This blog post is from our Guest Author: Kavit Haria
Here it is:
If you are on my mailing list you will know that I have made something very exciting official.
Something that I intend to live and I want you to live as well.
2015 is the year of the Rich Life.
As a concept, it means enriching your life with more of what you want. It doesn’t necessarily mean having more money. So it may mean something different to every single one of you.
It could be upsizing your house. It could be a fantastic holiday. It could be getting a domestic cleaner.
Perhaps the rich life for you this year will be around growing your personal confidence, or learning to seize opportunities you spot, rather than procrastinating.
But before we go any further, I want to make one thing clear. The rich life isn’t about austerity. It’s not about saving money. It’s not about cutting costs and tightening your belt in order to feel more secure.
It’s about creating more time and money to more of what you want this year.
Whatever it is, I want to help you start the journey. And I’d love to share that journey with you, either through working with you, or hearing about how you have taken the concept of rich life and made it into a reality of your own.
Creating The Rich Life Through Your Online Business
At the heart of what I offer to my clients lays one fundamental principle. I wholeheartedly give them my support, enthusiasm and experience to help them achieve their goal of a lifestyle business.
For most people a lifestyle business means having a business you can travel with. This is not the dream of completely passive income. It’s creating an intelligent business structure that allows you to manage it from anywhere.
I’m going to talk mostly about travelling in the literal sense. However, depending on the Rich Life you see for yourself, it could be an emotional journey rather than a physical one.
However you view it, it’s about making time to explore what is important to you while your business runs with minimum intervention, and only at a high level when you do.
There is no point in creating an online business to free you to enjoy the Rich Life if all you do is walk from one prison cell straight into another.
So let’s talk about the 10 key considerations you will need to be aware of if you are to create a lifestyle business that you can travel with.
Have Crystal Clear Personal Goals
The concept of the Rich Life means having clear personal goals to achieve.
You need to know exactly what it is you want. Only by doing this can you create a clear strategy for achievement.
Unless you have very clear personal goals about how you will spend the free time you will create you will drift around and end up filling that time with running your business.
So be aspirational.
Where do you want to go?
How long do you want to go for?
How much will you want to spend?
What will you do while you are there?
If it’s a non-physical journey, the same questions apply. The key point here is that you need to create a crystal clear vision of what you want to achieve and the steps you will need to take to get you there.
Yes, this is all about goalsetting. I’ve talked about it before and you’ve heard it before. But this time you need to do it.
Develop Clear Business Goals
You’ve probably already guessed that this was coming next.
Your business goals when achieved will allow you to achieve your personal goals, your Rich Life.
But unless you understand exactly what you want to do personally, what your Rich Life will look like in real detail and clarity, then you can’t structure business to achieve it.
So now you understand what your aspirations are you need to look at your business goals.
How much money will your business need to generate to fund your home maintenance and your travel, physical or emotional?
What practical skills will you need to achieve this business?
Will you need to train yourself, or get help and support before you start?
In the rest of this piece we’re going to cover the other key things you will need to consider before you start your Rich Life business. These will also need to feed into the creation of clear business goals.
If everything else leads to the creation of clear business goals then you will start your Rich Life journey on a sounder footing.
Demand Ruthless Time Management Of Yourself
Especially in the beginning while you are finding your feet, there will be an almost unlimited number of jobs you will need to juggle.
See you are going to have to work smart.
Think about it this way, there is no point in spending a month somewhere exotic and sunny if you are using up10 valuable hours a day to sit on a laptop in your hotel room.
Most entrepreneurs tend to be so focused on success that unless they instigate ruthless time management on themselves then they overwork and under enjoy.
So within the concept of enjoying a Rich Life, you need to start as you mean to go on by making time to enjoy that richness. It’s about knowing how and when to strike the balance you need.
Always Keep It Real
Telling people you run your own business can be powerful.
It can make you feel great to feel in control of your destiny and your time. If you do it right then it can be a wonderful experience.
But if you are not being realistic, if you have your head in the clouds, then things can start to go wrong very quickly. If you are not keeping it real in your own mind then it may be too late to rescue things by the time you accept reality.
Basically, you need to know when to stop partying and start working.
