How To Start A Lifestyle Business – The Steps You Must Take
How to start a lifestyle business is something many people ponder. Confusion is overwhelming so here are the steps you must take make it a reality.
Hi Trish Davies here and today I want to follow on from my previous post about living a laptop lifestyle. In that post I give you clarity on what a laptop lifestyle is all about. Believe me it’s not all about the glamour and trappings, it is much more personal than that. Make sure you check out that post as I think it will be a real eye opener for you.
Back to the topic for today which is how to start a lifestyle business. What I am going to share with you are the steps you must take to create your lifestyle business. It is quite a simple process in principle, but your business must be unique to you.
I say that because your business will be created upon some certain and unique factors. Those being what you are passionate about, what you are good at, what gives you purpose etc.
Then packaging everything up that will generate the levels of income you want and aligned with the lifestyle you want to create. Now there are literally hundreds of online business models that you can start but you want one that has the least restrictions as possible.
You don’t want to be tied down to a physical location, you want freedom as I spoke about in my previous post. Ultimately you want to create a business about what drives you, what you are passionate about.
Finally, you want to leverage resources that exist to lighten your workload. Creates systems that work in the background to enable you to enjoy your precious time. So, what business models fit into this criteria.
How To Start A Lifestyle Business – Business Models
When it comes down to it there are three perfect business models to create a lifestyle business. Business models that can provide you with freedom, leveraging what you are great at and that also leverage technology.
Information Marketing
The demand for information is still as high today as it ever has been. Search engines are there to fulfil the demand from the general public. They are also there to help business owners provide that information. Information that you can profit from and create your dream lifestyle business.
In general, you will position yourself as a problem solver, an expert, the go to person in your niche. Predominantly you will be creating and selling digital products that solve people’s problems. They can either be your own products or services or a third party vendor which you are an affiliate for.
Products such as eBooks, video and audio training courses, software applications or live coaching. If these products are your own you could position yourself as an online coach, trainer or mentor behind your own brand.
As an affiliate you are the person who connects product vendors with potential customers. The product vendors are responsible for creating the products and fulfilling all customer service.
Whichever way you go you will create systems that do much of the heavy lifting, the grunt work.
Serviced Based Business
You could position yourself as a service provider where you leverage your skills and expertise. Now the list of services you could provide is very extensive so there simply is not enough to list them all. However here are some examples.
- Web development
- Graphic design
- Ghost-writing
- Accounting
- Marketing
- Social Media Manager
- Facebook Ads Specialist
All of these examples and many more like them fit into the lifestyle category. They are all things you can do through freedom of choice, location and leveraging technology.
The only caveat I would add is that you can’t easily leverage your time. You will be charging your fee but as you are highly skilled your time can become premium. Therefore, you can charge a premium fee which in some ways counteracts the time factor.
E-Commerce
E-commerce generally means anything online but in this case I refer it to selling physical products. Traditionally selling physical products entailed premises, buying inventory, packing and shipping to the customer.
All of those elements still exist but now it is possible for you to do this business but not handle any of the above. The premises is handled through having an e-commerce website, this is your storefront.
Yes you still have to purchase inventory, but you can have it stored at fulfilment houses. On top of storing your inventory they handle the picking, packing, payment processing and shipping. They also handle any returns, so it is a very many hands off business.
That’s why it fits the criteria to creating a lifestyle business. You can monitor your business through your laptop and never handling a single product.
How To Start A Lifestyle Business – What Are The Steps?
I have shared with you some context of what a lifestyle business looks like. Along with that context I have shared with you some business concepts that in my opinion fit the criteria for a lifestyle business.
Now let’s look at the simple steps you must go through to get your lifestyle business off the ground.
Choose You Niche
Here you must choose what niche your lifestyle business fits into. Simply a niche is a segment of the marketplace where you sell related products and services.
Determine Your Life & Business Goals
As you are creating a lifestyle business you must determine what your ideal life looks like. What life goals do you want to achieve and what business goals do you need to reach to deliver those life goals.
Determine Your Target Market
Although there are billions of people in the world the vast majority of them are not your target market. Only a very small percentage of people fit into your niche and are interested in what you offer. Once you know who that target is you can craft your marketing message to attract those people to your business.
Create Your Brand Identity
As a personal branding expert, I know the importance of creating a strong personal brand. You must create your brand identity, what you stand for, what your values are, what your purpose is.
Your personal brand will make you stand out from the crowd. You will be giving your potential audience the reason to purchase from you instead of the competition. Learn more about the Build Your AU personal branding process here.
Build & Grow Your Audience
Building and growing your audience is one of the most important business tasks you have. You must choose a platform and create content to then publish on that platform to attract your audience.
Create You Profit Plan
You are here to build a business so you must think economically. You must plan out products and services you will offer, this is the only way to monetize your ideas. Your products and services have the sole objective to serve your audience. Therefore, what do they need?
Develop Your Business Model
I have shared with you some business models and concepts. You must develop your own business model that will ultimately create the lifestyle business you want. This is a critical element to creating a sustainable and successful business. Within my free 9 step training program I show you how to create your authority business model. Learn more here.
Scale Your Business
In time your business will gain traction and you will see the areas that make you the most profits. When that situation arises, it is time to scale what is producing the positive results. As a result of this scale, you will learn how to diversify and then create additional income streams.
So, there are the steps on how to start a lifestyle business. What I have done is create a 9 step program that looks at all these steps and much more. The program will help you create your brand along with setting the foundations to your lifestyle business. Learn more by clicking here.
Helping you build your authenticity, authority and audience.
Trish Davies
Build Your AU
Recent Comments