How to Run an Online Business as a Digital Nomad

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

One of the reasons that I decided to start my business back in 2016 was that we wanted to travel more. My husband and I had always taken that regular trip every single year. And we took some pretty epic vacations while we were working our typical 9 to 5 jobs, but we wanted more flexibility. 

So when I set out to start my business, we thought, hey, we're going to add another trip or two trips a year, extend our trips a little bit longer. 

We did not imagine that we would quickly become digital nomads. 

So today, I want to share with you some of the lessons that I've learned throughout that journey.

In 2018, our world quickly changed. 

We unfortunately lost many people that we loved that year. And my husband and I realized that we wanted to take action and we wanted to take action quickly. 

Essentially, we wanted to start traveling full time. 

At the time, my husband was working a 9 to 5. 
I was already running my business, which had grown to six figures a year. 

And we decided that our best avenue at the time was to bring him home from his retail job, sell our home, buy an RV and a truck, because we didn't have that either, and set out to travel across the United States.

TRAVELING FULL-TIME IN AN RV

We traveled across the United States in an RV from 2019 to 2020. And it was an experience! 

If you don't already know, we also have a child. And at the time he was just three years old and we were really learning to navigate not only running a business from the road, but also having my husband home for the first time, it had just been my son and I for so long. 

We ended up traveling from 2019 through mid of 2020. You can probably imagine why we stopped traveling in the RV in 2020. And we decided to just settle down for a moment and let some things pass over. 

Now, being a digital nomad for us looks different every single year. 

We spent two years living in an RV. 

Last year and into this year, we have had a home base in our apartment that we rent out while traveling overseas and to different countries. 

We actually have been to St. Croix. We've spent a month in Hawaii. At the time of this release, we are coming back from three months in Greece. 

What I love about being an entrepreneur and being able to run my business as a digital nomad is the flexibility to do it from anywhere. 

And I think in 2020, we realized that not only are entrepreneurs and small business owners able to do that, but a lot of people who work in corporate or 9 to 5 might be able to be more location independent.

Here are some of the top lessons that I have learned on my journey from living in an RV to renting out an apartment and taking small trips to traveling for months at a time to different countries. 

DIGITAL NOMAD TIP #1
KNOW YOUR WIFI OPTIONS

Every time someone sends me a DM on Instagram, like, “Oh, I'm thinking about doing this. What do I need to know?” I always begin with your wifi is never guaranteed. 

I don't feel like anyone warned me about this when I was setting out to become a full-time RV-er. Wifi is just not always reliable. We have four hotspots and sometimes we have zero service.

We might go to a place that we're like, oh, this is going to be beautiful and scenic and then have zero wifi, zero cell service. It's happened so many times. 

I have driven up to gas stations, 20 minutes away just to upload a video. 

So I think one of the greatest lessons that I've ever learned is that wifi is essential as a digital nomad, somebody who runs their own business, but it's never guaranteed. 

So what do you do about that? 

Well, you have to really plan accordingly. I’m already a pretty big planner, have an entire video on planning six months in business right here, but when you're planning as a digital nomad, it is essential, so that you know when you're able to take client calls, when you're able to maybe record a bunch of videos and upload them. 

And you want to be really strategic with the locations that you're scouting out during those times.

I work one-on-one with my clients through video consultations. I also do trainings inside of my membership, Brandmerry Academy. And I need a way to do a few of those calls every single month. 

When we were getting ready to head to Greece for three months, I would look at our route and make sure that none of the days that I'm planning on having calls are travel days, seriously just never schedule things on a travel day. 

Meaning, you're going from one location to another, whether that's by ferry, bus, car, boat, a plane, it doesn't matter. Don't plan on having client calls on a travel day. You can thank me for that one later. 

What I do after I’ve blocked out travel days is I’ll look at our schedule, where we're going and the areas, the Airbnbs, the hotels, and gravitate to where the reviews say that there is excellent wifi. 

I am a stickler for looking at reviews specifically for wifi. And if there aren't any reviews about the wifi, I will even reach out to the host and ask them and tell them that I require video streaming. So don't be afraid to ask those types of questions. 

Then, what I do is I adjust my availability for my clients based on that information. 

So for instance, we're gearing up to spend some time in Athens. I know that this particular Airbnb has rave reviews about wifi and we're in a large metropolitan area. So even if I don't have it in the apartment, I can go to Starbucks or a public park where you can often get wifi. 

You really want to plan accordingly for your calls and never just assume that everywhere you go will have wifi. 

This is also fantastic because it allows you to have bulk work days as well, where you can squeeze all of your client calls into one day or any of your meetings or anything like that, which leads me to the second point.

DIGITAL NOMAD TIP #2
STRUCTURING YOUR DAYS

I love bulk scheduling and structuring my days because it allows me to get more done. I have a harder time being productive and focusing when I've got a 9 to 5 schedule available in front of me. 

In fact, I share some productivity tips in this video right here.  I found that when I have a more focused, intentional time, I actually get more done. So when we are traveling, obviously we want to experience new cultures and we want to see new things. That is the joy of being a digital nomad. 

I have zero desire to sit in my Airbnb or my hotel all day, every day, and not experience the world around me. So I have to be really intentional with the days that I am going to dedicate to work. 

And that's why I really love batching and bulk scheduling my content, to bulk scheduling my client calls, even live videos.

If I'm doing live videos, I'll put them all on the same day. So we know that those days, we're not going to go out and wander. I'm going to get a bunch of work done, and then we're good. We don't have to worry about it anymore.

I highly recommend that you start to group your activities together. 

If you need to record videos, record a bunch of videos, choose the day that you're going to do that. 

If you're going to do podcasts, bulk those together. 

If you need to write emails, do those all together. 

Client calls, like I mentioned, I always bulk those together when we're traveling so that I don't have to go out and then think about when I have to come back and so on and so forth.

I shared my bulk creation process in my first vlog here where I bulk created 90 days worth of content, which is also something I recommend before your trips.

I also talk about my entire planning process in this video, where I talk about planning 90 days worth of content. 

Sometimes you are going to notice that you've got a lot of preparation before you jet set and head off to an awesome destination, but that preparation and maybe intense time is going to allow for a ton of flexibility and movement and exploring when you're in that new location.

DIGITAL NOMAD TIP #3
COMMUNICATION IS KEY

My third tip for you is all around communication. It’s incredibly important that you explain to the people that you work with, your clients, your bosses, your coworkers, your team, what's happening, your flexibility, and your availability.

This is going to make a huge difference.

The last thing that you want is to be out doing something freaking awesome, like in a helicopter ride or something like that. And someone's messaging you about something that's not urgent. 

We have a tendency to check that stuff. 
We have a tendency to want to check back in on our emails and our Gmail and all of that and those moments can take us away from the moment.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you completely ignore your communication platforms, but by having these boundaries in place you’ll find people are more intentional with how they communicate with you. 

One of the best things that I've done is set really clear boundaries and expectations with the people in my life. And that goes from my team members who know that I'm going to be out exploring for the next four days. 

