The First Step You Must Take in Order to Make Money as an Entrepreneur

As an entrepreneur, I'm choosing to build an enterprise that I freaking love.

It weaves the deeper spiritual concepts that feed my soul with practical business tools that allow me to connect with the most AMAZING people in the world. I evolve, they evolve. We're all grateful and our lives are enhanced by working together.

In my mind I call it a business as a path to awakening. That probably sounds a little too "woo-woo" to most of you, but it's what turns me on and gets me out of bed in the morning.

I love this idea; that my work doesn't have to be separated from my health, wealth and happiness. I don't know if you've experienced this, but I reached a point where I just couldn't sell myself short anymore. I had to stop stifling my own personal growth by sitting at a desk in someone else's office from 9-5 doing work that wasn't meaningful to me. So what came next?! Ashley, the self-employed entrepreneur...aka months of trying to figure out what the hell I was doing and how I was going to earn money.

If you are feeling the urge to do something like what I did, I fully support you in taking that leap of faith AND I want you to get off on the right foot. So, the very first thing an entrepreneur needs to do is have a profit plan.

Profit plan, profit plan, profit plan. I can't stress this enough. It's so easy in the beginning to get overtaken by our enthusiasm around doing stuff we like and care about - but don't let it happen to you.

How do you know if it's happened to you? In response to people asking you about your new business you'll hear yourself saying, "oh I'm starting a blog" or "I'm building this online community where we can all connect about ... (fill in your topic of interest here). See how you don't hear an actual offering that someone could purchase? They sound more like hobbies instead of a business, right? You could work them into your business model to support your offering, but they are not an actual product or service.

Here are some questions to help you with your profit plan. Spend some time answering them before you dive head first into entreprenurville (or if you're already an entrepreneur, but aren't making money yet - this might be where you're hung up):

How do you enjoy serving people?
How/ where do you enjoy showing up and providing value?
Who is your dream customer? List both psychographic info (core beliefs, thoughts, etc.) and demographic info (age, income, location, gender, etc)
What is your customer's ultimate fantasy product or service that you could provide?
Why are you doing what you're doing? What's your story that your dream customer could relate to?

Use these questions to help find your sweet spot. The sweet spot is the intersection of an actual offering that you are going to love creating & selling and a product or service that your customer fantasizes about.

Thank you, as always, for reading. xoxo