Last week I had to pick my son up from daycare at 5.55pm.

You might be thinking, so what?

Well the thing is, I usually pick him up straight after I pick my daughter up from school around 3.30pm, so 5.55pm was a trip down memory lane for me.

It’s winter here at the moment and at 5.55pm it is cold, dark and raining. I have a bit of a thing about getting out of the car when it is raining, it annoys me.

In the dark, I walked past the other mums picking up their little ones. They looked grey from a long day at work and I remembered…

I remembered what it felt like to be them. Tired, exhausted and a bit deflated that I had sold my life to someone for that day, so that THEIR business could reap the rewards.

Only to get the dregs of the end of the day to spend with my little ones. 

And let’s be honest, picking them up at 6pm to then drive home in peak hour traffic with dinner, bath and bed still ahead of you, and tired kids to boot, doesn’t leave a lot of fun quality time does it?

The weekend comes and questions us as to whether we are going to get the house sorted or try and fit in that much needed family time. Cue ‘debates’ with hubby over who does what and who is more tired and then Monday rolls around quicker than you can say, ‘WTF – is this my life?’

So often we settle for this in life, and hey, if that is you and you are content then awesome! 

But if you are reading this nodding along, with a deep knowing that every once in a while whispers to you that there has to be more to life, then I agree.

There is.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

The other week my business coach asked me who I was and if I was living in purpose.

After about 10 minutes of fumbling around trying to answer this loaded question, it finally dawned on me.

My life is extraordinary and I am without a doubt living in my purpose.

My purpose is helping mums like you escape the rat race of life and start an online business so you too, can have the same freedom, fulfillment and profit I have found.

So, let me ask you this.

Can you say that you are living life awake?

Within your purpose?

Feeling fulfilled every day, in every way?

Because, that right there – is what life’s about and once you’ve stepped into your own power, it will be hard to believe that you almost settled for less.

If you’ve felt a bit of a twist in your stomach because you know you aren’t fulfilled, let me ask you this. How much does it mean to you to realign yourself with what you are truly meant to be doing?

What I know for sure is, an online business can be the gateway for you to change your life.

Ok, I am biased but only because I am living proof.

I watch my clients go from knowing they want more in life but feeling scared and alone as to how and where to start taking brave steps of action to create it.

And, then we celebrate their achievements and successes in our private Facebook group when they feel accomplished for moving past their fears and taking action on creating the life they want to live.

You may be thinking, ok awesome. An online business it is. I am going to do it!

But wait, there is a catch that trips a lot of people up at this point.

They start a business using the wrong business model. And trust me, they aren’t all carved out the same. Not all of them will create a life of freedom and profit for you. Some will essentially just replace your job with more hours and less money. 

I don’t want that for you.

So, I’m going to encourage you to be smart about this.

By making a few insightful and informed decisions you can side step the other 95% of businesses that fail.

Yes, that is a scary statistic but stick with me and I’ll show you how to be in the 5%.

The business model I mentioned is the key element you must get right before you do anything.

Instead of selling your time, you need to sell your value.

We only have so much time per day. We cap out, we can’t scale.

At Business Jump, I show my clients how to create value that can be sold an infinite amount of times, without requiring matching levels of time. We do this through creating highly automated and scalable online businesses with income streams that will bring you profit while you are out living life.

Before we go any further, I have to be very clear about something.

There is still hard work involved. It still takes time but there is a flip that will happen. Your business will start to gain traction and do the heavy lifting for you, and this is where your freedom starts. You can reinvest that time into growing your business higher and further or spend your time traveling with the family, playing with your kids or having date nights with your husband.

Essentially, from day one of starting your business, we have an exit plan for you.

So, I am going to take you through one of my favourite business models. We like to align this business model with a recurring income stream, but you can also align it with a commission based income stream as well.

For the record though, recurring income is the holy grail of income.

Traditionally when you make a sale, you only get paid once.

However, when you make a sale that has a recurring income stream attached to it, you have the potential to continue getting paid forever and a day.

It is consistent and repeatable income.

Recurring income streams are best assigned to a marketplace or online directory business model.

A marketplace looks sort of like an e-commerce store that sells products from the front, but behind the scenes we got real savvy with how it automates and functions. Once a customer wants to buy the product on your website, they are sent over to the brand’s website to complete the transaction.

Consider an online directory more about promoting the actual brand instead of actual product. It is a one-stop shop to find amazing brands that cater towards the pain points of your target market – with your website providing the solution.

Both business models allow you to cut out about 40% of the labour that is required with selling a physical product.

This means there is no dealing with manufacturers or suppliers, no picking and packing stock, no dealing with inventory, no dealing with couriers and most importantly, no having to fork out hundreds or thousands of dollars purchasing stock. If you have that type of money, please for the love of God, spend it on the income producing areas of your business instead.