Unless it's an absolute emergency don't message me. 

My clients also understand, because I tell them, that these are my travel days. These are the days that I'm flying. I probably won't get back to you just then. 

If I'm in a different time zone, I always let my clients know that I'm in a different time zone. So I might be getting back to them at 3 AM.

I set up those expectations and I really communicate this clearly before I set out and do anything. I always email my clients, including my membership Brandmerry Academy, to let them know I'm going to be traveling. 

What's so cool about it is everyone is awesome about it. Everyone's respectful about it because we love when people set clear boundaries, because it lets us know that we can do that in our own lives as well. And it just sets the stage.

So I have never once had someone get mad at me because I'm super clear and upfront ahead of time on what they can expect. You can do this no matter what you're doing. And I highly, highly recommend it. 

The other thing that I'll say about communication and boundaries is if you are traveling with your family, let's say in a 36-foot travel trailer across the United States, boundaries and communication are so important. 

My family knew my entire schedule for work days. 
When did I have calls? 
When did I need to record? 
When did I need to laser in and focus? 

We talked about that every single week so that we could really enjoy our lives and really laser in and focus and grow my business while also being a digital nomad. 

It takes a lot of balance because you're going to want to just go out and be on vacation every single day, but the reality is that you are a business owner and you've got to set these boundaries with other people and also yourself.

And that leads me to my next tip.

DIGITAL NOMAD #4
NOT EVERY DAY IS A VACATION

Not every day is a vacation. 

My husband and I will go on a weekend trip to the Dominican, or we went and took my son to Disney. Those are specific vacations, meaning I'm not working while we're there and we're just really enjoying ourselves. We're not trying to juggle both. 

But as a digital nomad, there's this misconception that every day is a vacation. 

And I believed that for a really long time, when we first started traveling, I wanted to do everything in every new location. My husband and I had to have conversations because he's home with our son supporting him, running our household, essentially, and he’d want to go hiking and I’d agree, but after a while I realized we couldn’t maintain that every single day.

I had to get better at setting boundaries with myself.

That means that having those clear bulk days and a structured schedule will take away the pressure to go out every day because you know you have full days to work and full days to explore.

Another thing I started doing is checking in on my work stuff early in the morning to answer emails, etc and then log off for the rest of the day. This allowed me to be present in the biz, but also enjoy myself fully when we were out exploring.

I also highly recommend working in full vacation time. What I mean by that is even if you are a digital nomad full-time, you can still take time off work. I recommend taking at least one week of “vacation time” every quarter!

I think that's incredibly powerful when you are running your own business. 

But if you feel like you can't take an entire week off, just know that you need to choose very deliberate days, where you are stepping out of the office. 

When your office is your laptop and your phone, anywhere in the world, you have to set those clear lines and it's really going to help you to experience the cultures and experience life and experience all the reasons that you want to travel in the first place, while also growing a successful and sustainable business.

CONCLUSION

I really love sharing information about the lifestyle that we live. And like I mentioned, I recorded a vlog on how I prepared my content to travel for three months. 

If you want to check that out, you can go ahead and check that out in this video right here. 

As I've mentioned, this is our life. And even as we're gearing up for next year, 2022, we will be traveling the majority of the year, 10, 11 months out of the year and the things that I've done in my business and having these systems and these workflows has really supported me in being able to do that.

It took us a while. It might take you a while too. 

Maybe you're like I was, and you're watching this video and you're just starting your business and like, "Ooh, I want to do this. Like, what would this be like? What do I need to do?" 

What I recommend is just starting to build these systems in your business and really focus on that scalability and that sustainability so that you can step away when you need to, so that you can hire a team member to support you. 

And if you’re looking to start your business so you can leave your corporate job and travel, then I invite you to learn more about Roadmap to Freedom, my comprehensive 90-day group program that helps female entrepreneurs make money on their terms.

Learn more at brandmerry.com/freedom.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Brandmerry podcast? I release new episodes every Thursday on topics around branding and marketing! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at brandmerry.com/podcast

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

Advice for New Entrepreneurs: Just Starting Your Business

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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If you’re just starting your business...this is for you!

If we were in a room together, what would I want to tell you about starting your business?
Crafting the idea of your business?
Putting all of the pieces in place?
Launching it out into the world?
And scaling it to consistent revenue?

To answer these questions I have to bring myself back to what it was like in the beginning (2016).

And in doing so, I’ve got to be honest. The thing that I really, really, really wish someone would have said to me and I wish I would have seen more language around online, is that building a business is going to be so challenging. 

This is going to challenge you in ways that you've never imagined before.

If you were like me back in 2016, little, little naive Michelle, starting a business, you’re seeing all of this marketing coming at you about what is possible, and you're feeling really excited about it and so lit up about it!

But you’re noticing the messaging says, “just think about it and it happens” and “do this and you'll make $10,000” or “after you do this, suddenly you are set up for life.”

But, the reality is it’s not just going to magically happen for you and it’s not going to be a breeze. 

Now, that’s not to say that this has to be hard. 
It's not to say that you've got to work every single day for multiple hours a day and that's the only way you're going to grow your business.
 It's not saying that at all. 

What I'm saying is that it's going to challenge you.

BUSINESS GROWTH

If we know anything about growth, if we've learned anything about elevating our lives and our experiences, it's that without challenge, there is no change. 

It's crazy to think that we can start these businesses, step into the CEO role, the small business owner, make decisions on how we're going to make money, typically be the one-person show for a very long time, carry the weight of that on our shoulders and not think that we are not going to be challenged. 

You're going to be challenged.

And here's the amazing part, because of that challenge and because of the way that you take on those challenges, you are going to grow faster than you ever fucking imagined. Ever. 

It's almost a disservice to say that entrepreneurship is a fast track in personal development. 

It's something I say all the time, but what we should really say is entrepreneurship is a fast track in evolution. 

That we start to evolve as human beings and step into the best version of ourselves faster than if we weren't becoming entrepreneurs.

If I was just going through my day-to-day prior to starting my business, there's no way I'd be at the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual level that I am today if I hadn't started my business. 

I'm so thankful for that, and I know that you're going to look back and you're also going to be so thankful for that. 

But it doesn't mean that it's not going to be kind of difficult. 
You're going to have to deal with some shit.

MINDSET FOR NEW ENTREPRENEURS

This growth is one of the reasons that within the last two years, I recognized that in order to support entrepreneurs and small business owners in really starting their business, I had to address the mindset. 

I knew that in order to support entrepreneurs to grow their business, that we had to have that element of support as well, which is why inside of Roadmap to Freedom and Brandmerry Academy we have this level of support.

Because one of the things that is not chatted about when it comes to strategy is that the thought process of coming up with these strategies, the energy, and efficiency that's needed to implement these strategies, the mental resilience that is needed to stick with a strategy when you don't see results right away, that's going to bring up a lot of mindset work that’s needed.

You really need to be ready to take that on and to move through that. It's going to make you a better business owner and entrepreneur.

And that's one of the reasons that in every program that I create, we have that mindset component. 

