There I said it. If you don’t make money, you have a hobby, not a business.
I don’t care if you have a business license.
I don’t care if you have business cards and a fancy website.
I don’t care if you pay an accountant to help you write off start-up costs and business expenses on your taxes.
If you do not make money, you have a hobby, not a business.
I realize this is a bit harsh, especially for those of you who have been in prep mode for what feels like FOREVER, especially for those that are sitting back saying “I did what the guru told me and still nobody showed up”. Analysis paralysis, prep mode, perfectionism, and busy work can get us stuck in a mode where we “have a business” but it isn’t paying its own bills much less our own.
The current online narrative around becoming an entrepreneur focuses so much on the “getting ready”, the “becoming legit”, the “laying the groundwork.” But I believe that everything you have done in your life up to this point is the groundwork. There is very little prep that needs to be done. As soon as you are clear on the what and why and towards what end of what you are selling (your mission, vision, and core offering), you are ready to go. And much to the chagrin of most of my clients, ready to go actually means ready to sell.
Selling, exchanging what you offer for money, is THE WAY to make your hobby into a business.
“Ugg gross, sales.”
I can hear it from here, the sales anxiety and resistance. Being an entrepreneur means being a salesperson. Long after your company makes it big and you hire a sales team to do the grind work, you will still be in sales. And at the beginning, there isn’t a better way to do it. Sales, up close and personal toe-to-toe selling, is the best way to get to know your market. I always recommend clients sell one-on-one before investing in advertising (digital or otherwise) because the one-on-one sales conversations are your wealth of information on who buys, when they buy, and what they need to hear in order to buy. Your products, your marketing, and even the way you work with customers drastically improve when you can collect information via the sales process. Message me if you need more convincing on one-on-one selling when you first start out. But for now, I’m going to move on to some concrete things you need to do.
How to change your Hobby into a Business (Or “How to Sell”)
Get over your sales aversion.
Simple to say hard to do, you need to stop feeling like a sleezebag whenever you start to head towards the selling part of the equation. If you are selling a quality product to a person that it can truly help for a fair price, there is no reason to feel sleezy. Let me break down those requirements. Quality Product: you need to believe in what you are selling. Really truly believe that it is transformative in some way, big or small. To the Person it can help: you have identified your target market and are intentional in selling only to the people who can benefit. In other words you aren’t just trying to sell it to any old person (this is why door to door sales is almost always icky feeling). For a fair price: you have done your market research and aren’t trying to cheat people. If you meet these requirements, the sleezy feeling is all in your head and you need to work through it. Selling is just getting permission to help someone.
Stop waiting for “ready”
I don’t believe ready really exists. I went to my first networking event before my business cards had arrived in the mail. Your website doesn’t need to be finished before you pitch your first client. Heck sometimes I haven’t quite finished designing the program before I start selling it (I do this on purpose so that the info I gather during the sales process can tailor the program to the participants.) Ready is an illusion that we hide behind because of our fears, fears about selling, about if we can really do this, about who we are as people. I’m not asking you to stop being afraid, I’m asking you to sell anyway.
Stop Hiding behind Tech
I LOVE tech. I love the fact that I can have clients everywhere, that my systems can work automatically without me, that I can work in a different part of the state from my assistant. I love tech AND we all can use tech as a crutch, as an excuse. When it comes to sales I see it all the time, people would rather throw $50 at Facebook ads than get up in front of a room and pitch what they do. Like I ranted above, one-on-one selling (yes it can be via dms or email) is a goldmine of information. Analytics can give you stats, but conversation gives you the meat of who, what, why. Too often people tell me they are selling every day, but what they mean is they are posting every day, or they hired someone to make content for them. (To be fair people hide behind going to networking events as well so tech isn’t entirely to blame). Selling involves asking someone to buy. If you aren’t doing that it isn’t selling.
Keep Track of Your Sales Numbers
“That which is measured gets better.” And perhaps even more so than that, your actual sales numbers will tell the real story when your feelings and insecurities will warp your perception. It can FEEL like we asked EVERYONE we know of to buy, when we have only hit a third of the people on our list. We can think we are selling all the time only to realize that we only sent one sales letter this whole week. Keep track of (1) how many new people you brought into your nurturing system (or funnel if that’s your thing), (2) how many direct calls to action you put out online and in networking or speaking, (3) How many potential sales conversations you had, (4) How many direct invitations to work with you went out, (5) Your gross sales. Track it every week, and watch how your sales changes. The number one issue I see with client’s sales process is quite simply a volume issue. You can’t fill 10 seats by asking 10 people.
Invest in the part of your business that actually matters, YOU.
You don’t need a fancy CRM, or website, or marketing team to make your business profit. Your business needs investment in it’s heart and soul, you. Lack of sales, analysis paralysis, perfectionism, overcomplication, and/or a messy sales process that leaves you wondering where the issue is, those are internal issues. Those are things that you need to get straight before you start shelling out money on advertising or fancy tools. And those are the core of what I am working with my members on for all of the month of March.
Consider this your personal invitation. If you accidentally have a hobby instead of a business. I can help you with that. In March’s training intensive (and sales challenge) we will be diving deep into the mental blocks on selling, the things to say to start and close those conversations, and creating tracking systems that work with your brain to keep your sales numbers growing. Shoot me an email if you want in!