In this week’s episode of the Extra Paycheck Podcast we’re talking about the importance of building by yourself.
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We often talk about scaling a business by outsourcing and hiring assistants.
It’s a great strategy however you shouldn’t even think about it if you’re just starting out. In this episode we’ll talk about the importance of doing everything by yourself when you’re just launching your online business.
Find Your Voice
So many beginners completely hate creating content especially when it comes to writing. I get it. I used to hate writing articles. However you should still do it. When you write blog posts or articles you’ll spend a lot of time figuring out not only what you can write but also how you write it. This will help you find and establish your writing style and your voice. If you looked through articles on my blog you’ll realize that the writing style, although simple, is very consistent.
Your visitors will get to know you better and they will expect your writing style. Those who dislike your writing style will not come back to your website and that’s okay because you don’t need them anyway.
If you outsource your content creation from day 1 you will never find your voice. Every single writer you hire will have a different writing style and your readers will feel that something’s off. You figure out your voice, establish your style and only then hire writers that can create in the same style as you.
Understand Your Audience
Nobody cares about your business as much as you do. You probably already know that you need to know your niche and your perfect customer before you sell them something. This is the reason why you need to start communicating with your audience on a personal level. Do not hire an assistant for it just yet. Get in touch with them, learn about their biggest problems and offer them potential solutions. Learn every single thing about them.
Once you know your audience like the palm of your hand you can think of hiring assistants.
Learn Problem Solving
An online business has so many different pieces to it. There is the technical part of setting up your site. There is the creative part of content creation. Then there is the actual marketing (SEO, PPC, Social Media, etc). You need to have at least a basic idea of how all of these parts work and how they come together.
For example, if you are running on WordPress you need to be able to diagnose website issues. What if your website goes down and your “IT-guy” is on vacation or not picking up his phone because it’s 4 in the morning? Will you contact your host? Domain provider? Your uncle? If you spend some time learning the (technical) basics of running a website you’ll be able to fix most issues instantly. If there is a problem beyond your abilities you’ll know who’s the right person to contact in order to solve it.
What if you hire a PPC expert from that Craigslist ad and she spends your monthly PPC budget in one day and won’t be able to show you any results? If you knew a little bit about PPC you would have asked her the right questions before hiring her.
And do you know why your Youtube videos aren’t getting any views? That’s because your assistant uploaded them on Youtube without doing any video SEO. So go on Youtube, upload a video and understand what’s important and how to make that video rank well. When you finally hire an assistant you’ll be able to explain to them how to name a file, how to add description, what kind of keywords are needed and so on.
Many other details are shared throughout the show so scroll up and press that PLAY button.
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– Alex
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