Because I can give you the strategies all day, I can tell you to show up and do this, I can tell you what to talk about, but there's so much of a belief in your ability to do it that is required. 

When you're faced with these challenges, how are you going to take them on? 
How are you going to say, "I'm up for it. Let's do it. Let's get this party started?" 

It's not always going to be easy to get to a place where you're like, "Yes, I'm ready."

There might be some tears. 
There might be some journaling. 
There's going to be a whole lot of thoughts that say, “What did I get myself into?" especially in that first year. 

But again, without challenge, there can be no change. 

And it's worth it, but you’ve got to expect it, or it's going to knock you on our ass, and then flip you over, and then you’ll be face down in the mud. 

And you’re going to be like, "Well, I didn't see that coming, because everyone told me that this was just rainbows and butterflies and unicorns. I could just step into this role as the same person that I was before." 

This journey is going to require a different level from you. 

And here's the beautiful thing. You're 100% capable of it because every entrepreneur and small business owner before you has done the same thing. 

Every single one has gone into the idea of running a small business or starting a business as one person and has evolved and changed over time and where they are today is a different person. 

The way that I love to think about it is that they didn't change who they were. They evolved. 

I truly believe the amount that I've evolved in the past five years probably would have taken me 20 years if I hadn't started my business. 

It's not that you are completely different. 

It's that you are faced with these challenges and you're overcoming these challenges, and you're moving through these challenges, and you're making decisions about your mental and emotional and spiritual, and physical health to support you in running your business and being an entrepreneur that you're just evolving faster. 

You’ll face inside challenges:

Am I cut out for this?
Is this really going to work?
Do I have the stamina to handle this?
Am I worthy of the outcome that I desire? 

There are going to be outside challenges as well. 

People confused that you now need time to grow a business.
People confused that you've decided to take a leap of faith and leave your nine to five.
People, including family, trying to navigate this new normal alongside you and supporting you, but also being like, "Hey, this is new for me too." 

You're worthy of those conversations. 
You're worthy of asking for boundaries.
You're worthy of investing in your dreams. 

WORTHINESS AND BEING A NEW ENTREPRENEUR

The conversations you will have with others will be challenging. 

You're going to have to sit down and straight-up say, "This is what's happening. This is what I'm doing. I would love your support. You don't have to get it, but please support me.” 

I still don't expect my husband to understand every single nuance of this business. 

He's been pretty involved since day one and supportive every single step of the way, but I don't expect him to know all of the ins and outs and inner workings.

So unless you're married to an entrepreneur or you're running the business with them, I feel like that's an expectation that we just cannot have. 

But the support element is only going to happen if you're saying, "I need the support from you," because they don't know what's happening either. 

When you're starting out, you don't even know what's happening. 
You don't even know what's going on, but you're maybe two or three steps ahead of the people that you're asking for support from. 
You've got to be open to having those conversations with them.

And that can be challenging, but 100% worth it, 100% possible, and you're 100% worthy of asking for what you want. 

This whole idea of worthiness is something that we added to Roadmap to Freedom as a starting point of the program. This was an area where we knew that we just needed to put those pieces in place right away for our clients.

Every time we run Roadmap to Freedom, there are always questions around asking for time, setting boundaries, figuring out what you really want, and why you’re really doing this.

It always comes back to our inner belief that we're not ultimately worthy to have those things that we desire. 

We're not worthy to take the time, or we're not worthy to set these boundaries, or whatever it might be for you. 

I felt all of them. All of them and I know a lot of entrepreneurs who have, which is why we put together a foundational mini-course for members of Roadmap to Freedom. 

As soon as they join, they get to go through this mini-course called Worthy.

But I wanted to share with you some small little pieces of that, to get you started

IDENTIFYING YOUR DESIRES
WHAT DO YOU WANT? 

I love to ask this question of my clients, and we have an entire video about it inside of Roadmap to Freedom, and that is...What do you want?

I made a joke one time on a live stream when I was talking about desires, and I was like, "You very rarely sit down at a happy hour with your girlfriends where they look you in the eye and they say, “What do you want out of life? What do you want? What do you really want to do?” Very rarely, unless your friend happens to be a life coach or something. 

So, we have to ask ourselves this question. We are the ones that have to sit down and say, "Hey, self, what do we want? What do we really, really want out of this life?"

You only get one life, just so we're on the same page here. 

What do you want? 

If you haven't asked yourself that question, or it's been a while, I encourage you to do so. And, remember there's no right or wrong answer here. It's not one thing. It's not 10 things. It could be 17 pages. It doesn't matter. But when you start to think about what you want, you want to start to then identify what that will ultimately give you.

WHAT WILL THAT GIVE YOU?

If you want a business that allows you to travel the world, speaking for myself over here, you want to take it a step deeper and say, "Well, what will that give me?"

I mean, that will give me experiences that most people only dream about. 

That will give me time with my family. 

That will give me the joy and the feeling that I'm giving my son these experiences before he's even 10 years old.

So, you not only want to identify what you want but also what that will ultimately give you. 

And then further than that, if you haven't already done it, how will it make you feel? 

HOW WILL IT MAKE YOU FEEL?

We've got to have that deep feeling attached to those desires. You've heard me talk about it a few times on this podcast where I say, when it comes to marketing, when it comes to data, we need to remove the feelings. 

But when it comes to branding and especially when it comes to starting our businesses, nothing is going to motivate you more than a feeling. 

Nothing is going to say, "Oh, hell yes! I'm in it. Okay, that sucked, but we're getting back up again."

Nothing will do that more than holding on to the feeling of the outcome. 

So again, 

• What do you really want out of life? 

• What will it ultimately give you? 

• How will that make you feel when you achieve it? 

One of the practices that I learned very early on was thinking of outcomes. I'll share an entire experience with you. This is the best way to give you an example. 

VISUALIZATION EXERCISE AND FEELING INTO THE OUTCOME

When I was first starting, I knew that I wanted to launch group programs and courses and things like that. 

But I also knew from what I had learned, and just focus in general, that if I lasered in and focused on one core offer, filled that, got really, really good at that, then I would have the capacity and I would have the funds to launch the other pieces. 

It's one of the reasons why I encourage my clients to focus on one thing, one offer in the beginning.

I set out with a goal to sign 10 one-on-one clients from January 2017 through March 2017. 

And as I was thinking about my goal, I started to imagine what I would do to celebrate that.

I wanted to do something really fun. I decided that I was going to go to New York and see Waitress on Broadway.

I'm a big Broadway fan. It was actually my major for years. Sara Bareilles, who's one of my favorite performers, was the writer and she was going to be in the lead role. I was like, that's what I'm going to do. 

My mentor at the time said, "But how is that going to make you feel? I know what you're going to do, but how are you going to feel at that moment?" I started to visualize it every single morning.

I imagined myself leaving the musical. I knew exactly what I was wearing. I could see my black maxi dress. I could see that my hair was down because I hardly wear it up unless I'm working. I saw my entire outfit down the flats I was wearing. 

