

Social media can be fun if you do it right, and measure results all the time so you know what works best.

Make sure you diversift your time and efforts, though, but over time do focus more on the channels that lead to more followers, relationships or customers.

When an Internet user is looking for advice on a certain topic, wants to buy something, or has another need that your services can answer, they go online and search for information. But because at least tens of thousands of results come up, and there’s literally no time and energy to go through even the top ones and find what they’re looking for, they need to check out only the source they trust the most.

That usually happens by visiting the most popular site in the niche, or following an influencer and the tips and suggestions they share. So if you want to get in front of your potential customers, you need to radiate trust before they pay attention to you and your business, and long before you even start building a more personal relationship with them.

But how do you become the so-called expert on a particular topic? How do you stand out from the crowd when so many others are talking about the same thing, have more experience and have already created their products?

It will take time, sure, but you can take the steps below, and strategize before you get to work. Here’s where to start:

1. Stay up to date.

Things change every day in the world of online business. New marketing channels, social media platforms, influencers, trends, hashtags, optimization tricks, news, etc. are being discussed all the time. If you miss something closely related to your niche, you’ll be left behind.

So it must become your habit to follow the latest trends in your field, and have access to relevant information the moment it goes live. That too is a skill which takes time to be developed as you will consume a lot of unnecessary information in the beginning, until you find the right resources and the most comfortable and practical mediums that will save you time and give you only what you need.

2. Write a lot of content.

Find your voice and start sharing what’s on your mind. Be authentic and dedicate time to creating long-form content that your target audience will find useful.

That’s one of the surest ways to be taken seriously even by other professionals in your niche. It can also turn your website into a place where people go before they take a decision related to a product you’re selling, or just to get the right advice.

Content creation is a long-term strategy, and although it’s one of the most valuable ways to build a connection with your readers and touch them, still so many businesses aren’t investing enough time and resources in it.

You should write content as crazy, so don’t just plan to do it once a week or so. You can hire people too to take care of that, or just to edit, polish and publish your words, as that part also takes too much of your time. But you should be putting something of value out there every single day.

3. Build your network.

They say that your network is your net worth. Start by connecting with influencers on social media, go to networking events, leave insightful comments under the new posts of the biggest names in your industry.

If you stay in the game long enough and keep doing what you do and are with the right attitude, you will get noticed.

Over time, important people will start paying attention to you and the work you do, contacting you and making you tempting offers to do business together, inviting you to events, and introducing you to others. Each of these relationships can turn into something big.

4. Bring something new to the table.

To be remembered, you should change the game completely. That will make people interested in you, and even if they question your status quo, it’s about how you say it and what your goal is.

• Talk about the things in your industry that no one else dares to discuss.
• Combine two seemingly unrelated subjects and share life lessons with that.
• Visit forums and write long answers to people’s questions.
• Share a lot about your personal life, especially the extraordinary parts of it.
• Market your products in a completely different way.
• Set prices that no one else in your field has.
• Give more freebies to your readers and subscribers than anyone else.
• Write the longest guide on a popular topic and put make it available for free. Mention other influencers in your niche and then contact them personally to give them a link to it, hoping they’ll share it with their social media followers.

These 4 steps should be enough to get you started to becoming someone known to be an authority in their niche.

 

Simply creating an Instagram account and waiting for people to follow you and engage with the content you post every now and then won’t work.

A strategy must be created, a content and marketing plan should be prepared in advance, and then you can get to work and start building your audience.

But social media is often unpredictable, and the things that work can surprise even the most experienced business owner.

That’s why it’s worth taking a look at some popular Instagram accounts to see what they are doing right. When it comes to getting attention on a social media channel, other than monitoring engagement and tracking all other important metrics, the best marketing research is to try what your competitors are doing and see how successful it is for your audience and business.

But there are a few key features that all good Instagrammers have in common. These are elements of your overall strategy that you simply cannot go without. So instead of wasting time finding each yourself as a result of trial and error, keep them in mind now and make them part of your Instagram game from day one.

