STARTING AN ONLINE BUSINESS FROM ZERO

A PROVEN GUIDE TO BREAK FREE FROM 9-5, SURF THE DIGITAL WAVE AND
WIN CUSTOMER TRUST

THE CONSULTING CLUB

Copyright © 2023 by The Consulting Club. All rights reserved.
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 CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset

What Is an Entrepreneurial Mindset?
The 13 Key Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs
7 Effective Ways to Develop an Entrepreneurial Mindset to Maximize Your Long-Term Survival
2. The Trend Is Your Friend
The Top Digital Business Trends to Watch
Tracking Consumer Trends with Google
How to Validate Trends
3. How to Find Your Niche
What Is a Niche Market?
How to Find Your Niche
Mind Map
Examples of Successful Niche Strategies
4. The Power of Positioning
What Is Positioning?
What Is a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?
How to Write a Positioning Statement
Positioning Statement Examples
Perceptual Mapping

5. Pricing Your Offer

What Is a Pricing Strategy?
Real Life Pricing Strategy Examples
Finding the Right Strategy for You
6. Branding in a Nutshell
What Is Brand Strategy?
The 5 Essential Elements of an Effective Brand Strategy
Create a Brand Style Guide
7. Let’s Get Marketing
How to Create Your Online Business Marketing Plan Step-by-Step
Types of Digital Marketing Strategies
8. Putting It All Together: How to Write a Winning Business Plan
Why You Need a Business Plan
How to Write a Business Plan
Tips for Creating Your Business Plan
9. Paving the Road to Success
Against All Odds: Success Stories of Small Business
The Top 5 Fears for Business Owners and How to Overcome Them

Conclusion
Notes
References
 INTRODUCTION

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the

airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
— HENRY FORD

We know from experience how it feels when you work in a job for someone else. We struggled
with the 9–5 routine and frequently felt bored and frustrated by our jobs. We were often pushed
to go the extra mile, with the promise of a reward of a promotion that seemed very hard to reach.
We didn’t feel we could use our creativity and imagination, or at times even think for ourselves
and make decisions without it being run by managers, committees, and panels. We’ve had other
jobs in the past where the office politics have been exhausting and relentless. We’ve been
fortunate to have some charismatic bosses, but because we’ve experienced the good, we can also
tell when we’ve had bad bosses who were authoritative and micromanagers.
I think the tipping point for us was having people in power higher up in the organization who
treat others disrespectfully (we’ve sadly experienced bullies, and we’ve experienced people who
take the credit for our hard work!). We’ve also had people who have expected us to work all
hours at very short notice for ultimately little reward. While taking pride in your work is
important, so is self-respect and not being a pushover! Without wanting to sound ungrateful,
conceited, or arrogant, we often know we have better qualifications, skills, and experience than
those we were working for! So, we figured if they could run a business, we certainly could too!
When you work for yourself, you are your own boss, you have control of what is going on, you
are the one deciding the direction of the business, you choose your own hours, you can be
creative, and any profit you make is yours!
Do you want to start an online business from zero? It can be challenging and a little daunting to
do this completely alone. This book is here to be both a guide to starting a new online business
and a companion and confidant for you on your journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
This book will provide useful information and motivate and encourage you in the same way a
knowledgeable, friendly mentor would.
It's perfectly natural and normal to have a few fears; Andrew Morgan of Marknology says,
“Entrepreneurs are scared of all types of stuff and deal with more fear than most people. They
fear not trying at all.” 1 So, it is normal to have fears, but you need to push through these to create
the life you want to achieve.
Many people who have transitioned to being an entrepreneur and running their own businesses
have had their reasons for doing so. Laura Conaway thought women were underrepresented in
tech, so she started InnovateHer KC to support women leaders. The Perkins Brothers build
houses, but instead of subcontracting, they take a hands-on approach to ensure quality; they also
have 300,000 subscribers on YouTube. Joel Johnson invented Mixtape, the Game in a card and
app version and has sold over 100,000 decks. Needing money to pay their mortgage, Hernan Sias
and his brother started a PC repair service called Business Bros. 2 These are just some examples
of normal people -like you, and like us- that decided to take action and got rewarded with a
successful business. Like them, there’s millions of people that manage to create online
businesses around the world, so why would it be different for you?

WHY SHOULD I READ THIS BOOK?

If any of the situations below apply to you, reading this book could help you:

You currently work full-time and want an exit strategy to transition to running your
own online business. You dislike working for someone 9–5 indefinitely in a job you
don’t love! Perhaps it frustrates you that your work is building your boss’s
business/improving their lifestyle, but ultimately not yours. Do you get the Sunday night
blues when you’re about to head back to work for another week? Do you feel restricted
by your job? Are you tired of petty office politics and power struggles?
You’re in between jobs and want to start your own online business. Working for
others who seem to take credit for your ideas or constrain your creativity can be tough
when you're entrepreneurially minded. The routine of a workplace may not fit with your
lifestyle. Being reliant on others for work may not suit you. It’s nice to be responsible
for making the decisions and be free to do things your way.
You have already recently started your own online business but would like it to
generate more income.
You spend time thinking about “making it” and becoming wealthy. You want to
make and invest money. You want to improve your lifestyle now and in the future (so
you have a comfortable retirement). You may be keen to try new money-making ideas
and enjoy listening to entrepreneurship or real estate podcasts or reading books on
leadership and business. You may have seen that other people (some much younger than
you -even high school kids-) have managed to make money with an online business, and
you think it should be possible for you too, to create a profitable online business!
You want to build an online business based on something you have a passion for or
have loved for a long time, but you lack the confidence to do this. Perhaps you have
self-doubt or self-limiting beliefs about your ability to build a business from scratch.
You may feel that you lack the skillset you require.
You may want to run your own online business to have it work for you even when
you’re not working. When a business works for you (instead of you working for a
business), it frees up more time for you to pursue activities like traveling, reading,
learning new skills, spending time with your loved ones, etc.
You can’t find relevant, up-to-date, and easy-to-understand guidance. Many
business books are hefty and quite academic. Their ideas are outdated for online
 businesses or, at best, hard to relate to. This book will provide easy step-by-step
instructions to guide you without swamping you in excessive nitty-gritty details. This
book will boost your confidence so you know you can make your online business
successful.
Or maybe, you want to emulate famous entrepreneurs like those in the section below
who started small and had crazy success.

Gary Vee, the Belarusian-American entrepreneur who diversified his income streams, is a five-
time New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and Internet personality (who created
VaynerX, VeeFriends, Wine Library TV, Resy, and Empathy Wines). One of Gary Vee’s key
quotes is: “Legacy is greater than currency.” Gary Vee makes over $200 million a year from a
marketing agency for a full spectrum of big companies (VaynerMedia) and for smaller Fortune
500 companies where he claims to “help ambitious businesses outgrow us” (The Sasha Group).
He also offers consultancy to professional athletes in the NFL, MLB, UFC, and eSports
(VaynerSports). 3
Perhaps Jeff Bezos is your hero, the chairman and the founder of Amazon. He initially created
the e-commerce giant in 1994 from his garage in Seattle to sell books, then later a wide variety of
products, including electronics and hardware. Amazon is the largest retailer on the World Wide
Web. Amazon is open 24 hours daily and offers discounts, personalized recommendations, etc.
Bezos owns The Washington Post and Blue Origin (aerospace rocket company). A key quote
from Bezos is: “I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be
haunted by a decision not to try at all.” 4 Bezos controls the Whole Foods grocery chain and
offers cloud computing and streaming services. He had a revenue with Amazon of $470 billion
in 2021. 5
Maybe Steve Jobs is whom you are looking up to; he created Apple Inc. and NeXT, Inc. He and
Stephen Wozniak created a computer logic board in the Jobs’ family garage, which they called
the Apple I, which helped make the PC available to a broad audience. Jobs also acquired a
controlling interest in Pixar and turned this into a major animation studio. 6 Jobs later created the
iMac, iBook, iTunes, iPod (a portable MP3 player), iPhones, and iPod Touch. One of Jobs’
quotes is: "We have an environment where excellence is expected . . . My best contribution is not
settling for anything for the really good stuff, in all the details.” Like Gary Vee’s quote about
legacy, Steve Jobs says too: “When I started, I was 20 or 21, and my role models were the
semiconductor guys like Robert Noyce and Andy Grove of Intel, and of course Bill Hewlett and
David Packard. They were out not so much to make money as to change the world and to build
companies that could keep growing and changing. They left incredible legacies . . . It’s like when
you’re a parent . . . what’s truly rewarding is living with your child and helping him grow up.” 7
Steve Jobs also talks a lot about getting things right the first time, rather than fixing things and
not putting out products until you feel they’re right. It was important for him to build the best
thing they could build. 8
Or maybe it is Oprah Winfrey in whose footsteps you are striving to follow. Oprah is an
American television personality, actress, and entrepreneur. Oprah has magazines called O, The
Oprah Magazine, and O At Home. Oprah started as a news anchor, working on many shows as a
reporter and then cohost before hosting talk shows. After acting in movies, she created her own
television production company, Harpo Films. She started an on-air book club. She launched a
cable television network for women. She has also engaged in many philanthropic activities, such
as opening a school in South Africa, speaking against child abuse, and speaking about racial and
gender equality. 9
If the answer is ‘Yes’ to any of the above reasons, then keep reading, and this book will surely
help you.

WHAT WILL I LEARN FROM THE BOOK?

Seven steps to plan and build an online business from scratch.

How to get a business up and running and feel prepared to start your online business.
Methods for how to find a viable niche for an online business.
How to price goods/services appropriately.
How to create a compelling digital brand that resonates with customers.
How to win the trust of customers and create repeat purchasers.

WHO ARE THE AUTHORS?

We are The Consulting Club. We are entrepreneurs and consultants whose work helps readers or
club members establish and maintain successful consulting or online businesses. Some members
do this part-time in addition to their existing employment; others run their own businesses. Our
books provide readers with practical tools, best practices, and targeted advice gained from over
10+ years of firsthand experience.
We love to travel and have lived in nine different countries, spending much time in France,
Spain, and Germany. Living and working in different countries has enabled us to address the
needs and issues of customers from other cultures.

WHY HAVE WE WRITTEN THIS BOOK?

1. Our businesses have seen huge successes year after year. We realized we had the
expertise to help other entrepreneurs, so we set up The Consulting Club. We’ve worked
in consulting for over ten years and helped startups in the healthcare and tech industries.
Our experience as entrepreneurs and the insight gained from clients in other industries
have given us a good understanding of what it takes to launch a successful online
business.
2. We’re passionate about helping others break free from the 9–5 culture through
entrepreneurship. We know from our own experience that entrepreneurship can give you
financial freedom. We have experience in turning failures into strengths and are
committed to using our experiences to help others. Whatever you’re truly passionate
about is the key to your wealth and career. When starting, we benefited from the
experience of other consultants and entrepreneurs. We feel it is time to return and share
this knowledge with the entrepreneurial community.
3. We believe that when people are empowered to master their potential and hone their
skills in helping others grow, we can improve the world.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS/RESULTS/OUTCOMES OF READING THIS BOOK?

1. You’ll no longer dread going to work on a Monday

2. You won’t have to conform to the same 9–5 grind that other people are shackled to

There’s an Internet meme by Ellen Goodman, which I’m sure resonates with many:

3. You’ll be free to create your own schedule and choose what you want to work on.
4. You can become self-sufficient.
5. You can develop self-confidence and recognize your ability to achieve whatever you
want.
 1

DEVELOPING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET

T his chapter discusses what it takes to have an entrepreneurial mindset and why it’s necessary
for success.
There are forty-one million solopreneurs in the US alone, a steadily rising figure. The global
pandemic brought a startup boom as many laid-off people started their own businesses. Also,
technological changes have created an industry structure that means smaller firms can have a
bigger piece of the market.
It is motivating to see that 20% of full-time independents earn a six-figure income and report to
be very satisfied with their careers. They love the freedom they have to work in the way they
want to, and 82% said they were happier working on their own. It is interesting to see that 53%
of entrepreneurs felt more secure working independently than being employed. So after reading
these facts, it comes as no surprise that in 2021 one in three Americans said to have a side
hustle. 1 You might be wondering . . . which kind of side hustle? Well, we got you! In this book
we will focus on online businesses specifically.
Online businesses surprisingly only contribute to 14% of all retail sales. However, e-commerce
giants like Amazon have begun to chip away the market share of traditional retailers like Wal-
Mart. So, even Wal-Mart has begun ramping up its online platform, which signals the growing
preference for online business models.
But only some people who want to be entrepreneurs are cut out to start and run their own
businesses. There are 4.5 million online businesses that start each year, but many of them will
fail. Online business failure statistics show that 90% of e-commerce startups fail within 120 days
of operation due to poor marketing and no search engine visibility. 2 Over a third of owners think
this is because they can’t compete with top brands, and 31% say it is because of a lack of funds.
Almost 90% of e-commerce businesses fail because of poor product content, i.e., grainy photos
or poorly written copy. This is why once you decide to venture yourself in the world of online
businesses, it is wise to seek some guidance. We will provide you the basic steps you need to
follow to avoid the pitfalls, but you’ll also have to work hard and give it your all!
The 4 top reasons why businesses fail include:

1. Website issues

Sometimes it is because of too many issues and complications in the checkout process. You
would be surprised to see how many businesses have poor websites that make it hard for the
customer to even make a purchase. Other common issues are not aligning pricing and ads or not
having a clear return policy. Some people ignore the importance of mobile UX (User
Experience). Others don’t have a robust backend. If there is poor site navigation, annoying pop-
ups, required registration, and no customer service available (have someone who can answer
questions), these are all things that will discourage users.

2. Business planning issues

One major reason is not having the cash flow to fund the business. Or having prepared cashflow
for only a short period of time. Other reasons for failure include poor planning and testing of
products or working in saturated niches.

3. Poor marketing

You could have the best product/service in the world, but if you do not have a good marketing
strategy no one will notice your product (or your potential reach will be way smaller). Some
owners also disregard SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and do not optimize their marketing
strategy to appear in the relevant channels. As a basic part of your marketing strategy, you
should have a good website, brand name, and business cards ready. 3

4. Not having an entrepreneurial mindset

Some businesses fail because people give up too easily (try 3–5 products before quitting). We
will discuss what an entrepreneurial mindset means in the next section.

WHAT IS AN ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET?

With an entrepreneurial mindset, you can adapt to any environment and build a successful
business with the resources available to you. These skills transcend the realm of business and are
about a person’s self-reliance and problem-solving skills to solve the problems of customers,
partners, employers, and the whole company. 4 As an entrepreneur, you must recognize
opportunities and be innovative in facing challenges.
The top 5 traits you should have as an entrepreneur are:

1. A critical thinker with problem-solving skills.

2. Flexible and adaptable.
3. A great communicator, able to collaborate.
4. Comfortable with risk.
5. Self-reliant, able to work using your initiative oriented toward the future. 5

Some debate whether an entrepreneur is born with those characteristics or can develop them over
time. Research has shown that if you’re raised in an entrepreneurial home, this can improve your
chances of being an entrepreneur, but there are other important factors too. If parents raise
children to work hard, answer questions, and let the child have self-determination, this will boost
entrepreneurial instincts. 6
An entrepreneurial mindset will help you develop skills that spill over into other parts of your
life, such as minimizing the importance of failure and rejection. It will boost creative thinking
and give you soft skills such as social interaction, communication, and listening. Planning and
foreseeing potential problems will give you greater organizational skills and lead to a less
stressful life.
When you have an entrepreneurial mindset, you’ll think outside the box and know that there’s
often more than one solution to problems. 7

THE 13 KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEURS

1. Independence

As an entrepreneur, you will follow your instinct and do your own thing. There is an important
quote from Steve Jobs: “Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your inner voice.” You
must be comfortable to trust your gut.

2. Responsibility and self-accountability

You need to take full responsibility as an entrepreneur, not blame others, and be the one to
improve things.

3. Abundance mindset

Believe that you can improve your career by becoming an entrepreneur, making money with a
successful business, and creating opportunities to live the life you want in the future.

4. Goal-oriented

Don’t have wishes and dreams. Have goals and plans, and make the goals SMART (Specific,
Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time Sensitive). SMART goals help make the goal
successful; this method gives you a sense of direction and helps you organize and reach your
goals.
 5. Not afraid of failure

Don’t fear failure but look at it as a learning opportunity. Thomas Edison’s famous quote is apt:
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” If you fail at something that
has failed, you must try again. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure!
 6. Growth-oriented and constantly learning

You can have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. You don’t believe you can change much if
you have a fixed mindset. Most entrepreneurs have a growth mindset and think they can grow,
learn, and develop new skills. When you constantly strive to self-educate and learn, this will help
you succeed; Jim Rohn states: “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will
make you a fortune.” As an entrepreneur, there’s a lot you’ll have to learn, including talent
management, issue resolution, and perhaps software skills to run your business better. 8 It would
be best if you had flexibility as you may need to wear different hats and be on a constant learning
curve.

7. Forward-thinking/long-term perspective

Whatever your actions today, think about how that will impact your future self. So, you could sit
watching a TV program, but in most cases, that doesn’t develop you for the future. So, instead of
watching TV, you could take an online course. Instead of playing a computer game, an
entrepreneur may tweak their sales funnel. Instead of spending considerable time on social
media, an entrepreneur may listen to a motivational podcast or read a business book. The fact
that you’re reading this book shows you’re forward-thinking and have a long-term perspective. A
quote by billionaire investor Warren Buffet: “Someone is sitting in the shade today because
someone planted a tree a long time ago.” Most entrepreneurs have a goal in mind, and they
reverse engineer that goal and work backwards from it to determine the steps they need to take.

8. Self-awareness

When you’re self-aware, you acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses, which can help you
know what you’re good at. Play to your strengths and improve your weaknesses.

9. Collaborative

There are things you won’t be as adept at doing, so you can call upon other people’s expertise. It
can also be good to have people bounce ideas off, keep them fresh, and move forward.

10. Comfortable with being uncomfortable

You need to be brave and have the courage to be an entrepreneur. Believe in yourself and your
business even when times are tough. Indeed, you should even practice moving into
uncomfortable situations. Jia Jang, an entrepreneur and keynote speaker, realized he feared
rejection. I don’t think any of us love it. But Jia faced his fears head-on and deliberately spent
one hundred days getting rejected on purpose to overcome his fear. There are no ‘safety nets.’
There’s no one above you to turn to if you have challenges (like in employment, where you may
have a supervisor or boss). You don’t have clear work boundaries or a steady paycheck. You
have to learn to be okay with the risk. Suppose you have a team; you still need to pay them, even
if you don’t make any money in a week. 9 Entrepreneurs face rejection, risk, failure,
embarrassment, anxiety, criticism, tears, and doubt. 10 If you’re anything like us, even when you
achieve success, there will be some days when you wonder if you’ve done the right thing, but
then there are many other days when you’re certain this is what you’re meant to do!

11. Problem-solving skills

Entrepreneurs try to find solutions to problems that make people’s lives better. For example,
McDonald’s provides food to people that want something cheap, fast and tasty.
Amazon Prime allows you to shop 24 hours a day and get your items delivered to your home the
next day, providing a solution of convenience for people who don’t want to go out to physical
shops.
The co-founder of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, said, “If we tried to think of a good idea, we wouldn’t
have been able to . . . You just have to find the solution for a problem in your own life.”

12. Action-oriented/decisive

Many people (and I’m sure you know a few) want to be entrepreneurs. Still, they spend most of
their time reading books, watching videos, and making plans, but they never actually do the
entrepreneurial work. At the same time, true entrepreneurs get on with it. They act. Walt Disney
said “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” As an entrepreneur, you’ll also
need to make swift decisions, sometimes without having all the information. As an entrepreneur,
you will have the drive; you HAVE to because it’s you running your business!

13. Resourcefulness

Specially when you start, you must maximize your available resources and don’t wait until you
have the perfect amount of money or knowledge. An obstacle we encountered at the beginning
was that we did not have the budget to hire a developer to create a landing page, so we had to get
hands on and learn with YouTube videos how to do it. It was not perfect, but it increased our
knowledge and got our business started.