I saw myself walking through the streets of New York just buzzing after this performance. I heard myself singing songs from the show, as I was walking to my hotel. I was just full of so much joy and energy. 

I held onto that image and feeling for so long.

Notice I wasn't holding onto exactly what I was doing. I was holding onto the feeling that was happening in the celebration. 

I ended up signing 10 clients by the end of March 2017. 

I happened to be part of a mastermind at the time, and it was announced that our retreat was in New York City in May. And at the time of the retreat, Sara Bareilles was playing the lead role in Waitress on Broadway!

I went to the show and I wore my black maxi dress, and I reenacted that exact same thing.

Nothing is going to drive you in your business more than the feeling. 

When you achieve those milestones, when you sell your first offer, when you fill your first program when you get your first thousand subscribers, how is that going to feel? 

Connect with that and know that you are 100% worthy of that and you're 100% capable of having that. 

OVERWHELM AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

We’ve talked a lot about your belief along this journey, let’s talk about the strategy!

In the beginning, I found myself getting overwhelmed with all the things because I was trying to do too much at one time. 

I had like six different intensives and my one-on-one. You could do three months. You could do six months. You could do this. You could do that. It just got too much. 

And I noticed that my messaging and my marketing suffered. I was marketing seven different things at the same time. 

I started to realize that one of the keys to running a business is to start small, to laser in, to focus. As I've mentioned, I made the choice to do that with my one-on-one. 

I didn't have a lot of funds to start and it didn't require a lot of funds for me to do it. 
I got to show up. 
I got to serve without a lot of overhead.

It served me well in my business and many of my clients have done the same. Just focus on the one piece and start small and be open to evolution. 

Not only are you, the person and brand, going to evolve, but your business strategies will as well. As you become really good at something, you're going to add in something else, and then it's like a snowball over and over and over again.

You're going to pick up momentum. 

In the episode that I talked about last week on niching down, we talked about this whole idea that you start small and that you pick up momentum. It can be really easy to look at other entrepreneurs who are doing 500 things and say, "Hey, I want to do 500 things," but it’s important to note they might be further along in their journey, they might have a team that makes it possible.

When you're starting your business, it's a really great strategy to start small, to niche down, and then let it unfold and evolve as it goes.

This is one of the reasons that I love hosting the niching down challenge every year.

It’s an important shift to have to your mindset that if you start small, you can actually grow quicker. 

Whereas if you start too big, too wide, it's going to be messy. It's going to be confusing, and it's going to stunt your growth. 

Start small and be open to evolution. That's just a big mindset piece that I think so many entrepreneurs need to embrace. You'll get there.

BE RESILIENT IN BUSINESS

You'll get to the finish line, but you've got to take those small steps. You've got to be open to the small steps. They build off of each other. They build that momentum. You also have to be open and committed to doing the work that's going to get you there. 

You're not going to snap your fingers and suddenly it's happening. There's the mindset work like we've talked about. That's a piece of the puzzle, but then there's the actual work which makes up the largest part!

The building of the landing pages, the creation of the freebie, the recording of the videos, the showing up on the platforms, the writing of the blog, the doing the things. 

I've said this on multiple videos and multiple podcasts that I think one of the things that supported me in the beginning, and I look back and I can see it now even though at the time I had no idea, was my commitment to doing the work. 

I was so fucking committed. 
There was no other option for me. 
I had removed the other option from the scenario.
I knew that this was what I wanted.

I had checked in with myself. It wasn't easy. I didn't always believe that it was going to happen. 
I went back and forth, up and down, emotional roller coaster, but I was always committed to doing the work. 

If what I had planned to do didn't work out the way that I had planned for it to, I was ready to get back into it and try something new. 

I talked about this in a recent podcast episode where I talked about the secret sauce to success. There's no template. There's no checklist. There's nothing that I can give you that will make it all work out magically.

But what I can tell you is that if you do the work, you'll get results. 

You've got to commit to doing the work and you've got to commit early on. 

That's why those pieces on time management and putting boundaries in place and having dedicated time to work on your business are so important. Even if it's like me that first year where it was Sunday mornings and late at night and lunch breaks, it doesn't matter. 

Everybody has to find their own pocket of time!

Some people are going to have more time and capacity to work on their business, which isn't necessarily always better because we will fill the time with fluff. 

I talk about this in my recent Youtube video on productivity.

I actually found that because I had such little time, I was super strategic with what I was going to be doing and I was getting it done because I didn't try and fill it with a bunch of other stuff. 

I joked with my husband when we stopped traveling in the trailer last year (2020) and started splitting our time in an apartment and traveling, that it's almost harder right now because I have eight hours every day uninterrupted because he's home and he cares for our son. 

And since I’ve got all this time, it's almost harder because I'm like, well, I've got eight hours. I can just do this and do this. 

I was more efficient when I only had two hours a day than when I have eight hours a day. 

If you find that you're in it, you're committed to the work, don't think that your small schedule or your limited schedule is keeping you from growth. It might actually be the best asset for you.

FOCUS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Bringing it full circle, one of the challenges I think has been disregarding all of the noise.

Disregarding the new platform, disregarding this new magical way to sell, disregarding this new thing.

If I'm focused on something, I already have a plan of action in place, as those things start coming at me, it’s like I’m in a bubble and they're just bouncing off of me. 

Every once in a while, a little piece will get in and I'm like, I'm going to put that on my ClickUp board and save it for later.

But right now I am focused. I am like a horse in a race with my blinders on. And you've got to do that. 

You absolutely have to put your blinders on. 

The information is not going to stop coming at you. It's your job to say, "Not today. Not today." 

Get off social media. Lock your phone and do what you set out to do. 
Make that commitment to yourself.

The information is not going to stop coming at us. We cannot stop the information from coming at us. 

We can choose how we react to the information.

It is one of the reasons that I have been head over heels about Roadmap to Freedom for years because the idea is that you're getting piece by piece by piece by piece, focus by focus by focus by focus, and each piece builds on the other in a very strategic way. 

CONCLUSION

It's about the commitment and the focus to doing the work, putting the blinders on, letting the other crap bounce off of you.

You can come back to it later. You can't do it all. You cannot do it all. The information won't stop coming at you. You have to choose how you respond to that information. 

For anyone here that has these big, crazy, beautiful, bold, challenging goals, I just want you to know that I get it. I totally get it. I was the exact same way and people thought I was nuts. I know so many people who thought I would go back to my job.

I didn't know what I was doing back then, but I was committed to figuring it out, and I knew what I was working towards. 

As I write this I just imagine you're sitting on the couch and we’re chatting over wine. I'm fighting back tears.. Because when I sit and think about that new mom who was going through this postpartum fog and depression and had these ideas and these goals and these visions for what could happen for her new family, I mean, I'm living it today. 

Some people might look at my story and be like, "Oh, but it took like five years."

Yeah, it took five years to completely transform our existence in our lives. I'm cool with that. 

Some people wait for 20, 30, never happened years. I will gladly take five. 

