Totally Clutch Vlog - Business Efficiency Tips for Female Entrepreneurs RSS

WARNING. This episode might be a little controversial! My guest and I may end up convincing you that the assistant or 10 extra staff members you’ve been dreaming about may not answer your business woes.

Our guest found all the things we help our clients find; more time, more money and greater fulfillment. But she found it on her own and in an unconventional way.

Janis Isaman is the owner and founder of My Body Couture, a private one-on-one health studio. She helps humans move better, feel better and live better.

I want to draw special attention to the fact that she’s making more money, has less stress and is spending way more time with her son, her photography and writing. ALL the things.

Watch now to hear all the juicy details. You’ll be surprised.

If you’re interested in working with Janis, visit her at www.mybodycouture.com

Please remember I believe in you and your business.

Totally Clutch Vlog - Business Efficiency Tips for Female Entrepreneurs RSS

This episode piggybacks off our last but breaks from our new norm of live interviews just for this week. Once you’ve got your business idea dialed in, looking for a platform is the next big step. We’ll talk through the key things to look for when choosing an online platform and will also provide a worksheet to help you work through the considerations for your specific business. This is a quick but important video.

Finding the right platform to support your online business is a make or break decision and it needs to happen really early in your planning. So you have little to go on to make this ginormous call. It can be the difference between growing a successful business and barely holding on.

I worked with a service organization a while back that was paying a lot of money every month for a membership platform. The information available to clients was so outdated and confusing that the front desk staff was on the phone constantly answering questions because no one knew how to make updates or set things up properly. They were paying a lot for the membership site, and were also paying desk staff to provide the same information instead of allowing them to truly host clients arriving for their service. And that’s not a situation you want to find yourself in down the road.

The first thing to consider when choosing an online platform is:

• What’s your online sales model?

  • Direct to consumer

  • Wholesale

  • Drop Ship

  • Subscription

These don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but will help you narrow your search. If you’re offering subscriptions for example, the payment collection and content release can be a little tricky. Some platforms offer the option but treat it like a premium offering so they charge a lot more while others focus on this type of product so they’re able to offer it at a more competitive price.

• What kind of product are you selling?

  • Physical

  • Services

  • Digital

There are platforms for each of these options but not all of the platforms offer options to sell each product type. And some sell certain types better than others.

• Are you currently using a payment processor and do you want/need to keep them?

  Some of the platforms work with specific processors or charge a premium to use a specific one. But the common small business processors integrate really nicely with most platforms.

• Do you currently have a website?

  Many website hosts offer ecommerce or membership add-ons now. Its still important to assess all the other factors but its worth looking into so you can potentially house everything in one place.

• How much do you plan to sell?

  You’ll need to have a rough idea of how much you’re going to sell and how many products you’ll be selling at any given time. Your transactions fees will be impacted by this information and many of the platforms charge by # of product or volume that you’re moving. So, when you start to compare overall costs, these can play a significant role in filtering through your options.

• Where do you plan to sell?

  If you only want to sell on facebook, your options are going to be very different than if you want to sell on your site, on amazon and other marketplaces.

• Developer or DIY?

  Having a developer would be awesome but depending on your business, could be way too costly. There are some really robust platforms but you need some pretty hefty coding skills to use them effectively. If you’re going the DIY route, you’re still going to have a lot of really great options but its important to make that distinction for yourself.

• Do you currently have or will you need a POS system? 

  If you see yourself doing in person sales at some point, you may want to look for a platform that does both online and offline sales. Or if you already have a brick and mortar store with a POS system, some POS systems offer an online version. Possibly saving yourself some serious time on setup and maintenance.

• What’s the customer experience like?

  Once you’ve made it through most of these, you should have a short list of options. The last thing I would suggest doing is to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and visualize their experience with your remaining platforms. How does each feel, are there areas you see them getting caught. Are there areas where you’ll struggle to get them the information they need to make a sale or communicate with them? You can do this visually or many of these platforms offer a free trial so you could take the actual platform for a spin.

Really what you’re doing is using your business model to help guide you to the right platform. Factor in your product, volume, your customer experience and what your current resources are and you’ll find yourself with a great platform that you can grow with. If you have big growth plans, know that you may have to settle on a platform that works for you now and down the road switch over to something else that can better accommodate where you’re headed.

You can download your own worksheet that covers all that we talked about today at:

Please remember I believe in you and your business.

Totally Clutch Vlog - Business Efficiency Tips for Female Entrepreneurs RSS

In this episode we talk with special guest, Sumayya Essack, about how to find the right online business for you. You’ll also get access to a fun, yet informative quiz to take on your own.

Things have shifted dramatically as a result of the pandemic. Businesses have closed, reopened and closed again forcing people to spend more of their time online. All of this change can make an online business really appealing. 

Online businesses can come in many different forms. You can sell services, physical or digital products online. You can be an affiliate or a blogger. With so many options, it can be hard to know which one is right for you. 

Sumayya Essack runs Curate the Future, where she helps overachieving, yet under fulfilled, professionals find their true path.

I’m looking forward to what Sumayya’s insights spark for you. If you want to find out more about her work, visit:

www.curatethefuture.com

And you can take her free training at:

www.curatethefuture.com/4steps

If you can’t wait and want to meet your online business soulmate today, take the quiz:

Please remember I believe in you and your business.

Totally Clutch Vlog - Business Efficiency Tips for Female Entrepreneurs RSS

In today’s episode we talk about why you should start a business during a recession. We’ll be hearing from a special guest and will also share a couple of resources for you budding entrepreneurs.

It’s official. An economic recession started in February 2020. If I told you now could be a great time to start a business, would you think I was crazy? Well, the research agrees, so dust off the business plan you’ve been carefully crafting over the years and let’s see what you can do.

The last recession was Dec 2007-June 2009. Marie Forleo founded her business training small businesses and entrepreneurs in 2008. Her business is still rockin’ to this day. She’s received accolades from Oprah, Richard Branson, Tony Robbins and she’s trained over 55,000 people through B-School...quick math, that’s over $100M in revenue. Some other recognizable names founded in 2007-2008 are Airbnb, Crunchbase, Glassdoor, TaskRabbit, Groupon, Khan Academy, Spotify, Indiegogo, DL1961, Twilio, Roku, Drybar.

Tara Skredynski runs Careerfit Consulting, and coaches women through career transitions. Tara started her business earlier this year and shares her story.

They say that statistically, a small business has the same likelihood of success whether you start it in a boom or a bust. There are a lot of great advantages in a bust that can set you up for long-term success.

Still not convinced? Download this pdf to find out what you can leverage while starting a business now:

Starting a business is no joke. I’m going to guess that you’re not starting a business because you’re really pumped about doing payroll every two weeks. When I started my business, it took months and lots of staring at my computer to get everything set up and working right. That’s not thriving. We’ll be launching a course shortly that will help you get all of your backend business STUFF setup in a day. Save yourself joy and time. You can sign up for the waitlist at www.clutchbusinesses.com/onlinecourse.

Please remember I believe in you and your business.