How to Turn Your Value Into a Business for the World

Last week, I talked about models for creating value. If I sparked something inside of you, you may now be thinking what you could do to bring your gifts to the world, create value, and live your purpose, but where do you get started? You may have guessed from last week's post that I'm a fan of creating your own business to live your true purpose. There are a lot of benefits from starting and running your own business including directing your own time, directing your contribution to the world, standing in your value and getting paid what you believe is a fair exchange, tax savings, and investment benefits. So, here are seven steps to get you headed in the right direction of being a self-employed business owner or solopreneur, as some people like to call it.

Step 1 - Define Your True Purpose and Gifts for the World

If you haven't figured out what your true purpose is yet, then go back and read my February posts titled Finding Your Soul Purpose Through Your Story.

In that post, I lay out some steps to look at the significant events in your life, find the common and reoccurring themes, and name your purpose and gifts. If you're struggling on how to convert your story into a business, then consider taking your story, experiences and expertise and turning them into one of the following types of expert center businesses:

1. Being a coach
2. Being a consultant
3. Being a Paid Speaker
4. Creating information based products such as digital online courses, podcasts, webinars, and or seminars

It may not be one thing that you're called to do, but a portfolio of income streams. I'm doing coaching, consulting as well as information and investment product sales which all support my vision of waking people up to realize that they are Powerful Beyond Measure. A great book for 21st century ideas on making money is "The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth" by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen. If you're clear on your purpose and gifts and how you want to turn them into a business, then let's move on.

Step 2 - Document Your Vision for What You Want to Create

Have Fun with this process. Look at all the ways you could bring your gifts to the world and live your true purpose. Then build a plan to make it happen for deeper insights on this process, refer to the following previous posts:

1. How to Create a Compelling Vision
2. How to Translate Your Vision into Goals
3. Goal Setting Mastery

Step 3 - Hire a Coach, Join Masterminds, and / or Surround Yourself with Mentors

Look around and see who you spend the most time with in your life. If the people you're spending time with aren't challenging you to be the best version of yourself, then surround yourself with people that will. Personally, I've hired multiple coaches for different reasons, participate in three masterminds currently, and I'm always looking for mentors who are ready and willing to help me.

Find people that are more successful than you doing what you want to do and model them. Study how they've set up their business and their systems for success, and incorporate what you learn into your success formula.

A great coach will not only help you with the DOING part of creating your vision, but they will also help you with the BEING part of yourself that, as we've talked about in the past, is much more important than the DOINGNESS of the day to day. For more details on BEINGNESS, please refer to these following posts:

1. How to Build an Attitude of Gratitude
2. How to Energize Your Vision and Goals
3. Connect and be Present to the Now
4. Optimal Decision Making
5. Align and Remove Barriers

Step 4 - Set-up Your Business

You should do this as early in the process as possible to take advantage of tax write offs for all the expenses that you will start to rack up as you get going. Some basic things you need to do to set up your business include:

1. Determine the type of business entity you would like to form. See "The Corporation Manual, The Entrepreneur's Passport to Financial Security" by Aaron Scott Young for some awesome guidance on the pros and cons of various business entities, If you're just starting out, an LLC is generally a cost effective way to get going. You can always create a more sophisticated entity if and when the time arises. Check with your lawyer for final guidance.
2. Hire a lawyer to create the documents that bring your business entity to life.
3. Open a business checking account and get a business credit card.
4. Set up a system for keeping track of income and expenses. Personally, I love Quickbooks Online as I can easily share it with my accountant and bookkeeper.
5. Build your success team. If you remember last week, I suggested that you can be self-employed as a solopreneur and have an awesome team of outsourced support to help you succeed. Some of the members on your team might include lawyer, accountant, bookkeeper, coach, virtual assistant, tech support, marketing assistance and sales affiliates. For some great advice on how to do this, read "The Four Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferriss.

That's enough of the business basics basics. Let's get onto some fun stuff.

Step 5 - Build and Implement Your Marketing Plan

I think this is one of the most exciting times to be a solopreneur due to the awesome power of the Internet to fuel your marketing machine. There are basically two ways to use the power of the Internet to grow your business - the SLOW way and the FAST way! Which sounds better to you? SLOW or FAST? Given that time is our most precious asset, fast is better! However, in this case, I follow the advice I received many years ago from Peter Diamandis, "When given a choice, choose both!"

So what is SLOW and what is FAST Internet marketing? SLOW Internet marketing is also known as content marketing consisting of things like blogging, forum posting, social media posting including live videos, YouTube videos, and search engine optimization. FAST Internet marketing is using paid ads to drive traffic into automated marketing and sales funnels. There's a lot to this topic, but to get your mind going, checkout "DOTCOM SECRETS:The Underground Playbook for Growing Your Company Online" by Russell Brunson. When you're first getting going and in the process of creating your company's intellectual property, service plan and or products, start with SLOW Internet marketing.

In conjunction with SLOW Internet marketing, you should be doing the old fashion, offline method of lead generation, i.e. networking to generate more offline momentum. Consider speaking from various stages and podcasts to get your business message and value out into the world. Once you have leads flowing your way, it's time for the next step.

STEP 6 - Invite Your Leads to Purchase What You Have to Offer

Notice I'm not using the word "sell" or "sales" in this step. If you have successfully created a business that is centered around your gifts to the world and you deeply believed that what you're offering has value to your prospects, then a well presented invitation is all that is needed to bring the lead into your tribe as a paying customer. If you're building a business around your gifts and expertise, then check out "EXPERT SECRETS: The Underground Playbook to Find Your Message, Build a Tribe and Change the World" by Russell Brunson.

Step 7 - Deliver More Than Your Customers Expect

Deliver more than your customers expect and they will be raving fans! This is what you've been waiting for - an opportunity to deliver your gifts to the world! Once you have paying customers, then always give them more than they expect, and they will sing your praises to the world! When you are truly living your purpose, you will always be giving your very best!

I trust that you have enjoyed this simple post with seven steps to get you going. Please leave me a comment on which step you would like me to dive deeper into, and we'll tackle your request in future posts. Also, if you know what your true purpose is but don't know how to turn that into a business, let me know, and I'll share my thoughts with you. Thanks as always, and please pass this blog onto those who are ready to live their purpose and be Powerful Beyond Measure. Have a great week!