7 EFFECTIVE WAYS TO DEVELOP AN ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET TO MAXIMIZE

YOUR LONG-TERM SURVIVAL
An entrepreneurial mindset is thinking in ways that help you achieve your goals of creating,
developing, and running your own business. You will embrace challenges, mistakes, and failures
and see them as opportunities to gain new skills that will help you succeed. You do not require
an MBA to have an entrepreneurial mindset (although education is always good). An
entrepreneurial mindset makes you perform at high levels and achieve more, allowing you to
develop your business ideas fully. 11 Below are seven ways to help you develop an
entrepreneurial mindset and survive as a business:

1. Commit to your passion

Do what you love, enjoy, and are passionate about. This way, it won’t seem like a chore, and
your enthusiasm and commitment to this will shine through. Be your coach and cheerleader in
your ability to be successful with your business. Take your business seriously and be responsible.
You can commit to your passion by setting goals and making daily progress; you will achieve
what you want when you keep chipping away each day! It can be a good idea to write down your
goals, as people who write them down are 42% more likely to achieve them than people who
don’t. 12 Keep on persevering, even when times are tough.

2. Embrace experimentation and new ideas

Try new things with your business. It could be new products, new pricing, or gaining feedback
from advisers. If something isn’t working for you, be prepared to change or abandon it. New
ideas and new knowledge are coming out all the time. Open up to this and keep on learning.
Well-known entrepreneurs such as Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates
make time to read daily.

3. Understand your strengths and weaknesses

Gaining consumer feedback is important and a good way to help understand your strengths and
weaknesses. You can use surveys, social media, studies, focus groups, complaints, etc.

4. Protect your time

Time is money. Be wise when choosing which projects you are working on. Make sure that your
daily actions are bringing you closer to your goal and do not get distracted along the way by
other things that might consume your precious time.

5. Always look for networking opportunities

It’s good to spend time with other entrepreneurs. The people you surround yourself with can
have quite an impact on you, so if you have people around who are energized, inspired, and
optimistic, this will make you feel that way too. Also, they may have been in your shoes recently
and can pass on valuable advice. Harvard Business School classmates Jenny Fleiss and Jenn
Hyman met each week for lunch to brainstorm ideas, and their business of renting out designer
dresses has been a huge success, with a $1B valuation. 13 Exchanging ideas with others is crucial
and could lead to you meeting a future business partner! 14

6. Never stop learning

Keep abreast of changes in the digital world, the developments, and trends, such as Google
SERPs and user search behavior (during the pandemic, users shifted from mobile to desktop
devices due to being at home). Amazon affiliate commission changed; digital marketing and
SEO strategies need constant tweaking/changing. Google will regularly update algorithms.
Display ads have greater importance in keeping revenue flowing into businesses. It’s important
to keep creating the best possible quality content. Keep up to date with consumer tastes and
buying preferences.

7. Digitally specific

Focus on what works in your business instead of experimenting

Track metrics to see what is working and do more of that!
Steer clear of shiny objects
Technology progresses rapidly, and people fear being left behind. But you don’t have to do
everything and be everywhere at once. Look at what works for your business and learn from past
mistakes. Essentially, if you purchase shiny objects but don’t know how to use them well, they
won’t give you a competitive edge. Consider your audience, business gaps, whether the
technology will help close the business gaps, and whether you can sustain the technology long
term. 15
Think about diversifying the way you do business with different channels
Explore multiple channels to bring your business the best results. Don’t just rely on a single
channel. Consumers have many ways of researching products, interacting with brands, and ways
to make purchases, and they will move through multiple channels before deciding to buy. 16
Find as many ways as possible to generate income from one business
This is also known as ‘income stacking.’ It’s a way to build multiple streams of income for your
business. There will be many options, and you need to determine what will give you the best
return on investment. You could consider YouTube advertising campaigns or training and
developing your sales team.

Chapter Checklist:

1. Identify three entrepreneurial characteristics that you most associate with.

2. Find three characteristics that you want to build for yourself.
3. Pick one activity you can use to help you practice improving at least one of those
characteristics you want to develop.

This chapter has covered what an entrepreneurial mindset is and why it’s needed to be
successful. Some key takeaways are that the chapter has shown that entrepreneurs enjoy their
work, feel free, experience better health, and have job security.
Many qualities make an entrepreneurial mindset. An entrepreneur should be adaptable, self-
reliant, able to solve problems/come up with solutions, and be comfortable with risk. The good
news is that these skills can all be learned!
One key aspect is that entrepreneurs should take action and be decisive! This part of the mindset
can be applied to the next chapter about finding trends to develop a viable business idea! There’s
no time to act and start your entrepreneurial journey like the present!
 2

THE TREND IS YOUR FRIEND

I ngenerate
this chapter we will first look at what’s the best way to research trends so that you can
a business idea and then, we will explain some strategies that you can use to promote
your business and attract customers.
The Internet has changed our lives forever. Most people use the Internet to shop online,
communicate with friends and family, and for entertainment. This means you have access to a
huge audience of potential customers who could be interested in your products or services. You
are no longer limited to your geographical area to make money and that’s definitely great news!

THE TOP DIGITAL BUSINESS TRENDS TO WATCH

Over the past ten years, several digital business trends have changed how online businesses
interact with customers. We will discuss some of the top trends below because, depending on
your business, some of these could help you succeed. It’s not necessary to be at the top of every
trend. Still, it is very important for a business owner to stay updated with the market trends to
have control of what is happening.
We are going to show you the trends that we believe are going to be relevant in the next year.
You should watch them and understand them to see how they can best serve you. Maybe you can
even come with a business idea by reading about them!

Voice Search Optimization (VSO)

Suppose you have a digital business and still need to start using VSO. In that case, you’re
missing out on people finding your website through voice searches like Microsoft Cortana,
Amazon Alexa, or Google Assistant. You’re missing out on a great opportunity as 58.6% of US
consumers use VSO. Voice searches currently comprise 20% of mobile searches, which is
expected to increase with time. It is predicted that 75% of US households will own a smart
speaker by 2025. 1

Chatbots and Conversational AI

Forty-two percent of consumers use conversational AI and chatbots when making purchases,
often to ask FAQs about the product. However, many small business owners don’t use this
technology (perhaps due to cost), but the benefits of doing so include personalization and FAQs
dealt with swiftly. 2 Chatbots can answer customers’ basic questions 24 hours a day and give a
‘controlled message.’ They can behave in a very real way, and sometimes customers don’t know
they’re not real. What is good about them is that they collect data, which you can use to improve
the customer experience. The trend is to use AI to make bots form sentences that convey
emotion; customers will feel that brands care about them. There may also be a trend of personal
shopping assistant bots, using previous data to help anticipate products you will like. 3

Data Analytics

Data is how we can differentiate a successful business from another, and it is what makes a
business sustainable in times of crisis, such as a recession. Customer data can be used to
differentiate businesses, understand customers and campaigns, optimize them, and use it to build
the brand. 4 Marketers need to learn how to use the data they collect. They may have information
from customers about purchase behavior, favorite products, and the best ways to reach them.
You could use this data for more personalized adverts or targeted coupons/deals. There are likely
to be trends in edge computing for faster analysis and machine learning-driven solutions.

User Experience (UX)

Customers expect to be able to navigate through the online experience smoothly. The site should
be engaging, user-friendly, convenient, interactive, experiential, and personalized. Sites should
work quickly and be visually stable, mobile-friendly, and safe.
 The Metaverse

This is a blend of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI).
This can include interactive ads allowing people to “feel” experiences and “gamevertising,”
where marketers/brands use games for advertising products. An example of this is NASCAR’s
ad on the gaming platform Roblox. 5 This trend is because customers want experiences to be as
realistic, interactive, and immersive as possible. Anything encouraging customers to feel
emotions will help develop a better relationship with the brand.

SEO and Keywords

SEO and keywords continue to be important. Google’s page experience algorithm assesses
loading speed, interactivity, visual stability, and HTTPS security. There is also Google’s Mobile-
First Indexing (MFI) that ranks mobile-friendly websites. If you have authoritative content on
your site, this is beneficial. So do not underestimate the power of having an up-to-date blog with
posts about actual trends in your niche.

No Cookies for You

People dislike data collection and feel it invades their privacy. Google will roll out a cookie
phase-out. Because cookies collect emails, advertisers and marketers will want to think about
cookie alternatives. This is a trend because it will impact all sites that currently use cookies, and
they will need to use something different.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Key to social media are things like video, Instagram, live streaming, and podcasts. Facebook and
LinkedIn remain popular. Communicate with customers and tell brand stories. This is a trend
because people spend a lot of time on social media each day, and people want to know how to
reach a market in places where they naturally spend time.

Augmented Reality

Retail brands can use avatars that buyers create to try on clothes, sit on chairs, live in
geographical areas, etc. Thirty-five percent of people have said that they would shop online more
if they could virtually try on a product before buying it. 6 This is a trend because it helps make
online shopping more immersive and realistic and increases customers.

New Payment Methods

Businesses may use DeFi (decentralized finance), such as blockchain, cryptocurrency, and non-
fungible tokens (NFTs). As a curious fact, we have recently seen retail condos in Manhattan that
have put on sale and you can buy them with Bitcoin! 7 This is just an example of how things are
changing and a reminder that you should never stop investigating new trends, you don't want to
miss on sales because you do not support a certain type of payment!
 Customer Subscriptions

Subscription models are changing the digital space. They allow companies to plan for inventory
and sales that are already locked in. There will be a trend for more companies to offer
subscription or monthly payment options for larger purchases because it helps people manage
their finances in smaller installments.

TRACKING CONSUMER TRENDS WITH GOOGLE

Why should you invest time in researching trends? Easy, it’s the only way you have to stay
ahead of what your customer is going to ask from you in the next months. One tool we really like
is Google Trends; we use it because it tells you how popular a search term is in Google (i.e., how
many people are searching for it). The benefits of this are that it will allow you as a business to
prepare for shifts in customer interest and be aware of what people are or are not searching for.
The searches change over time, by season, and by geographical location. It can let you know
how your niche product is trending. You can also use it to edge out competitors by monitoring
their positions.
Below is a list of our favorite ways to track consumer trends via Google:

Find Relevant Product Categories in Related Topics

You can compare two search topics to see which one is more popular with users. You add a
topic, click ‘+ Compare,’ and add your second topic. This gives you a quick idea of which
product is in greater demand/more popular and may increase your sales. It helps you to know
what you should promote. This can be useful for seasonal holidays, such as Mother’s Day, and a
florist wanting to know whether ‘flower delivery’ or ‘gift baskets’ are more popular. It will
generate a graph where you can see both trends. You can adjust the dates of your search to see
trends over time. 8
Practical example: Type in your search word that sells well, then scroll down to the bottom, and
you’ll find ‘Related topics.’ For example, if you sold ‘fake eyelashes,’ the related topics could be
eyelash extensions, artificial hair integrations, adhesives, nails, etc. 9 You could make a Google
Trends comparison to see your competitors’ performance by putting in 2–5 different brands.

Using Google Trends for Keyword Research

If you’re searching for a term in Google, Google Trends will allow you to see whether it’s a
rising or declining trend. It’s worth expanding the range from 2004 to the present, rather than the
default ‘past 12 months’ to have a really good view of whether it’s increasing or declining and
you’ll also get an overview of the seasonal trends by doing this. If the graph it produces goes up
and up over time, you can see that there has been skyrocketing growth; you’ll also see if there
are any dips in searches for it. 10 If a graph looks pretty stable up and down, you’ll determine that
the niche is fairly stable. If you see any dips, it just means that you may have a lower volume of
website traffic at those times of the year. If something is a passing ‘fad,’ you’ll see there were no
searches before a certain date, a sharp spike of interest, then it’ll drop back down to virtually zero
(this could be seen in 2017 with the craze for ‘fidget spinners’). 11 Using Google Trends can help
you find the best keywords, considering regional differences in phrase preference. You can test
out related phrases, i.e., soda vs. pop vs. coke.
If you want to find out which keywords you should use in your sites, once you’ve searched for a
trend, you can look at ‘Related queries,’ which is on the right side of ‘Related topics,’ which will
bring up keywords. For example, if you were selling clothes, you may see certain colors stand
out, and you could include them in your search terms. 12

Finding Ideas for Content Marketing

Google has a ‘related topic’ function; some topics it suggests might not always make sense for
your business. But you could sometimes use the idea for a blog post. For example, if you had an
online store selling beauty products, a related topic for ‘fake eyelashes’ is Kim Kardashian,
although you can’t sell Kim Kardashian as a product. Still, you can use the idea of her to blog (or
comment on other social media channels) about her eyelashes. You can also use Google Trends
for content freshness; this is where you remove outdated content, add fresh new details, and
republish the content on your blog.
An example is if you owned a cycling store and had a blog article called ‘How to Fix a Bike.’ If
you put those terms into Google Trends, you can see that people search for this in June and July
each year, so you could ensure that your fresh content is targeted for the end of May; this would
help grow website traffic. You can also look for ‘trending searches,’ which are the hottest current
topic; they’re real-time. Some will be celebrity news, but you’ll see other trends like the Momo
challenge of 2019. If you had a store that targeted the parents of young children, you could have
an article about this on your blog or social media. 13 A current trend is Tesla; if you had a store
that sold car accessories, you could have a blog about car manufacturers. By bringing audiences
to your website, you increase the chance of sales. 14 It’s important to educate the audience
beyond just a purchase because this brings a bigger picture that can influence traffic and sales
indirectly.

Looking for Niche Topics by Region

Searching for a term in Google Trends will give you a heat map showing you where the term is
most popular. If you hover over areas on the map, it will give a percentage of searches from that
area. It will list the top cities and regions where people search for the term. 15
You can break this down into states in America. If you see that your product is doing better in
one state than another, you would be better to target that state if you promote it on Facebook or
Google AdWords. You increase your chance of sales without wasting advertising money.
 Google Trends YouTube

On YouTube, if you look for particular videos relevant to your niche (e.g., fashion) and see what
the keywords of the top video are (e.g., ‘fashion trends 2019’), you could then put that keyword
into Google Trends. If we do this exercise we will see that it’s a keyword popular for January
2019. So any content that was created that year for these keywords ranked very well. If you look
back at previous years to see patterns, you will see spikes in March and September, before
summer and winter (seasonal peaks for this type of industry . . . depending on what industry you
are aimed at, you may have peaks at different times of the year). If you have an email list, you
could send an email to boost your video’s popularity at these times. 16

Google Trends Google Shopping

You can use Google Trends to find the best time to create a Google Shopping ad. If you were a
fashion retailer wanting to sell a black dress, you could look at Google Trends’ Google Shopping
feature to find the best months for your ad. You will see rises and dips and may decide to
promote your dress between February to May and October to November. 17

HOW TO VALIDATE TRENDS

It’s important to validate trends because it can help you determine whether an idea is worth
pursuing, help secure funding and resources, and bring a concept to reality. This section will give
some suggestions on verifying the trends you’ve encountered in the previous section. We’ll look
at this in greater detail in the chapter on competitive market research, but in general, some good
tips include:

Keeping up with industry research/reports

Many free, reliable sources provide customer and market information, such as general business
statistics, consumer statistics, demographics, etc. You can find these statistics from places like
the Small Business Administration. 18

Following industry influencers and publications

You need to make sure you know the authority figures in your niche industry, follow, learn, and
try to emulate them. Look at their blogs. Listen to their podcasts. Read their websites and reports.
Follow them on LinkedIn and other social media. Meet them at networking events or
conferences. Ninety percent of marketers think influencer marketing is effective. The average
engagement rate with influencers is around 5.7%. 19 Influencer marketing channels include
Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, blogs, and Twitter.
 Conducting market research

Market research is defined as the process of evaluating the feasibility of a new product or service
through research conducted directly with potential consumers. 20
Market research is important because you want to validate feedback, and to learn if there’s a
demand for your product/service, how many people may be interested in it, where your
customers are based, whether they already have similar options to buy, and what customers
would usually pay.
When you do market research, you’ll look at consumer behavior and economic trends to inform
your business. Market research reduces the chance of risk. You can consider population data on
age, wealth, family, interests, or anything relevant to your selling.
You can conduct market research through surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, and in-depth
interviews.
Competitive analysis is about identifying competition and assessing their market share, strengths,
and weaknesses, your window of opportunity, whether your competitors will view your target
market as important, any barriers, and any secondary competitors who may impact you. 21

Chapter Checklist:

1. Choose three up-and-coming digital trends from the list above to monitor.
2. Use Google Trends to create a shortlist of three potential trends you can use as a basis
for your business.
3. Write a list of at least three places where you can validate the trends and take a look at
these.
 3

HOW TO FIND YOUR NICHE

H ave you spent hours thinking of a profitable niche you could try? Have you watched
thousands of Youtube videos where a 19 year old teen explains how they became rich and
they promise that you’ll get the same results if you follow their method and get started in
their ‘bullet-proof’ niche? Well, we also dig deep to find profitable niches where we could tap
into. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. What we can assure you is that there is no bullet-
proof method to find a profitable niche, but the things we are about to explain will certainly give
you some tools to pave the way.
The Internet has become a powerful tool for businesses to reach customers. In fact, according to
Statista, e-commerce sales increased from $1 trillion in 2010 to over $2 trillion in 2017; by 2021,
it was over $5.2 trillion. 1 This means there are plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs looking
to start an online business.

WHAT IS A NICHE MARKET?

A niche market is simply a group of people that have the same interests or lifestyle and that
could potentially be interested in your product. If you are listening to your niche needs and
crafting a product that speaks to them you are providing high value. And when customers feel
like they get high value from your offering, they will always buy again! When you have a niche,
you are the ‘go-to’ brand for customers for a specific product type, and you are credible over
other ‘generalists’ who sell other things, not in the niche area. You will have a unique value
proposition and product line extensions. These things will make customers choose you. 2
An example of this could be women’s shoes, the larger market; there are many different makes
and styles. Your niche could be that you specialize in vegan shoes, plus-sized shoes, or shoes
specifically for nurses. You can have a cross-section of different audiences; for example, bikes
are a large market, and mountain bikes are a niche, but an even more specialized niche could be
mountain bikes for teens. 3
Some niches are based on price (luxury, mid-price, discount); demographics (age, gender,
income, education); quality (premium, handmade, economical); psychographics (values,
interests, attitudes); or geographics (residents of a specific country, city, or neighborhood). 4

A niche should solve a customer’s problem and fulfill unmet needs! 5

HOW TO FIND YOUR NICHE
The niche you choose will determine how you market the product, its price, quality, and your
position/branding.
Here are seven steps that will help you find a suitable niche:

Step 1: Think about what you’re passionate about

List all the things, topics, and interests you know well and find fascinating. What do you enjoy
doing in your free time? What do you enjoy learning about? 6 It could be something that you do
as a hobby. It could be something people keep asking for your help with or tell you you’re good
at. It needs to be something you enjoy as you will put a lot of time and effort into working on it.
It has to be something that holds your interest now and long term; think about something you can
still imagine being passionate about for 5+ years. 7 If it interests you, you can also discuss the
niche area knowledgeably and add your personal experience/knowledge, which can be very
valuable for people going through the same experience or having similar pain points. Niche
audiences know their stuff. It's a good idea to put across content that establishes your credibility.
Don’t worry if the topics you list seem to have a limited appeal; there will likely be a like-
minded audience who resonates with your niche. Once you have your list, think about solving
problems that aren’t currently being solved. 8

Step 2: Consider your skills

Even if you think that you have no skills, we assure you that there is something where you have
accumulated expertise. At this stage, most people (including ourselves) question themselves and
think that they are not an expert in any area. Most of the time, this is related to the fact that we
tend to underestimate our own capacities, but don’t worry, we have found a formula that will
help you to identify them.
First of all, sit and with the help of a pen and a paper write down all the things that you know
how to do (if these are things that you also enjoy doing that’s always extra points). If you do that
exercise with consciousness, you will see that you come up with a long list of potential skills you
can use in your niche. And don't panic, if you are interested in a niche where it seems like you
don’t have enough knowledge you can always take a course or read a book. The good thing
about today's world is that most of the information is at a click of a distance, so don’t get
discouraged! A final suggestion for gaining a good indication of your skills is to ask for feedback
from people, which could help you discover an area you’re skilled at that could ultimately
become a niche. 9
Step 3: Link your expertise and passion to market demand

Focus on the Problems

What you’re looking for with your niche are gaps in the market. This is known as disruptive
innovation, where innovation is a business’s ability to create something new and better than
before. 10 What problems aren’t there currently solutions for? Then, using your expertise and
skills, how could you resolve the problems? In the words of Bigweld from Robots: “See a need,
fill a need.” Take time to think about what you wish existed that doesn’t currently. It’s a
customer’s ‘pain point’ that you’re trying to solve. 11
Finding solutions to customers’ issues can be very profitable. What are people willing to pay for?
Notice what people are spending their money on. Your niche needs to serve your customers, and
you need to prioritize them.
Jeff Bezos created the biggest online shopping marketplace. What was missing in the market? He
bridged a gap that offered low prices at great convenience, so people used Amazon to make
shopping easy! Similarly, Elon Musk found that money was difficult to transfer safely, and he
bridged the gap by building PayPal, which made money transfers safe and easy. 12
It can be a good idea to look at trends to find what customers are talking about, what matters to
them, and what difficulties and issues they’re having so that you can come up with a solution that
solves it. See what is popular and whether you can make an even better version. Look at trends
using Google Trends (free) or other paid and free tools for trends, such as Hootsuite, BuzzSumo,
Social Mention, and Feedly. You can also explore BuzzFeed and Hashtag Expert. 13 Pay attention
to what is being discussed and understand what matters to your audience. If there is competition
in a market, there is opportunity. 14 In researching a profitable niche, it’s good to find the
problem and issues the target audience has and evaluate the supply and demand to verify a
potential.

