Ask Steph: What should I create and launch first? I’m so overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed to the point of inaction, today's listener is struggling to decide which of their many ideas she should be focusing on to develop their first launch. A common problem faced by business owners at all stages, today I'm sharing tips to overcome this issue:

– How to choose your ONE path to success by finding the best person to follow and invest in, whose content aligns with your business's current position and vision
– The 3 key factors to building and creating a sustainable business and avoiding the misstep of putting the cart before the horse.
– How to release the clutter to focus on one single offer and really commit to the process of creating and selling this offer through to completion.

Have a question you'd like me to answer on the show? Write in with your question at https://stephtaylor.co/asksteph

 

I'm answering a listener question from somebody who is feeling really overwhelmed, about what to start organising and creating and launching first. 

I am a new business owner. I have so many ideas for things to create and launch, but I have a hard time seeing how it all works together, which to create and launch first, what kind of funnels I should be building, what I should be promoting, and where. 

I get overwhelmed to the point of inaction. My question is how can I organize my ideas and devise a plan that I know will be successful without spending five to $10,000 on a business coach or program? Trying to piece together info I find with free content and on Google makes me second guess every decision and makes me even more overwhelmed. 

 

Choose your ONE path to success by finding the best person to follow and invest in

Stop trying to piece together all of the free content and the Google searches. You said it yourself, it is making you feel way more overwhelmed. 

And that is because there is more than one path to success. There are multiple ways you can build a successful business, but everybody in their free content is trying to sell you on theirs. Which only makes you feel like you have to do all of the different things and you don't. Pick one person to follow, or if you want to follow more than one. make sure that you are consuming their content in this way – I wonder what I could learn from this rather than I have to do everything they're saying, otherwise I'm going to fail. 

You don't have to launch things if you don't want to. There are other ways to do it, but if you're consuming my content and you're consuming somebody else's content that's telling you, oh, you have to create evergreen courses, and then you're consuming somebody else's content that says, you have to create a high-ticket mastermind. 

Suddenly you're going to be thinking, “I have to be doing live courses. I have to be doing evergreen courses. I have to do a mastermind.”

I would recommend investing some money into a structured program that you can follow because free content isn't enough. Free content usually makes you feel more overwhelmed. 

They're telling you all of the different things to do, but they're not telling you how to. They're not giving you a structure. They're not giving you a plan, a framework, and they're not giving you the support and the accountability that you need to take action. That is the real benefit of paid programs – you will generally have more support and accountability. 

Even if it's just your own accountability because now you've got invested money in it. You have skin in the game. So you are more likely to show up and consume that. 

The next point that I want to make is I want you to notice where you are putting the cart before the horse. You are asking the question, what kind of funnels should I be building? Why are you even thinking about what funnels to build when you don't know what you are selling yet? 

That is putting the cart before the horse. Once you know what you're selling, then you'll be able to come up with a plan for how to sell. But you don't need to worry about how you're going to sell or what funnels you're going to build until you actually know what you are selling. Once you know what you're selling, then you're going to be so excited to get that out into the world, that you will find a way to come up with the right funnels and you will experiment. 

And let me tell you, you don't need to overcomplicate them. You don't need all of the trips, wires and upsells and down-sells and all of the things because the best funnel in the world won't sell something that isn't simply selling. 

 

Building and creating a sustainable business

Now, the basics of building a sustainable business. Firstly, your offers, you need to know what you are actually selling. So once you know what you're selling, then you can decide, where am I going to show up online. Where am I going to grow my audience? 

Maybe you are going to start podcasting. Maybe you're going to commit to showing up regularly on Instagram. Maybe you're going to start showing up on YouTube, wherever that is, commit to showing up regularly and consistently. And consistent sharing of good content is going to be way more effective than any fancy funnel, but it seems like much harder work than just setting up a funnel and promoting it everywhere and never having to worry about it ever again. 

But unfortunately, that is a big myth that doesn't usually happen. You have to be consistently showing up and sharing good content unless you have a big budget to spend on paid ads or publicity, all of those things, but if you are starting with zero marketing budget or a very low marketing budget, then you need to stop thinking, how am I going to promote my offer? And you don't need to start thinking like a creator. 

You need to start thinking like a YouTuber or a podcaster and that is you need to create consistently good content so you can grow your audience. And then nurture them through to buying from you. Then you need to sell those offers to your audience. 

So you are taking your audience on a journey and getting them to come back and buy from you more. More than once, and it's not about selling incomplete products. It's not about not helping them fully and keeping them always wanting more. It's about preempting, what problems they will have along the way. So that you can keep serving them throughout their journey. 

Then the last step after you sell those offers to your audience is delivering a really good experience to your clients, your students, and your customers. So that they refer their friends so that they come back and work with you again and again. 

So those are like the real foundations of a sustainable business and until you have those foundations, you don't need to worry about what funnels you're going to have, or any of those complicated things. 

Again, this is because you are consuming that free content and somebody is telling you, you need to be building these funnels. So now straight away, you're thinking, I have to build these funnels even though you don't have the foundations in place for that sustainable business 

 

You can't serve anybody if you're not creating anything.

As long as these ideas are just floating around in your head as ideas. So park all of these ideas, except one, focus on one offer you can create and sell right now and see it through to completion. And then spend the rest of your time and energy on creating content. 

I know you didn't start your business to be a marketer. You probably didn't start it to be a creator, but unless you hire somebody else to do it or you have the budget to invest in paid ads and publicity, you are going to need to create good content. It's going to need to be better than good content. It needs to be remarkable content. There is so much content out there at the moment. 

Then remember to sell those offers, don't assume that because it's on your website, somebody knows where to find it to create that offer. Create good content. Sell that offer. That is the foundation for a sustainable business and anything else is really contributing to the overwhelm. 

 

 

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