What I Would Do Differently If I Was Starting Today (Transcript) Hi there. Henri here. In this audio class I wanted to cover what I would do differently if I was starting my online business today. There is always something we can do better when we look back. When I was starting out I was just focused on making money and moving forward. I didn t really know what I was doing. I was confused, scared, and overwhelmed just like maybe you are from time to time. I kept taking small steps. I just constantly focused on what I could do next to move forward. That s a really good plan but it also exposed me to some mistakes. I wasn t really aware of any strategy or what my business would look like in the future. One thing it did do was get me to where I am today. I could have just given up and tried to think about strategy but that wasn t the place I was at, at that time. I just kept on going. That s really what you have to do. You have to listen to yourself. If you re overwhelmed by strategy and all this stuff then you just need to keep on doing what you can do. You can only do the best you can and you can only learn at the pace you learn. However, many of those mistakes that are made could have been avoided. That s what I want to cover in this class. Even though we re going to be covering things I would do differently, I don t really regret anything I ve done because what I ve done has helped me to get to where I am now. Even though I m not at the perfect place, I m happy with where I m at. I m constantly growing, learning, and experimenting and that s what you should do as well. Just be okay with being where you are and let things unfold naturally. There s no need to rush things. We re going to be covering five main things. We re going to begin at the beginning, which is number one.
1. Treat Everything As A Business I would treat everything as a business. What I mean by this is that I would focus on metrics that matter such as email list subscribers and income, actual money coming in the door. I got caught up in the whole blogging hamster wheel in the beginning where I wanted to give everything away. I didn t really have a strategy. I just wanted to get traffic and build my email list. I didn t really think about what kind of traffic I was getting or what kind of people I was attracting. Today, things are very different. I plan ahead. Most of the stuff I do has a purpose. I say most of the stuff because I m not perfect. Everyone has gaps. I m still learning, like I said. I still think I have a lot to learn. I ve gotten really good by working on my own business, growing my business, and also working on and helping my clients grow their business. If I could go back I would treat my business more as a real business. Having an online business or a lifestyle business is no different than a regular business. A few things are different such as the fact that you barely have any overhead. The margins are low so you can make a huge profit selling digital products and services. All that is much better and it requires a much smaller investment on your part. In the end, I m in this to make money and you are, too. We also want to help people. The truth is that the more money you make the more you can help people. When you have bigger and better resources you can really reinvest that into your business and give even more value to your customers and clients. 2. Push That brings us to the second thing I would have done differently, which is I would have pushed myself more. When I started I did push myself out of my comfort zone and I built an audience of thousands of subscribers very quickly. After a while, I got complacent and I wanted to stay in my comfort zone so my growth stalled for a while.
Again, I want to mention that it s easy to look back in hindsight and say that I would have done this or that different. If I could go back, I would have guest posted more, created bigger and more comprehensive training courses, and I would have become clearer on my message and the value I provide people. Then again, I just kept taking action at that time and things worked out fine. I got into some rough times. I got frustrated and I almost quit several times. I just kept on going and it brought me to where I am today. 3. Charge More That brings us to a third thing I would have done differently, which is that I would have charged more. By charge more I mean charge more for my products. When I launched my first few products I put a really low price on them. The first one was $19 for a really comprehensive course on article marketing. The second was an ebook on how to live a passionate life or how to do what you love. Looking back, I would have priced the article marketing course at at least $47 or even more because it was really comprehensive, step-by-step, and it revealed strategies I used at that time to get excellent results and create extra income streams that still are running today. In essence, I would have charged more. If you re just thinking about putting out an ebook that s fine. If it s your first ebook or first product you should keep it really simple. Once you start to see that people are buying your product then you should start talking to your customers and asking them what they liked and didn t like. Then you can start adding maybe an audio version of your ebook. You can start adding worksheets, videos, interviews, and just think about how you can provide more value. The more value you provide, the more you can charge, which in turn means that you can reinvest the money you make into your business, create more products, and serve more customers, which in turn means that you can impact more lives. It s not always easy to charge more when you re starting out.
