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Going from Employee to Entrepreneur: The Mindset Shift

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Some of the most inspiring success stories out there are of people who left their corporate job after doing something they didn’t like for most of their life and being part of the system, just to do what they love, move to another place or work remotely while traveling the world.

All that is possible. You can create a lifestyle business. Starting something on the side first until you begin making money from it, and doing it only with the help of your laptop, is a sure way to design the life of your dreams and have all the time and freedom you’ve always dreamt about.

But there’s a mindset shift that goes together with this.

Some people become business owners, but in their head they are still employees. If they don’t have a strategy, if they don’t solve a real problem with their product or service and care about what they do, they just end up creating another job for themselves.

They still work long hours, deal with clients they don’t like, can’t delegate or automate things and thus can’t take a vacation anytime they want to.

The journey from an employee to entrepreneur starts on the inside first. You need to make the mental shift early on, to start creating systems that will one day replace you and still give you revenue, to become your own boss and know how you’ll manage your time once you have all of it for yourself.

So here are some tips on how to stop thinking like an employee:

Get clear about what you want

An awful thing is to work hard for years to create a business, just to realize that you aren’t ready or it’s not something you truly want.

Once you become an entrepreneur, you’ll have more responsibilities than ever. In the beginning, you’ll have to work more than the average, to go the extra mile every single day, to give it at least a year until you can see results.

Not everyone’s patient or strong enough for that. Some just prefer the illusion of security a 9 to 5 job gives.

So make sure you’re willing to make sacrifices for some time before you enjoy the benefits of working for yourself and being independent.

If you’re looking for inspiration and practical tips, check out this guide on how one woman left her 6-figure corporate job to pursue a better lifestyle. Inside you’ll also find 5 worksheets and 25 useful tools to get you started.

Overcome the mental barriers

A mindset shift requires you to get rid of the doubts. You must believe in yourself to such an extent that you should find the willpower to take action in the right direction every day.

Fear also gets in the way. It stops you from even giving something a try.

Work on letting go of these. Build momentum by defining why you want to change your life and become an entrepreneur and always keep this why in mind.

Find your niche

Don’t just start anything that seems profitable, choose a field you’re passionate about. That’s when you’ll do your best work, create products that make a difference and never get bored.

Define what you love doing, think about the things you’re good at and combine all this with what people are willing to pay for.

The Ultimate Guide to Uncover Your Passion and Create a Profit will help you find your true calling and turn it into your career.

Check out what competitors in the same niche are doing and what are the success factors. Make sure there’s a market for that, you don’t want to end up building something no one needs.

Do it on the side first

Start doing this long before you quit your job. Research takes time. First of all, get familiar with all the possible ways to make money from the Internet. That too is part of the mindset shift as you expand your horizons.

See what grabs your interest, what digital skills you’re willing to learn and how you can combine all that and turn it into something profitable.

You can also be a freelancer and still be your own boss, even if you don’t actually run a big business anytime soon.

If you’re a lawyer, writer, teacher, parent, or anything else, you already have experience and knowledge to share with people online. You just need the right medium for you. It may be video, creating courses, self-publishing eBooks on Amazon, having a podcast, running a blog, or else.

You’ll be slowly building your portfolio for some time and finding your first clients on sites that connect freelancers with employers. Once you begin making a decent income, feel free to quit your job and never look back again.

Create your personal brand

You’ll constantly be improving your skills, connecting with people, improving your online presence, networking and building relationships and growing your business. You can have a brand strategist like Brittney Fells help you along the way.

Becoming a lifelong learner is another part of the mindset shift that you’ll be making before you transform your current lifestyle.

Develop the habit of taking little actions a few times throughout the day that will help you build a name for yourself online.

What about you? What’s stopping you from making the mindset shift and starting to think like a boss?

Check out the preferred partners here at Womeneur for more inspiration or advice on anything biz-related from social media management and personal branding to copywriting and running your business successfully.

Personal Branding: Practical Ways to Improve Your Online Presence Today

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Personal branding may be the missing piece in your business.

Many of you are working hard to build a business online, and wonder why you may not get any results. You put in the time and hard work, you’ve chosen the right niche, have done your research and you’re constantly learning things, staying up-to-date on current events and improving their skills to offer even better products and services.

But you may be neglecting a key element of the digital success – your personal brand.

Personal branding is the process of constantly creating awareness for your brand, business and especially your name.

But things have changed in the last decade with the Internet evolving at the speed of light, which also creates opportunities to come up with innovative business models. It’s often hard to keep up.

One thing that’s becoming more and more important in the digital age is the power of your online presence. It’s a combination of all your activities online, every profile you’ve ever created, the comments you write here and there, the stuff you share with your friends, and how you talk about your business.