If you're sitting there and you write your goals down and you daydream and you lay in bed at night and you're like, "Oh man, could this be? Could this happen,"

I truly believe that it can. I want you to know that if you feel like nobody else believes in you, I fucking believe in you. 

I do.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

The 4 Brand Bios Every Business Should Have

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

How you introduce yourself is a big deal when it comes to running a successful online business. 

Did you know that there are four brand bios that we recommend that you have? 

I am super jazzed to talk to you today about your different brand bios. 

How you introduce yourself is so important and there are different platforms and different moments in time that are going to require a different usage of your bio. 

Sometimes you're going to need just a two-liner. 
Sometimes you're going to need a full brand story to share with your audience. 

I really want to break down each of these with you and how they build on top of each other and give you some insider tips for writing your different brand bios.

BRAND BIO #1: HOOK

Let's start with the first brand bio that I always recommend my clients write inside of my programs like Roadmap to Freedom, because it is so important, and that is your hook. 

I talked about your hook last week in my weekly video training all about brand messaging, which you can catch right here. 

Your hook is designed to replace the elevator pitch in 2021 and beyond. 

It is designed to stand on your website to hook your audience in 10 seconds or less, to use on your social media platforms, to use in the sidebar of your blog, to work into your content, to use it to introduce yourself on a video.

Your hook is a great way to share who you are, who you serve, the problem that you solve for your ideal customer, and how solving that problem gives them the desired outcome that they want. 

Your hook is typically two sentences long and can be used everywhere. 

You always want to write your hook pretty early on in your business because you're going to use it in your marketing and your messaging moving forward. 

Again, you can watch the video that I did last week on brand messaging to get a little bit more insider knowledge on crafting your hook.

BRAND BIO #2: BIO BLURB

The second bio that, I don't know, might be one of my favorites, is called your bio blurb. 

This builds on top of your hook to offer more authority and expertise for your audience. You'll typically find your bio blurb on the homepage of your website. 

I talk about the four-part framework for the homepage of your website in this video right here, so you can check that out after you conclude this one today. 

But your bio blurb is where you're continuing to expand on your hook. 
You're offering a little bit more of your story. 
You're sharing your mission. 
You're talking more specifically to your ideal customer and ultimately teasing your entire brand story, which they can read on the about me page of your website.

You also might find that your bio blurb can be used as an introduction to a podcast, speaking on stage, or even inside a freebie PDF file that you create for your audience. 

Your bio blurb is where you start to add in a little bit more of the emotional element and connection with your ideal customer.

BRAND BIO #3: PROFESSIONAL BIO

The third bio that you want to create is a professional bio. 

Now, I'm not recommending that you have this right out of the gate for your business. As I mentioned, your bio blurb, number two, can help you when you're getting featured as a guest speaker or on podcasts when they're typically asking for a professional bio. 

But once you start to get some of those accolades, you've had success in your business, you've been recognized for an outstanding award, or anything in that category, you want to create a more professional bio as a way to introduce yourself to the media.

You'll typically find your professional bio could actually live on your about me page. 

I always recommend that underneath your entire about me, you have a little section with your headshot that says professional bio, and have your professional bio there. 

If you're doing an interview or something, you can send them to that page to grab your bio. It's readily available on your website. You can also use it in your PR collateral as well. 

But your professional bio is where you really showcase your expertise and your authority. You talk about the amazing things that you've done. It's a great opportunity to brag about yourself and your awesomeness.

Here’s an example of mine:

Michelle Knight is a mother, wife, world traveler and storyteller. She is the founder and CEO of Brandmerry.com where she supports entrepreneurs in branding themselves online, marketing their message and creating more income and impact.

Michelle focuses on teaching the power of storytelling to create an authentic brand that allows them to show up as they are, build a loyal community and experience time, financial and location freedom as a result of their work. 

Michelle left her 9 to 5, retired her husband, built a multiple-6-figure-a-year business and became digital nomads all within 5 years of launching her business.

Michelle has been featured on CNBC, Entrepreneur, and Authority Magazine.

BRAND BIO #4: ABOUT ME PAGE

Finally, we have your about me page. You can probably see how each of these is going to build onto the other one. 

Once you understand your hook, who you are, who you serve, and how you're supporting them, you can then present your bio blurb, why you're doing what you're doing, your mission statement, and how you ultimately want to support your clients in getting their end results.

From there, you can continue to expand on that with your professional bio and your about me page is the big kahuna. This is where you're sharing your entire story on how you created the business that you have today.

I have a podcast episode on the Brandmerry podcast on how to write an about me page that sells that you can listen to for all of the details on this process.

What I want you to note is that your about me page can sell for you, because the reality of it is most people are interested in the person behind the brand. We know that your about me page is the second most visited page on your website, and that's because we know that emotion and connection, and trust is what ultimately leads to a sale.

When you're creating your about me page, don't forget to really share the story. This is where you get to expand and talk more in-depth, to paint a very vivid picture, something you might not get to do in your hook or your bio blurb. 

The idea is that your hook will hook them, your bio blurb will start to build that know, like, and trust factor, and your about me page is really where you sweeten the deal. 

This is where you get to share who you are, your authenticity, the moments that have led you to create the business, the product, the service that you sell today, and showcase the person behind the brand. 

It's a beautiful opportunity to connect with your ideal customer, always keeping in the back of your mind as you're writing it who your ideal customer is and what they ultimately are looking for from you, how you can support them. 

Again, I have a podcast episode that breaks down your about me page, how to write it, and the importance of it. You can check that out here.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes we forget that there are so many different ways that we can introduce ourselves and share our brand story with the world and that if you're going to take all this time to write an about me page, you need to also understand your hook, your bio blurb, and your professional bio as well.

If you are ready to share your brand with the world, make sure you join the waitlist for my signature program Roadmap to Freedom.

This 90-day live group program is designed to help new and aspiring entrepreneurs make money on their terms. We cover it all inside of this strategic program, giving you the tools to build your strong brand foundation, attract your ideal customer and community, market your business with ease and learn to sell consistently and authentically.

To learn more head to brandmerry.com/freedom.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Brandmerry podcast? I release new episodes every Thursday on topics around branding and marketing! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at brandmerry.com/podcast

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Find Your Niche for Your Online Business [Entrepreneur Edition]

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

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The niching down process always seems to feel like a dark cloud over your head at all times. 

And you're probably thinking to yourself, “I just need to figure it out and then I can move on.” 

I was in the same boat years ago and most of my clients inside of Roadmap to Freedom are also feeling this way when they first start the program.

Niching down feels heavy and a big hurdle to take on. What if it isn’t good enough? What if it isn’t specific enough? What if I want to change it?

All of these questions are probably floating around in your head so today we’re going to strip it back and talk about what niching down actually is and some of my top tips for the process so you can feel confident moving forward with your business!

WHAT IS A NICHE?

I'll tell you what your niche is not. Your niche is not your product or your service. 

Something that I see entrepreneurs do time and time and time and time again is they say, “This is what I offer. This is what I offer. This is my niche.”

No, it is not. That is the avenue that you support your clients. That is the tool that you use for the work that you do. 