1. Great content.

Don’t skip this important step because you’re too busy to be creating content for yet another platform. And don’t think re-posting or quick photos or quotes can do the job just as good.

People want to be inspired, their attention can be grabbed by originality, and if they are to read a quote, it must be something they haven’t seen on all other accounts they are following. This is why Womeneur’s founder is hell bent on posting a lot of her own original quotes. So give people exactly that if you want to stand out.

The guys from Foundr Magazine know how to do that. And that’s why they have close to a million happy followers who engage with their content.

This means having different types of posts, but creating each one yourself and making sure it adds up to the overall value you provide with your profile.

So, make interesting videos, create Instagram stories every few days, use cool free apps to make your images professional and to add quotes to them. When presenting your products, do it right, not aggressively.

2. Give people something from the start.

If you want someone to follow you instead of the hundreds of other accounts and businesses that promise the same things as yours, you need to provide value and make that clear from the very beginning of your relationship.

The easiest way to do this is to offer freebies on your website and include the direct url to one of these in your description on Instagram.

From then on, the value you’ll be providing will be with every post you publish on a daily basis that will inspire your followers or give them some practical tips.

The folks from SumoMe, for example, are linking to an extensive guide about the tools you should use to grow your website traffic. They’ve invested tons of hours in creating it, and are giving it away. That helps people build trust and know they can expect only quality and useful information from them in the future too.

3. Be authentic, be bold in your statements.

Gary Vaynerchuk is probably one of the greatest examples of that, together with turning your name into a successful brand.

He’s crushing it with his Instagram account – and his online presence on every social media platform, really – because he’s being himself, talking about the things he’s passionate about, holding nothing back, and showing people how to do business, make things happen and do the work it takes.

If you’re looking to build a huge audience on Instagram, and even turn it into a new source of leads and income, take it seriously and make your profile anything else but average.

And if you need some cool tips and an Instagram strategy, check out our Instagram Content Calendar + 19 Killer Tips.

Many individuals and businesses underestimate the importance of having a blog. Some decide to either not publish content at all, while others don’t invest enough money and time into content creation and distribution.

That’s a huge mistake, though. And your brand and revenue will suffer from it. You might not realize how much you’re losing by not having a blog, but it’s worth creating one to see how powerful it is for building connections and authority and turning visitors and readers into customers and users.

So, let’s see what it takes to start and run a successful blog these days:

1. Select your niche.

You might already have a company or personal website, so adding a blog will mean to just start writing and publishing articles.

But before that, you should define your overall strategy, set some goals, see what others are doing, be realistic as to how much and what type of content you can create exactly (or what your budget is for hiring a team to do that).

Why choose one niche? It’s much better to start with a particular topic and grow from there over time.

The thing is, there are too many blogs that cover all topics at once. Some of them are pretty popular and with tons of articles in their archives, so you can’t aim to beat that from day one.

The smarter approach to getting your blog off the ground is to be strategic about it. The topic you start writing about will be what people will soon connect your name and brand with. So make sure it’s something you know enough about, which you’re passionate and care about, and that’s evergreen and an issue enough people want to learn more about.

2. Make it informative and valuable.

Short blog posts with no actual advice aren’t something that will catch your readers’ attention. In fact, so many sites try this and just create content like crazy but put no time or real meaning in it, that you can consider these spammy. And Google would never rank them high because it wants to put on top only quality pages with enough words and a good link structure.

This means that you should build the right mindset starting today. Accept content marketing as a lifelong strategy and journey, which will benefit your business and authority in more ways than you can imagine.

So don’t go for the quick results.

Even if you pay for traffic, you won’t get the type of audience that you’re targeting. These aren’t the people who’ll pay for your products or services, or who even know what they need.

Also, don’t do it for the money. Irrelevant affiliate links, putting ads in the sidebar, or linking to a product of yours many times in one post is just too much. You’ll make people leave your site and never come back again.

The surest and most genuine way to get the right eyeballs is to write valuable, long-form posts on the topic, and inspire and give practical tips and steps with each.

3. Know who you’re writing for.

There are people out there whose lives will be much better if they find, buy and use your products. They just don’t know about it.