Conduct Keyword Research

Keyword research is important because it will help you see various trends and refine your niche.
It is important to google your niche keywords, e.g., this could be ‘cruelty-free makeup,’ and see
what options you could pick to go into. It will bring up ‘vegan’ options and ‘not tested on
animals.’ You can explore different trends until you find an audience or demand.
Once you have found keywords that interest you and that you would like to explore further, it’s
useful to dig a bit deeper with some tools. We have used a tool called Keywords Everywhere
(it’s a browser extension) and it will display results for related keywords on the right of your
screen everytime you search for a keyword, which is useful to create your offer. There are also
paid research programs, including KWFinder, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz. These range from $30
up to $999 per month. 15
Take time to create content that shows you know a lot about your products, as this will help you
with Google rankings. 16 An ‘Exploding Topics’ tool also allows entrepreneurs to find emerging
trends before they take off. 17 You can also use a free keyword research tool like Ubersuggest,
which will give you an overview of each phrase of search terms you put in. It will tell you if it’s
difficult to have as a niche and approximately how much it will cost per click. 18

Step 4: Conduct competitive research to validate demand for products within the given
niche(s)

With your competitors, you can look at what they’re doing well and not so well to outperform
them with your niche website.

Amazon Best-Seller Lists

You can look at Amazon and search the best-seller list that relates to the niche you intend to sell.
You can see what is selling well and think about ways to improve the product or better ways to
market the product. Look at product reviews, see what customers like and dislike about the
products, and how you can improve yours! 19

Affiliate Marketplace Best-Seller Lists

Affiliate marketing is when a person (an affiliate) refers people to a company’s products or
services. 20 You don’t have to use affiliate marketing to make money, but you can use the tools to
determine whether a niche will be profitable. There are affiliate marketplaces like ShareASale,
ClickBank, and CJ Affiliate that are free. You can search niche categories and look at the
popularity of products in your niche market.

Drop Ship Best-Seller Lists

Drop shipping is an order fulfillment method where a business doesn’t keep the products it sells
in stock; instead, the seller buys inventory as needed from a wholesaler or manufacturer to fulfill
orders. Many people do drop shipping because less upfront capital is required, it’s easy to start,
there are low overheads, it can be run from anywhere with the Internet, there’s a wide variety of
products you could sell, and it’s easy to scale. 21 Several drop ship marketplaces are free to join,
like AliExpress and Oberlo. You can use the listing to research products in niche markets and
explore whether starting a niche drop shipping business is worth it. You can search them by
keyword, item name, and category, and filter sales over periods or by price.

Look for Online Communities

People on the Internet organize themselves into communities based on shared interests, passions,
and hobbies via Facebook groups, Slack, LinkedIn, Discord, Circle, Tribe, Hivebriet, Reddit
threads, and others. People choose a platform for the community, develop a launch framework,
identify stakeholders, set up the community, have a soft launch, and promote the community. It’s
important to have content in the community and market it. You can search the most visited
Wikipedia pages under hobbies or the most active subreddits. You can look at Quora and other
forums. 22 Listen to Instagram and Twitter hashtags to find opportunities that could be a niche.

Questions to Ask Potential Customers

You may want to find out where they’re located. Which social media sites do they use? What
hobbies do they have? It would be good to know demographic data such as age and gender.
Knowing the customer’s goals, aspirations, careers, and the people they admire may be useful
depending on your business.

Step 5: Narrow Down Your Niche

Look at niche markets vs. niche products/services

One technique to find your niche is to start with a niche market and drill down further to find
niche products. So, a niche could be ‘conscious consumers’ because six out of ten consumers are
happy to change their shopping habits and to reduce environmental impact.
This opens up options for vegan, eco-friendly, and cruelty-free products that give a greener
alternative. Examples of companies that do this include Bee’s Wrap, which replaces cellophane
wrap with products made from beeswax. Other options are reusable drinking straws and cruelty-
free cosmetics. Another niche could be health and wellness; this lucrative market reached 1
trillion in 2020. Some sub-niches involve personal care, nutrition, and preventative and
alternative medicines. There are many options in this niche of food, beverage, beauty, personal
care, skin health, immunity, and digital products like ebooks and recipes. Other niche products
under health and wellness include melatonin gummies, mushroom-infused coffee, massagers,
kombucha brew kits, oil diffusers, etc.

Find a way to stand out in your niche

Suppose you can find a competitive advantage that sellers on Amazon do not have. In that case,
this will benefit your business as it’s a USP (Unique Selling Point) that can differentiate your
business from others. The examples below have narrowed the focus of their niche:

1. Cleaning services . . . for busy singles living in NY city apartments. So, in this example,
the person stands out from other cleaning services by focusing on the niche of busy
singles in NY city apartments. It’s very specific regarding the demographic, the location,
and the type of home they’ll clean.
2. Painting classes . . . for retirees over sixty new to watercolor portraiture. In this example,
the person isn’t just offering painting classes to anyone. The very niche demographic is
people who are retired, over sixty years old, and beginners to using watercolor paints,
specifically to do portraits! Again, it’s a very narrow specific niche of people, their
 career stage, age, level of competence with painting, the type of paints they’ll use, and
specifically what they’ll paint with them. This is a very precise niche of the market.
3. Drone photography . . . for wedding photographers looking to add more services. 23 This
is a specific niche because it’s not suggesting the drone photographs are aerial shots of
someone’s house or searching for lost pets; it’s specifically targeted at weddings.

First, you could develop an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) representing the perfect person you
want to sell your product to. Knowing what customers you want to target allows you to tailor
your niche market specifically to them.

MIND MAP
You could create a mind map with your niche in the center, then brainstorm for everything you
can think of that stems from this. When you develop a mind map, from the general area of
‘cruelty-free makeup,’ you may come up with tangents of things for the face, cleansing, hair care
products, and products for the body. This may allow you to refine your niche (or find related
products to offer consumers).

Define your niche and its profitability

There are two main concepts regarding your niche and its profitability:

1. Focusing on delivering value is important before thinking about how we can be

profitable. You can follow the value selling methodology for this.
2. Analyze how profitable the niche could be in which you want to launch your business.
(Give a high-level overview of the steps/tools required to work that out.)

It’s important to over deliver on value. Have you heard of the concept of value selling? The
value selling methodology focuses on how the product will provide value to the customer and
not that much in the product per se. We discovered that ninety-two percent of buyers want to
hear a value proposition early in the sales cycle. 24 It can be seen as a consultative approach to
sales that conveys the value of a product or service along the way. 25 If you’re selling something
for $100, it’s important to ensure that it delivers more than $100 worth of value. 26 Show the
customer how your product will help him/her live a certain lifestyle, save time or make them feel
good. If, for example, you were selling a short-handled screwdriver, it’s good to let customers
know it could save them 20 minutes a day, leading to a 5% increase in efficiency and lower
costs.

Step 6: Find Out the Margins to Evaluate the Profitability of the Niche Market

Test your niche

1. You should first create your audience by engaging with them before launch. You can do
 this in several ways: Kickstarter campaigns, crowdfunding, or gaining followers through
email opt-in pages and social media campaigns. 27
2. You should create a landing page or mockup store that promotes a free info product
related to the niche. You can use a tool like Leadpages to do this and drive traffic to it
with AdWords. 28
3. You can survey your target market on guest posts, industry-related groups, Google
Surveys, social media, etc. You can use canvas door-to-door or attend business fares to
see other ideas and display yours. 29
4. Take time to build a loyal customer base who will follow you to e-commerce when
ready. 30 You can do this by providing content that customers find valuable and
informative. You can create engaging social media content and respond to customers'
comments. You can offer samples, promotions, and discounts. Any customers who
praise your products try to engage online.
5. You could offer a product trial period or give out lead magnets (these are a free item or
service that is given away to gather contact details); this could be educational content
that helps the reader solve part of the problem you want to address with your
business/service/product to target customers. While testing, you want to ensure this does
not cost much money so that you don’t incur a loss to the business before you begin.
 Test with ads to be 100% sure it is profitable

1. Are your adverts generating interest from consumers? The practical way to get traffic is
through paid ads, PPC, AdWords, and referrals. 31 You should ideally invest a couple of
hundred dollars in testing campaigns in AdWords and Facebook. This is a worthwhile
investment to save you from losing money long term. 32 This is not just important to
measure the profitability of the niche but also to refine your target group. Are your ads
getting more traffic from teenagers or baby boomers? You can work out if there’s
enough demand for what you want to sell.

Step 7: Validate Your Niche Ideas by Test Selling Specific Products/Services Online

1. You could start with a small batch of drop-shipping products and run a campaign to a
targeted audience. Get feedback from the customers who have made their first purchases
or send some out to influencers to gain their opinion. Get feedback early on; this can
take time because you need to test, see the results, learn from this, and retry.

EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL NICHE STRATEGIES

1. Sara Blakey couldn’t find nice-looking, good quality, smooth undergarments for women. So,
she invented Spanx after discovering that tights/pantyhose cut off at the foot would roll up her
legs but eliminated panty lines and made her body appear firmer.
She spent two years and approximately $8,300 of her own savings researching and developing
the idea. She presented the idea to America’s hosiery mills (mostly male-owned), who did not
see the value in her idea. Two weeks later, one contacted her for support after his three daughters
encouraged the idea. This evolved into a billionaire business niche.
2. The six co-founders of Lush could not find products that had not been tested on animals and
were made from fresh organic products. This was their pain point, and after market research,
they discovered other people would like non-animal-tested organic products too. They previously
ran a mail-order business called ‘Cosmetics to Go,’ which collapsed due to overtrading and
flooding, so they regrouped and created Lush. One founder introduced a supplier-specific
boycott policy, which means Lush won’t buy any ingredient from a supplier that tests any of its
materials on animals for any purpose; this is unique in its field, different and distinct from the
Humane Cosmetics Act standard. They didn’t want their packaging to cost more than their
product. Over the years, they keep trying to increase the natural ingredients in their products and
reduce the synthetic ones and preservatives. Over the years, Lush has now grown to have 937
shops. There has been a 13.1% increase in 2021 sales.
3. Kaioptics have a niche market segment that solved the issue of poor-fitting glasses for Asian
Americans. This is the area they specialize in, and most frames are under $100. 33
4. SoulCycle was a studio solely with the niche of 45-minute indoor cycling to aid fitness. It has
three co-founders, and its niche was that it transcended a workout from being a chore or
necessity to something spiritual and physically empowering and emancipating. It was also very
exclusive, with wealthy and famous clientele; people liked the desirability and exclusivity, where
it was hard to get a spot to SoulCycle.
It had a stealthy location, and people heard about it via word of mouth. This meant the business
struggled to scale because when it became more ‘mainstream,’ it lost its popularity, and that,
along with the pandemic, brought demise to the business. 34
5. Georgetown Cupcake, run by sisters Katherine Kallinis Berman and Sophie Kallinis
LaMontagne, only sells cupcakes. They designed an affordable luxury brand and played on the
niche of the childhood connection to baking at their grandmother’s house. So, when customers
visit, there is an emotional, nostalgic connection to childhood and family, which gives them good
vibes. 35 Georgetown Cupcake focuses on one thing and does it really well. It has now grown to 7
locations, with 400 employees who sell and ship 25,000 cupcakes per day.

6. Nerd Fitness targets gamers and cosplayers who want to work out and be healthy. 36 It started
as a blog and developed into a community with an online coaching program and a tracking app
to track the fitness journey. They embrace the image of ‘weirdos’ and ‘misfits’ and encourage
people to be themselves. Their niche differs from the stereotypical image of fitness. The founder
started the business after their fitness struggle and frustration with diet and health supplements
on the market. The founder deliberately shies away from ads or sponsorship so that information
on the site isn’t biased but based on experience. 37 The founder thought there weren’t any
companies helping people like him with desk jobs that love nerd culture to make healthier
choices.
7. Lume is a brand with natural deodorant, producing amusing video adverts to gain customers.
Their deodorant is for people who suffer from skin irritations from other deodorants. It’s a niche
market, but their videos have gained viral success. 38 The founder Shannon Klingman is an
obstetrician and gynecologist; she realized that many gynecologists misdiagnose basic odors and
itches as bacterial infections. She wanted to create a natural deodorant free from aluminum and
baking soda; the first version of Lume was created in the kitchen. Her patent was filed twelve
years before her deodorant formula was accepted. She received many rejections but kept on
persevering. 39
8. Lefty’s is a store with products for left-handed people, 10–15% of the population. It’s a
required niche, though, and produces left-handed scissors and notebooks. They produce
informational books for kids about telling the time, cutting with scissors, writing, and tying
shoelaces. It was opened in 2008 by Margaret Majua and has stationery, cooking utensils, and
clothing. There was previously a store in 1978 called the “Left Hand World” on Pier 39, but it
closed due to family illness; for years, the management had calls from people wanting the store
reopened. Lefty's opened there when the store became available and later moved to a larger
space. They found that many left-handed products were discontinued because the demand didn’t
support the production and marketing costs, so they manufactured their own products wherever
possible.

Chapter Checklist:
1. Follow the steps above to find two niches you think are a good fit for you and your
business (you can use the trends you identified from the previous chapter).
2. Spend some time reviewing the pros and cons of each niche.
3. Decide on one niche to pursue.
4. Identify candidate products or services in your niche, run tests to see the highest
demand, and run tests to finalize the targeting.

This chapter has covered a niche market, a unique specialist segment (i.e., vegan shoes, as part of
the larger women’s shoes market).
It has explored ways to find your niche. You can consider your passion and skills, then connect
your expertise and passion plus market demand. What problems or customer pain points need
solving?
The next chapter will look at the power of brand positioning once you have your niche area of
focus! Let’s press on and make good progress.
 4

THE POWER OF POSITIONING

T his chapter discusses brand positioning, but more specifically, how you should position your
business versus your competitors. If this still sounds a bit abstract don’t worry, let’s take a
look to the example below to see how it works in real life:
Scratch Supply Co. is a US company that managed to create a strong community of people that
enjoys making knitted products. Before growing dramatically thanks to COVID (and more
people doing crafts at home), they thought a lot about how to position themselves and leverage
their differences, so they focused on:

1. Understanding their core goal. Having a clear mission and building a strong community
of repetitive purchasers and followers was important.
2. Analyzing and defining what was making them different from other field players (values
on equity, respect for suppliers and their expertise, and inclusivity).
3. Exploring their ideal client profiles and how Scratch Supply Co. could play a role in
their life.
4. Not only considering their clients but also their suppliers by helping them to become
wholesalers. 1

As you can see, the company did not focus on a single thing but different elements of the
ecosystem of their business to have a strong positioning.

WHAT IS POSITIONING?

Brand Positioning

Brand positioning states how the company wants consumers to think about the brand. It must
capture the essence of everything the brand does well and what it’s about. 2 It’s how your market
sees you and will let potential consumers understand your business at a glance. 3 Positioning will
add value to your store and put you ahead of the competition by making you stand out and
differentiating your business. You can stand out in several ways: with a high-quality product,
fantastic customer service, low prices, or because you care for the environment. But you need to
state your brand position to your target audience, so they can decide whether you are the brand
they want to purchase from.
If you have some marketing background or have studied marketing, you have probably heard
about the 4 Ps of marketing by Philip Kotler (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion). He also
mentions Positioning (and place)! By positioning with ‘place,’ he means ensuring that your
company’s offer and image stand out as being distinctive in the mind of your target market. You
need to create a customer-focused value proposition and give your target market a good reason
why they should buy from you. It’s good if you can emotionally connect with customers. With
your product, you need to answer who needs it and why? What does it do that competitors’
products don’t? The price must be what consumers are willing to pay, and you must cover the
real and perceived value. The place is where the product should be available, whether in a store
or online, and how it will be displayed. Placement is also about advertising the product to the
right media so that customers know about it. A key example of outstanding placement was when
the new BMW Z3 was shown in the 1995 Bond film GoldenEye, and even though the car hadn’t
been released at the time of the movie, BMW received nine hundred orders for the car!
Promotion is about letting consumers know they need the product and that it is good value for
money; it includes advertising, PR, and media strategy. 4
Positioning Statement

When you’re coming up with a positioning statement, you can think about the following:

1. What values does your ideal customer hold?

2. What are your values, and how do these connect to your company and the products you
sell?
3. What are the key skills, areas of expertise, and things your company does well, and how
can you make this visible?
4. What brands do you like, and how could people associate your company with those
brands?
5. What are the current trends in the market, and how can your products contribute to
those?

You’ll next need to think about the following:

A) Company name
B) Product
C) Target market
D) Needs of your target market
E) Distinctiveness of your company

By filling in the blanks, you’ll be well on defining a brand position.

[A – Company name] supplies [B – Product] to [C – Target market], looking for [D – Needs]. [A
– Company name] distinguishes itself from competitors by [E – Distinctiveness]. 5
With positioning statements, it can be beneficial to lead with empathy, show that you understand
your customers, keep it concise, embody your brand values, and be transparent. 6 Ultimately,
everything starts with the customer, and you’ll have to work backwards from their needs. There
is a key video of Steve Jobs, where he dismisses the idea of working with engineers, looking at
their technology and asking how they’ll market it. He considers that strategy Inside Thinking,
which is not how things work at Apple. Instead, they use Outside Thinking, starting with the
customer experience and working backward. So, you can have a whiteboard filled with all the
experiences consumers have with your brand, including how, where, when, and why they use it.
Think about any possible friction points and determine if there are more effective ways to deliver
the experience. Jobs says that when you start with the customer experience, you’ll find new
approaches and innovations that create passion and loyalty. 7

WHAT IS A UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION (USP)?

A unique selling proposition is how you differentiate yourself from your competition. It will help
you to attract and retain customers. The best USPs address a specific need experienced by your
ideal customer. It should also emphasize what quality separates you from your competition and
why they should choose you. Ideally, it should show you as a specialist in a certain area,
something you’re known for (instead of trying to be a generalist).

You should be able to deliver your USP swiftly in an elevator pitch style.
For [Your target audience]
Who needs [Whatever product/service they need]
[Name of your business]
Is [position yourself as what you are]
That [provides . . . describe the product or service]
Unlike [how you’re different from your competitors]
[Your business name] . . . is the only e-commerce business in [wherever you’re located]
that caters specifically to [your target audience].
You can use your USP in discussions, landing pages, and advertisements. Always
emphasize the benefits of your service and address the pain points that your customers
have rather than discuss product features. 8

Examples of effective USPs

Amazon’s Unique Selling Proposition: providing access to a huge selection of goods at

low prices, with fast delivery.
Netflix’s Unique Selling Proposition: provides quality entertainment to its users 24/7, a
huge catalog of products for all tastes, and on-demand streaming without ads.
TikTok’s Unique Selling Proposition: enables creators to create a short-form mobile
video so they can be creative, and people can have fun watching them.
Stripe’s Unique Selling Proposition: gives developers everything they need to manage
online payments.
Robinhood’s Unique Selling Proposition: offers a platform for everyone to invest, with
stocks as little as $1, from their smartphone. It breaks down barriers of a market usually
closed off to the everyday person. 9
Voodoo Doughnut’s Unique Selling Proposition: Doughnuts are so wacky that the wait
is part of the experience. This shop in Portland, Oregon, makes its baked goods in a
highly distinctive way that stands out from other doughnut shops. They have an
extensive range, and to be unique, they also included Pepto-Bismol and NyQuil in their
doughnuts, which got them into trouble with the FDA but helped the small doughnut
shop go viral! It has pink rockabilly décor, cash-only, and late-night opening to make it
a tourist attraction.
Osimum’s Unique Selling Proposition: All Hand-Made and All Local. Every garment is
made by hand, with many makers in Boston. The company emphasizes its ethical
production process and its product’s durability. 10

HOW TO WRITE A POSITIONING STATEMENT

A positioning statement is broader than your value proposition and is created after you’ve
developed the value proposition. It will identify the primary customer benefits and why they
need your product or service.
Think about:

1. Whom you serve

2. What value do you offer
3. How do you position your offer
4. Why you’re in business
5. What makes you different from your competition

Create a vision board that is unique and memorable.