If you aren’t doing all of this consciously, chances are people will form the wrong opinion about you. Because today you yourself are a brand. Everything you do online becomes part of your overall message and affects the way people perceive you.

Luckily, you can always do something about it. If you’re a first-time business owner and just starting out, begin building your online presence today with the actions below. If you’re already in the game, make a step-by-step plan on how to improve it with concentrated and consistent actions.

Here at Womeneur we take personal branding very seriously. Every element on the site, everything we publish, everyone we welcome on board, every status we share on social media – all these are aligned with our core values.

What’s more, we have Brittany Fells to thank for when it comes to brand strategies. She shares practical advice on how to skyrocket your business and build a following with brand guidance and powerful visual content. So make sure you check her packages out.

Now, here are some things to do connected to personal branding to stand out from the crowd in a competitive niche and build a name for yourself out there:

3 Key Aspects of Personal Branding to Take Care Of

  1. Website.

You can’t go without a website today, that’s needless to say. It’s your digital home and the only place online you have full control over.

You’ll want to make it look great and add useful content to it because that’s where you’ll be attracting visitors and turning them into customers.

So get a domain name and a self-hosted WordPress site and start working on the home of your brand online. If you want to do it right but also save time and avoid the hassle, try our Starter WordPress Website Package

  1. Blog.

After setting up your website, it’s time to create the most important pages. The Homepage, the About page, the Contact page, and others such as one for sponsors, a portfolio, or else, depending on the type of business you run.

Take your time when creating each of these or hire a copywriter to do it for you (serviced by Womeneur Preferred Partner Vanessa Williams). It must look professional as that’s what potential clients will be looking at before deciding to work with you.

Then comes the moment to start your blog. Today every site must go together with a frequently updated blog because content is more important than ever.

It’s another way to get traffic from search engines, engage your audience, become an expert in the niche by sharing practical blog posts, and grow your website and brand.

A big part of your personal branding efforts are also the design elements of your site – your logo , the colors, the images you add to articles, the font, the tabs on the menu and how you name them, etc.

Don’t forget to make professional photos too as you’ll use them all over the Internet.

  1. Social media.

Once you take care of the previous aspects of personal branding, let’s get social.

Your audience is already spending time on almost every social media channel. So it’s your job to be there and connect with them.

That can happen by creating a profile, linking back to your site, sharing your own content and interesting stuff you read online, creating and posting motivational images and quotes at specific times, commenting on other people’s content, and sometimes just asking a question and starting a discussion.

Most aspects of social media can be automated and there are plenty of useful tools for that out there, but there’s still a lot of work to do. You need to get clear about your goals, how you’ll connect with the right people, how often you’ll post and when and what your strategy is. Our DIY Social Media Starter Kit can help you with all that.

Personal branding is a never-ending journey, so learn to enjoy it. You’ll constantly take focused actions in the right direction and see how you become popular in your niche and soon people start to find you more easily and tell their friends about your company and products. How awesome is that?

Before you go improve your online presence, though, check out our preferred partners again, who share their knowledge hoping to inspire more female entrepreneurs like you to transform their life and business.

How the Womeneur Platform Helps Female Entrepreneurs Thrive In Business

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Original article published in Black Enterprise by Kandia Johnson.

Womeneur connects, motivates, and educates female entrepreneurs

Sharon Beason is proof that sometimes you have to create what you want to be a part of. After feeling like she didn’t fit in with her former colleagues in business, Beason created Womeneur, an entrepreneurship-focused site offering digital guides, coaching sessions, skill-building events, and resources to help female entrepreneurs succeed in business.

“With my prior businesses, I catered to a majority non-black demographic, and although people did tons of business with me, I never truly felt welcomed nor did I feel like I could ‘break bread’ with my colleagues; there was always that empty feeling,” said Beason. “So I knew I wanted to create a platform where people could feel welcomed.”

As life would have it, she did just that. In a little over a year, Womeneur has evolved from a mere website to a highly- engaged community of over 50,000 people, who have access to an abundance of tools and workshops across all facets of business such as legal, finances, social media, branding, and web development.

BlackEnterprise.com caught up with Beason to learn how she turned her vision into reality.

BlackEnterprise.com: Before starting your own business, where did you work?

Beason: Prior to Womeneur, I was working diligently in the corporate accounting world as an accounting supervisor – overseeing a staff of five, traveling like crazy and working my but off! I had an amazing career and learned a lot, but it began sucking my soul and enslaving me, so I quit in 2008 and never looked back.

When did you know you had a viable business idea?

