Take Your Business To The Next Level! Being an entrepreneur means taking decisions by yourself, but in this episode I’m going to share with you why listening to your community could mean the difference between failure and success!
Take Your Business To The Next Level! Being an entrepreneur means taking decisions by yourself, but in this episode I’m going to share with you why listening to your community could mean the difference between failure and success!
hello, I’m your host Kaycinho, I’m a digital alchemist, and this episode, is episode number two of a module dedicated to “the after-launch phase” of starting your business. So if you haven’t seen the first episode, I invite you to take a look at this playlist.
And by the way, this module is the fifth and last module of a course dedicated to take you from the burning desire to become your own boss to actually launching your business.
So if you want access to the full course (videos will be added until the course is complete) by clicking here.
Take Your Business To The Next Level
From the very beginning of a freelancer or digital entrepreneur journey, more often than not, you will spend a lot of time with yourself.
From the seed that was this crazy idea to fly on your own up until the moment you’ve launched your business and went live, you’ve had to make a lot of decisions on your own at each steps in the process.
Sure, we often ask advices to friends & family, but if you’ve spent enough time on this channel, you know that this is not necessarily something I recommend.
And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I invite you to check this video that talks in detail about just that.
So as I said, from the very beginning you’ve had to make a lot of decisions on your own: after all it’s YOUR vision, YOUR idea, YOUR business, so that’s fair enough.
And that’s what an entrepreneur is at his core: someone who can make decisions to reach the goals defined by his very subjective vision.
Of course an entrepreneur is more than just that, but the decision making process and the vision are essential parts of the journey.
So am I saying that as an entrepreneur you should only listen to yourself?
Not at all!
If you want to take your business to the next level, you certainly shouldn’t listen to everybody that has an opinion about how you should run your business, but, to make your business a success, it helps to listen to:
1) A qualified and experienced mentor.
And we’ve already tackled that in the video mentioned before.
2) A community that can help you assess your position in the market as well as ideas about what your potential customers want and don’t want.
3) Your peers.
Instead of seeing your peers as competitors that will eat your market share, having healthy business relationships with your peers can actually tremendously benefit your business.
But we’ll talk about that precise point in our next video.
So let’s focus on point number 2: listening to your community.
Take Your Business To The Next Level: Your Community
First of all, that means that you must have some kind of community to listen to.
One of the mistakes I initially made when I started freelancing, was to work alone, as a lonely monk, without any network or community of some sort.
And that’s bad because think about it: when freelancing, if you’re working from home, you don’t get to see anyone so that’s already a tough one for your social skills, but more so, you don’t get valuable input on your work.
Now I know some people work in digital co-working spaces, and that’s great, but many freelancers work alone from home. So that’s when a community comes in handy.
Now if you’ve been following along the first four modules of this course, and especially if you’ve read the resources I recommend for the creation of your one page Marketing plan, you know that building a community is a key component to your success.
Take Your Business To The Next Level: No Community?
Let’s imagine you just land on my blog for the first time, already have a business and no community whatsoever, what should you do?
Get one or build one!
For example, if you are a freelance web designer, you could join a Facebook group of Entrepreneurs that align with your values but that don’t have web design skills, and become an active member.
Not with the one and only goal to sell your services, but rather to help and provide value to other members.
Not only will you learn a lot yourself in the process, but you will also broaden your social and professional circle AND you will have interesting input from people that match your ideal customer profile.
If people appreciate you, and you ask them an honest review, let’s say for example about the quality of your designs, or your pricing policy, they will take the time to share their honest opinion with you.
And that my friend is a gold mine!
Because that will help you to tailor your presentation, your services and your pricing to what your market actually responds to, rather than guessing and wasting a lot of time.
Offline can help too!
Now, believe it or not, online is not the only place you should look for a community. As I’ve talked about it before, local business meetup groups are also a gold mine when it comes to feedback.
With the advantage of seeing people’s reactions face to face and building local partnerships.
And what if you are selling products and not services?
So for example let’s imagine you are selling WordPress themes. Well: you could go on a marketplace that sell WordPress themes, choose a popular product and hang around in the comments section to see what people like about the product and what could be improved.
Next: repeat the operation but this time in the comments section of a badly rated product and draw some conclusions. Then look at your own products and compare them to the feedback you previously got from the five stars product and the feedback from the one star product.
That will help you adjust and refine your own products from the direct and brutal feedback of people who have actually spent money to purchase a product similar to yours.
Take Your Business To The Next Level: Your Vision
Now a word of caution here: I’m not saying you should let anyone dictate what you should and should not do. After all, you have the vision and sometimes you need to go on with your ideas.
The best example is Steve Jobs: kicked out of his own company, then comes back, saves Apple from bankruptcy and transforms it into one of the most profitable companies on planet earth, with products that were a true revolution when they were first released, like the iPhone and the iPad.
But those products only came to life because they were initially in his own mind and he believed they could become a reality despite what other people without the vision had told him.
So, no, I’m not talking about letting go of your vision because someone just said your idea or product sucks.
What I’m talking about is being smart enough to identify elements that do matter to your potential customers and that can directly impact your business.
For example, if you see many people complaining online about the fact that they hate WordPress themes that use a specific page builder because it makes the editing process slow as hell, well …
If you gather enough feedback that goes in that direction, if you have the resources, it could be an opportunity to develop a better page builder, based on the feedback of what people hate and love about WordPress page builders.
Or if you just want focus on your own products without spending months or years developing a better page builder, you could just go and and research a better page builder that people praise in the same proportions and then develop your products or services around that better tool.
THAT is listening to your community and making the best out of it!
Take Your Business To The Next Level: Getting Input
Well, when you belong to a community, and you are a valuable member, it will be way easier to get good advice when it comes to the tools you need for your business.
People will share their experience, because they know you care when they have a question, so most people will want to return the favor.
So in our example, by combining the feedback of users as well as the advice of experienced members of the community, you would have a recipe for success.
Now as previously mentioned, not all advices are equal, but as an entrepreneur you will develop your gut feeling, and with experience you will know who to listen to.
It’s not a surprise that some of the best products and services out there come from people with a large following. But people with a large following that listen to the community.
Who is your community?
Now the community may be your online followers, your customers, but it could also be your employees if have your own company.
Many years ago I used to work for an airline that was part of the Virgin group from Richard Branson.
I’ve never forgotten how amazed I got when I found out that there was an idea box where any employee could drop an idea, regardless of their level of studies or their position in the company.
And if the idea was deemed interesting, the employee was to go and pitch his or her idea. And if the project was accepted, that person would be in charge!
Now I don’t know how it worked in other companies of the Virgin group, but I can tell you that I believe that most ideas in that company came from the employees themselves.
The genius of Sir Richard Branson has been to listen to that community.
When it’s your turn, will you listen to your community?
Take Your Business To The Next Level: Your Turn!
So, I hope that this video helped you understand why should you pay special attention and listen to your community after you’ve launched your business and why it can help you take your business to the next level.
I’d be interested to know your own experience with the feedback from your community in regards to your own business, so if you have success stories to share, please let me know in the comments.
If you watched the companion video and if you like it, please give it a thumbs up, as it really helps growing the channel and if you know someone that could benefit from it, I’m going to ask you if you’d like to share it now.
Because let’s face it, there are so many things to do in a day that if you don’t do it now you’ll probably forget.
Now if you want to brand, market and grow your business it in the Digital Age make sure you subscribe to my email newsletter so that you never miss your share of digital alchemy and tips, tools, services and case studies that can help you grow your business online.
So, that’s it for this video, I hope to see you around here or on the Youtube channel, and in the meantime, don’t forget to invest in your success.