Remember to show the product’s benefits rather than features. A vision board can help people
connect with your vision rather than just a written document.
Keep your positioning statement brief.
It should be concise, 3–5 sentences.
Make it unique and memorable.
It should be unique to your company and the problems you solve. Show what is distinctive about
your brand. Consumers should be able to see the value you offer.
Remain true to your business’s core values.
These are the things that guide decisions in your business and create the culture of your
organization.
Include what the brand delivers to consumers.
This should be your brand promise. Explain how your business solves your ideal customer’s
problems. Sometimes a product sells lifestyle, ideals, glamour, confidence, and style (consider
cosmetics, clothing, and cars). It would be best if you showed you could meet their needs and
solve their problems. 11
Differentiate your business from the competition.
You need to be irresistible to your customers and show them why they should choose you over
your competitors. There are many package carriers that people can choose from, but FedEx
having the slogan, “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight,” turned them into a
global brand. 12 FedEx was certain they could make a promise and deliver on it. Show the gap
your brand fills and how you do it better than anyone else.
Keep it simple.
It should be easy to understand, convincing, and engaging.
Consult a colleague.
It’s always good to get a second opinion and ensure there’s no jargon, acronyms, or things that
are unclear to someone outside your company.
The four elements of a positioning statement

Target

Who is your target? Who is your perfect/ideal customer, and what do they want? How can your
product or service solve their problem? What motivates their buying decision? Why will they
choose your business over competitors? It’s important to remember that brands don’t sell
products; they sell benefits. 13

Frame of reference

This is what tells us what product category we’re in. It’s the basis for the point of difference. It
can be conveyed by comparing your brand to a different one. It can also be communicated by
showing what goal is achieved using the brand. 14

Point of difference (USP)

Points of difference are the areas where you can distinguish yourself from your competition, a
unique selling point (USP)

Reason to believe

This is why consumers in the target market should believe your brand’s claims. What proof can
you offer to support this? 15

POSITIONING STATEMENT EXAMPLES

Coca-Cola

“For individuals looking for high-quality beverages, Coca-Cola offers a wide range of the most
refreshing options — each creates a positive experience for customers when they enjoy a Coca-
Cola brand drink. Unlike other beverage options, Coca-Cola products inspire happiness and
make a positive difference in customers' lives, and the brand is intensely focused on the needs of
consumers and customers.” 16
Coca-Cola positions itself as popular worldwide, liked by alleged groups. Diet (and Zero) coke
targets the niche segment of more health-conscious people. Coca-Cola associates happiness,
positivity, and a good life with its products. There also is a strong association with Christmas
(which many people view favorably) with the Coke Van imagery. 17 It appeals to customers’
emotions!
 Nike

“For athletes needing high-quality, fashionable athletic wear, Nike provides customers with top-
performing sports apparel and shoes made of the highest quality materials. Its products are the
most advanced in athletic apparel because of Nike's commitment to innovation and investment in
the latest technologies.”
This is effective because it shows it’s serving athletes but doesn’t exclude anyone. Anyone who
enjoys sport, whether as a hobby or a professional, can gain value from its products.
Another Nike one is: “At Nike, we’re committed to creating a better, more sustainable future for
our people, planet, and communities through the power of sport.”
This works well because it shows its purpose, incorporates sustainability into its activewear, and
breaks down barriers for athletes. 18
 Payhip

“Payhip is an e-commerce platform that enables anyone to sell digital products or memberships
directly to their fans and followers. You can embed Payhip directly into your website or use our
storefront to sell your work. Payhip takes care of everything. We’re an all-in-one e-commerce
solution for creators.”
This works well as a positioning statement because it communicates how easy it is to sell
products with the platform. It frames it as an all-in-one, DIY e-commerce platform that works
with all websites.

PERCEPTUAL MAPPING
Perceptual mapping can be an effective way to understand how your company, brand, or product
is perceived by your competitors (also known as a positioning map). It shows you your position
in the market! 19
Using the example of wanting to know what your customers think of your breakfast cereal
compared to that of competitors. You could draw a cross and label the left-hand side as
‘unhealthy,’ the right as ‘healthy,’ the top as ‘fun,’ and the bottom as ‘boring.’ Then you would
plot your cereal and your competitors’ cereals on the map according to what your customers
say. 20 You can use the tool to decide whether to go ahead with a potential product to see if it has
a distinctive valuable market position. You can survey your customers and ask them to rate the
products with a -5 and +5 range.
When you analyze your map, if your product doesn’t have a distinct attractive position compared
to competitors, it could be that your customers don’t understand your USP. You’ll need to tweak
this and ensure that marketing and communication emphasize this. Depending on what
parameters you’re trying to measure, you may want to look at quality, price, packaging, and
features. Does your customer’s perception match yours? If it doesn’t, you’ll need to adjust your
marketing strategy.
 21

Perceptual maps are a four-square grid divided along the X and Y axes. The axes can correspond
to competing values. You can pick two parameters. If you were selling shoes, you could look at
design, style, quality, and functionality. If you were selling cereal, you could look at health
values, sugar, fun/boring, and taste. If you were selling holidays, you could consider
temperature, travel distance, culture, and safety. Next, list your competitors, aim for ten, rate
them between 1–5, with one being the lowest and five the highest, then plot them on your graph.
You should be able to see where you stand compared to your competitors and gaps in the market.
22
Creating a Perceptual Brand Positioning Map

An example using fast-food chains and outlets on the number of locations and the variety of
menu items can be seen below:

23

Pick your parameters and form a map.

An example would be to draw a cross where the north position has ‘High Quality,’ the south
position has ‘Low Quality,’ the east position has ‘High Price,’ and the west position has ‘Low
Price.’ [See image below.]
 24

You would then position your product as meeting qualities that target a specific customer
segment, their needs, and their lifestyle.
As a good follow-up activity after this to give you more insight, you could list competitors, rate
competitors based on parameters on a scale of 1–5, then plot competitors on the map—to see
where you stand in comparison to them.

Chapter Checklist:

1. Come up with a potential USP for your business.

2. Build a positioning statement around your USP.
3. Create a perceptual brand map and plot your business along with direct competitors.

Once you have fully positioned your business, you next need to determine a pricing strategy
which we will cover in the next Chapter.
 5

PRICING YOUR OFFER

“The moment you make a mistake in pricing, you’re eating into your
reputation or your profits.”
— KATHARINE PAINE

W echarge
wanted to write this chapter because we know how long people agonize over how much to
for their products and services. We’ve known people who have seemed to pluck a
random figure out of the air (which we wouldn’t recommend). The consequences of picking
random figures are that you may not consider the true costs and end up making a loss or charge
way too high, so any potential customer goes to your competitors instead. In contrast, others
spend ages researching competitors’ prices and price theirs accordingly but forget to consider
what the product or service costs them regarding materials and time! Pricing is a vital part of
your business, and you do have to consider many variables. So, if you’re struggling to know how
much to charge for your products or service, this chapter is here to help you with tried and tested
advice. The benefits of reading this chapter are that by the end, you should be able to identify a
pricing strategy that works best for your business. You will know pricing options to make a
sound, informed decision. You’ll know case studies of other businesses’ pricing models and be
able to identify them with other companies. This may also give you insight into which strategy is
the most sensible for you to apply.
This chapter discusses pricing strategies for three general online business models/offerings:
physical, digital, and service-based. Pricing is important to get right; a Harvard study showed
that a 1% improvement in pricing could equate to an 11% profit increase. 1

WHAT IS A PRICING STRATEGY?

A pricing strategy is a way to determine how much you can charge for a product based on
internal and external factors. It’s based on supply and demand. The strategy may differ according
to the industry, target customers, and cost of goods.

Price Elasticity of Demand

This is how a change in price affects consumer demand. 2 If customers still buy a product,
regardless of the price increase, for example, cigarettes and fuel, it is called ‘inelastic.’ But other
products have price fluctuations, such as food suppliers’ prices or cinema tickets. Prices that
fluctuate are called ‘elastic.’ Ideally, it’s great if your product is inelastic.

How Should I Price My Products?

Cost-plus pricing would be where you:

1. Add up your variable costs (per product)

Variable costs do not remain the same month after month. They may differ depending on how
many products you sell. They can include production supplies, raw materials, packing, credit
card fees, etc. How much does each product cost you? If you order products, this should be easy
to work out. To make products, you must consider raw materials, labor, and overheads. If you
buy in bulk or bundles, you need to determine how many you can make out of this. Don’t forget
your own time; remember to work this out as an hourly salary you want to be paid and work out
how many products you can make in that time. You need a price that your customer will pay
consistently. You can consider the cost of the goods, production time, packaging, promotional
materials, shipping, and affiliate commissions.
In times of inflation, it is worth keeping a close check and regularly monitoring variable costs
because prices can increase quickly. You may need to look around for better deals on raw
materials and credit cards to ensure you always get the most for your money. It is worth always
factoring a bit of ‘wiggle room’ into your variable costs because things can crop up
unexpectedly, or a supplier you’ve previously used could cease to trade, and you need to use a
more expensive one—so factor this in and assume things will cost a little more so that you are
prepared for economic uncertainty. When there is inflation, customers may not buy as much of
your product as they previously have because things will be tighter for them financially. If you
don’t order as much in bulk, this can impact your pricing costs, making them more expensive.
Keep all the above in mind, and regularly check these costs.

2. Consider your profit margin

It would be best to consider what percentage profit margin you’re happy with. It could be around
20% on top of your variable costs. You haven’t included fixed costs yet, so these must also be
considered. You’ll need to look at the overall market and ensure that what you’re asking is
reasonable compared to the market. If you’re double the price of your competitors, you may find
it hard to get sales. Research a profit margin based on your growth goals, what is normal in the
market, and your costs.

3. Don’t forget about fixed costs

You pay fixed costs—regardless of whether you sell 10 or 1,000 items. The aim is that these
fixed costs are covered by your sales too. Fixed costs could cover insurance, rent, salaries, loan
payments, and utilities. It’s worth considering how many products you must sell to break even. 3
When determining the price of something, you can use product pricing calculators that may help.
You can find these free on many different sites. You can experiment with what percentage of
profit you’d like to receive until you find a price that works for you and your customer. Observe
sales data, too, and adjust your prices accordingly. 4

Other Basic Pricing Strategies

For physical products

Competition-Based Pricing Strategy in Marketing

This looks at the current market rate to develop a cost for the product or service. It doesn’t
consider cost or consumer demand. It would use your competitor’s prices as a benchmark. If you
plan on selling an item for $400, but your competitor sells it at $375, you may want to lower
your price to match theirs. You may price the same, slightly below or slightly above your
competitors. Buyers want the best value, which isn’t always the cheapest. If you offer something
your competitors don’t, this can put you in a good position (customer service, returns policy,
loyalty scheme).

Premium Pricing

This is also known as luxury pricing or prestige pricing. By giving your product a high price, it is
done to suggest luxury, quality, and high value; they are sold to high-income individuals. 5 It is
done to influence the perception of the product rather than being a true reflection of the product
cost. It falls into brand awareness. Some items in the fashion sector are given premium pricing,
such as designer labels for clothing and accessories. Creating a luxury brand or lifestyle to
accompany premium pricing would be best. While pricing your product high may seem
counterintuitive, it can create a feeling of exclusivity and status in the buyers who can afford it. 6
However this is definitely a hard strategy for beginners and may require a lot of initial capital to
make it take off.
For Digital Products
Digital products may include digital books, online courses, or software. There is no tangible
product; working out a unit cost may be harder. But when deciding on a price, you can think
about your brand, your industry, and what value your product provides.

Value-Based Pricing Strategy

Warren Buffett’s quote, ‘Price is what you pay. Value is what you get’ is a reminder that when
you price your product or service, you must look at things from your customer’s perspective.
They need to think that what they’re paying gives them good value for money. This is a value-
based pricing strategy. When you try to think like a customer, consider the product's necessity,
quality, and usefulness.
 Freemium Pricing Strategy

A freemium price strategy is one where people get a free service (it may be basic) but then pay
for upgrades or access to more features. 7 Software companies often use it. We would advise
against a ‘freemium’ pricing model because it suggests people wouldn’t get value from a product
(or else they’d be willing to pay), and you’re not taking money from the customers who would
have been willing to pay but are now using it for free. A trial for a limited time is OK, as this
does build trust with the customer, and the product needs to speak for itself and be something
valuable that the customer then decides they can’t live without. Generally, freemium prices grow
incrementally depending on customer needs.
For Services
If you’re offering a service rather than a tangible product, you must ensure that you deliver the
service to the best of your ability and produce high-quality work.

Value-Based Pricing

This is where companies base their product on what customers are willing to pay. The company
will set its price around customer interest and data. 8 It can make customers loyal to you. But it
would be best to work hard to be in tune with your customers and be prepared to vary prices
accordingly.
 Project-Based Pricing Strategy

This charges a flat project fee, regardless of the work hours involved. Contractors, freelancers,
consultants, and others who provide services often work this way. The price can be based on the
deliverables of the project and what value they have to the customer. When you point out the
benefits to the customer, this can make a steep investment seem worthwhile.

Hourly Pricing Strategy

This is also known as rate pricing and is typically used by freelancers, contractors, and
consultants who provide services. This way of working trades time for money rather than valuing
efficiency. If you have a lot of quick projects, hourly pricing can encourage customers to work
with you rather than a high project-based price.

REAL LIFE PRICING STRATEGY EXAMPLES

1. Chicago Cubs

People who regularly watch these games will be familiar with ticket prices fluctuating. If you
book your ticket six weeks in advance, this will be a different price to booking on the day. If it’s
a holiday when the game takes place, this will be more expensive too. This is an example of
dynamic pricing.
 2. AWAY Luggage

This is an example of premium pricing, where the luggage has a hefty price tag. But it has
unique branding, and for people who buy into the name of the product, for them it has value. 9

3. Shopify

This e-commerce platform employs a competitive pricing strategy where its prices are often
lower than other competitors on the market. They have three price versions of their product that
offer different things depending on customer requirements.

4. Courtney Samuel Events

This offers a project-based pricing strategy by offering different wedding coordination

packages. It can offer a fixed fee for the project by focusing on the value of the outcome, a
stress-free day for the bride and groom. Having a ‘fixed fee,’ the customer can pay this and not
worry about tracking how many work hours have been used, checking invoices, etc.

5. INBOUND

This is an example of value-based pricing. Customers are given a range of ticket prices they can
choose from at different levels, allowing them to pick what experience they want depending on
their perceived value of the event.

FINDING THE RIGHT STRATEGY FOR YOU

Think about the approximate price of your product or service. How much does it cost? What is
the demand for it? Are your markets geographical? What are your operating costs? Will you
need inventories? Do you predict demand fluctuations? Consider competitive advantages and
concerns. Think about demographic data. Consider the lifetime value of your product, what the
customer is willing to pay, and customer pain points. What problem does this solve for your
customer? Look back at previous pricing history (if you have any) and what has worked well for
you. Look at your competitors and decide whether to beat their price or value. You could find 3–
5 competitors by doing online research or looking at local businesses. You could also speak with
potential customers about what price they would pay for your brand, product, or service. You
could ask friends and family or survey this. 10 You need to pay attention to basic financial
information and consider the margins. You can experiment with pricing strategies to find what
works and be aware that you may have to change this initially.
If you don’t price a product properly, it could result in customer dissatisfaction (your product
needs to live up to expectations), low profit margins (you need to be covering more than just
your cost and can use cost-based pricing with your desired margin on top of this), low sales (if
you’re overpriced), or a perception of you being a ‘bargain brand,’ where people will never want
to pay full price for your product.
Chapter Checklist:

1. Based on your niche product/service, choose a pricing strategy that best aligns with your
overall goals and brand.
2. Conduct a basic analysis of your costs and competitive prices to give you a benchmark
for setting your prices.
 6

BRANDING IN A NUTSHELL

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what

consumers tell each other it is.”
— SCOTT COOK

T his chapter continues from Chapter 4 but provides a more in-depth look at branding and
brand strategy. It’s by building brand awareness and loyalty that you’ll contribute to creating
a successful business. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, states that “a brand for a company is
like a reputation for a person. You earn a reputation by trying to do hard things well.” He also
states, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” 1
In this chapter, we will address the topic of what a brand strategy is; this will help you to
understand why a brand strategy is of crucial importance to your business. It’s not something that
is a trendy jargon phrase. It’s not something that is just a ‘tick-box exercise.’ A good brand
strategy will give your business a solid identity, meaning customers relate to your brand, stay
loyal, and repeat business with you. A good brand strategy can help make your business
successful and make it more profitable, and sustainable.
This chapter will teach you about twelve different brand archetypes and help you decide which
most strongly aligns with your business. You can put together a brand style guide that covers:
identity, story, voice, design, and values. By the end of this chapter, you will have gained much
greater clarity about how you want to brand your business and the reasons why.

WHAT IS BRAND STRATEGY?

Brand strategy is made up of different components. Having a clear strategy is important to help
direct one’s business. Things like your voice to your audience and the values that drive you
forward form part of your brand. So, the strategy is about building an identity and favorability
with customers. A brand strategy is planning how to present your business to the world. It will
keep the brand at the forefront of everything you do so the brand is memorable to customers 2. A
brand strategy has been compared to the foundations of a house; you need this in place to build
from. 3 There are five key parts to a brand strategy:
1. Voice –the words and phrases you communicate with on your website, social media, or
products. This will help you to connect to your customers and show your personality and
values. 4
2. Design – this is your brand’s visual appearance. You must carefully consider the colors
you use, the font, and the photo style, which will likely emotionally connect you to your
customer. Your design will appear and feature on everything, including labels,
packaging, webpage, etc. Your design can differentiate you from your competitors.
3. Values – this is why your company exists and is about what is most important to you. Is
there a solution that your business provides? Clear values will help you make decisions
and collaborate with others, depending on whether they align with your strong values.
4. Story – what is your origin story? Core beliefs? Values and purpose of your company?
This will explain why you exist, what you believe in, your inspiration and motivation,
and allow your customers to get to know you better.
5. Vibe – is a customer's feeling about your company based on your social media, website,
and packaging. You could have a playful, entertaining vibe, a serious educational one, or
a funny one. Customers associate the feeling of ‘energy’ or ‘calm’ with your business
and products 5.

It is good for customers to feel you have moral values, a voice that captures your brand, and a
design that shows the business’s personality.

Why Is Developing a Branding Strategy Important?