Some haven’t even thought that the solution is what you’re offering, so you need to find them, define their problem clearly and say how you can help.

To get to them, however, you need to know who these people are exactly.

That’s when you should create a reader’s and buyer’s persona.

Who’s your ideal customer? What’s his daily life, career, age, financial status, etc.?

What are his dreams, fears, goals, relationships? Where does he live and what does he want to change about his life? Where does he spend time online and what type of content is he consuming?

Take some time to figure all that out in the beginning, and start writing articles, creating information products (that you’ll give for free), publishing insightful posts on social media, and even paying for audio and video content production at some point.

Marketing research matters and, as you see, you should consider both the demographics and the psychological profile of your ideal customer.

4. Using your blog as a tool to improve your brand.

Make sure your website looks professional, but don’t overdo it. When it comes to a blog, people are there to read, and nothing else.

It’s not a coincidence that publishing platforms like Medium have no sidebars. One of the main elements of great reader experience is a full-width page template, where text is in the center of the screen, and there are no distractions around it.

Take your time when finding and choosing images too. They speak to people on a deeper level than words most of the times.

Formatting plays a big role too. Make the article skim-friendly (short paragraphs, headings and subheadings, bold and italics for key parts, etc.) as most people go through so many posts every day that there’s just no time to read them thoroughly. So they just skim the page to get the main idea. Make it easy for them to do that and they’ll check other pages on your site too.

The language you use when writing must be the right one. Don’t be pushy when talking about your business or mentioning products. Instead, simply include suggestions and links in the right places. After you’ve built trust with free stuff and great advice, people will be more likely to click on these and check out what else you’re offering.

So that’s how you start and run a blog successfully and use it to build a name for yourself.

Ladies! We all know that ONE girl that when she walks into a room, she makes heads turn (and if you’re like me, YOU ARE THAT GIRL Lol). Well, have you ever wondered how she does it? Sure, her makeup is laid and her hair is slayed. Her ‘fit is bomb and her shoes are to die for…but what is it about her that commands the attention of every eye in the room? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s charisma. It’s character. It’s confidence. She has it. You have it. You just need to own it!

I believe each and every one of us are born with everything we need to make this journey called life happen. No matter how great or how small, those parts of you that make you who you are all work together towards getting you where you need to be and to pull those who need to experience you in your direction. Experience you…yes, I said it. Honey, everyone you have a conversation with needs to leave it feeling as if they’ve been taken on an encounter with a dope soul.

There are three attributes you need to send out those winning vibes to bring who you need into your space.

1. Charisma

Charisma is the compelling attractiveness someone has. People are naturally drawn to them because their personality is contagious! Before people decide to love you, they have to like you. And if you desire to attract winning opportunities, you have to embrace the part of you that needs to connect with like-minded individuals to flourish. This is the attribute that will allow you to rise to the top and become the crème of the crop.

2. Character

Who are you when no one is watching? (Please do tell!) That person is who you really are. Believe it or not, you can only stay in character but for so long before your role is exposed. The people you attract will possess the same characteristics you have, the good, the bad and surely the ugly. Be mindful of that.

3. Confidence

There is something magical about a woman whose smile caresses her face as if someone perfectly painted it on and whose presence says “I am THAT girl!” I’m sure you’ve heard time and time again that “confidence is key,” well it’s true. Believing in who you are and what you have to offer is critical to your success as a person and as a professional. Confidence convinces (You’ll catch that one later) and those you desire to have on your squad need to have confidence in your character.

When you allow the essence of who you are to shine through forreal, all three Cs will naturally flow from you. Your tribe needs your 3Cs. So, discover your uniqueness and embrace it. Everybody cannot handle your light. Those who are for you will come. And those who aren’t, well, they just aren’t. No love lost but all love given.

 

 

 

 

Richard Branson once said that business ideas are like buses. There’s always another one coming.

If we analyze what goes on in our mind in one day, assuming we’re creative individuals and entrepreneurs by heart, there will be some solid ideas we’d even decide to turn into reality.