It wasn’t until I began doing research that I started noticing ‘the crazy’ on small business owners and entrepreneur’s websites and social media channel, such as inactive accounts, horrible aesthetics, lack of engagement, business emails ending with @yahoo, @hotmail, etc. I said ‘wow’ I have a lot of knowledge that I can share and motivate people to get their mind right about what it takes to operate and grow a business successfully.

You recently launched the WomeneurCollecitive™, a spin-off to the Womeneur platform. What have been some of the points in your journey when you realized you had something special on your hands?

I received a number of direct messages, comments, and emails from the Womeneur tribe. They talked about how my social media channels and website kept them motivated. It was so surreal to me because I also recognized that I was impacting more than just their business; I was impacting their lives.

What have been the key components of building your career and how have those factors helped you carve your own path to success?

I always remained true to myself no matter what I did or what situation I was in. I work my butt off and do it even if I don’t feel like it. Building a solid network was key! But most importantly – cheering on the next person and holding their hand to the finish line, has made me realize how successful I became with business relations, audience relations and of course, it helped my bottom line.

What has been your biggest challenge in growing your business?

The greatest challenge is getting your mind right and keeping it right. I faced so many no’s, oppositions, lost bids/proposals. This can do a ‘number’ on your confidence and self-esteem. You have to get around the right people who uplift, learn, share and grow with each other and you’ll forever feel empowered, no matter what obstacles you’re facing. Choose your circle wisely – it absolutely will make or break you!

Can you share any career advice you heard as a young adult, but glad you didn’t follow?

That’s easy: stay in your lane. I was always told it in a round-about way and it’s so easy to believe people who imply you’re not good enough. Not only did I NOT stay in my lane, I freaking created my own and kept it moving!

4 Tips to Help You Focus on Your Business (After Your 9 to 5)

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Lately, those “take the jump” motivational videos have been making the rounds on various social media platforms. You’ve seen those video clips with the “all-in or nothing” kind of message.

I am not dogging the message. I watch them and get pumped, just like everyone else. But let’s face facts, most of us are works in progress and for whatever reasons, we cannot just stop showing up at our 9-to-5. Bills need to be paid, and a girl’s got to eat. But trust me when I say when the moment is right – I’m gone!

So what should we focus on so we don’t feel overwhelmed? How can we keep slaying the 9to5, and still build our business like a boss?

The following are four incredible tips that I think will make the most impact on your business despite (okay – with the help of) your 9to5.

  1. Start thinking of your 9-to-5 as a blessing

Until recently, I always thought of my 9-to-5 as a big ol’ anchor holding me back from building my entrepreneurial empire. That couldn’t be further from the truth, the majority of my customers are from my 9to5.

Your 9-to-5 is the gasoline that will keep your dreams alive. So, it’s time to stop thinking of your 9to5 as something that is dragging you down, but as a partner that is holding you up until the time is right to leave. Use it to your advantage.

2. Align forces

[bctt tweet=”It’s super important to make getting your product or service in front of more people your top priority.” via=”no”]

Start reaching out to other businesses who reach a similar audience to see if they’d be interested in doing a marketing campaign. I have a skincare mini-franchise, I reached out to an up-and-coming make-up artist and we held an event for our customers. It was super successful!

Begin to spend your week strategizing between one and three ways in which you could market your brand, and map them out. Then pick one of these to implement the next week, and see what works. You’d be surprised!

3. Map it out

[bctt tweet=”There is no sugar-coating it: successful businesses are built on consistent imperative action taken daily. #womeneur” username=”womeneur”]

No busy work. No checking more email. No unnecessary phone calls. You only have so many hours to work on your side hustle outside of your 9to5 hours, so you have to make them count.

Start using Friday as your planning day for the week ahead. I still utilize Sunday to make sure the weekly plan that I created on Friday is a go. I’ve learned that these two days really clear up my headspace so I can be present with friends and family on the weekend.

By getting things planned out on Friday (and finalized on Sunday) you’re able to hit the ground running on Monday morning.

4. Be present online (Every. Day.)

It’s really easy to lose track of time while at your 9to5, but the power of being present online is incredible. I make sure to post on my favorite social media platforms at least twice a day. If you know you can’t do this at work, scheduling apps like Buffer or Hootsuite make it easier for you to be online when you can’t.

Utilize any online groups you might be in. Becoming known for what you do is powerful, and it can easily transition into referrals. The more referrals you get can mean more work, and more work means more money in your pocket.

Engage with others by answering questions as they come up in the groups, and adding advice when it’s appropriate. I make it a practice to give more than I promote.

Working a full-time job, while building a business is not an easy task, but we’re doing it. If you feel you need extra help to develop a business or marketing strategy, Womeneur has got your back.