We feel like we know and love the brands we connect with. When you have a strong brand,
customers will be loyal to you, be aware of you, and return to you for repeat business. A good
brand will help you get word-of-mouth marketing and referrals. 6 Your business may be
forgettable if you don’t develop a branding strategy. There will often be an ‘archetype’ to the
brand we connect with; we’ll explore twelve different archetypes below so you can decide which
‘archetype’ you want your brand to represent. The archetypes each help to build an emotional
connection with your audience and help to build loyalty. You'll fondly view brands whom
you’ve built a real connection with and may have memories of, for example, specific meals
family members make you or playing with Lego, perhaps as a child. When you build such a
connection to a brand, alternative brands won’t suffice. 7 When customers build a connection to
your brand, they’ll keep coming back and purchasing more.
THE 5 ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF AN EFFECTIVE BRAND STRATEGY

1. Brand Identity – the 12 brand archetypes

Archetypes are personifications of a behavior. They’re like a character who acts in a certain way
with whom you can identify. Everyone is different and has different values that matter to them,
and this is something brands can play on to appeal to specific market segments. When you have
your brand aligned with an archetype, this allows you to make a deeper connection with your
audience, and it allows you to differentiate yourself from your competitors. According to
Harvard Professor Gerald Zaltman, 95% of consumers' purchasing decisions are subconscious;
these archetypes connect with people subconsciously, and people recognize them.
There are well-known characters from literature and film that we can immediately fit into the
twelve archetypes, such as Indiana Jones (the explorer), Yoda (the sage), and Maximum from
Gladiator (the Hero). So archetypes can help your brand because they are memorable; they’ll
immediately convey a meaning your customers can relate to and identify with. When you choose
an archetype, you can’t appeal to everyone; you are trying to appeal to a particular market
segment. Brands with one distinct archetype increase value by 97% more than those confused
brands. So, you need to identify your customer’s personality and align it with a brand archetype
(Houraghan, 2018, online).

The Innocent – this is about safety.

With this archetype, the customer likes a simple, straightforward life that is optimistic, honest,
humble, unadulterated, and pure. Brands that use this ‘innocent’ archetype include Innocent fruit
smoothies, Aveeno, and Dove. The customer’s personality is easygoing, not one that holds
grudges; they see the beauty in everyone and can appreciate inner beauty. They want to be
happy. They have good, pure, young, optimistic, moral, and loyal traits. 8 The brand strategy is to
show a wholesome virtuous life and to make people feel good. You must be simple, honest, and
positive to appeal to ‘innocent’ personalities with your brand. The brand should be seen as
trustworthy, reliable, and honest. There could be some nostalgia associated with the brand. This
brand strategy is good for beauty and skin products, organic produce, and fresh food.

The Regular Guy or Gal (also known as Everyman) – is about belonging and
connection 9.

Branding is about people identifying as similar to someone portrayed as friendly, humble, and
down-to-earth. Well-known brands that use this archetype include Lynx, Target, Home Depot,
eBay, and IKEA. This person fits in with society but doesn’t stand out. This archetype is about
inclusion, connection, and togetherness. The audience is people who feel ‘normal.’ It’s often
used for home or family life brands. It can be used for comfort foods, everyday apparel, or
vehicles.
 The Hero – this is about mastery.

This person is honest, candid, brave, and has determination and grit. Existing brands that use this
archetype include Adidas, Nike, BMW, Duracell, and FedEx. A strategy would be to become
stronger and better and prove people wrong. You want to inspire them to feel empowered and
help improve the world and solve problems. Color palettes may include black, white, and grey.

The Outlaw – this is about liberation.

This person believes rules are made to be broken. This personality will go against authority
figures. They are disruptive, rebellious, and combative. Existing brands that use this archetype
include Virgin, Harley Davidson, and Diesel. A strategy would be to denounce the status quo,
disrupt, shock, and pave the way for change. The color palettes may include browns and creams.

The Explorer – this is about freedom.

The brand voice should be exciting, fearless, and daring. Brands that use the explorer archetype
include The North Face, Jeep, Red Bull, and Patagonia. People with explorers' personalities put
themselves outside their comfort zone; they are brave, adventurous, and love new challenges. A
brand strategy for the archetype could be focused on celebrating the journey and acknowledging
modern confinements. By acknowledging modern confinements, you challenge the person to
break out. This personality takes risks and desires excitement. This personality type generally
sees the outdoors as a place of freedom to explore. This archetype may be used for extreme
sports, outdoor equipment, SUVs, and adventure travel.

The Creator – this is about innovation.

Imagination is used to create new things. It’s about being inspired, daring, and provocative. The
brand message is about seeing potential everywhere and discovering originality. Brands that use
the creator archetype include Lego, Apple, Crayola, and Adobe. There is a drive to express
oneself, have a vision, unlock imagination, and pursue originality. To attract creative people to
your brand, you want to celebrate creativity and inspire them to express themselves by giving
them the tools, means, and freedom of choice. The creator archetype will be used in the arts,
design, IT, marketing, and writing.

The Ruler – this is about control.

For this personality, power is super important. The brand voice needs to be commanding,
refined, and articulate. Brands like Microsoft, Barclays, Louis Vuitton, Rolex, and Mercedes
Benz use this branding archetype. Rulers want to feel like they are superior and VIPs; they may
have the desire to create order from chaos. If you want to use ruler archetype branding, your
customers must feel at the pinnacle of success and exclusivity. This archetype branding is often
used for luxury cars, watches, hotels, formal wear, and any luxury item.
 The Magician – this is about power.

This person wants something mystical, informed, and reassuring; a transformational journey.
Existing brands using this archetype include Coca-Cola, Disney, Apple, and Dyson. This person
strives to make dreams come true; the only limit is imagination. A strategy would be developing
a vision to show it can be lived. Color palettes may include blues and purples.

The Lover – is about intimacy, sensuality, empathy, and soothing.

A brand strategy is to reaffirm the beauty and to provide the red-carpet treatment. The color
palette may include sage green, pink, and burgundy. For branding, you need to make the person
feel attractive and appreciated or make them desire connection and intimacy. This archetype is
often used with fragrances, indulgent food, or travel and by brands like Victoria’s Secret, Godiva
chocolate, or Marie Claire.

The Caregiver – this is about service, caring for, and protecting others.

The brand voice is caring, warm, and reassuring. Many charities, such as UNICEF and WWF,
use this brand and other companies, like Campbell’s Soup, Johnson & Johnson, and Heinz. This
will be a desire to care for others in need. It’s about being supportive, helpful, and providing a
service. Putting others before yourself. If you’re a brand that provides care, you must make your
customers feel secure, protected, and cared for. This archetype could be used for care providers,
education, not-for-profits, and hospitals.

The Jester – is about enjoyment, joy, fun-loving, and pleasure.

The voice for this archetype needs to be playful, impulsive, fun-loving, and optimistic. It is very
much about seizing the day and having a childlike quality. The brand strategy should portray
having a good time and ideally make people laugh. It could be used for sweets, beer, or child
services. Ben and Jerry’s and IKEA use this archetype in their branding.

The Sage – this is about understanding.

The brand voice should be knowledgeable, assured, and guiding. Your brand should portray how
education is valuable to gain wisdom. It is about intelligence, expertise, and information. Brands
that use the sage archetype include Google, BBC, Philips, and the University of Oxford. The
brand strategy should show people how to acquire wisdom and encourage lifelong learning. With
your strategy, you need to communicate intelligently using good vocabulary. Don’t simplify or
dumb down your message. Types of businesses that use the sage archetype include media and
news networks, schools and universities, consultancies, and search engines.
It is possible to ‘mix’ archetypes, but you need to do so carefully so that you’re not confusing,
and your lead/core archetype needs to represent at least 70% of your brand personality. 10 If you
do a mix, ensure that the 30% archetype you use is well used to differentiate you from other
brands. When you present a brand archetype to customers, you’re letting them know that they are
the same as you, or they can aspire to be like you, or you can guide them, or you’re reassuring
them that they can be great and achieve all they want to in life.

CREATE A BRAND STYLE GUIDE

Creating a comprehensive brand style guide that covers your brand identity, story, voice, design,
and values can be useful.

Brand Identity

Pick your brand archetype and be clear about its opinions about your market and the wider
industry. Use keywords. Identify the archetype’s attitude toward life. A tone of voice and writing
style captures these opinions and attitudes. Pick certain vocab that will help to evoke your
archetype. Look for synonyms of these vocab words to use in your brand guidelines. Ensure that
your brand visually represents the personality with the colors you use, the typography, and the
images. The more detail you can include in your brand personality, the stronger it will connect
with customers and be memorable to them. The key things to focus on when creating a brand
style are the look, feel, tone, attitude, opinions, and vocabulary. Ensuring this aligns with an
archetype (or a 70% main archetype, 30% another archetype to help with differentiation). Once
you have your archetype, you must create a brand story.

Brand Story

Research by Uri Hasson has shown that people are twenty-two times more likely to recall a story
than a fact! 11 People don’t just want information; they want to be taken on a journey. With your
brand archetype character, be sure to delve into this. You need to create intrigue and be
authentic. What is the background of your brand archetype? What are its future goals? What is
the journey like? Brands need to connect to customers on a human level. Using an archetype’s
personality can help connect with your audience and show how your brand differs.
You need to understand why you’re running your own business. It’s sensible to map out your
vision so that you have something to work toward, and putting this in writing will bring you
more success. Whenever you have a business decision, ask yourself if it will help you work
toward your vision. Dream big and consider where you’d like to be in five years. Break your
overall vision down into manageable goals. 12 Remember to share your story everywhere.

Brand Voice

You need to define your market and focus exclusively on them. A key example is how the brand
Man Crates has a strong sense of humor. They’ve created a memorable buyer experience on their
website filled with anticipation. Man Crates uses storytelling to build anticipation and convince
people they’ve found the perfect gift. 13 Their story is easy to visualize, builds anticipation and
excitement, and is fun. Making people laugh and enjoy themselves is important. Man Crates uses
humorous male stereotypes in their YouTube videos, targeting women who can identify with the
males in the videos.

Brand Design

When considering brand design, you can think about the role of art in branding, a logo, the colors
you decide to associate your brand with, the font you use, the shapes you use, and a tagline.
Because there is a wealth of choices of different brands for people, having a trustworthy brand is
essential. When you’re considering your brand design, you could decide to draw upon science
(generating insight, measuring performance, being data-driven), art (creativity), or craft
(management and execution). 14 You can think about your name, a trademarked symbol, or the
music associated with your brand. If you think of McDonald’s brand design, its golden arches
are instantly recognizable. 15 The NBA logo has the slogan always used with it: “Where Amazing
Happens.” Making your logo stand out from others with its design, color, or font would be best.
When you have a video or radio advertisement, you can consider what music or jingle you want
to be associated with your brand. Once you have a recognizable brand design, you need to
disseminate it widely; you can utilize podcasts, have partnerships with other brands, do guest
blogs, advertise on social media, use giveaways, use hashtags, and like or comment on social
media using your brand name.
Logo, Color, Font, Shapes, and Tagline – Your logo needs to summarize what your brand stands
for. Your logo will have colors, shapes, images, and fonts. Comparing the Coca-Cola and Pepsi
logos, Coca-Cola uses a darker red, which suggests it’s classic and serious. Pepsi uses red, white,
and blue seeking alignment with the American flag. Coca-Cola’s font is swirly, again showing
it’s classic, original, and evokes nostalgia. Pepsi’s font is more minimalistic and modern. Coca-
Cola has a swooping shape under it which looks like a gift ribbon and creates associations with
Christmas and special memories. Pepsi’s red, white, and blue circle resembles a friendly smile.
Taglines are short statements that quickly put across your key branding strategy message. Here
are some well-known brief taglines you’ll probably have heard of: McDonald’s: I’m Lovin’ It
(which is written in the first person showing how much they love it and dropping the ‘g’ off the
word ‘Loving’ makes it casual, informal and fun). Ford: Go Further (is about succeeding with
one’s goals/dreams and exploring new places). Nike: Just Do It (is full of motivation and seize
the moment). Burger King: Be Your Way (emphasizes autonomy and having choice over your
life) and Apple: Think Different (is about daring to be creative and think outside the box to come
up with new solutions, it’s entrepreneurial). 16

Brand Values

Your brand values are the principles and ideals that state what you stand for, and these principles
will drive you. 17 Your values should be built around your purpose as a company. Your clients
will share these same brand values. It’s good to share your brand values on the about page of
your website. Your values are really important and not just a tick-box exercise. They should
permeate every bit of your website. Good brand values are what can turn a one-off customer into
a loyal one who returns to you time and time again. 18 Your ideals and values could be protecting
the environment, diversity, solidarity, or transparency. These will form a key part of your brand’s
identity. Your values must reflect what is truly important to the company, and you must honestly
care about them and do all you can to implement them. Your values are your guiding beliefs, and
your guiding principles are how you will follow this through. So, if your value is ‘transparency,’
then your guiding principle would be good communication with customers about your products'
origin and manufacturing. Also, having very transparent prices in detail.
Tesla’s values are about doing the best, taking risks, respect, constant learning, and
environmental consciousness. Nike’s values are inspiration, innovation, inclusiveness, and being
distinctive. Lego values are fun, learning, creativity, care, and quality. Suppose you’re unsure
about defining your brand’s core values. In that case, you could brainstorm with your team,
survey your customers, and analyze your competition to see if there’s an opportunity or space for
you to offer something they aren’t. You should ideally have 3–5 main values. You should have
1–2 guiding principles per brand value. You can include the values and guiding principles in
your brand guidelines. Stick to these values at all times and let them define your brand.

Chapter Checklist:

Create a brand guideline for your business, including the five essential elements mentioned
above:

1. Brand identity
2. Brand story
3. Brand voice
4. Brand design
5. Brand values

The key takeaways from this chapter include the following:

1. Brand strategy is about creating an identity and winning customer favorability. It would
help if you planned to achieve this using voice, design, values, story, and vibe.
2. When you have a brand strategy, customers will connect with you, be loyal and return
for repeat business. Without a brand strategy, you’ll be forgotten.
3. Twelve archetypes can help build an emotional connection with your audience.
Purchasing decisions of 95% of consumers are subconscious. People connect with these
archetypes subconsciously. If you have a distinct archetype, you’ll increase the value of
your business by 97% more than if your archetype is confused.
4. If you mix archetypes, have a mix of 70% for your lead/core archetype and a 30%
archetype to differentiate your brand.
5. Create a brand style guide focusing upon IDENTITY (choose an archetype), STORY
(this makes your brand twenty-two times more memorable), VOICE (for example, could
be humorous if appropriate to your brand), DESIGN (art, logo, colors, font, shapes, and
tagline), VALUES (ideals, guiding principles, 77% of customers buy from brands that
share their values).
The next chapter will look at developing a winning marketing strategy by creating an effective
digital marketing plan, including various tactics and strategies.
 7

LET’S GET MARKETING

O nce you get your product and your clients right, you cannot disregard a good marketing
strategy. You need to be able to attract customers to your website and raise awareness of
your product or service. It’s okay to not get it right from the first day, but you should try
different strategies until you find out what works best for your target audience.
Your marketing (or lack of it) can make or break your business; people need to know about your
product or service and how they can purchase it. They need to know the benefits of it and,
ideally, form an emotional connection to your brand. It’s perfect if your ideal customer can view
you as an expert in the area connected to your business and wants to gain information from you.
As a new startup business, you may feel that you have the skills and experience to run your
business, but you may not know where to start with marketing. You may not be technically
minded or know how to create or optimize websites. When you start a business, it is hard to do
everything, all of the administration, everything financial, HR jobs, and the marketing/social
media side; this is why bigger businesses have specialists in these areas.
This chapter will give you the benefits of being able to do these marketing tasks yourself, or at
least raise your awareness of what marketing tasks ‘can’ be conducted, and then you could get a
company with expertise in these areas to do these for you.
By the end of the chapter, you will have the basic knowledge/insights/tools to create your own
business marketing plan and especially to know what the bigger picture is, why it’s important to
have a business marketing plan, and the reasons behind it, plus guidance to start creating this
today.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS MARKETING PLAN STEP-BY-STEP

Besides helping you stay on schedule and budget, a marketing plan is essential to effectively
nurture your customers, improve your business's bottom line, and increase the ROI of your
efforts. I recommend you get your plan documented because research has shown that top
marketers were 414% more likely to report success when they documented their strategy 1 and
tracked their initiatives against their results to derive learnings to be implemented in their future
initiatives. Like many people, knowing where to start to create a plan can be hard. Following the
clear steps below will help you:
Step 1: Assess your current business situation

You could use a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) to assess
your current business situation. 2 The SWOT analysis will help you work out the areas you’re
doing well and the areas you could improve. Any areas that need improvement can be perceived
as an opportunity. You could also do a SWOT analysis of your competitors to analyze their
marketing, what they do well, etc. The Pareto principle suggests that 80% of your business will
come from 20% of your customers. This is one of the most important reasons to have a strong
marketing plan in place—to create customer engagement and an audience to get repeat and loyal
customers rather than attract someone new.

Step 2: Set a budget

You need to clearly understand what money you have available to invest in marketing. New
businesses spend 12–20% of their gross revenue on marketing, which can reduce to 6–12% when
established. 3 While this can seem like a lot of money, you should always keep in mind the ROI
that this can generate with the right marketing plan. Even a very small budget can get your
business to the next level. Break down the full costs of your marketing plan, in as much detail,
with as much accuracy as possible. Once you start to put your plan into action, keep checking
your costs against your plan. 4
While setting a financial budget, it can also be wise to budget your time and assess how much
available time you can dedicate to spend on marketing each week.

Step 3: Outline your marketing goals

Once you have an idea of your strengths, areas for opportunity, and a financial/time budget, you
can write your marketing goals.

Marketing and Sales goals

Your goals should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound).
An example of a SMART would be to increase website traffic by 4% over the next six months .
Other marketing goals could be building an online presence, generating leads (this could be a
contact who is a prospective customer, hoping they will become a future client), increasing brand
awareness, and connecting, engaging with, and growing your online audience. 5

Brand Awareness

It would be best to communicate regularly, ensuring that customers know what your brand stands
for so that they are fully familiar with your values and mission and that you are in people’s
minds when they want to purchase if your values align with theirs. It’s a good idea to have
personalized communication.
 Expansion

Expansion is about how you will grow your business in the future. Expansion is about your plans
to scale up and develop. Some questions you can ask yourself to determine the direction you will
expand are: What are your plans for your business? Where do you see yourself in a year? Three
years? Five years? Is your business currently local, national, or international? Do you have
physical premises and, if so, would you like this to expand to further physical premises? What
different (but related) areas could you expand your business into so that your business grows and
develops?

Customer Retention and Acquisition

You want to acquire new customers and retain (keep) all the customers you get. There are
various strategies you can implement that will help to acquire and retain customers. It’s about
creating a seamless customer experience, from issue to resolution. Some strategies you can
implement are as follows: Ensure your website has information that is easy to find, that the site is
easily searchable, that it showcases your products, and that customers can get answers to any
questions. 6 You can create a loyalty program to drive repeat purchases and increase engagement.
If you create a loyalty program, to ensure success, make the customer feel exclusive, encourage
participation, and keep the rewards attainable. 7 You can offer incentives to customers with
promotions, free shipping, and free returns, and reward your top customers with a surprise and
delight gift.

Step 4: Identify your target audience

Target market

Describe your ideal customers in detail. Find out the size of the market, the demographics,
unique traits, and trends. 8 Knowing your target audience will help you develop your marketing
plan because, as an example, Gen-Z audiences probably would not be reached as easily through
print ads. 9 Consider your current customers and whether there’s a target group you aren’t
currently reaching. Understand what your customers buy from you and why (their motivation).
Do you know what influenced their purchasing decision (whether they do or don’t buy, what
prompted them to, or prevented them from doing so?). How do your customers find out about
you? Where do your customers spend time online? What are your competitors' customers like?

Step 5: Determine your marketing tactics

Competitive advantage

A competitive advantage is the combination of marketing elements that sets your business apart.
It’s about finding the unique benefit that customers get when they purchase a product or service
from you. There are questions you can ask yourself to help determine and pinpoint your
competitive advantage so that you can market it. What gives the product or service you provide
an advantage over your competition? Is your product better quality? Is it a lower price? Do you
provide outstanding customer service? Is your product environmentally friendly? Or a locally
sourced product? 10

Building trust and loyalty

You can do different things when building a brand that can influence customers’ perceptions of
your brand. Staff uniforms, where your products are made, and your return policy can add ‘trust’
from customers in your brand. You can encourage customers to leave reviews. Avoid shortcuts
or clickbait tactics. Don’t remove all negative feedback; respond politely, take ownership of the
problem, and remedy it. Treat your customers as you would a friend. Offer loyalty programs.
Offer a high level of customer service, with high standards on speed and quality. Always deliver
what you have promised. Show and adhere to your company values. Be transparent. Ensure that
you solve customers’ problems. Ask for customer feedback. Be reachable to customers and
respond to inquiries swiftly. Cultivate relationships.