4. Mentor/Coach This brings us to the fourth thing I would have changed or done differently. That is that I would have gotten a mentor or coach earlier. I would actually have paid someone to help me one-on-one to map out the strategy and business plan that I was working on. Today, I am working with a business coach who is helping me constantly stay on track. It s someone I can bounce my ideas off of because I tend to have a million ideas and sometimes it s hard to stay on track because I m not really sure which idea is good, when it should be implemented, and how it should be done. This really helps me make progress faster and it motivates me to take action. When I put my own money on a stake because I m paying my coach every month, it motivates me to get a result for my own business. What I did for a long time was to simply go at this alone which is strange because I used coaches and mentors when I learned to play poker professionally and when I learned to build niche websites. I guess I thought that I already knew what I needed to know. Obviously, that wasn t the case. Don t overestimate what you can do. If you can, work with a coach that s doing something you want to do and it s someone you want to learn from. If you can t afford a coach, you join a training course or training program that shows you step-by-step how to do things and where you can actually interact with the product creator. In the end, the fastest path to building a profitable lifestyle business that supports you and lets you live the life you want is by getting into the brain of someone who has built a business and who is in the trenches doing what you want to do. You also have to remember that all of this does not happen overnight.
5. Patience That brings us to our last point, which is patience. I would have been more patient and just accepting how things come about and grow naturally. This may seem to contradict everything I ve said because I ve just been talking about how you can do more and how you can make progress faster. I m an impatient guy. I want things to happen now. That means I m prone to making mistakes because I want to force results. I want to grow faster now and I want to help more people right this minute. If that s not happening then I can sometimes get frustrated. That s really where a coach also comes in because I can talk to my coach and go through what s bothering me and what I can do right now to start moving in the direction I want to go. Really building a business takes time. An example of this is that I recently asked a few coaching clients of mine how long they have actually been with me. How long have they been reading my articles or how long have they been on my newsletter? One of them said nine months. The other said two years. This just shows you that it takes time to build trust and it also takes time for people to reach a stage where they re ready to take action and where they have the ability to potentially spend thousands with me on my products or my coaching. That s why it s so important to have patience and above all be consistent with what you re doing. There are a lot of marketers out there selling hype and promising that you ll be making thousands of dollars within just a few months, which is actually possible. It does not happen without putting in the work. You have to have patience when you are doing this. Don t rush things, think things through, and work with someone who you trust and someone who can help you move forward.
That brings us to the end of this short audio class on what I would have done differently if I were to start over again today. Summary Let s briefly summarize what we ve covered. We started with how I would create everything as a business. I would focus on metrics that matter, which is email list subscribers and income. Then number two was that I would push myself more because building an online business really puts you outside of your comfort zone. You have to do things you re not necessarily comfortable with, such as making videos, learning technical things, putting together a business model, doing research, writing articles, or even recording a podcast or audio class like I m doing now. Number three was that I would charge more. I would look at how I could add more value to my products and then charge more for them. Often, people undervalue themselves because when you know something and you know it really well it s going to feel like its too simple to actually charge for. What you forget is that when you know something, other people don t necessarily see it as simple as you do. You have to really allow yourself to charge as much as you re worth because it s going to attract better clients and it s going to make this much more fun. Number four was that I would get a mentor or coach right away. You need someone you can bounce your ideas off of and you need someone to help you with strategy and look forward with your online business. Above all, you need someone that can help you when you re freaking out, overwhelmed, and just want to give up. Last but not least, we covered patience and how I would have just allowed my business to grow naturally. This is something I realized lately when I ve actually asked my clients how long it has taken them to reach the point where they trust me and where they are ready to take action.
Last Words Before we end this class, I just want to say that all of this really takes time. To me, that s okay. This is not about becoming an overnight success. It s about creating space in your life where you can build an online business that supports your lifestyle. It will happen if you keep moving forward. What happens is that most people give up. That really sucks. I know that you can do this if you just keep moving forward. To me, building an online business is also a path of personal growth. You really have to become aware of the beliefs that are blocking you from taking the next step. That s something we ll cover hopefully in a future audio class. That s all I wanted to cover in this class on what I would do differently if I was going to start over today. I hope you ve enjoyed it and as always if you have any questions, just let me know. This is Henri signing out. Bye for now.