But there’s just not enough time to work on each; give it a try and see where it goes. What’s more, most of these won’t work. Be it because there’s no market for it, isn’t something we’re passionate about that we can dedicate our life to for the next few years or even decade, or because we don’t have the skills, team or preparation to execute something like that.

There are many reasons why an idea might not work. That’s why it’s crucial to validate it long before you start investing time and resources in turning it into a real business.

So the next time a business idea pops up in your head, here’s what you should do first to make sure you’re working on something worthwhile:

1. See if there’s a market for it

Some ideas sound too good to be true, and they probably are. Do research, look around to see if others are making money in the same niche in a similar way. Go on Amazon, YouTube, Udemy, etc. and see what topics people are looking for the most, and whether or not the top products in these categories are making profit and think if you can create something similar.

2. Don’t innovate, solve a problem

Setting the goal of creating the next hot social media network that will be bigger than Facebook and Instagram, is just not realistic. And you don’t need to go that big. The work it takes, the chaos that will bring to your life, the investors, the lack of any free time, the mistakes that might be worth millions of dollars, etc. That means no personal life, no joy found in the work you do, and so on. So leave innovation for the game changes, the ones who already have initial capital and the connections necessary for that. Instead, focus on optimization.

Have a business idea? Great. Ask yourself if it solves a problem enough people share. Every business, every product or service that’s successful, is based on this – there must be a need to meet, a struggle to help people with and make their life easier. Most profitable online businesses do well because they help their customers save time or save/make money. And these are things we all want.

So think it through. Once you find the problem and think your product is the solution, define this as clearly as you can.

That’s how you’ll promote it to potential users one day, and how you’ll explain what your business is about. Make it short and to the point.

3. Reach out to people and ask question

So far, so good. But you need other people to tell you that it’s worth building a product like that. Otherwise, you can’t rely only on your strategy and the encouragement of the people around you. It’s the users you’re making it for, and they have the final say. So ask them in advance. When doing your research to validate your business idea, you must also find out where your target audience spends time online, what they talk about, etc.

Choose a social media channel they like and use a lot, find them through hashtags, groups, or else, and personally reach out to 10 or 20 people for a start to ask them what they think about your product. You can create surveys with Google Forms, Survey Monkey, TypeForm and Facebook

And because you can’t just ask for something without giving anything in return, offer them to be your beta users and give them something free or discounted in exchange. That’s probably one of the best investments you’ll ever make.

4. Build a MVP

That’s the minimum viable product, the very basic version of how your product/service will look like when it’s finished and ready to be distributed. It’s important to keep it simple. Just create something that solves the problem you promised people to help with, don’t add any other features, don’t worry about design, marketing, or else. That happens at a later stage.

Now get this product to your beta users. Let them play with it a little. Then, wait for feedback.

Be sure that they will honestly tell you what sucks about this product, what they like the most and why, and how to make it even better. Listen to their words, take notes, and go make improvements to your product. That’s the simple and beautiful process of going from an idea to something that can become big, help people and grow your business.

So, any business ideas?

Freelancing is a great way to start off your journey to a lifestyle of freedom, independence and doing work you love.

In the beginning, you get some of the benefits right away and you love your life more because of this. You can work from the comfort of your home, choose only clients you like and which seem like the right fit for you, start new projects whenever you feel like, set your own working hours, travel and still make money, take a day off whenever you feel like and then hustle harder for the next few to bring more money in, and so on.

These are the joys of being your own boss, working online, managing your time the way you want to, caring about what you do, being strategic and productive but not having to answer to anyone else.

At some point, though, you’ll notice some disadvantages. The main one being that you make money only when you’re at the computer. The more hours you invest it, the more you’ll make, sure. But too many freelancers fall into the trap of working too much, not taking breaks, not doing other things they enjoy, etc.

This leads to feeling like you’re at your regular job. You might start hating what you do because of that. And the magic of being self-employed is lost.

That’s not how a business owner spends his time. Administrative and repetitive tasks aren’t something you have to deal with for the rest of your life, you shouldn’t dedicate all your time to work, and you also need to grow the business.

