Pushing the Envelope: Why You Need to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone as an Entrepreneur

Most people are content to fall into a regular routine. Here’s why, as an entrepreneur, you can never be one of them.

When was the last time you felt uncomfortable?

Let me rephrase that—when was the last time you genuinely challenged yourself? When did you step out of your safe, familiar routine and do something that tested your abilities, something you didn’t think you could do? Chances are good that if you are like most people, you are struggling to remember.

But as an entrepreneur, stepping out of your comfort zone is something for which you need to constantly strive. If you do not seek to break the mold and challenge yourself, you will never grow. And if you do not grow, you will never attain greater success in both your business and personal life.

“Seeking comfort, however natural it is, will never enable growth,” writes Entrepreneur contributor Natalie Bounassar. “Think back to your greatest moments of growth. What was the process like? Was it easy? My guess is no. Growth rarely is.”

Here’s the thing about running a startup: it should not be easy. You should enjoy it, sure. You should love your business and your life with a deep, burning passion. But you also should not feel as though you are coasting along without a care in the world. Startups continue to grow and develop when their founders take risks.

Let’s say you have wound up in something of a rut. You have settled into a consistent, comfortable routine, and you are not sure how to break yourself out of it. You have realized that, in spite of all your best efforts, you are stagnating. Your skills are not developing, your mind is not expanding, and you are functionally standing still.

What can you do about it?

1. Start small.

Identify one weakness of yours: a skill you would like to improve, a process you would like to make better, or a habit you’d like to break. Start thinking about one small thing you might do to be better.

For example, if you have trouble finishing your extremely long to do list each day, start by scheduling one high-priority task a day that you always keep to—a daily workout, perhaps. As a bonus, the daily workout will give you more energy to tackle other more challenging tasks.

2. Look for new opportunities.

Personal growth isn’t always something you will have to do on your own. Is there a public speaking class in your city? Are you aware of a networking event or an expert panel you could sit on? These events bring together like-minded people so they can share ideas and connect with each other.

You never know who you might meet. You might meet a potential new employee or a strategic partner for your company. Meeting others in person also gives you the opportunity to really perfect your elevator speech about your startup. It also helps you continually be able to promote yourself, as well as your business.

If you are not a fan of connecting in person or talking in front of a large group, try putting yourself out there more in an online environment. There are a myriad of options, including guest blogging, participating in a Twitter chat, and starting a Facebook group. These channels all get you out there in front of your target audience.

Sometimes stepping out of your comfort zone in an area outside of your business helps you gain confidence so you can eventually take more risks in your own business. For example, you could learn a new language or volunteer for a non-profit.

3. Work in moderation.

You do not always need to be outside your comfort zone, mind you. Even if you are only doing a few things that challenge your abilities, you are on the right track. You should still stick to what you are good at in the meantime.

4. Never stop striving.

Whether you are setting small goals, intermediate goals, or long-term goals, you should never stop looking for ways to improve yourself. Develop a new, positive habit. Learn something new. Foster a new partnership. But always move forward.

When you set goals, make sure that you are working towards measurable objectives and try to set a time frame for completion. As all entrepreneurs know, it is sometimes hard to stay motivated without a boss checking in on you frequently. Be your own boss and hold yourself accountable.

Conclusion

Personal growth is never easy, pleasant, or comfortable. But as an entrepreneur, it is something you should always aim for. Otherwise, your business will eventually stand still just like you.

So in closing, I will ask again: when was the last time you felt uncomfortable? Maybe it is time to start striving for the discomfort we all naturally fear.

The post Pushing the Envelope: Why You Need to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone as an Entrepreneur appeared first on GrowMap.

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Pushing the Envelope: Why You Need to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone as an Entrepreneur

Facebook Advertising Tips for the ECommerce Entrepreneur

According to a study conducted by MarketingSherpa a couple of years back, the average gross margin for eCommerce stores was found to be somewhere between 30% and 40%.

Gross margin, by definition, is the difference between revenue and cost of goods sold. If you take into account the operating expenses, salaries, taxes and other expenses, the net margin for eCommerce stores can be quite minimal.

It does not actually make sense to advertise your eCommerce store in this scenario. Pay per click advertising has become quite expensive over the years. The conventional logic of identifying niche targeted keywords to advertise might not be profitable any more.