Step 6: Put together an action plan that prioritizes tasks

You need to write a list of all you want to do with marketing, then prioritize the list. You can
download free action plan templates from here: If you prefer to work in Word, this is a Word
document:
https://business.vic.gov.au/tools-and-templates/marketing-action-plan-template.
If you prefer to work in Excel, here is an Excel spreadsheet:
https://ganttpro.com/marketing-action-plan-template/.
You can download many other free plans online, so it’s worth looking for one that appeals to
your style. I would advise you to have a table to keep track of the following:

1. Your tactics/initiatives
2. Timeline
3. Goals
4. Results

The table will help you track your results against your goals and then adjust your future
initiatives if these don’t meet your expectations. 11
An action plan can comprise a sales plan, a marketing action plan, and aligning your goals and
strategies. Read the paragraphs below to learn more about these.

Sales plan

Knowing how your customers will buy products or services from you would be best. So consider
documenting how you will sell your product or service to customers. Will this be retail,
wholesale, or via an online store? Next, please write down your customers' steps when they
purchase. For online stores, it’s worth checking these steps to see if you can slimline them and
make it much easier for customers to buy. Are there currently any obstacles in their way? It’s
worth considering your sales plan as part of an action plan because your marketing will
hopefully ultimately guide people to make the final purchase. You don’t want ‘how’ people pay
to be a barrier to them following through on a sale. There is a free sales plan template to
download here as a PDF, Word Doc, or Google Doc:
https://fitsmallbusiness.com/sales-plan-template/.
This format will help you assemble everything. Other templates are available online, too; some
will request your email address in return for the template. Conduct a search and find one that
suits your style.

Marketing action plan

It would help if you had a plan for achieving your marketing and sales goals. If there are specific
marketing channels you’ll use, put these in a list, such as online advertising, radio ads,
billboards, etc. Explain your pricing strategy and think about promotions. What support is given
to customers after their purchase? Ensure your labeling is legally compliant with government
regulations.

Align your online marketing goals, strategies, and tactics

Outline your goals for the next year. Your goals could include increasing your email subscribers,
growing your market share, or increasing your sales by a specific percentage. These are all
specific, measurable goals. 12 Constantly measure and update your plan, ensure that your goals,
strategies, and tactics align, and ensure you get a positive ROI. Ensure that your marketing
efforts are effective.

TYPES OF DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES

As part of your marketing plan discussed above, you can employ various types of digital
marketing strategies. Suppose consumers want to learn about a business. In that case, they search
for this online rather than anywhere else, so it’s important that your online offering adequately
gives consumers the information they require in the best possible way. E-commerce users are
predicted to grow to almost 274 million by 2025. 13 If you have little experience in online
marketing, choosing which digital marketing strategy to use may seem overwhelming, but we are
here to help you navigate this. We will now go through different digital marketing strategies to
help you achieve the main end goal of a marketing plan, benefiting your business by raising
brand awareness and building a pipeline of leads that convert into sales. You can do several
things to make this process less of a headache, especially if you don’t have a large budget or lack
time or staff to help.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is what makes your business visible online to potential customers. Utilizing SEO will help
search engines find your website through organic search engine results (non-paid). You should
start using it from the beginning because it is worth implementing, but it will take time to build
and appear higher up in the rankings due to competition.
Bots scroll the Internet to find and show the most relevant content to internet users using
keywords; SEO may give your website the chance to optimize content to meet criteria, so your
website ranks more highly in the search engine results, and you get more warm leads and
potential sales. SEO determines whether your content will show on a SERP (search engine
results page). 14
Three key SEO benefits are getting more leads, increasing sales, and continually generating
traffic. Fifty-three percent of website traffic comes from organic search, five times more than
pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and ten times more than social media. 15 Thirty-three percent of
your revenue should come from search engine results pages. This strategy takes time but is better
than paid advertising in the long run. 16
Suppose you’re not ranking as highly in Google as you’d like to. In that case, this may be due to
relevant keywords (and their placement on your site), the length of your content, high-quality
content relevant to your target audience, how fast your page loads, and how often you post
content, plus other factors. Google will try to find the best information, so if someone is looking
for a hair salon in Lincoln, Nebraska, it isn’t helpful if they find one in Lincoln, UK.
 Optimize your website (and localize it)

Website optimization is where you use tools, strategies, and experiments to improve the
performance of your website, drive more traffic to it, increase conversions (of people purchasing
your product or service), and grow your revenue. 17 Website localization is when you refine and
optimize web content using culture, language and flow to give users the most useful and relevant
experience; you can consider the nuances of the target region. You can also adapt the products,
services, and marketing strategies to meet a particular local market's needs and preferences. 18
Localization connects to SEO mentioned above because your keywords can be localized. If you
lack expertise or time, you could consult an agency or freelancer specializing in web design to
optimize your website for you. You could find a freelancer on places like Upwork, Codeable, or
Freelancer. Whether it is yourself or a freelancer who optimizes and localizes your website,
ideally, you should have several social media accounts with all your linked social media icons
and a newsletter sign-up call to action on all website pages (usually in the top right corner or the
footer of each page). 19 As mentioned in the previous paragraph, your keywords and key phrases
should be based on local SEO; you can get local SEO insights using tools like Google Analytics,
Google Trends, and Google Search Console. 20

Update title tags and meta descriptions

Title tags and meta descriptions tell search engines and users what your site is about. They
describe the content on each website page and can be used as a ‘hook’ for your advertising in the
search engine results. 21 Ensure your keywords, meta description, page titles, and H1 tags are in
the correct places on your website. Page titles should have an H1 tag; most content management
systems do this automatically. 22
A title tag is the 60 characters search engines use to see on the search engine results page
(SERP). If you can, use a title tag relevant to your brand and location, and ensure it is less than
60 characters.
The meta description will increase your click-through rates because it lets consumers know
which information they will find on your website. 23 Meta descriptions can entice people to visit;
these should be limited to 150 characters. 24
Your site should load swiftly; there is a Google Page Insight Tool, and your site should score 85
or better. If there’s a red exclamation mark, make any changes they recommend. If you have the
time and resources, aim to fix the yellow ones too. If you are unsure of how to do any of the
above yourself, it can be worth hiring an expert to do this for you.

Link building

“A backlink is a hyperlink from a third-party website to yours.” 25 These are important as they
impact your ranking on Google. Google uses backlinks to measure your site's validity, relevancy,
and authority. Focus on getting high-quality backlinks from good reputable websites to your
webpage. 26 It could be from an article. It could be from YouTube. The more reputable sites that
link to yours, the better. You can guest blog or ask partners/distributors/suppliers to mention
your website. You can ask for credit from other people who have praised your products. You can
get influencers to mention your site, etc. Popular sites are like Forbes or Business Insider; you
would rank highly with backlinks from these places.

Keyword research

Conducting keyword research is an extension of buyer persona research (research on your ideal
customer, their pain points, their job, where they spend time online, etc.). You can use the
personas to search for the ideal keywords that match your brand and use tools like KW Finder to
find related keywords for your target audience. 27

Content Marketing

Eighteen percent of marketers said that content marketing had the greatest impact on their
business 28 ; this may be because content marketing increases audience retention, gives you better
social media traction, enhances SEO effort, establishes trust with the audience, improves
conversions, and builds authority. 29 Content marketing is where you create and distribute content
that has value, is relevant, and is regular to attract and retain your customers and influence them
to purchase from you. You should ensure quality, relevance, SEO optimization, optimized for
readers, and consistency with what you create. Inbound marketing (creating valuable content and
customers finding you) generates three times as many leads as outbound marketing (where you
initiate the conversation and send it to an audience) and costs 62% less. 30

Video Marketing

Videos can be used for landing pages, social media, webinars, emails, and other purposes. On
average, businesses create eighteen videos per month; this shows that video is an essential part of
your digital marketing strategy. 31 Five key benefits to using videos are that they can improve
SEO, keep users on a website for longer, are captivating, convert more customers, and a video is
easy to share. 32 Over 50% of consumers like to see videos from brands, perhaps because
watching a video requires less effort than reading, it’s more visual, it appeals to the senses of
sight and sound, and people process and retain what is said in videos more than just text. 33 There
are several ways you could create videos to conduct marketing; two key ways are via TikTok or
YouTube.
Ninety-two percent of businesses think videos are important to their overall marketing strategy,
possibly because statistics support this; users spend 88% more time with video content than any
other content. Sixty-six percent of people visit a marketer’s site after watching a branded
video. 34 There are explainer videos, presentation videos, sales videos, and video ads. 35 You can
also get customers to do product review videos via YouTube, and apps like VideoWise will
search, verify, and show these reviews on your site.
 Blogging

A blog is a regularly updated website or webpage for personal or business use. Businesses that
use blogs get 67% more leads than those that do not. Blogs are rated as the fifth most trusted
source for accurate online information, which can do wonders to build your reputation as a leader
and expert in your field, helping to build credibility. 36 It would be good to create a blog and
provide free informative, helpful content to others to share your expertise. You can also do this
on panels and forums. Blogging will generate organic traffic for people who haven’t decided to
purchase yet. It will also show your credibility and build a relationship between your readers and
your business over time. 37
If you don’t have time to create the blog content yourself, you could hire a freelancer to create
blogs or promotional content for you. Upwork has freelancers who can make blogs and videos or
take photos. The more often SEO keywords appear in high-quality and helpful content, the more
likely you will appear in search engine results. 38 Your blog could contain commentary on current
events, interviews of interesting people, list posts, and reports on trends or events.

eBooks & Whitepapers

An eBook is often an extended guide on a topic for the general audience. In contrast, a
whitepaper is more of an academic report on a topic with new research or information for a niche
audience of experts. 39 You can repurpose blog posts and other content on your website to create
eBooks and whitepapers. The benefits of eBooks and whitepapers are that they show you have
expertise in a certain area and provide free content you could exchange for an email address as a
customer lead generation tool. Having this free information builds trust and credibility with
customers. 40 Depending on the products or services you provide, you could create how-to guides
that showcase your skillset, and if customers find this useful, they may buy into more assistance
from you.

Case Studies & Customer Testimonials

Ask for customer feedback; this is important for many reasons because you will see if you are
providing a solution for customers and meeting their needs, and you’ll gauge a sense of customer
satisfaction on how you’re performing as a business. Also, customers who feel you understand
their needs and value their business will return to you, especially if you’ve remedied any
complaints and have resolved them. You can find out customer opinions via surveys to
determine what they like about your products/services, their opinion on your competition, and
areas for improvement. 41 If customers say they like your products or services, encourage them to
share this on Yelp, Google, or social media. Having customer testimonials is one of the most
credible sources of information for other prospective customers—so good reviews are a perfect
form of marketing.
 Podcasts

Five benefits of podcasting for business include that it’s convenient for you and your audience, it
helps to build a connection with your listeners, it helps to build brand authority, it’s great to raise
brand awareness, and it increases website traffic. 42 In 2023, there will be 160 million podcast
listeners in the United States. You could start your own podcast or become a guest on someone
else’s podcast. 43 Podcasts are a great way to reach an audience; you don’t need to be too
technical or invest much to create one. It is worth being aware that podcasts can take a while to
build traction, so be patient and keep putting out episodes. Podcasts often want interesting people
to interview, so even if you don’t want to create your own podcast, you could share your
experience on someone else’s existing podcast.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is where an influencer promotes a product and gains a commission, or two
related businesses help to market each other. 44 The affiliate generates leads and sales. Typically,
15% of digital media industry revenue comes from affiliate marketing. 45 You can develop
partnerships with complementary businesses, products, or services, or start your own affiliate
program; when you partner with another company, you both benefit. For example, when Altus
Mountain Guides (courses/training for backcountry) partnered with Evo (an outdoor gear
retailer), they had similar customers. If someone buys something from the store, they get an
online course introduction. If someone books a course, they get a discount code for the Evo
store. Suppose you want an affiliate partnership, find someone with a similar audience to you so
that you can benefit from one another. You could partner with a trusted comparison site to get
your products to the right people.
To grow your affiliate program, you must contact affiliates and influencers to promote your
products for a commission. If they sell any products through their site, they could receive a 25%
commission on any products bought through their links. 46 However, it is important to establish a
brand identity before having an affiliate program because this establishes trust and loyalty, and
because your affiliate may engage in discussions across multiple marketing channels, a
consistent brand nurtures credibility among new and existing customers. 47
One technique that affiliates can implement is to create comparison articles, whereby they
include your product or service in a list of similar ones by other businesses and weigh up the pros
and cons of each one. These articles are great because they showcase your product without being
too pushy and let the audience make consumer decisions.
If you’re trying to find possible people who could be affiliates, you can use tools like SEMRush
to find high-authority websites and SNOV.io to hunt down the contact info of audiences you
want to know about your product or service. You could send 3–5 emails to these potential
partners. Look at what your competitors offer their affiliates. You could offer free products,
incentive bonuses, and higher commissions to gain them as an affiliate. You can set up a contract
for affiliates to ensure clear communication and expectations.
Social Media Marketing

Organic social media

Seventy percent of Americans regularly use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The average
person spends three hours a day on social media. 48 This makes social media a place to interact
with customers, build brand loyalty, and create authentic relationships. You can share news,
showcase staff members, highlight any community or non-profit connections, engage with your
audience via polls, contests, linking to holiday events, and try retargeting, where a customer
looked at your website but didn’t follow through with a sale, so retargeting ads on Facebook and
Instagram can drive traffic to your website. 49 Other social media platforms for ads include
Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram (via its Shoppable tool); Pinterest ads have three times the
conversion rate of other platforms. 50 You can use social media for customer service and ensure
you answer customer questions to ensure your business is responsive and credible. It’s worth
using location-based hashtags because they allow you as a business to reach people worldwide
simply by adding a location tag to a post.

Influencer marketing

Influencers have many followers on social media; they tend to be popular and have built up a
reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic. They tend to be someone in your
niche or industry with sway over your target audience. Therefore, they can influence potential
product or service buyers by recommending the items on social media. Generally, influencers are
popular and liked by their audience. If you were to work with one and ask them to promote your
brand, you would pay them to do so, and because of their influence, their followers may start to
buy your brand. 51

Facebook ads

These will help to grow your audience and drive more visitors to your site. Facebook has a very
large user base, allowing you to advertise to consumers where they spend much time. There are
lots of data behind the scenes, which allows you to target your ads for specific demographics of
location, interests, age, sex, online behavior, etc. 52 There is a Facebook Ads Manager that allows
you to run and test different ads to try to find a formula that brings lots of customers to you.
There is a tool called AdEspresso that can help to run ad campaigns and get good ROI. 53
Facebook ads can have a variety of formats, including single images, videos, and carousels. 54

Leverage user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is content that has been created by someone not officially
connected to your business. So, this could be a social media update, a review, a video, a podcast,
etc. If the content mentions your brand and no one who works for your business has created it, it
is user-generated. 55 User-generated content is important because marketers are often seen as
untrustworthy—making false claims and promises to gain a sale. Marketers are seen as biased
toward showing the product or service in a favorable light. So, if you can encourage customers to
share photos and videos about your products, this content has come from real customer
experience and is perceived by other prospective customers as more trustworthy. 56 You could
run a photo competition or a raffle. Encourage customers to spread the word because word-of-
mouth reviews and testimonials go a long way to making your business successful.

Email Marketing

Use marketing automation to send promotion emails, welcome emails, thank you emails, and
abandoned cart emails, to remind people of birthdays/anniversaries, plus re-engagement emails
to bring back customers who haven’t shopped for a while, perhaps with a welcome-back offer or
discount. 57 Email marketing is powerful in gaining and retaining customers because emails go
directly to the customer, and they can read them at a convenient time. You can personalize the
email to ensure that it’s relevant and that customers are updated with the latest products and
promotions. Seventy-three percent of millennials like business communication to reach them via
email. You could experiment with newsletters and use marketing automation software. You
could set up a customer relationship management (CRM) system to send your email marketing.
There are CRM tools that do not require a big investment, like ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, and
Constant Contact. And the top player in the market is Salesforce. You can offer coupons in
newsletters or on landing pages so that readers get your products/services at a discounted rate.
You can segment your mailing list and target your messages appropriately. 58
In general, the optimal way to start a marketing funnel is with a ‘lead magnet,’ which you offer
in exchange for a website visitor's email address; a lead magnet is something free or a special
deal that is offered to customers in exchange for their contact details; it could be a free digital
download, a free service trial, site membership, a coupon, a ‘seat’ at a webinar, etc. 59 The main
goal of a lead magnet is to attract a lead. So, to attract a potential customer who will hopefully
convert to purchasing your product or service. Emails have the advantage of being low cost, with
a worldwide reach, easy to automate and segment, immediate communication, easy to set up and
run, and easy to track and optimize. Email marketing for ecommerce stores has an average return
of $42 for every dollar spent. 60 There will be 4.3 billion email users by the end of 2023. 61
Having a clear subject line is good to ensure readers open your email.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-per-click marketing (PPC) will drive users to your website while you wait for SEO
implementation. 62 There are PPC programs like Google AdWords or Microsoft Advertising that
help customers find your business. Your landing page wants to be as optimized as possible
before using PPC because if you’re paying per click, you want those clicks to convert to sales, so
you don’t waste your money. 63 PPC ads can boost brand awareness by 80%, and figures show
that you usually double what you spend on ads in revenue. 64 With PPC, you can set flexible,
affordable budgets as low as $5 and pay only when someone clicks on your ad. You can target
customers based on their behavior and past actions. 65

Google Ads

Because organic traffic takes a while to build up, as a small business, you sometimes need a
boost and will want to have a short-term tactic. Google Ads are ideal if you know that your target
audience is searching the web for your product or service. 66 If you don’t think your target
audience is searching the internet, you may want to use social media ads instead. Setting up
Google Ads can be slightly tricky, but you can reach a large target market, run retargeting
campaigns, and drive more traffic and sales.

Mobile Marketing

The majority of Google searches are carried out on mobiles. Your site needs to look clean and be
easy to move through. Google rewards people who have a mobile site by putting your website
higher up in the rankings. Many platforms offer mobile-optimized templates.
 SMS Marketing

Ensure you have a smooth mobile transaction process, where everything displays correctly and is
just as easy to navigate via mobile as a laptop. Ninety percent of texts are opened and read,
compared to 20–30% of emails. Texts are cheap to send and a great way to connect with
customers. 67 To get a subscriber list, you can get SMS service providers and add opt-in forms to
your website and social media profiles.

Online Reputation Management

Ratings and Reviews

Seventy-five percent of shoppers use reviews to help them decide whether to purchase a
product. 68 You can ensure that whenever a customer buys a product, an automated email asks
them to review the product or experience. You could also encourage referrals and endorsements
by offering discounts and deals to existing customers who refer your business to their friends and
family. 69 Referrals drive more than $6 trillion of annual consumer spending; a referred customer
is 18% more loyal than those who haven’t been referred to and tend to spend 13% more on
purchases. 70 Eighty-four percent of people trust online reviews as much as they would a friend’s
recommendation, so it’s worth asking customers to leave reviews. Please respond to all reviews
and make it easy for customers to leave reviews; if there are any negative reviews, be sure to
resolve them and turn them into positive ones. 71
The top four things to implement are setting up good SEO, email marketing, video marketing,
and gaining ratings and reviews. Over time you can add other aspects longer term.

Chapter Checklist:

1. Review the digital marketing strategies above and find at least two that work best for
your business idea.
2. Spend as much time as you need following the steps above to formulate your business
plan.

The key takeaways from the chapter include the following:

1. Test different digital marketing strategies to find what works for you.
2. Having a documented marketing plan is more likely to lead to success.
3. When creating a marketing plan: assess your current business; set a financial/time
budget; outline marketing goals using SMART goals; identify the target audience;
determine marketing tactics; and prioritize your tasks.
4. There are many different types of digital marketing strategies. SEO; optimize and
localize website; update title tags and meta descriptions; get quality backlinks; use
 keyword research; do various content marketing (blogs, videos, eBooks, whitepapers,
case studies, testimonials, and podcasts). Use affiliate marketing and social media
marketing. Use influencers. You can have Facebook ads; user-generated content; email
marketing; pay-per-click (PPC); Google Ads; mobile marketing; SMS; online reputation
management with ratings and reviews; and local search marketing using Google My
Business.