This is partly time management, but it’s also about self-discipline. And on top of that, it’s about knowing your business inside out so that you can spot when things are not going as they should.
And that means having your finger on the pulse at all times.
Know Your Facts And Figures….Always
We just talked about keeping it real. The key to doing this is to know the facts and figures about your business. Every single day.
If you take your finger off the pulse of your business then it could flatline very quickly.
So make sure that your facts and figures are always to hand and in a format you can view anywhere.
I’m not saying you have to do everything yourself, far from it, and we will move on to that in a moment, but you do need a real-time overview of your business on a daily basis. At any time you should be able to check in and see how it’s doing.
Basic things like how many visitors you’ve had, how many sales, what your current conversion rate is and what your profit and loss is for the day, week, month and year are all vital to know.
If you don’t know this, and you be amazed how many business owners don’t, then you are dancing with disaster.
Put it this way, you wouldn’t go on a long journey if the petrol gauge on your car wasn’t working.
Build A Team You Can Trust
Now we going to talk about several aspects of your business that involve people other than yourself.
You will need other people on board. You simply cannot live the lifestyle you want and enjoy a Rich Life if you are doing all the writing, web design, marketing, lead generation, development and keeping your finger on the business pulse, as well as being the business leader.
It is just not possible.
This means you need to build a team you can trust from the very beginning. It will be trial and error and will take time, but at the end of this process you will have people you can rely on even when you are not available.
If they are educated, understand your business model and you show them respect, then these people can be empowered to make the small decisions when you are not around. You shouldn’t have to worry if for example it’s mailshot day because someone else is taking care of it for you.
You should be able to trust the people you employ, whether directly or as freelancers, to fill in the gaps when you are not around.
And that means showing integrity at all times. For example, you cannot hope for people to take the initiative if you slam them for taking it. Likewise, you can’t expect people to take the initiative if you pay them poorly, or constantly seek to renegotiate with them after agreeing prices.
Build trust and loyalty and you will gain hours each week.
So by investing in a team emotionally you will reap huge benefits that will allow you to run your business from the top.
Create Clear Structures And Paths
Once you have your team in place you need to be able to manage them from anywhere in the world. You cannot do this effectively if you don’t have clear communication channels that everybody understands.
Whether it email, or something more structured like a third-party platform for communication, it’s key that you all use same platforms and all understand the protocols set in place.
This will stand you in good stead for the bigger issues you will face such as managing your business day-to-day.
For example, what happens if there is a problem? You will need a developer or someone else to fix it, which means you need to know where they are, communicate effectively and know how it’s being resolved in real time.
And when it comes to undertaking new projects, such as new products or services, you need a clear collaboration path with the people who are involved. There is no point in just jumping in and grabbing the first project management software you come across and then throwing it at everyone and telling them to use it.
So as with the structure of your overall business, a key component with in it will be structuring your communication channels with the people who run it for you on a daily basis.
Filter Everything Ruthlessly
This goes back to what I talked about earlier. You always need to have your finger on the pulse of your business. This means knowing your key facts and figures, your key data, all the time.
But you don’t need to be up to your neck in information all day long.
This is where ruthless information filtering will benefit you. You should have a virtual PA in place who can filter out 90% of the information you would normally have to deal with.
A virtual PA can forward on only those emails which will require your direct and urgent action. They can also crunch the numbers and put them onto the platform of your choice, in the format you need.
It’s this sort of filtering that will save you literally hours every week.
In terms of help for your customers, you should be setting up systems to filter them out as well.
Whether you set up a service or a product providing company, you should have smooth, intuitive and richly populated help online. This means full frequently asked questions and clear paths to get at any other information people may need.
This will help to filter out live support requests, should you need them as part of your business model. At that point you can then get somebody else to look at those requests, only passing on the really vital ones to you.
You get the picture. The more you filter, the less your business will impact on your rich life time.
And don’t just think in terms of the back end of your business.
Make sure your sales funnels are as effective as they can possibly be. This means they need constant monitoring to ensure that they are spilling leads as little as possible and converting as highly as possible.
You need to analyse the read and bounce rates for your email list, and the clickthrough rates along with the paths they follow after clicking.
