The core foundations for a successful online business

The foundations of an online business might not seem as shiny and exciting as other things, however, they are critical in running a business that continues to grow even when you step away from your laptop screen. Today I'm sharing the five core foundations essential to building a business that gives you freedom.

In this episode, I'm chatting about:
– How to avoid ‘The messy middle' where you have neither financial freedom nor time freedom.
– Why getting complete clarity on the vision in your business is so important
– How to define your business model—the foundation that underpins everything you do in business
– Establishing systems and structure and building your platform to position yourself as the ‘no-brainer' in your niche
– The benefit of developing a sales process that will support consistent sales generation and business growth

 

Today, I'm sharing the core foundations of an online business that is sustainable and in its growth and that thrives even when you're offline. And the reason I talk about foundations is that often we're so quick to prioritise the things that we think are going to get us growth. The things that give us that short-term feedback loop of, oh yes, this is working, I'm getting more followers or I'm getting more subscribers or people are visiting my website, but the foundations are the things that tend to give us longer-term results. But these will really set you up for a business that is sustainable when it grows, that is able to keep growing when you're not at your desk, 24/7. 

Now what I tend to see when I see business owners stuck in this messy middle phase, this phase where they're making money, but they're working way harder than they want to be or they're not making enough money to have the financial freedom that they want, but they are already working harder than they want to be. And it's usually because they're making one of these two mistakes. 

 

Mistake #1: They're focusing on nothing in particular. 

So one day they might be starting a podcast and the next day they are creating Instagram reels. The next day they are outlining a course, then the next day they create an ebook and it feels productive because they are so busy, but they're not seeing results because they change tact before any of these things even has a chance to work. 

And that's because growth requires consistency and consistency requires focus, which leads me to the next big mistake.

 

Mistake #2: Focusing on the wrong things in your business. 

Focusing on the wrong things can at best be a waste of your time and at worst lead you to build a business that is completely out of alignment with what you really want from your life and from your business. And I have made this mistake before, and it was heartbreaking because I had to completely destroy the business that I had built and rebuild it from scratch. 

And I was already a few years in, so it wasn't like I was brand new and just making little tweaks, it was a complete rebuild. And because I had focused on the wrong things, I created a business that gave me even less freedom than my corporate job did. 

So let's chat about the foundations of a sustainable business that creates freedom for you. Now, when I talk about freedom, for some people, it might be being able to take a month offline and go travelling. For others, it might mean the freedom to log off at 12 o'clock every day or the freedom to take school holidays off when your kids are at home and spend that quality time with them, it might mean financial freedom. Being able to choose where you live, what you do, and what clients you say no to. 

So, whatever your definition of freedom is, the foundations are still going to be the same, but how you execute them will be slightly different. 

 

Foundation #1: Your vision.

The first foundation is your vision. If you looked at my Instagram account back in 2018, then you would think that I was living the dream. I was travelling around Europe. I was living in Airbnbs, I was working from a little laptop. And from the outside, looking in, you would have thought I had total freedom. 

And I really built a business that I hated. And now looking back, I know where I went wrong. But when I was in it at that point, I had no idea how to go from where I was to the kind of business that I wanted to create. And I now know that I made the mistake that way too many online business owners make and that was that I built my business upside down. 

So I had yet to learn what that bigger vision that I was building was, and that's how I built a business that I didn't really want. 

 

Foundation #2: Your business model.

What is your niche? What's your value proposition? In other words, who do you serve and why should they work with you over anyone else? 

What do you sell? What are your offerings? Where do you reach your audience? How do you deliver your offers? What's the customer experience? What are your revenue streams? What resources and partners and suppliers do you need to operate your business? What are your operating costs? All of these things play into your business model and it's not sexy. 

It's nowhere near as sexy as launching a podcast or deciding to start an online course or any of these fun, shiny things. But it matters so much more because once we know that bigger picture of how the business plays out, then we have a real business, then we know what we're building, and then we know how we can achieve that vision in a way that's going to create freedom for us. 

 

Foundation #3: Your platform.

Where are you reaching your audience? Where are you consistently showing up online? And what content are you sharing that positions you not as the expert but as the only one as the no-brainer for the right people? 

And the reason I'm saying you don't want to position yourself just as an expert is because when you're an expert, then you are competing against all of the other experts. And there are so many experts, right? 

If you have nothing that sets you apart from them, then people are going to decide on things like price and the person who is the cheapest is probably not going to be the best. And then with the content that you're sharing, how are you creating structure and systems around it so that you can stay consistent even when you're super busy and how can you make it as easy as possible for you to stay consistent even when you're an inconsistent person?

 

Foundation #4: Selling your offers.

So what process do you have in place for selling to your audience? Once someone follows you or subscribes to your email list or visits your website or downloads your lead magnet or whatever they do with you, what is next? What is the next step that's moving them closer to buying? 

Because if you are thinking that they will read your sales page and instantly be like, yes, I'm in. And that's it. That's not going to generate consistent sales in your business. Or on the flip side, if you are hoping that they will follow you and there'll be there. 

Consuming all of your content for months until you next promote an offer or you run a flash sale and then they'll buy from you. You're potentially leaving a lot of money on the table. 

 

Foundation #5: Delivery.

How are you delivering a great experience for your clients and your customers so they come back to you time and time again? And what systems do you have in place to streamline this so that you're not always on the back foot? And that your time isn't all going into client delivery. And how will you manage this as you grow? How will you manage customer support, client delivery, and customer delivery? If you have products, how are you going to manage all of this as you grow? 

We often want that growth in our business, but we're not ready for it when it happens. So having systems in place can set you up for that kind of growth. 

 

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