Your job is to get eyes on your vendor’s products and/or business. That is your value to them. That is the currency you trade with.

Like in any business, we all need to grow an audience so you are essentially killing two birds with one stone. Growing your own audience and leveraging it to create value for your vendors, who in turn will pay you for it. Why? Because they want to sell more products.

Simple.

Here are my best tips on how to get this business model right:

Nail Your Concept:

When we work with our clients, we take them through a simple but effective strategy to find their perfect business idea. This can actually be the part that makes or breaks you. A lot of people come to us knowing they want to start an online business, but having no idea what they actually want to do.

We help them find something that is in their everyday life. A common pain point they can find a solution to.

Yes, it is pretty simple but sometimes you just need a hand to hold to get you over that bridge.

It doesn’t have to be a huge complex idea. Keep it simple.

For example, one of my clients Kathryn, has a beautiful fashion style. She loves the classic, timeless, simplistic pieces but always had trouble finding the perfect go-to place. So, we created Hawkins and Co. Her website is a collection of fashionable women’s clothing that matches her own style that she can share with other women.

Because it is something that’s in her everyday life, she can communicate and connect to her audience authentically and from the heart.

Price it Baby:

Most people get this business model wrong because they don’t understand the driving factors.

Value and your audience are key here and if you price too high to start with, vendors will not see the value and sign up with you.

These business models are a numbers game.

The art of the numbers game is to get as many vendors onboard as possible.

Think about Netflix for example. They charge $9.95 per month but they are a multi-million dollar company… why?

Because they offer a low cost, no brainer option that you don’t need to think hard about, then they back it with loads of value to get you to stay.

You need to have super low barriers so vendors will make snap decisions to sign up rather than getting buyer resistance and going away to ‘think about it’.

Down the track if you still want to do an upsell I would do it in your funnel once they have warmed to you and your service. A warm audience always has a higher conversion rate than a cold audience, simply because selling to someone who has already purchased from you and you’ve gained trust with is much easier than selling to someone who doesn’t know you.

Don’t Take, Give:

As mentioned above, these business models rely on value. You need to create that value first, and then ask for the sale.

Think about how when you walk past a shop, and sometimes vendors are out the front offering a taste of what they have. It might be sausages from the butcher. You stop and try it and realise they are actually really nice and buy a whole package. I teach my clients to do something similar.

If you go ahead trying too hard sell your stuff before you let people see your value, your conversions are going to be very low, or even non-existent. That does not create a business with freedom for you.

You are putting yourself into that 95% fail rate here. Use your time wisely, delay gratification and master serving your audience and winning them over first.

Don’t spread yourself too thin trying to do everything at once, choose one social media platform, generate traffic over onto your website and then onto your mailing list so you can own your audience and email market to them forever and a day.

Get The Traffic:

Most people don’t focus on this heavily enough when getting started. A basic strategy of Traffic > Leads > Conversions needs to be followed – in that order. First start with generating traffic to your website, then you need to have a plan in place to convert them into leads. Once they are leads they become a ‘warm audience’ and you can then convert them into sales. Often business owners focus too heavily on trying to make sales before generating traffic and leads and it sucks all their time into a low conversion pattern where they are in feast or famine mode. In the e-course I provide my clients, I give them an easy to follow strategy with an end goal of making their website a magnet for sales.

Smart Cash Flow:

One of the biggest advantages of an online marketplace or directory is that you don’t need to pay crap loads of money to buy stock in order to sell your product. These business models run extremely leanly with your only ongoing obligational costs to trade being your hosting and domain. There are no additional expenses like couriers, manufacturers, envelopes, satchels and the like to suck up your funds.

This means you can invest those funds in a smarter fashion, in the income producing areas of your business instead of the ‘need to stay in business’ areas.

Being successful in business means being smart with where you spend your money and investing it in the right areas. For example, I pay my awesome publicist a lot of money because she is an expert in her field and has secured me some great coverage, like my recent article in Kidspot about how I was fired from my full-time job and now help other Mums find the same freedom and profit I have found with Business Jump. This is an income producing area for me and I am best to leave her to do her thing rather than pull my hair out trying to do it myself.

I also have an amazing business coach who costs $500 for one hour and I pay it because he is 10 steps ahead of where I want to be. He hangs out with the likes of Tony Robbins and Gary Vee and I know that by investing in myself and my self-development I will get to where I want to go faster than trying to do it alone.

Be Nike:

No one ever became good at anything by doing nothing so listen to Nike and just do it. I get you are probably feeling overwhelmed about how it all works on the moving pieces, but you work it out as you go not by waiting for all the answers to come to you. Take small steps of action and they will lead you down the path you need to go in. My Paypal statement proves it.

 

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