A marketing strategy is important and links nicely to the next chapter about writing a business
plan.
 8

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: HOW TO WRITE A WINNING

BUSINESS PLAN

“Plan for what is difficult while it is easy; do what is great while it is

small.”
— SUN TZU

W e’ve been exactly where you are now, with a great business idea and hesitation about
formulating that on paper into an official business plan. A white piece of paper has never
been more intimidating.
If you’re super busy trying to start a new business, part of you may wonder if you have the time
to sit down and formulate a business plan. I can assure you, you do, and it’s worthwhile to spend
time doing, which will assure you success. It’s not a fruitless tick-box exercise. It will get things
fixed in your head, on calendars with goals to work for that have deadlines; you’ll have a sound
idea about how every aspect of your business will run and areas where you need to seek
expertise or upskill swiftly. Your business plan pushes you to act like nothing else will do. It’s
the ins and outs, the nitty-gritty of your business, which is best to thoroughly research now rather
than too late when you’re in the middle.
If you’re at a loss as to where to start with writing one, in this chapter, we want to break down a
business plan into easy bite-sized chunks so that you can get a good draft version and build upon
this.
This chapter will walk you through writing a business plan step-by-step. Having the best
intentions and dreams is fine, but this is just a starting point. What you need to do is to put your
intentions into action via a business plan. You should stick to it if you focus on the necessary
steps to ensure your business ideas succeed.
Peter F. Drucker, an Austrian-American management consultant known as the father of
management thinking, stated: “Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes,
but no plans.” 1 The idea is that if you don’t have a fixed plan, you’re just making a wish that
something will happen. This is crucial and can help you make good business decisions and
prevent you from squandering time away by asking yourself about your activities, ‘How will this
help my future self?’ So, this leads us to why you need a business plan.

WHY YOU NEED A BUSINESS PLAN

When you start a business, you’ll be pulled in many directions and expected to wear different
hats: admin, finance, tax, compliance, HR, marketing, social media manager, sales, IT expert,
etc. Without a clear business plan, it’s easy to lose track of where you’re headed. Seventy
percent of business owners do recommend writing a business plan before starting. 2 The key
quote is: ‘Fail to plan, plan to fail.’ Having a solid business plan can tell you if it’s viable to give
up your 9–5 job to start your business and improves the chances of business success, giving you
a clear road map for growth and development. It ensures you know who you are, what you plan
to do, and how you will achieve that. Businesses with a business plan grow 30% faster than
businesses without, and according to the Harvard Business Review, entrepreneurs with business
plans are 16% more likely to build a successful company. 3 Owners with a business plan are
twice as likely to get investment compared to those who don’t. And when you have a business
plan, you are 260% more likely to grow your business from an ‘idea’ to a ‘new business’ with a
plan. 4
When you put together a plan, it can also highlight any ‘unknowns’ or ‘gaps’ in the business that
you may not have thought about otherwise, which may prompt you to ask for help, delegate the
task, or even upskill yourself. 5 The three key reasons you need a business plan include the
following:
1. Strategic Planning
2. Partnerships
3. Funding Requests

We’ll take a closer look at these in turn:

1. Strategic Planning

You must explain why you are in business and why people should choose you. What do you
offer, and what are your advantages? What problems do you solve for people? Be clear about
who the major players are who shape the business goals. Clarify your ideas, understand the scope
of your business, and be clear about how much time, money, and resources you need to achieve
this.

2. Partnerships

When you have a clear business plan, it’s easier to attract people who may want to form
partnerships with you. It’s much easier for them to read through your business plan and
determine whether they think they’d be a good match.

3. Funding Requests

Again, having a nice clear business plan is attractive to potential investors. It shows that you
have thoroughly researched your business idea, thought ahead to the future, and have seriously
thought about your competition, your edge, and what you expect to achieve in profits.
Is there a demand for your product or service? Do you have a solid team in place to support your
goals? Can you scale the business? It will help the investor determine whether it is a sensible and
viable investment; they don’t want to lose money. Most venture capitalists and all banks will not
invest in a small business without a solid plan. 6

HOW TO WRITE A BUSINESS PLAN

In America, the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) has a ‘write your business
plan page’ with some sample business plans to download, a template, and a step-by-step plan
tool. 7 If you’re in a different country, look for an official administration or service that provides
relevant information by searching for your country's government business services,
state/province, or city government business services. Some Chamber of Commerce websites will
offer guides too. You could also look for business plan guides/samples and templates followed
by the names of the largest banks in your area. 8 The Bplans website also has over 500 free
sample business plans categorized according to different industries. These steps are in order of
importance, not necessarily the order in which the sections should be organized in your plan.
Step 1: Describe Your Business

Include a mission statement, history, and objectives. Your mission statement is why your
business exists; it should make others believe in your vision and connect with your audience
emotionally. What motivates you? What cause/experience led you to start the business, what
problem will you solve, and what wider social issues are you passionate about? When describing
the company’s history, write its founding date, major milestones, location, number of employees,
and leadership roles, and mention any flagship products or services.
Your business objectives should be SMART goals that are time-bound and can be measured, i.e.,
things like ‘over the next three years to complete X projects per year (that increase incrementally
over the three years); increase revenue from XXX to XXX,’ etc. If you have a website domain
name, include this here. 9

Step 2: Talk about Your Product or Service

What unique features does your product or service have? How can you show these are benefits to
the customer? Ensure you have intellectual property rights or any patents that protect
differentiation. Be clear about how you create your product or service, where you source
materials, how they’re assembled, how you maintain quality control, how they’ll be received or
delivered (supply chain), and how you’ll manage bookkeeping/inventory. If your product has a
life cycle, be aware of the time between purchases, upsells, cross-sells, and downsells, and your
plans for research and development.

Step 3: Marketing and Sales Plan

Summarize market research and potential, knowing your target market demographics of location,
income, age, gender, education, profession, and hobbies. You need to demonstrate that your
target market is specific. Show again your value proposition, ideal target markets, existing
customer segments, your plan to attract new business, growth tactics to expand, retention
strategies like loyalty or referral programs, advertising and promotion channels, like search
engines, social media, videos, etc. 10 How will you reach the market? Through a website or trade
shows, or paid advertising? 11 Think about the 4 Ps of marketing: Price, Produce, Promotion, and
Place. Why have you chosen the price for the product or service? What are you selling regarding
the product, and how will you differentiate it? Promotion is about getting your products in front
of your customers. And Place is where you’ll sell your products. For online marketing, create a
digital content strategy where you create and produce articles and videos, etc.

Step 4: Detail Out Your Logistics and Operations

These are the workflows to make things happen. Your logistics and operations will differ
depending on whether you sell products or a service. You may need to consider where you get
the raw materials for production if you sell products. Do you make, manufacture, wholesale, or
dropship products? How long does it take to produce and get them shipped to you? Can you
handle a busy season or an unexpected spike in demand for both product and service businesses?
Where will you work from? Do you need a physical space? What equipment, tools, and
technology do you need; this includes computers, lightbulbs, stationery, etc. Will you fulfill
orders yourself or use a third-party fulfillment partner? How much inventory will you have,
where will you store it, and how will you ship it to partners if this is needed? 12 If you’re
providing a service, is this in person or online? What technology will you need to assist you in
doing this? Are there other members of staff remotely who you’ll need to communicate and work
with to provide your service? Consider the logistics and operations of this.

Step 5: Financial Plan and Projections

Your business needs to be financially viable to survive. If your business is already established,
include statements, balance sheets, etc., for the past 3–5 years.

Cash Flow Statement

Have an income statement/cash flow statement. This should show your monthly projected
revenue and expenses. Essentially this should easily show your profit or loss during this time. A
cash flow differs slightly from the income statement because it shows when revenues are
collected and expenses are paid. 13 This is a positive cash flow if you have more income coming
in than cash going out. If the opposite is the case, your cash flow is negative.

Break Even Analysis

Have profit and loss statements. This should show how many sales you need to make to cover
your initial expenses.
 Balance Sheet

Have a balance sheet. This should show your business’s current assets (what you own), liabilities
(what you owe), and equity (this is the assets minus the liabilities).
Have info on how much revenue you retain as income, your ratio of liquidity to debt repayment,
and how often you collect on your invoices. Have three years’ worth of reporting and ensure
figures are accurate. Avoid underestimating business costs; think about all your overheads.
Business insurance premiums tend to increase each year.

Step 6: Investment Needs

Outline the amount of money your business needs and be realistic with your figures. You may
need to sell ‘equity,’ a portion of your company, to raise capital. An equity owner may want to
make some decisions in the business, so be careful about who you let fund/invest in your
business. The investor may also want dividends (a share of the company profits), and you’ll need
a clear idea of how they can sell their ownership interest. You’ll need to repay any creditors, plus
interest on the debt. Try to ensure you have timelines for investors so that they know what to
expect. Investors will want to know what their return on investment is likely to be. Some
investors want a hands-on role, while others won’t want to be involved in day-to-day activities.
All investors will want to know when they can get their money back and at what rate. 14 It’s
sensible to be able to explain how much funding you’ll need over five years and what you’ll use
it for. State whether the funds will be used to buy equipment, and materials, pay salaries, cover
bills, etc.

Step 7: Discuss Market Analysis and Competition Research Findings

You could break the market analysis into three: audience analysis, industry analysis, and
competitive analysis. Identify your competitors, then know where they advertise, what press
coverage they get, how good their customer service is, their sales and pricing strategies, and how
they rank on third-party platforms. What sets your business apart from theirs? 15 Show you know
the market and that there is a demand for your product or service. 16 How big is it? Have an ideal
customer profile. Research industry trends and trajectories. Can you offer lower prices than
competitors? Are you distinct from competitors? Do you have a niche segment of the market?

Step 8: Describe Ownership, Management, and Personnel

This is about how you’ll staff and manage your business. Outline the legal structure of your
business—what type of business is it? Is it a C or S corporation, a limited partnership, a sole
proprietor, or a limited liability company (LLC)? You could include an organizational chart to
show structure, roles, responsibilities, and relationships. Write one paragraph about each team
member, including yourself. List founders and officers and their contributions (both capital and
expertise) to the company. 17
 Business structure

Identify who are the CEO, managers, bookkeeper, attorney, staff, etc. List their professional
background, awards, and honors.

Your team and key people

Identify your team and know their strengths of how they can make your business a success or
grow it. Be clear about their expertise and qualifications.

Step 9: Write Your Business Plan – Executive Summary

How to write an executive summary

The executive summary will set out your business's value proposition or unique selling point.
Who is it for (target customers), and what are they dissatisfied with (current solutions)? What
does your product or service solve (customer problems)? Use these pointers as a starting point. It
should cover the business concept, goals and vision, description and differentiation, target
market, marketing strategy, current financial state, projected financial state, the ask (if you’re
asking for money), and the team. 18

This should be last since it is a summary of your plan

While this will form the very first part of your plan, it should be written last. You can condense
the key ideas from the other sections of your plan. It should be short, usually one page or less,
and give an overview of your business. For people who are short on time and want to get the idea
of your business swiftly, this is the purpose of your executive summary. 19

Step 10: Have an Appendix of Official Documents

Having an appendix of official documents shows that your business plan is well-organized and
meticulous. Your investors can use it to do due diligence. If your business plan is shared with
employees, they have context and easy access to everything they need. You can include deeds,
permits, legal documents, certifications, business registries and licenses, patents,
associations/memberships, state ID numbers, key customer contracts, and purchase orders. You
could also include testimonials, research excerpts, charts, and other information relevant to your
business. You could put credit histories, resumes, product brochures, permits, and supplier
contracts in your appendix. 20

TIPS FOR CREATING YOUR BUSINESS PLAN

Know your audience

Who will be reading your plan—tailor the language to them and include the most relevant
information and figures. Omit sections that aren’t as relevant to them. 21
 Have a clear goal

If you're trying to secure funding, you must deliver a more thorough plan.

Invest time in research

Know your margins and be clear about every cost your business incurs. Do research from
independent sources. Know who you’re selling to and the demand and be aware of competitors.

Keep a realistic timeline

If it takes most companies 6–12 months to get up and running, this is how long it will take you.
Always give yourself more time than you think it will take. So, if you expect it to be three
months, give yourself six months to allow for unseen delays. 22

Keep it short and to the point

Around 10–20 pages should be sufficient. Put any other important documents in the appendix.

Keep the tone, style, and voice consistent

Make it easy to read, with nice clear sections. Try to have just one person writing the plan and
edit it thoroughly before the final version.
 Conduct a SWOT analysis

Before starting your business, conducting a SWOT analysis, and considering your business's
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is a good idea. What do you think your
company will do well? What do you think you will struggle with? Are there any changes that
you could take as an opportunity? Are there any threats that could mean you’re not able to
succeed? Strengths and weaknesses are internal, whereas opportunities and threats are external.
This analysis allows businesses to see their current situation and plan for the future. 23 It gives
your business a focus on goals, allows you to see the bigger picture, improves communication
and collaboration, and helps you to gain insight and make informed decisions. To conduct a
SWOT analysis, draw a cross on a piece of paper, and in each of the four segments, consider the
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Write using the ‘BLUF’ format (bottom line up front)

A BLUF approach (bottom line up front) is where the key information is placed right at the start
of the text rather than the end. It develops credibility, and readers think the writing is crisp and
confident, that of an expert. It works a bit like an elevator speech. It lets readers get the gist even
if they haven’t read the entire document. It can also guide readers through the journey, so they
know the most important bits. Covering who, what, where, when, and why is often useful. There
is the acronym BLIND too, which can cover Bottom Line, its Impact on the organization, the
Next steps to be taken, and Details. 24

Chapter Checklist:

1. Get a notepad and pen or open a Word document (or equivalent) and have a go at
writing the ten parts of a business plan.
2. You can also find templates for a business plan online or via the Consulting Club.
3. Use spell-check or Grammarly to check your plan for errors; get a few friends/family to
proofread it too. You want it to look professional. Make sure to give yourself plenty of
time to polish your business plan.

The key takeaways from this chapter are:

1. Be committed to creating/writing a plan, act upon it, and follow it through.

2. A business plan will help your business to grow 30% more than people who don’t have
one; you’ll be 260% more likely to move from an idea to a new business and 16% more
likely to be successful.
3. A business plan will help with strategy, partnerships, and funding.
4. Ten steps to creating a business plan include: 1. Describe your business. 2. Talk about
your product or service. 3. Have a marketing and sales plan. 4. Detail logistics and
operations. 5. Financially plan and have projections. 6. Think about investment needs. 7.
Do a market analysis and know your competition. 8. Write in detail about your
 ownership, management, and personnel. 9. Write an executive summary. 10. Have
appendices of supporting documents.
5. Tailor the language to the audience. Do thorough research. Keep it realistic and brief. Be
consistent. Do a SWOT analysis. Use BLUF writing.

Now that you know how to create a solid business plan, you can start implementing your dreams.
The next and final chapter looks at the secrets to entrepreneurial success and how to overcome
obstacles.
 9

PAVING THE ROAD TO SUCCESS

“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.”
— WALT DISNEY

T his chapter will inspire and motivate you to act in the face of adversity. The path to running a
successful business isn’t always smooth. Most businesses face some challenges; within the
chapter, you will see various success stories that show how other digital entrepreneurs have
overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges and have managed to turn their businesses into
success. It is important to acknowledge that, according to Entrepreneur, many people experience
a lack of confidence that prevents them from pursuing their dreams or making important changes
to their business. Another thing that can get in the way of success is a lack of motivation and a
feeling of being lazy. 1 Never give up on your business dreams; find a way to make them happen.
You may see some other small businesses that had challenges and see that they overcame them.
If they can, so can you! By the end of this chapter, you will know ‘the recipe’ that helped many
small businesses overcome challenges like failure, uncertainty, lack of money, the loneliness of a
solopreneur, and the risks of scaling and hiring staff; you may resonate with some of these. There
are some hints and tips on how to try to alleviate these fears and still go ahead and run your
business anyhow! Sometimes, research, preparation, finding information, and being as prepared
as possible will help.

AGAINST ALL ODDS: SUCCESS STORIES OF SMALL BUSINESS

Many businesses have encountered challenges and have managed to overcome them. Below you
will find some stories of these to inspire you and to help you know that even when you face
challenges, there are ways around them.

Spanish to Move

Luis Pelayo created the business Spanish to Move, where he and his team would teach Spanish
in fun and easy-to-understand online courses. He has differentiated his product to make it stand
out from competitors. Luis initially worked a separate job and was running his business in
parallel. He found it challenging because he couldn’t dedicate 100% to the online course
business; he emphasized developing patience. One key challenge was that as they grew their
online course business, they found it hard to keep track of different elements. They needed to pay
professionals to help in different areas like web page design and marketing. They decided to
move their business to the platform Thinkific to host their courses. Because the platform came
with experts, it was easy for them to adapt web pages without needing to pay for a web designer
or have programming knowledge. He was able to integrate his email list and marketing tools, so
everything is under one platform, making it more manageable for him. They've taken advantage
of all integrations regarding how customers pay to keep everything neatly on one platform. This
worked well; they enrolled seventy new students in their course in the first month! Louis said
that another key challenge was managing his time, especially when working in his regular job
most of the day. His advice for how to do that is to work consistently every day and to minimize
distractions to be consistent, disciplined, and persistent. 2

Phones International Group

Peter Jones, who is now one of the ‘Dragons’ on the show Dragon’s Den founded a computer
company when he was in his twenties; it had some success but then collapsed, and as a result, he
had to give up his home and possessions. He took a job at Siemens and got back on his feet. He
later invested £1,000 to set up Phones International Group, a wireless communications company
that became one of Europe's fastest-growing businesses. The key takeaway from this is that even
successful people and businesses may have faced financial hardship and experienced risk and
failure in the past. Still, with a true entrepreneurial mindset, they learn from it and keep
persevering until they are successful.

Night Owl Cleaning Services

The key takeaway of the success story that will follow is that regardless of your background, if
you have a great business idea and can fill a niche in the market, you can create a successful
business. Arlete Turturro founded Night Owl Cleaning Services; while she has qualifications in
fashion and real estate, she now runs a commercial cleaning company that also provides party
attendants and 24-hour emergency services. This shows that you can start on one or two different
pathways and end up in a different place. It’s about seeing and filling a need, and being flexible,
which can often lead to wonderful things. Some people may be dismissive of people who hold
cleaning jobs, but cleaning homes and offices at weekends could lead to greater things like
running a major successful business! 3

GooRoo

The key takeaway in this challenge is that even in what seems like a broad market segment, it is
possible to find a niche and differentiate yourself. GooRoo, a learning platform, was founded by
Scott Lee, who believes everyone deserves a good education and set up a platform to connect
students to the perfect tutor. It has over 1,000 tutors in New York and trains more tutors
nationwide. Scott’s problem was that, as a small business, how he could tackle something as
large as education. He believes everyone has individual needs, which is how his platform helps. 4
His challenge was finding a niche in such a large topic. Still, he made a successful business by
focusing on individuality, embracing diversity, and matching tutors to specific learning needs.
Lee founded a company when he was in high school. After that, he served in the army, founded
another company, worked for JPMorgan, and was an advisor for the 2018 Olympics; after all
that, he founded GooRoo. He drew upon a diverse experience set to help him run the best
business and become a better CEO. 5

DC Mosquito Squad

Damian Sanchez founded DC Mosquito Squad. It’s a pest control business. His challenge was
struggling to keep track of all his leads in Washington, D.C. His solution was to invest in
software to automate sales and marketing opportunities. This helped him onboard new team
members, renew customers with just an email address, and scale his business. 6

THE TOP 5 FEARS FOR BUSINESS OWNERS AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM

1. Fear of Failure

Thirty-nine percent of new business owners give fear of failure as their main concern. 7 However,
you can turn the fear of failure into a learning opportunity to apply lessons learned and not run
from it but help spur you on. Starting a new business can be scary, and you may worry about
failure; that’s a natural concern. It’s important to weigh up the risks and do your market research
to ensure that you have a viable business idea.
There is the oft-repeated but worthwhile quote from Thomas Edison, who stated: ‘I have not
failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.’ This is a true positive testament to if, at
first, you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again, and learn each time from this so that you can
make improvements to previous attempts. Have a growth mindset as an entrepreneur where you
don’t view mistakes as failures but as an opportunity to learn. You need to adapt and evolve.
Vanessa Molica, who owns The Lash Professional, says that she never gives in to her fear of
failure because she has “too much to do and too many goals to achieve to let this kind of fear
paralyze me. Rather than let it rule me, I use my fear of failure as fuel for my continued
success.” 8

2. Wrestling with Uncertainty

Thirty-one percent of business owners are concerned about doing something wrong. 9 When you
don’t know the right option, this can sometimes feel paralyzing. You will likely have days when
you wrestle with uncertainty and wonder if you have done the right thing by starting your
business when things go wrong, or business is slow. A good solution can be to gather as much
information as possible before you make an important decision, look at the outcome of your
actions, and move forward. 10
But, there’s a quote that Lynda Houston, owner of Salvage & Bloom employs at such times to
give her motivation, and this is: Remember Why You Started. You won’t have entered the
business without a passion and reason for doing it; on tough days, remind yourself of what
motivated you. That is still worth fighting for! John A. Shedd states: ‘A ship in the harbor is safe,
but that is not what ships are built for.’ So this means that you will need to push yourself outside
of your comfort zone, take some risks, and not always stay where you know it is safe and secure
to achieve all you are meant to in life.