What you need to aim at in this case is earning passive income. That’s how you take freelancing to the next level, how you get back your time but keep making money even when you’re away from your laptop, and how you take the leap from a freelancer to an online entrepreneur.

It’s not easy, of course, and you’ll need to try out a few things to see which one works best for you.

In case you’re wondering how a freelancer can make passive income, here’s what you should consider:

1. Create a product

If you don’t try something you haven’t tried before, freelancing will turn into a comfort zone. And comfort is the enemy of progress. Too many people working for themselves are scared of even thinking about creating a product. However, it’s much easier and cheaper than you think. We’re not talking about hiring a developer and paying thousands of dollars to create an app that might not even get any attention by users. Let’s start with something simpler and for which there’s already a market. You have knowledge on a subject, the point is to share it with people and get paid for it. Once you have a product, it will be a source of income for a lifetime.

Self-publishing an eBook is something you can do. You don’t need to be an expert or hire professional editors and marketers. You just need to gather your experience and knowledge on a certain topic, know more than beginners, organize the information in an understandable way (preferably create a step-by-step guide), do the work in the beginning when writing, editing and proofreading. Get help for the formatting and design if you want to or even create it in Canva or Powerpoint, and start selling it on Amazon or even your site. That’s it.

Then, you can turn this into an audiobook. In the future, you might add video and create a whole course, these are pretty profitable now. Sharing it on Udemy will get it directly in front of the people interested in courses and who want to learn more about this particular subject.

Once that’s done, the only process you’ll keep working on related to the product is promotion, as it never ends.

2. Grow a site and monetize it

As a freelancer, you should have a site and a blog where you write and share opinion on important topics connected to your field.

Put more work and effort into this to get traffic. It will take time, but it will be worth it.

Produce fresh content consistently, provide a great user experience and make the site look professional with a premium theme.

Not only will you become an expert in the field by publishing practical content so often, but your site will grow and you’ll then be able to monetize that traffic.

The easiest way is to publish ads – available in, but not limited to standard and popular sizes – 728 x 90 leadersboards and 300 x 250 rectangles. Advertisers can pay you a flat rate for a specific duration or pay you based on impresssions or clicks.

Another option is affiliate marketing. You’ll link to other people’s products from within your articles, or emails to subscribers, or will even write whole reviews to products your visitors will find useful. Your goal is to encourage them to make a purchase. When that happens, you can easily get 50-70% commission. If you’re in a niche where you can promote software services, or big networking events, or else, each sale might mean a few hundred dollars for you.

The good news, and what makes this passive, is that when you write such articles (preferably super practical and long so that Google can be happy and rank them higher), they will be found by new people all the time and you’ll keep earning commission from something you wrote a long time ago.

These are the easier ways you can start earning passive income. Choose one today, brainstorm some ideas and start turning them into reality.

Soon, you won’t need to freelance all day, every day, and will begin to earn income without being at the computer.

New Year’s resolutions often don’t work the way you may want them to. Most of the time it’s because you don’t make a plan, aren’t even sure whether you want to achieve the goals they set, and just rush into it without much thought.

In addition, you may set too many objectives, each requiring a big lifestyle change, investment of time, other resources, and a new mindset. Needless to say, it becomes overwhelming and you – like most people – have given up by the end of January.

But each new year is a blank book with 365 pages waiting for you to write it. It’s not just another opportunity to transform as human beings, but to also take our business on that journey with us.

Anything is possible. Just imagine where you can be standing a year from now.

Now, let’s see what these goals are. Choose one, do your research, define the first few steps, get excited, and start rocking 2017.

1. Let innovation drive you

Innovation is what the best products out there are based on. It’s what leads to progress too.

Why not become more innovative with your work and business thinking this year?

You might try a different marketing channel, change the way you hold meetings (maybe get people out of the office to boost creative thinking and let them freshen up at the same time), hire a new addition to the team that has an unusual approach.

Just do something completely different, even risky, and see how it goes. Innovation helps you grow too.

2. Just ship it

You know that product or service you’ve been thinking about for so long? The thing you’ve been researching, which your competitors are already making money from, but what you think you can do better?