It's not your niche. It's not your focus. It's not your little carved-out space in the industry. 

And the other side of this is not only is that not what your niche is, but it's also limiting you. 

Your niche is the center of the branding process, it is one of the first things you do when starting your business because everything stems from this.

It's one of the first things that we do inside of my program, Roadmap to Freedom. 

Imagine if you center your entire brand around a product or a service, what happens if you pivot?

What happens if you decide to add another product or service? 

What happens if you decide that your current product or service is no longer something you want to offer? 

You're kind of screwed. You're going to have to spend a ton of time going back to the beginning and redoing your brand foundations and rebranding everything. And it's not worth it. 

And it's not the correct process of niching down. So if you're reading this and you're like, ooh, I think my niche is centered around my product and service, don't worry. We're going to talk about what it is instead.

The other thing that your niche is not is your ideal customer. 

Now you're going to learn in just a second that your ideal customer does play a role in determining your niche, but your target market is not what solely defines a niche. If someone asked you your niche, and you responded with, “mothers” that would be wrong.

FINDING YOUR NICHE

When you start to think about your niche, I want you to focus on the problem that you solve for your ideal customer.

You've got a target problem for a specific person or group of people. This problem that you solve, which is the cornerstone of a successful business, is also the center of your niche.

People buy things, services, products, whatever, to solve a problem. 

If I make eggs every single morning and I have a pan and my eggs stick to the pan every morning, my problem is I have a pan that my eggs stick to. So I need to go out and find a pan that's not going to do that. 

If I have adult acne on my face, I've got a problem. I need to find a solution to that problem. So I'm going to go out and I'm going to search for something to solve that problem. 

If you want to start an online business and you don't know how to start an online business. That's the problem. You're going to go out and you're going to look for something to help you solve that problem. And you're going to find Roadmap to Freedom and you're going to sign up and the rest is history, JK. For some of you that is 100% true. 

So you have to solve a problem with your business. So that's what we want to use in the niching down process.

SPECIFYING YOUR NICHE

Now, if you're sitting there thinking, “I solve a lot of problems.” 

Let's have a conversation about that. 

When you're starting your business, i.e. the period before you’re making consistent money in your business the more specific you can be, the faster you will grow. 

We've got to start small to go big. 

It can be really easy to say, “I want to do all of these things. I want to have five different programs. I want to solve five different problems. I want to have five different ideal customers. I saw so-and-so is doing that and I want that too.” 

There are two things that might be happening with so-and-so, let’s call her Sally. 

One could be that Sally is doing that, but they're not making any money. Which happens way more often than you would imagine. 

Option number two, and what might be happening is Sally has been doing this for a while. Sally got really good at one thing and then added something else and then added something else.

And now she sells journals and posters and sweatshirts and coaching and books and live events and, I don't know, tapestry for their walls, right? Because Sally can do that. 

But if you're in the beginning phases and you're not consistently making income, you are not in a place where that makes sense. 

So you want to be specific because that's going to allow you to grow faster. 

When I first started, I specifically helped people launch their business. My focus was helping them build their brand, show up on social media and build their website. Those were the three things that I focused on. 

That's all I knew how to do at the time, by the way. So I didn't make any promises of signing clients. I didn't say I'll help you launch your first group program or I'll help you build a podcast or anything like that. I was like, I'll help you take all of your ideas, streamline them and put a business out into the world.

Then as I started to learn more and more, I was able to expand. 

Today, the problem that I solve is supporting entrepreneurs who struggle with creating a revenue-generating business. They're not making consistent money from their business and they come to me. That's probably why you're here. The avenues that I use are branding and marketing. And I have specific programs under each of those. 

My niche has expanded over the years as my business has grown.

FINDING YOUR NICHE THROUGH BRAND STORYTELLING

So, to start you want to identify the problem that your target audience is facing. 

This is why ideal customer work is so important because it's going to be really hard to identify the problem if you don't really know who your ideal customer is. They fit hand in hand and that's where it can get confusing sometimes. 

So the way that I love to teach it is, to begin with the process of storytelling. That begins with identifying a few key pieces about who you are.

• What are your strengths? 

• What are the things that you're really, really good at? 

• What have you helped people with? Friends, family, colleagues?

• What have you been paid for in the past? 

• What's your training and all these different things? 

What are the things from your story that you know make you unique, that you're really, really good at, that you can bring to the table? 

Then think about who you ultimately want to support in doing just that. This is the second phase, which is your ideal customer. 

For example, when I was starting my business, I made a list of all of my strengths, and this is still an exercise that I teach inside of Roadmap to Freedom, and then started grouping them together. 

And I found that something that I was really good at was communication, that I had a background in PR, but I didn't want to teach PR. That I knew how to use social media and communication and messaging. And I had done a lot of work in branding and messaging and advertising in different forms for companies and nonprofits.

By looking at this, I was able to see that there was a central theme in what I enjoyed doing and that was communication. 

So then I started to think about, well, who do I want to work with? Who do I feel really connected with? Who can I share a lot of similarities with? Because that was important to me. That's not a decision marker for all businesses, but for my business, I had in my mind specifically who I wanted to work with and what their desires were.

So I started writing that down. 

Then the third piece of it, I said, okay, this is kind of my general focus. This is my ideal customer. 

What are their main problems within that focus? 

So I started to ask myself, with my ideal customer in mind, what do they struggle with most with communication? And I was able to start to pinpoint those specific problems to which I could then create my niche. 

THE EVOLUTION OF YOUR NICHE

Now your niche can evolve over time. We've already said that. And I think sometimes we think that pieces of business are so permanent and we let ourselves believe that like, well, I'm going to do this and then I'm never ever going to be able to go back to it and change it ever again. 

That's not true. 
Your business is evolving. 
You're evolving. 
Your level of expertise is evolving. 

It's meant to change.

But you've got to have something solid and specific to get started, otherwise you're constantly going to be changing it and moving it around and you're not going to make money in your business. 

CONCLUSION

With niching down, we've got to focus on the main problem. Because again, we will pay a lot of money to solve a problem. 

When you’re thinking about niching down, think about doctors.

If you go to a general doctor who can help you with anything under the sun, you can bring all of your questions to them. They make less money than a specialist, right? 

If I’ve got a problem with my foot, I'm going to go to a foot doctor and they're going to help me with that specific problem. If I want to get my skin looked at, I'm going to go to a dermatologist and they're going to help me with that specific problem.

Those specialists make more money because they're specializing in solving a very specific problem. We will pay more money as a consumer to solve very specific problems. 

So if there's anything to motivate you to get specific, especially in the beginning, think about the money that you'll be able to create that will then allow you to expand to a point where yes, you can sell journals and jewelry and tapestry and books and all of those different things. I get it. I want to do it too. But I also know that I'm going to need money to do all that. 

So don't stretch yourself too thin. Focus on getting really, really specific.

When you're thinking about the niching down process, think about the specific problem that you solve for your ideal customer. 

I’m guiding you through this entire process in my upcoming Niche Challenge happening October 18 - October 24, 2021. 

