The biggest things stopping you from building a profitable online business and how to overcome them (Part 2)

I recently surveyed my email list and asked them what's standing between them and their goals. After reviewing the responses, there were definitely some common threads! This is the second (of 2) special episodes where I'm sharing the biggest things that may be stopping you too from building a profitable online business *and* how you can overcome them.

– Why reinvesting back into your business is essential for growth.
– How understanding what's *really* behind your procrastination can help you to actually get it done.
– The truth behind your fear of selling—what is it really?
– How intentionally getting in front of the right people has changed in recent years and what no longer works like it used to.
– Why communicating the value in what you do is so important for people to understand and care about what you're selling.

 

 
This is part two today of the biggest things that are stopping you from building a profitable online business that has come up over and over again when I've surveyed my audience, the things that are holding you back from achieving your goals and building the business you want to build.

Today we're looking at the next five as well as some ways that you can overcome these things so you can keep growing your business. 

All right, let's jump in. 

 

#1: No budget to spend on your business's growth. 

Guess what? Investing in your business means it's going to grow a lot quicker than if you're trying to build it without spending any money at all. And I see way too many people trying to build their businesses without spending a cent and then wondering why it's growing so slowly. Of course, it's going to grow slowly if you can't invest in it and if you don't have the budget yet. 

Once you start making money in your business, once you start making those sales, rather than withdrawing all of that money out of your business, you could choose to reinvest some of it back into the business.

And you know, I've reinvested so heavily into my business. That's the one way that I've been able to grow it but I also started with zero. I started this current business off the back of a previous business that failed so I had no savings and the only income that I had coming in was a part-time job that I had taken because my last business ran out of money. But as I started making more money in the business, I started investing in things like paid advertising so I could speed up my email list growth, online courses to learn new skills, and coaching to make me a more effective business owner, more effective leader, speeding up my own growth, hiring and outsourcing to other people so I could buy back my time so that I could spend my hours on the tasks that created the most value for the business.

These are all ways that I've been able to grow the business faster but they didn't come free. So you have to be willing to make some sacrifices potentially in your lifestyle so it's a little bit cheaper. So you can reinvest a little bit more back into your business rather than withdrawing all of the money out if you can.

 

#2: Procrastination. 

Now, I've had a lot of experience with procrastinating. I have spent many sessions talking about it with my therapist, and I've learned that most procrastinating happens because we're trying to avoid something. Usually, we try to avoid a feeling like inadequacy, boredom or fear, but we can't avoid these things forever.

And I was reading a great article recently that talked about how we can't only choose to feel the good feelings in life and avoid the bad feelings. We have to embrace it, all of them because that is life and procrastinating is one way that we're being like, Oh, this feels boring. I don't want to feel boredom. So I'm going to avoid it. For me, boredom is one of the most painful feelings. I hate feeling bored. So I want to avoid it as if I'm trying to pick and choose what feelings I want to feel and not feel. So the next time that you are procrastinating something, try to identify what is that feeling that you're trying to avoid.

And when you allow yourself to feel it, you'll probably find that it's not as bad as how it feels trying to avoid it. I know that when I'm trying to avoid boredom by procrastinating. I then end up piling on all of this like guilt and shame and you know, I should be doing this, I should be doing that, so I can't even relax fully because at the back of my mind, it's like, oh, well, I'm avoiding this thing and it just ends up being a big mess.

 

#3: Fear of selling. 

So selling on its own isn't something to be afraid of. Your ideal client has a problem. You have the solution to their problem and they can't solve their problem unless you tell them about the solution. So selling can be a really good thing, assuming that you are doing it ethically.

And in my experience with my students and my clients, there's usually something that they are afraid of that sits underneath the “I'm afraid of selling”. They might be afraid of rejection or inadequacy. You know, that the thing that they are selling isn't good enough or they're afraid of being judged. 

So when the next time you're feeling a little bit afraid of selling. Think about what is it that's sitting underneath that. What are you really afraid of when you are selling to your audience? Often it can be caused by self-doubt and back in episode 689, I shared some tips on how to overcome self-doubt. 

 

#4: Reaching the right people and growing your audience. 

The reason you are probably struggling with this is that the things you are doing to grow your audience aren't effective anymore. Yes, posting reels with trending audios might have grown your Instagram audience a few years ago but they don't anymore. And if you do have one that goes viral and you get this big influx of followers, the chances of these people being your ideal clients, they're pretty slim, right? So instead, what are you doing to intentionally get in front of the right people rather than waiting for them to magically find you? You have to put yourself in front of them. 

You have to get out there and social media isn't the place to do this. I use social media as a way to nurture my existing audience. I share content on Instagram to nurture my audience, not to grow my audience. The stuff that grows my audience is the interviews I do on other people's podcasts, the speaking gigs that I will sometimes travel halfway around the world for, the teaching to other people's audiences, and the paid ads that I run.

Most people don't do all of these because these things require a big investment of time or money, but you've got to do the things that other people aren't doing to grow your audience. 

 

#5: Getting people to see the value in what you're selling.

This can be tough because you are the expert in what you do. You know why someone should care about what you are selling. You know how much value is there but most of the time when people don't see the value in what you are selling, it's because your messaging is off. You haven't communicated it in a way that makes sense to them where they can see. Oh, I see why I should value this.

 

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