This is also the case with Facebook advertising. The average CPC can be around $ 0.35, and this number is likely to be much higher for newsfeed ads that are known to offer the highest conversion rate. In this article, we will take a look at a few tips that can help eCommerce advertisers sell their products on Facebook.

Use Retargeting Ads

Two million blog posts are written every single day. At the same time, the consumption of internet-based media content has dramatically risen. One study showed that the average user consumes nearly eight hours of media content each day.

And media consumption on the Internet itself has risen 105% between 2010 and 2015. This is a fantastic opportunity for eCommerce advertisers to make use of non-sales targeted content to draw in their niche audience and then retarget these readers with product ads.

Take the example of an eCommerce store selling spare auto parts. The store owner in this case could publish content that covers topics in which a car owner would be highly interested. Once the audience has been drawn in through organic means, these readers can then be retargeted with product ads on Facebook. The CPC in this case is likely to be way lower than that of regular Facebook ads.

Sponsored Message Ads

Facebook has recently been experimenting with ads delivered over Facebook Messenger. In essence, the user would receive from the sponsor a new message notification with which they might engage.

To eCommerce business owners, Facebook Messenger is a lucrative channel. The reason why is they can set up personalized conversations with each of their prospective buyers.

For best results though, you should let the user initiate the conversation with you. You can achieve this by using conventional advertising techniques and using the “Send Message” call to action.

Clicking this CTA will take users to the Messenger window where they can have a conversation about the product with the eCommerce store. You can check out this guide on Facebook advertising from Shopify for a more detailed tutorial.

Use Facebook Offers

The Facebook advertising platform has a number of elements that makes it attractive to eCommerce advertisers. One popular feature is “Offers,” which allows advertisers to promote an offer exclusively to Facebook users. An offer in this instance can be a discount of a certain dollar amount or percentage value. Offers can also be free giveaways or even BOGO (Buy One, Get One) deals.

Advertisers can choose to host the offer campaign within Facebook or redirect it to their own websites. They could also choose to restrict the campaign to their own Facebook groups or make it available to the larger audience across Facebook. The Facebook Offers feature works really well if you sell impulse goods that customers are ready to buy without any significant forethought.

Tie in Facebook Advertising with Other Marketing Channels

As an eCommerce business owner, you are likely to make use of a bunch of marketing channels. These might include advertising, email marketing, content marketing and even offline advertising.

Quite often, marketers make the mistake of assuming that these channels are independent of each other. Because of this misunderstanding, they carry out their campaigns in silos. But doing so is sub-optimal. It not only leads to an inefficient campaign but also could be expensive since you might be spending money acquiring the same customer twice over these different campaigns.

It is important to bring together these different channels in order to have a single view of your customers. You could do so by integrating your audience from your email marketing list with the one from your Facebook channel.

Or you could bring together your retargeting campaigns from both Facebook and Google. Streamlining your campaigns ensures continuity and also brings down the cost of acquiring one unique customer.

The post Facebook Advertising Tips for the ECommerce Entrepreneur appeared first on Growmap.

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Facebook Advertising Tips for the ECommerce Entrepreneur

“What Kind of Business Should I Start?” A Surprising Answer from A Successful Entrepreneur

I often get asked what you might think is a simple question: “What kind of business should I start?”

For the first time in many years, I find myself in the same boat as the folks who ask me that question. I (surprisingly) don’t have a concrete answer to this question for myself right now–but, as I’ll show you in this post, I have a way to figure it out.

After I sold my software company last year, I did a ton of soul-searching. I coached other successful entrepreneurs, and ended 2014 by taking a 3-month, part-time marketing consulting gig for Help.com, a funded software startup. I’m helping them launch a successful software product into the world while I figure out what kind of business I’d like to start.

Is Starting a Business Right For You?

The first question you have to answer for yourself is deciding whether you really want to start a business, or if you’re more interested in the idea of running a business than the actual daily grind of doing so. You have nothing to lose here–be honest!

The truth is, there are many more profitable routes (especially when you take into account short-term profitability.) I make more money now as a consultant and coach than I did when I was running my software company–and that’s not unusual for strong consultants with an in-demand skillset.

Realistically, if I were only looking at the money side of it, I could easily fulfill all my financial obligations and then some by continuing to do coaching and marketing consulting. I also enjoy what I do–as an early-stage startup consultant, I get to do everything from coding a front-end website to writing blog posts to coaching CEOs to writing marketing copy. I have a unique and interesting skillset that’s in high demand. So why not just do that for a while?