Enough with the waiting. 2017 is about making things happen.

Create the minimum viable product and get it in the hands of a few people. See what they say. Maybe they’ll love it. Then, based on their feedback, improve it. Reach out to more potential customers (which means knowing the ideal customer is crucial in this case).

You don’t need to create the ideal product now. You just need a good idea that will solve a problem. And the best way to see if it can become something more is to let people give you honest feedback.

3. Let branding become a daily practice.

Doing the actual work, brainstorming strategies for growth, working on new ideas, and being busy doing everything else on our list, are all things that might let us forget that our personal brand is crucial for success.

But if you aren’t building your online presence consistently, you’ll be left behind. If you turn it into a habit though, if you list all the small actions you can take that will take your brand to the next level a year from now, you can crush it. And that can happen without too much work or effort.

Small efforts change the whole picture in the future. Every time you post something interesting on social media you might attract the attention of like-minded people. Each time you write content on your blog and share it with the world for free, you’re creating yet another chance for new people to get to know your business. Every time you tackle design for 10 minutes, you’re improving user experience.

All that becomes your brand. Don’t underestimate it, don’t leave improving it for later, because later becomes never.

I believe that each of these 3 goals can make a big difference in your life and your business. Start small, but be excited about what you’re doing. It matters. Plus, it turns you into the person ready to handle more responsibility, to become an authority in your field, to make connections with the right people and skyrocket the business.

2017 seems like the perfect year to achieve any of these 3 objectives.

Which one sounds most promising and why?

Listen, just because it looks easy doesn’t mean it is. Branding is more than a logo or pretty colors. It’s more than catchy phrases and nice stock photos. Building a brand takes lots of time, crazy commitment, proper planning and an insane amount of hustle. If you feel you know all there is to know about branding, you can stop reading right now. But if you’re like me and know that a fresh perspective is golden, keep reading.

So, let’s dive right in with starting tips.

1. Discover who you are what you have to offer.

A huge part of branding is connecting with others, after all, your personal brand has little to do with you and much to do with what others perceive of you.

Ask yourself: Who am I when no one else is watching (character)? What do I want people to know about me (reputation)? What do I desire to do as a brand (goals)? What resources do I bring to my audience (value)? What do I bring to the table that sets me apart from the rest (the “it” factor)?

Until you are crystal clear on your identity as a person, and then as a brand, those you desire to get in front of will continue to appear blurry.

The key word here is PERSONAL. People have to like you before they love you and they have to trust you before they invest in you. WHO is it that you are showing them? And WHAT is it that you are offering them?

If you don’t know, now is a good time to find out.

2. Know your target audience, then get niche specific.

I learned a while ago that if you master your target audience, your target customer or client will gravitate to you. Why? Because everyone in your audience isn’t for you, but they know someone who is! Word of mouth is the ultimate advertising and marketing tactic. It’s a real-time referral system! So, get clear on who your ideal customer or client is.

Ask yourself questions like these: What does he/she do as a profession/career? Are the satisfied with what they do? Where do they live? How much money do they make? Do they have children? Are the single or married? What are their spending/shopping habits like? Are they impulsive or analytical decision makers? What issues do they have based on their lifestyle? What solution do you have that will solve their issue?

There is a specific group of women (or men) that need what you have to offer. You don’t have to chase them down because when you have what they need, they will find you.

3. Stop looking at what everyone else is doing.

I’ve said it before and I will continue to say it, never give the public the opportunity to say “everybody is doing that,” when it comes to your brand. One of the best things you can do is to get laser-focused on you and let everyone else take the background.

Perception is no longer the ultimate reality. People are getting smarter! Receipts are what people want nowadays. They need papers, not false promises. They crave results not fluff.

When you realize your own greatness, comparison becomes the least of your worries. Get out the rat race and get in the game.

Seriously, exposure comes when you do what you do and you do it better than the rest. And you’d better be ready when the right type of exposure finds you. Stop wanting to fit in and create a brand that stands out. If you are true to you, the people will know it.