3. Not Having Enough Money/Funding

Eighty percent of companies with less than 500 employees make it through their first year.
Seventy percent are operating at the end of the second year, and only 50% make it to five years.
Almost half of the businesses that shut down do so due to a lack of funds. Don’t be daunted by
these figures because, in 2018 in the US, 30.2 million small businesses were running . . . which
shows it can be done! Financial challenges for businesses can include a limited or inconsistent
cash flow, not using a budget, not preparing for unforeseen expenses, not raising enough capital,
having too much debt, not doing financial reporting/taxes, not paying bills on time, mixing
business and personal finances, and poor marketing. 11 You can offer customers discounted
payments if they pay quickly, send through timely invoices with proactive reminders, prioritize
customers with large balances in the collection process, and have weekly financial targets.
Try to look at historical performance and current conditions, think about economic downturns
and customer shifts, and do scenario planning to prepare you well. It’s good to develop and stick
to a living document budget to plan for the future. Having a ‘rainy day fund’ of cash makes good
sense to see you through unforeseen expenses. Knowing your business credit scores and raising
enough capital is important if you apply for funding. It would help if you had the capital to hire
staff, expand into additional markets, and explore new opportunities.
Many entrepreneurs bootstrap their way to success and take on some business debt. But be
cautious that you don’t overstretch credit cards or take on a line of credit with too high an
interest rate. Look for places where you can reduce costs, and consider creative financing options
(angel investors, crowdfunding). If you are struggling financially, contact creditors, let them
know your situation, and work with them to help you. Try consolidating business loans into one
payment. Remember to keep accurate financial records and file tax forms on time. It would be
best to assume all accounts could be audited anytime.
Use well-trusted sources like the US Small Business Administration (SBA) for resources, guides,
articles, webinars, etc. Over half of all companies do their accounts payable manually. Still,
automated systems can save money and time in the long run, so this could be worth considering
as your company grows. 12 Having a separate business and personal bank account helps to
manage company inflow and outflow.You need good marketing to ensure a steady flow of new
customers.
 4. The Loneliness of Being a Solopreneur

This is a common challenge for anyone starting a business. You don’t have someone to bounce
ideas off, brainstorm with, or ask for advice if things don’t work out quite as you’d hoped. There
are things you can do to help with this, though; you can join communities to connect with like-
minded solopreneurs. If you feel you have a connection to people within those communities,
reach out to them to make time for a coffee and a chat or a Zoom call, and stay in touch with
them. You could also organize coworking events with other solopreneurs.

5. Risks of Scaling and Hiring Staff

Another quote by Roy Ash is: ‘An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew,
hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.’ Any changes you make to your business may be a bit
of a step into the unknown, and you may worry about whether you can scale up or hire staff. But
you’ve got this. You can do this! Sometimes you’ll learn as you go along. You may not know
exactly what you’re doing, but you’ll figure it out. When you increase your business, you will
need more staff to help with the increased workload; this has overheads, and you’ll need to trust
new people. They will help you to expand, you need to ensure you have the infrastructure to
handle exports, and you need to ensure financial and logistical documents are ready to be used. 13
Chapter Checklist:

1. Spend some time listing and addressing your fears about starting your own business.
2. Develop potential solutions for situations where your worst fears come true.
3. Do you feel you have your business finances sorted? What could you do to improve
these?
4. Would you like a support network around you? If so, what could you do to achieve this?
5. Do you wish to expand internationally? Which country will you target first? Do you or a
staff member speak the language? Is there competition? Could you form partnerships
and build relationships?

Key takeaways from the chapter:

Some of the key takeaways from this chapter include the following:

1. Remember, you can change tack, and it’s OK to do that. Be flexible and seize
opportunities.
2. It’s OK to do different things, sometimes career-wise, before getting to the business you
want to run. You can draw upon all prior knowledge and experience; it will always be
useful.
3. If you can find a hard-to-get authentic product and make it available to people, this can
be profitable. Also, use social media to keep your customers updated, like TikTok and
Pinterest, etc.
4. It can be a good technique to create an experience for customers rather than the brand.
Also, aim to get user-generated content from fans.
5. If you find keeping track of leads challenging, you could use some software to automate
sales and marketing.
6. If you’re concerned about scaling or hiring staff, learn as you go along and figure it out.
It would help if you considered language and cultural barriers for international
expansion. Learn lessons from experience. Have a member of staff who can speak the
local language. Build relationships with local businesses.
7. If you feel lonely, join communities, connect with people for coffee or via Zoom, and
organize coworking events.
8. Do thorough research if concerned about failure. Be prepared to try different things to
get something to work. Remember, you have many goals to achieve, so get stuck in
there and get on with it.
9. If you feel uncertain, again gather all the information you can; then monitor the outcome
of the decision and move forward. Remember why you started the business to remind
you of your passion. You need to push yourself outside of your comfort zone.
10. To overcome money/funding issues, you could offer customers a discount for timely
payments, have financial targets, have a living document budget to plan for the future,
and have a rainy day fund for unforeseen costs. Be careful not to incur too much debt.
Be upfront with creditors if financially struggling and work with them to find solutions.
Consider automated systems to help with financial tasks. Have a separate business
account from your personal account. Have good marketing to ensure the flow of
customers.
 CONCLUSION

We have looked at a lot of different topics over the chapters. But everything goes back to the
first point: you need to have an entrepreneurial spirit which means you need to be adaptable,
self-reliant, able to solve problems/come up with solutions, and comfortable with risk. Don’t fear
failure; instead, learn from it. Be independent, responsible, and self-accountable, and make
SMART goals. Keep growing, learning, and forward-thinking, and take a long-term perspective.
Be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. After examining what it means to have an
entrepreneurial mindset, other chapters have explored trends, niches, positioning, pricing,
branding, marketing, business plans, and motivation/inspiration.
We have taken you through the steps so that you are not alone but have someone there to advise
you. There are numerous reasons why you may have decided to become an entrepreneur;
everyone’s reasons are unique to them. We at the Consulting Club have experienced success and
have helped startups in healthcare and tech, and we want to help you in your endeavors too. We
want to help you have financial freedom and help you to use your skills to make the world a
better place.
Here are the chapters covered in the book in a nutshell:
I’m sure you remember that Chapter 1 focused on developing an entrepreneurial mindset before
starting to write a business plan which included developing the characteristics and the path to
success and embracing failure. We wanted you to develop these entrepreneurial characteristics so
that your business succeeds, and you survive as a business owner. Some of the key takeaways
from the chapter are that running a successful online business is possible! You need to build an
entrepreneurial mindset, find and position your service/product, and build a successful brand.
Finally, don’t fear failure but learn from it.
In Chapter 2, you may recall we discussed various digital business trends, how to determine
whether these were rising or a fad, and how to find niche topics. We want you to be aware of
trends and how you could capitalize on them and apply relevant ones to your business to improve
the success of your business. Finding the trends can really inform how you operate your business
to get the maximum benefit from the trends. One of the key takeaways from the chapter is that
many free tools are available to track trends.
If you think back to Chapter 3 of the book, it covered how to find your niche, a unique specialist
segment of the market. We wanted to convey that many different tools can help you find a niche
and narrow your specific market so that you have an area of expertise that fits your passion and
market demand. Again, a key takeaway is that many free tools can help you find your niche.
Chapter 4 of the book examined brand positioning and where your business stands in relation to
competitors. We wrote the chapter so you can differentiate your business with a USP and know
your customer’s perception of your brand and ensure that you serve them. A key takeaway from
the chapter is that you can easily conduct perceptual mapping to position your brand in relation
to others.
Chapter 5, I’m sure you remember, was about pricing and working out how much you should
charge. We wrote the chapter because this is a common issue entrepreneurs struggle with. We
discussed the importance of conducting thorough market research and covered various pricing
models you could apply to best suit your business and avoid any negative consequences. The
chapter gave some pricing strategy examples with existing businesses, so you could see how they
worked for them. A key takeaway from the chapter is to re-evaluate your pricing strategy
regularly.
You may recall that the topic of branding was looked at in Chapter 6. We wrote the chapter
because branding can help create an identity for your business and win customer favorability.
The chapter also discussed the twelve archetypes to help build an emotional connection with
your audience. Which archetype do you think your business resonates with the most? Raising
awareness of your brand, and having customers resonate with your brand is important so that
customers purchase your service/products and return to you time and time again. A key takeaway
from the chapter is to think about voice, design, values, story, and vibe and pick an archetype.
The final of the seven steps, in Chapter 7, was about marketing. We wrote the chapter as many
businesses fail to do all they can to market their business well, and this can be make or break for
a business. The chapter covered different marketing strategies and discussed creating a
documented marketing plan. Many different marketing techniques and tools were discussed, and
it’s up to you to apply the ones you think are best suited to your business and experiment with
them. A key takeaway from the chapter is to try different digital marketing strategies and check
metrics to see which are successful for you.
Chapter 8, I’m sure you remember, was about pulling all the previous chapters' information
together to create a solid business plan. We wrote this chapter because we don’t want you to just
read or listen to a book. We want you to act and put into practice the seven steps and create your
online business. The chapter provides clear guidance on the sections you should include in a
business plan and tips on the writing/style of it. A key takeaway from the chapter is to create a
detailed business plan with supporting documents.
We wrote Chapter 9, the final chapter, intending to motivate, inspire and offer some advice for
when times are challenging running your own business. It contains some information on other
small businesses that have overcome challenges, and we’re certain you will overcome any
obstacles in your way. A key takeaway from the chapter is to be prepared, do research, check
finances, use social media, use automation, and put work into marketing to secure future
customers. Last but not least, learn from failure.
Now you’ve reached the end of the book, it is time to (if you haven’t done so as you’ve gone
along) put each of the seven steps into action. You may also wish to subscribe to the Consulting
Club’s newsletter and social media channels for up-to-date tips and advice on entrepreneurship
and running an online business.

CONSULTING CLUB
The Consulting Club has gone through these steps and keeps going over them over and over, and
this is entrepreneurship, a never-ending journey. At the Consulting Club, we intend to empower
others to do the same, stepping out of their comfort zone, turning their passions/dreams into an
income, and breaking free from their 9–5 jobs. The main goal behind the Consulting Club is not
just to encourage people to reach their financial freedom through entrepreneurship but especially
to start following their North Star, to follow the motto: ‘Love what you do, and you will never
work a day in your life.’ If you feel you would benefit from a supportive environment with
advice from experts, hints and tips, guidance and mentoring, and a forum of fellow
entrepreneurs, then please click the following link to learn more: https://theconsultingclub.com/
So, some key advice at this final stage includes:

1. Set a deadline for you to start your business.

2. Go through each of the steps outlined in this book to find your business niche and plan
your strategy.

We’d be very grateful if you would please take the time to leave a review and feedback on
Amazon so that other people interested in entrepreneurship can find and benefit from this book.
We here at the Consulting Club believe in you! We’re proud of you for deciding to become an
entrepreneur. You’ve got this. You can make your business a success and remember that a
journey well begun is already half done! We wish you good luck on your online business
journey!
We would love to hear about your journey, if you would like to share it with us, please send us
an email to [email protected]
 NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1 Startups, 2021.
2 Startups, 2021.
3 My Free Marketing, 2022.
4 Forbes, n.d.
5 Bloomberg reporting, Bloomberg Billionaires Index, n.d.
6 Levy, n.d.
7 Levy, n.d.
8 Jobs, n.d.
9 Tikkanen, n.d.

1. DEVELOPING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET

1 Gabrielle, 2021.
2 Todorov, 2022.
3 Failory, 2022.
4 NWIBIZHUB, n.d.
5 NFTE, n.d.
6 Jaskiewicz & Combs, 2017.
7 Cider, 2018.
8 Nevogt, 2022.
9 Nevogt, 2022.
10 Perell, 2020.
11 Business Know-How, 2022.
12 Perell, 2020.
13 Perell, 2020.
14 Brook, 2022.
15 Conlin, n.d.
16 Systeme, n.d.

2. THE TREND IS YOUR FRIEND

1 BigCommerce, n.d.
2 Conlin, n.d.
3 BigCommerce, n.d.
4 Bezzant, 2021.
5 Conlin, n.d.
6 BigCommerce, n.d.
7 Conlin, n.d.
8 Oberlo, n.d.
9 Ferreira, 2020.
10 Ferreira, 2020.
11 Ferreira, 2020.
12 Ferreira, 2020.
13 Ferreira, 2020.
14 Ferreira, 2020.
15 Oberlo, n.d.
16 Ferreira, 2020.
17 Ferreira, 2020.
18 SBA, n.d.
19 Keenan, 2022.
20 Bhat, 2023.
21 SBA, n.d.

3. HOW TO FIND YOUR NICHE

1 Statista, 2022.
2 Sheehan, n.d.
3 Indeed, n.d.
4 Sheehan, n.d.
5 Novak, 2019.
6 Wooll, 2022.
7 Rampton, 2017.
8 Novak, 2019.
9 Junttila, Henri, n.d.
10 ThriveThemes, n.d.
11 DeMatas, 2022.
12 ThriveThemes, n.d.
13 Novak, 2019.
14 Junttila, Henri, n.d.
15 Novak, 2019.
16 DeMatas, 2022.
17 Hart, 2023.
18 Hart, 2023.
19 Novak, 2019.
20 One.com, 2023.
21 Ferreira, 2022.
22 DeMatas, 2022.
23 ThriveThemes, n.d.
24 Decision Link, 2023.
25 Alfred, 2022.
26 ThriveThemes, n.d.
27 Sheehan, n.d.
28 Rampton, 2017.
29 Wooll, 2022.
30 DeMatas, 2022.
31 DeMatas, 2022.
32 DeMatas, 2022.
33 Novak, 2019.
34 Lawrence, 2020.
35 Mandel, 2023.
36 Wooll, 2022.
37 Kamb, 2023.
38 Indeed, n.d.
39 Tanner, 2020.

4. THE POWER OF POSITIONING

1 Spark and Bloom Studio, 2021.

2 Hippos to Horses, 2021.
3 Hart, 2022.
4 Twin, 2022.
5 Heijmans, 2020.are you please able to phone me on my mobile, before coming roX
6 Murphy, 2021.
7 Nachlis, 2020.
8 Shewan, 2014.
9 Hancock, 2022.
10 Shewan, 2014.
11 Shewan, 2014.
12 Shewan, 2014.
13 Hippos to Horses, 2021.
14 Hippos to Horses, 2021.
15 Hart, 2022.
16 Hart, 2022.
17 Heijmans, 2020.
18 Murphy, 2021.
19 Ondreicsik, n.d.
20 Mind Tools Content Team, n.d.
21 Image from: https://conceptboard.com/blog/perceptual-map-template/.
22 Image from: https://conceptboard.com/blog/perceptual-map-template/.
23 Image from: https://conceptboard.com/blog/perceptual-map-template/.
24 Image from: Dinkin, Keren. (2022) How Product Positioning Helps Your Ecommerce Business. Digital. Online.
https://digital.com/best-ecommerce-platforms/how-product-positioning-helps-your-ecommerce-business/.

5. PRICING YOUR OFFER

1 Yu, Eric, 2022.

2 Decker, Allie, n.d.
3 Odjick, 2022.
4 Mailchimp, 2022.
5 Heaslip, 2023.
6 Freshbooks, 2020.
7 Decker, n.d.
8 Decker, n.d.
9 Decker, n.d.
10 Heaslip, 2023.

6. BRANDING IN A NUTSHELL

1 Jovancic, 2018.
2 Collins, 2022, online.
3 Louise, 2022.
4 Collins, 2022, online
5 Collins, 2022, online
6 Collins, 2022, online
7 Houraghan, 2018.
8 The Hartford. 2023.
9 The Hartford. 2023.
10 Houraghan, 2018.
11 Houraghan, 2018.
12 Louise, 2022.
13 Thomsen, Rikke Berg, 2022.
14 Lehmann, Sascha et al, 2020.
15 Mailchimp, 2022.
16 Mailchimp, 2022.
17 Louise, 2022.
18 Matthew, 2022.

7. LET’S GET MARKETING

1 Keenan, 2022.
2 Heitman, 2022.
3 Heitman, Stephanie, 2022.
4 Small Business Administration, n.d.
5 Heitman, 2022.
6 Mailchimp, 2022.
7 Mailchimp, 2022.
8 Small Business Administration, n.d.
9 Heitman, 2022.
10 Small Business Administration, n.d.
11 Heitman, 2022.
12 Small Business Administration, n.d.
13 Boyarsky, 2022.
14 Daniel, 2022.
15 McCormick, 2020.
16 Keenan, 2022.
17 VWO, 2023.
18 MotionPoint, n.d.
19 Boyarsky, 2022.
20 Uzialko, 2023.
21 Gavril, 2017.
22 Blair, n.d.
23 Uzialko, 2023.
24 Blair, n.d.
25 FatJoe, 2023.
26 McDevitt, 2022.
27 Boyarsky, 2022.
28 Blair, n.d.
29 Designrr, 2022.
30 Keenan, 2022.
31 Turbureanu, 2023.
32 Turbureanu, 2023.
33 Boyarsky, 2022.
34 Turbureanu, 2023.
35 Keenan, 2022.
36 Forsey, 2022.
37 Boyarsky, 2022.
38 McCormick, 2020.
39 Ismail, 2018.
40 McCormick, 2020.
41 Mailchimp, 2022.
42 Buffonmedia, 2022.
43 Keenan, 2022.
44 Howes, 2021.
45 Keenan, 2022.
46 Howes, 2021.
47 Trackdeskblog, 2022.
48 McDevitt, 2022.
49 Mailchimp, 2022.
50 Boyarsky, 2022.
51 Wood, 2021.
52 McCormick, 2020.
53 Blair, n.d.
54 Keenan, 2022.
55 Vrountas, 2023.
56 Mailchimp, 2022.
57 Mailchimp, 2022.
58 McCormick, 2020.
59 Blair, n.d.
60 Keenan, 2022.
61 McDevitt, 2022.
62 Heitman, 2022.
63 Boyarsky, 2022.
64 McCormick, 2020.
65 Keenan, 2022.
66 Boyarsky, 2022.
67 Keenan, 2022.
68 Mailchimp, 2022.
69 Nethercott, 2023.
70 Boyarsky, 2022.
71 McCormick, 2020.

8. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: HOW TO WRITE A WINNING BUSINESS PLAN

1 Michael, 2023.
2 Wahbe, 2023.
3 Hines, 2022.
4 Wahbe, 2023.
5 Odjick, 2022.
6 Wahbe, 2023.
7 Hines, 2022.
8 Hines, 2022.
9 Nexcess, 2022.
10 Wahbe, 2023.
11 Gil, 2021.
12 Odjick, 2022.
13 Odjick, 2022.
14 Entrepreneur, 2015.
15 Wahbe, 2023.
16 Gil, 2021.
17 BigCommerce, 2023.
18 Odjick, 2022.
19 Odjick, 2022.
20 Hines, 2022.
21 Odjick, 2022.
22 Entrepreneur, 2015.
23 Ocasio, 2023.
24 Sridharan, 2023.

9. PAVING THE ROAD TO SUCCESS

1 EWOR Team, 2022.
2 Basu, 2017.
3 Diethelm, 2020.
4 Damien, 2021.
5 Diethelm, 2020.
6 Damien, 2021.
7 Enright, 2021.
8 Farmiloe, 2023.
9 Enright, 2021.
10 Enright, 2021.
11 Beaver, 2020.
12 Beaver, 2020.
13 QuickBooks, 2017.
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