Do you ever feel totally overwhelmed when it comes to how to start or grow your side hustle and actually start making some money?
Should I be on Instagram?
Should I be livestreaming?
Should I be on Pinterest?
What email system is best?
Should I work on SEO?
Should I do Facebook ads?
Today I’m going to share with you my best tips and advice for what to focus on in 2019 if you want to build a sustainable business and get traction.
So, before we dive in, I know that there are a lot of you out there listening to this podcast and your business is not a side hustle, it’s your main hustle.
So I just want you to know that this podcast is for you too!
Everything I share on Pep Talks for Side Hustlers is to help you grow and market your online business from the perspective of someone who is just a few steps ahead of you.
And I want to motivate you to keep going no matter what, because here’s the thing:
The podcasts I’ve listened to to learn how to market and grow my business are made by wildly successful multiple six and seven figure entrepreneurs, like Amy Porterfield and Pat Flynn and Chalene Johnson and Being Boss.
And while their content is amazing and they share tactics and strategies that entrepreneurs at any income level are able to replicate, they are so far beyond us in their journeys that sometimes it’s hard to look at their stories and see the possibility for ourselves.
Like, what if you can’t possibly imagine making a hundred thousand dollars or a million dollars?
But…
Can you imaging working from home?
Being your own boss, making enough money to fund your lifestyle and having financial freedom and control over your time?
I can’t teach you to make a million dollars because I haven’t done it (yet).
I CAN teach you how to make a hundred thousand dollars in a year because I have done that, but I didn’t start there.
It took a few years to get there.
I can teach you how to structure your online business so that it actually makes money, and I can teach you tried and true principles that work no matter what all the algorithms do.
Leave me a review???
So before we dive in, I think podcasting is one of the most amazing ways to connect with an audience.
I mean, if you’re anything like me, you’re listening to this and you’re in your car right now, or working out, or walking the dog, or cleaning your house.
And I look at my stats, and there are hundreds of you that listen to this podcast every single day. That blows my mind!
I want you to know how much I appreciate you – and I also have an ask – because there are hundreds of you that listen, but I only have 16 reviews on iTunes at the time of this recording!
If you are one of those 16 people – you are awesome and amazing, thank you!
But if you listen via iTunes like my stats tell me that the majority of you do, and you haven’t left me a review, can you please take a moment to do it?
Not if you’re driving, of course. Do it when you get to work.
So if you’re on your iPhone, you can open up a browser and go to shannonmattern.com/review and you’ll get a little pop-up that says “Open this page in iTunes Store” and you’ll say yes, and then it’ll take you to my podcast in the iTunes store where you can click on the Write a Review button.
Or if you have the podcast app open on your iPhone, and you see the episode icon and the play button at the bottom of the screen, just tap it to pull up the episode details and scroll up to see the show notes – I left you a link right there in the show notes that you can tap on to leave me a review.
I’m not just asking because I want to look at those reviews and feel better about myself (although I do love reading them), but I’m asking because your reviews are a signal to iTunes that the podcast is valuable, and the more ratings and reviews I get the more likely I’m to get the podcast promoted on iTunes!
So, I have a goal to get 500 reviews for the podcast in 2019 – and thank you for listening and for helping me get there!
What to Focus on to Market Your Online Business in 2019
Okay, so let’s move on to what I think you should focus on in 2019 to market and grow your online business – because there are a LOT of shiny objects out there to get distracted by.
I was listening to Kelly Roach’s Unstoppable Success Radio podcast episode 441 – “3 Actions to Take Before the Bubble Bursts for Shortcut Nation” which I’ll link to in the show notes.
In that episode, Kelly shared her theory that the bubble is going to burst for online businesses that rely exclusively on advertising to generate huge amounts of traffic into automation funnels to sell them online courses.
I mean, that’s the passive income dream, right? Create the course, set up the automation, run the ads, get people in the funnel and watch the money roll in from the beach in Costa Rica.
Her reasons for thinking this are pretty interesting.
Like a behemoth like Amazon coming in and just disrupting the entire thing, like AirBNB did to the hotel industry.
Or tighter regulations on social media advertising as giants like Facebook come under even more fire when it comes to privacy and bots and fake news and influencing elections.
Or just subpar content being sold that makes the rest of us look bad.
I recently came across an article where a travel instagrammer pre-sold a course promising to teach people how to become a travel instagrammer, didn’t deliver the content as promised and what she did create was, according to her students, nowhere near worth the $500 price tag they paid – and one of the students wrote an article on Medium about how she was scammed, a petition was started and tons of customers demanded refunds.
She promised to pay them back, but many of them went around her and demanded refunds from the Teachable platform, and they actually guarantee refunds.
So if the automated passive income funnel from the beach is a pipe dream, and if the way many people do business online right now gets dramatically altered by tighter regulations, what can you do to make sure your business rises to the top?
I personally think there are two things you can do to transcend shiny objects.
Build relationships, and build your email list.
When you build relationships with people that serve the same audience that you serve, you elevate your ability to connect with your ideal client above paid advertising and social media algorithms.
When you have the email addresses of people that have raised their hand and said, “Yes, I want to hear from you about how you can help me solve this problem or improve my life,” you elevate your ability to market to your audience beyond the whims of algorithms.
Instagram, podcasting, blogging, livestreaming, Pinterest, Facebook ads…
Those are just tactics.
Shiny objects that could fade at any moment.
So how do you go about building relationships?
By providing value without expectation of anything in return.
And how do you go about building an email list?
The same way, by providing value without expectation of anything in return.
Practically speaking, to build relationships you reach out to people who serve the same audience as you and offer to provide value to them or their audience.
And you do your research and offer something specific, and don’t ask them to help you come up with what to offer. And then you deliver.
Plant the seed, see what grows.
To build an email list, you create a free piece of content that solves a problem or changes a belief.
Then you go find people that need it and offer it to them.
Simple as that.
This is where tactics like Instagram, podcasting, blogging, livestreaming, Pinterest, Facebook ads come in – but if your content really does provide value, it will transcend the platform and people will start telling other people about it.
And on Day 3 of my 5 Day Website Challenge, I teach you exactly how to set up your email list – like step by step. Exactly how to give that freebie away in exchange for an email address.
So if you’re paralyzed by where to start, start by building relationships. Then create that free thing and set it up so you can capture email addresses.
And then it doesn’t matter which shiny object you choose. Some will work better for you than others. You can’t make a wrong choice.
In 2019, commit to building a strong foundation for your business so that no matter what happens in the online landscape, your business will survive and thrive!