Everything to do with how you generate leads and convert sales needs to be analysed by someone, but preferably not you in the first instance. You just need a snapshot that you can investigate further should you need to.
Automate Automate Automate
Following on from filtering out all the noise to get the key messages you need to make business decisions, when you set up your business you need to be completely focused on absolute automation.
For example, there are now SMS text message based sales funnel software packages out there. These are fully automated and responsive. If people abandon by unsubscribing, not only can they receive emails, but they can also receive SMS text messages to encourage them to take positive action immediately.
So looking at investing in the best possible infrastructure now and refining it from the very beginning will mean that the customer journey side of your business can run almost hands-off for long periods of time.
And what will help you in this is looking at the small details. When someone makes a purchase, take the extra time to make sure they get that detailed follow-up email thanking them for the purchase and telling them exactly what will happen next.
Tell them how long it will be before delivery, what they can expect, where they should go for help, who they should contact, what they can do in the meantime to prepare. Whatever it takes to head them off from further contact unless absolutely necessary.
Not only should you automate everything, but you should ensure that automation is scalable. In fact, it’s part of making sure that your entire business is infinitely scalable.
There is no point in setting up a fantastic website built around shopping cart software is that software simply cannot cope with a high volume and sales. Or if you change your business model to offer lots of small products instead of one or two and it takes 15 minutes to create an item in your online store, because it doesn’t allow bulk uploading for example.
Preparation, planning and then implementation of scalable automation will protect your business from disaster for years to come.
Have A Long-Term Plan For Business Development
Yes, this basically means “Have a business plan!” But it’s much more than that.
Your business development plan should also have detailed blueprints of where you want your business to develop should things go right or wrong. Contingency plans.
Let’s say you set up a single high-value sale business model. You going to sell a course package for $300 a go. You aim to sell five a week. You actually sell an average of two a week in your first two months.
Now of course you need to analyse and adjust and not give up, but you also need to have a Plan B ready to go. This is where your detailed blueprints will come in handy for rapid business development.
The blueprint could be a bolt-on value package that increases the perception in value of your product. It could be a follow-up package to give people more incentive to buy both at once.
Basically, you need to have fully developed strategies to swim if you are sinking.
And yes, it does also mean having a proper business plan for the first year of your business, plus an aspirational plan for a least another year after that.
You simply cannot “wing it”if you want to be able to enjoy your Rich Life without having this nagging feeling in the back of your mind that there is no plan B.
Are You Ready To Enjoy The Rich Life This Year?
I would like to know what you see as the Rich Life. It will be great if you could leave a comment so that we can build up a picture of what everyone values and wants more of in the lives.
When it comes to setting up an online business the 10 considerations I have laid out for you right here will, if you deal with each properly, give you a really solid footing for getting more of what you want and deserve.
We all want freedom, we all want to do things on our own schedule.
But few of us achieve it because we don’t focus on the Rich Life we can enjoy by doing more of what we want. We tend to focus on the negatives, where we think we can’t achieve things.
That is what holds most of us back, the fear of failure.
Now you’ve read how you can build a platform on which to enjoy a better quality of life, through implementing your own automated business, you need to look at what you are doing now.
Does your current life, your current career, allow you to enjoy the Rich Life you deserve?
If the answer is “No” then maybe it’s time to make the change before it is too late?
I can offer you a leg up that very few people get. It’s called my Automated Business System.
For one whole week we will undertake a strategic discovery process, where we look at your strengths and weaknesses, passions and vision. We will dig deep and create a fully rounded business idea to move forward with.
Then my team will spend up to 6 weeks developing your automated infrastructure. Everything will be covered, and fully supported by me all the way. The website, the landing pages, the opt-ins, the content, the sales process, the aftercare. Everything you need will be set up for you so that it runs virtually hands-free.
The third stage is running your business live with my support until the end of the first year. We will work on developing and implementing your business plan and marketing effectively to maximise your conversion rate.
I will work closely with you to develop your marketing skills, advising you on tactics and processes. You will be able to contact me at any time and enjoy high-quality video tutorials any time you need them.
It’s a complete business structure that will sit on top of the 10 key things I have outlined in this article to produce a success formula few this year.
The Rich Life is not far away. It’s closer than you think and it is time to enjoy more of it.