My problem seems to be one that plagues many of my readers, and might sound familiar to you as well: I just don’t enjoy working for other people as much as I enjoy working for myself.

I’m now in my mid-thirties and have started, run, and sold several companies, so I no longer fear diving off a cliff and starting a new business. What’s holding me back right now, though, is that I’m not sure what kind of business I want to start.

That’s why I figured I’d open it up here on my blog.

Stepping Up to The Plate with Personal Transparency

I’ve long been a fan of personal and professional transparency, as espoused by people like Pat Flynn and John Lee Dumas with their monthly income reports, and Buffer with their vow of complete transparency with their company. More recently, Dan Norris has come onto the scene doing some great income reports and open transparency on his blog.

I like all of these folks, and their respective companies–but I think it’s time for some other people to step up to the plate in this area, particularly more women. And I know that if I feel that way, I need to take the lead and make this happen! So this year is the year where I become more transparent on my blog about what’s going on with my businesses–even if, like you, I don’t always know exactly where I’m headed.

“So How Do You Decide What Business to Start?”

My first step is to take stock of who I am and where I stand right now. If you’re in the same boat I am, give this a shot as well! What are your strengths and weaknesses? Be honest with yourself.

Here’s where I stand:

1. I want to build a software company, or something that has software as a significant component. I love to code. I’ve been building websites from scratch since 1996 and I still love doing it, 19 years later (wow! 19 years!)
2. I have a large, overarching goal of building a university. In the interest of full transparency, I don’t think of “building a university” in the typical sense of a giant campus with towering buildings, dorm rooms, and beautiful open spaces. I think of it more as a platform that teaches hyperactive ADHD folks like me how to learn.

   I find startups in this space like Coach.me interesting in that sense–a mobile app where you “check in” to your goals every day and can hire coaches to help you. That’s something in the general space of what I’d like to build when I say “I want to build a university.”

3. I’d like to start a podcast, but I don’t want to take on too many things at once.
4. I’m determined to get back into blogging. I’ve realized that to do so, I have to make specific time for it every week. It’s the difference between saying “I’d like to do some yoga” and actually going to classes a few times a week. Blogging takes discipline and focus–two mental muscles I need to build right now, if I want to start another company.
5. I want to build a profitable company. I definitely feel at odds with the whole “seed funding” mentality. I’m not saying getting funding is wrong for everyone–just that my personal preference in building businesses is to take something that has a small up-front monetary investment and turn it into a profitable cash cow, month after month. That’s who I am and what I do–and that’s what I intend to do in 2015.

Looking at all this, one thing is clear: I don’t yet know exactly what I want to build. This is the point where a lot of people stop–they don’t know exactly what they want to do, so they don’t take action.

Yet, I know a profitable business will only be found by going out there and building something. I’m also excited to blog the entire process, because it will be so illuminating to those of you who really want to become an entrepreneur, but–like me right now–don’t know exactly what you want to do.

The Scary Part: Making A Commitment

My commitment to you is: Every week, I’ll blog here about my progress. If I fall flat on my face, I’ll blog that. If I didn’t do crap for the past week, I’ll write about that. If I end up building something that has nothing to do with software or building a university, but it’s still profitable and works, I’ll share all the details about that!

And, if for some reason, I don’t blog one week, well, I’ll pick it up again the next week. I will fail as I go along. I understand my weaknesses (focus and commitment) and my strengths (a strange and exciting combination–I equally love to code and write copy!)

It’s my hope that, in a year, I can come back here and read at least 50 posts about how I built a business that makes money, is profitable, and is growing. Failing that, I can at least read 50 posts about how I tried–how I found out, week by week, what worked and what didn’t work in going from “I have a vague idea of what I want to build” to actually building a business that makes money.

And, with those 50+ posts, I’ll be able to answer one huge question that hundreds of people have asked me: What kind of business should I start?

I’m right where you are. Stay tuned (and join my email list, below) if you’d like to have some input into where I’m headed in 2015. I welcome your feedback.

Here’s to a very interesting 2015!

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The post “What Kind of Business Should I Start?” A Surprising Answer from A Successful Entrepreneur appeared first on Starting Your Own Business with Erica Douglass.

Starting Your Own Business with Erica Douglass

“What Kind of Business Should I Start?” A Surprising Answer from A Successful Entrepreneur