We will walk through my signature process for niching down so you can walk away with a specific niche and an understanding of how to communicate your niche in a way that magnetizes your ideal customer.

Join the free challenge at brandmerry.com/niche.

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

3 Must-Haves for a Mission-Driven, Magnetic and Money-Making Business

3 Must-Haves for a Mission-Driven, Magnetic and Money-Making Business

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

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Inside of this episode, we're going to talk about what every successful entrepreneur has to start with in order to create major momentum in their business. 

We're going to talk about how to cultivate expansion, AKA scalable growth in your business so you don't plateau. 

We're going to talk about the single piece most entrepreneurs miss that's keeping them from attracting their soul clients, and the exact three pieces needed to create a business that's set up for success from the start and continues to support you in your dream life of freedom.

As you know, this is such a driver for me and has always been the motivation behind my business, the motivation to support women specifically in creating these freedom-based businesses that allow them to experience whatever freedom looks like for them. 

Whether that's traveling the world as a digital nomad…
...being able to pay off their bills
...retiring their husband
...being able to send their kid to the best school there is,
...to just being able to go to happy hour every single week because you freaking want to. 

Whatever freedom looks like for you, that's always been the mission. 

And I really believe that when we start our own businesses, whether we're doing them full-time or part-time or side hustle or whatever that looks like, we are giving ourselves such an opportunity for expansion and growth, and we're giving ourselves an opportunity to really evolve.

And from that, from the extra income, let's just call it what it is, we're able to do really cool shit. 

So this post is all about that.

We're going to talk about those three must-haves that I have used in my own business, that I teach all of my clients in order to create a mission-driven, magnetic, and money-making business. 

UNDERSTANDING YOUR BRAND MISSION AND BRAND PURPOSE

The number one must-have that you need to have solid in your business in order for this entire thing to work is a clear understanding of your brand mission and your purpose. 

Often we hear a lot about the idea of why or the power of why. Maybe you've completed a workbook or a free guide or attended a training where they've told you to get in touch with your why. 

I want to go a step further because, in my own journey, I quickly realized that the why that I was coming up with wasn't enough. 

When things started to get a little rough there in the beginning and I started to really question if I wanted to keep doing this, I had to dig deeper. Because the why that I was providing myself, the why that I had come up with was really surface level. 

It was all about being able to travel full time, which is pretty cool, let me just say.

It was about being home with my son. It was about having money to shop at Whole Foods. But when things started to get difficult in running my business, that why was really easy to dismiss. 

It was really easy to be like, "Oh, that's okay. We don't need that right now. Oh, that's okay, I'll go get this job. And that'll allow us to do that." 

What I needed to get in touch with was my purpose. Your purpose is a step further. And this is why I love the work that Simon Sinek does because he talks about going further than the why, the purpose. 

Why are you doing what you're doing? 
What is the true purpose behind your brand and your business? 

Now I want to take a second and look at the nonprofit sector. I grew up in the nonprofit world, volunteering, doing community service every freaking weekend.

My family actually owns our own nonprofit that we started when I lost my brother to childhood cancer. And I worked professionally in the nonprofit sector for years. 

One of the reasons that I'm so driven to that industry, and I bet you are as well, is because everything is surrounded around their mission. The very first thing that you have to do when you are creating a nonprofit or filling out a grant is tell them your mission. 

This is what builds community around an organization. This is what allows them to effectively communicate what they do with their community. 

So I want to know what is the mission of your business? 

Have you taken the time to identify what you're actually doing? 

What is the purpose of your business?  Not just what you provide, not just the services that you have, not just the transformation that you want to provide your clients, but the mission, the heart of the brand, and the business.

This is what will keep you going. 

This is what will sustain you because running a business, it's not all butterflies, rainbows, and unicorns. 

I know it's easy to think that because everyone's showing you the bright, shiny stuff in the online space, but it's going to take hard work, and it's going to take that word that I personally love, which is hustle. 

I think hustle is a really, really strong word. 
It means you're in it to win it. 
You're in it for the long run. 
You know your purpose. 
You're going to put in the time and the energy because you are clear on the outcome. 

Hustle ain't bad and you're going to need it. 

The only thing that is going to keep you going is a connection and grounding to your purpose and your mission. 

So I want you to get clear on that before you do anything else moving forward. In a recent podcast episode, I shared more about building your brand mission.

I have two questions I want you to ask yourself over the next 24 hours. 

The number one thing I want you to ask yourself is, "What impact do I want to have? What impact do I want to have in this world?" 

The second thing I want you to ask yourself is something that I realized shortly after losing my brother to childhood cancer. And that was, "What do I want to be remembered for?" When I answered this question, my entire life changed and as a result, my business was born. 

So I want you to think about that. At the end of it all, what do you want to be remembered for? 

You'll start to discover that this is a lot deeper than, "I want to shop at Whole Foods." Or, "I want to buy that new car." Or, "I want to pay off my student loan."

This is the stuff that gets your community to come to you. 
This is the stuff that gets people to trust you because they're so connected with your mission and your message. 

So ask yourself, brainstorm, do a little work on those two questions. 

Just to remind you of my own mission, it is to empower women, to uncover and own their story, and share it with true authenticity through their profitable business. 

Every single thing that I create centers around this mission. Every program that I put out there connects to story. 

My brand, what you see on my website, my social media platforms, all connects to story. 

I have a clear linear connection through everything that I create and as a result, no matter what happens, I keep going. And that's where that resilient mindset comes in.

CULTIVATE EXPANSION IN YOUR BUSINESS

Number two is all about cultivating expansion in your brand and your business. Now the key to cultivating expansion, the key to any successful online business is the power of creativity. 

I don't know about you, but the desire to create keeps me going all the time. It is the reason that I actually wanted to start this business in the first place.

I love creating new content. 
I love posting pictures on Instagram, recording videos, writing emails, writing blog posts, collaborating, and having conversations with people. 

The idea of creativity and the power of me actually creating content lights me up. 

And that is the thing. You've got to be inspired if you want to inspire other people. 

Content creates community and a community is so, so important because it is where the money comes from. That's where your clients are. If you weren't focused on creating content at the very beginning of your business, I'm talking like day freaking one, you are missing out on some crucial time when you can be creating brand awareness. 

Having this content allows you to build community. It allows you to pull people in, to serve them, to provide your story, to tap into their story, to provide tips and tools, and transformation that allows them to trust you.

When you can get your audience to trust you, through the power of content, through the power of you showing up, that's when you create a community of true fans, rather than just followers. 

Once you have your mission established, you are light years ahead of a lot of people in this industry who are focused on the wrong things when they start out. 

Because of that, you should feel really inspired to show up and share that mission with your audience. That is key. Content comes from tapping into where you are now. 

So I have three questions that I want you to write down on a piece of paper and start brainstorming these different things. I promise you you are going to have exactly what you need to show up for your audience right now.

Number one, what inspires you? 

Gosh, it seems so simple, doesn't it? But we forget all the time. 

What do we actually like to do? And I’ve got a little secret for you. You're starting your own business, or you have your own business, you're scaling your own business, you're the CEO of your own business. You get to show up and talk about things and create content around things that you actually enjoy. 

You don't have to work for someone else anymore. 
You don't have to create content for someone else anymore. 
You get to show up as you. 

So let's start with that. What actually inspires you? What do you love talking about? 

Now, let's take it a step further with question two. 
What could you talk about for hours with your friends? 

Remember, we're setting out in the online space to create a community of fans.

Your community is your friends. I can't tell you how many members of my community and my clients that I am friends with, that I enjoy talking to and hearing about their life. So why would you show up and talk to your community about something different than you would maybe talk to a close friend about? 

Now, I understand some of us have friends who have no idea what we do. I love my friends forever and ever, and they're trying to understand day after day and they're getting awesome.

However, I get there's a little bit of a disconnect. But let's just imagine that you were talking to a very best friend who understood what you do and what you're building a business around. What could you talk about them with for hours? Write that down.

And the third thing I want you to uncover is what do these friends and family members come to you for advice on? 

It's already happening around you and you're maybe not paying attention to it, but the second you start paying attention to it, you're going to be like, "Oh, wow.”

I started to realize that people were coming to me to talk about public speaking. Those people were coming to me to ask questions about showing up on video. People were coming to ask questions about communication and social media. 

And that's where I started my business. That's what I taught in the beginning. That's what I would show up and share content around. So start looking at what your friends and family are already giving you ideas around. 

The key to consistent creativity and therefore consistent content comes from where you are right now. When we start reaching for an unattainable, meaning like what is Susie doing on the internet, what is Susie talking about, and we start talking about that too, there's going to be a disconnect.

When there's a disconnect, we aren't feeling creative and we aren't feeling inspired. 

And when we aren't feeling inspired, you guessed it: we can't inspire our audience. 

When you tap into your knowledge and your inspiration, expansion is inevitable. When you are constantly coming from a place of inspiration and you are sharing that with your audience, that can be in the form of, your story, valuable posts, tips, tools, tapping into their story, understanding where they are. 

These are the key pieces of really strong content. There's no right or wrong way to create content, my friends. I know it's really easy to fall into the idea that there is a template for everything. And there are some really cool tricks, but really just starting and doing the work now and testing and tweaking and figuring it out as you go is how you create authentic content that resonates with your audience.

And that will allow your brand to continue to grow and expand. 

If you want to see how I plan 90 days of content ideas, check out this video here.

BUILD AN ONLINE COMMUNITY FOR YOUR BRAND

Community is necessary. I repeat you can not build a business, a profitable business without a community.

How do you expect to sell things if you have no one to sell them to? 

At the end of the day, I am telling you, those high-level entrepreneurs that you see making six figures, seven figures, and beyond in their business, have a community of people who are interested, intrigued, and magnetized by their message. 

And because of that community, they are able to consistently sell and hit their goals in their business. 

Now, I see this all the time in the online space and it breaks my freaking heart because I did it too. I created a program, I created a course, I created the website and I put it out there and nobody came.

Maybe you've had this happen in your own story as well where you created a course or a program and you promoted it and you did all of the things that you were told to do, and you didn't hit your goals. 

And it comes back to not having people to actually sell that to. 

So when entrepreneurs come to me, they're really stressed out about this, they're feeling discouraged, they don't really want to do it anymore and we always look at the community. 

Who's there, and how are you showing up for them? 

At the end of the day, I cannot stress enough that community really, really matters. And you need a community of soul clients. Soul clients are those people who are invested and interested and believe in you, your mission, and what you are building.

One of my favorite quotes that I have ever heard that has shaped my entire business is from Zig Ziglar. And it says, "If people like you, they'll listen. If they trust you, they'll do business with you." 

Trust comes from creating a community of people who are interested in what you have to say, and for you showing up with content to build that trust for them. 

To make them understand that you are there to support them through their transformation, that you are the missing piece or the key that's going to help them to get from where they are to where they ultimately want to be. So not just creating a community, but creating that community of people who are genuinely interested. 

Now, a community can be formed anywhere you want. It can be in person, it can be done on Instagram, Facebook, you could create a community on Pinterest, LinkedIn, it doesn't matter.

But what I really encourage you to do is go a step further and create an online community via your email list. Now, at the end of the day, we don't own Facebook or any of those other cool platforms. 

What I'm saying to you is that it's easy to hit like. It's a little harder to say, "Yes, I want to hear from you so I'm going to provide you with my email address." 

This extra step allows you to prime your community and pulls in those people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say. You might be sitting there thinking to yourself, "I don't have a community or maybe I have a really small community and I'm not sure how to grow it."

I'm going to share with you the simplest way to get started. 

START BUILDING YOUR EMAIL LIST

Step One: Ask yourself where your audience hangs out online. 

This should be where you're hanging out online. If you are hanging out in Facebook groups and your audience isn't on Facebook groups, then your content's probably going to fall flat and you're not going to get engagement. So be where your audience is, that's number one. 

Step Two: What does your audience need right now? 

Now go create that. Seriously. What do they need right now?

Go write it down, create something really quickly and put it out there online. Give it to them as a gift. Now here's the key: in order to access that gift, they must give you their email address. This is how it all starts. This is the baby step of building a list. Yeah, there are a ton of cool things that you can do with list building.

I geek out about them on the regular, but I just want you to get started. If you've already started creating lead magnets and building your community, but you're not seeing the numbers, then I want you to ask yourself again, "What does my audience need right now?" Create that and start pulling in your soul clients. 

Build a strong community over time.

You're not going to wake up tomorrow to 500 subscribers, so don't come and say, "Michelle, I did your freebie and it didn't work." It's working. Depends a lot on you and a lot on your consistency. 

But when you are doing this, when you are focused on consistently showing up and building this community, it is the number one way to profitability. 

Let me remind you: you cannot sell if you have no one to sell to. So focus on building community and the sales will come.

From the beginning I started to get people onto my list and I just continued to show up for them. 

With just 10 people, I signed my first high level client. 

And with less than 100 people, I hit 15K cash in my business. 

So I'm telling you, this is where it lives. This is where profitability, strong brand, a strong business, and success lives. It lives in your community.

CONCLUSION

This is the foundation or three pillars of a sustainable business and the foundation of what we teach inside of Roadmap to Freedom.

This 90-day group program opens once a year in October and doors are opening soon.

You’re ready to be your own boss, leave your 9 to 5 or side hustle and go all-in on your business

You’ve got dreams to travel the world and don’t want to compromise your love of travel for your career.

You’ve got BIG money dreams and you know that by stepping into the abundance of cash and experiences you can make a difference in the life of your family and the world!

You want to show up fully for your family, while still pursuing your mission-driven work.

You know you can impact thousands of people with your voice and story, you just need the platform!

You want the freedom to use your time and finances in whatever way you freaking please, without feeling restricted by how much you can earn.

You can no longer deny the fire inside to be more and do more in the world.

Then I encourage you to learn more about R2F and join the waitlist.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.