So, you’ve made your decisions. You’ve picked your niche, your unique solution to their pain, your branding elements, and all those other online start-up essentials, right? You’re ready to start moving forward with your web presence-building to-do list.
First, let me just say a big CONGRATULATIONS!! You’ve already jumped the biggest hurdle there is when it comes to propelling your business forward in this brave new Web 2.0 world. My hat’s off to you. I spent two years in business without ever knowing what a “niche” was, much less how much easier marketing can be when you’re only speaking to a few, rather than the entire world.
You’ll hear alot of buzz words out there about this particular aspect of your business. Words like “laser focus” will quickly start to fall on deaf ears after you’ve heard it so many times. But really, this is the foundation of your marketing plan. It really does help. It’s tedious work, but it really pays serious dividends later. Don’t ignore it.
So, now that you’re ready…let’s get started!
Let’s make sure you first have all the tools you need to do this right. I’ve written a short list of things you’ll need below. If you want to delve a little further, I wrote a post back in early 2008 that covers the same topic. You can read all the posts in that series here.
Basically, you’ll need the following wrenches, drills, screwdrivers, and other tools for your business toolbox:
FTP Client Software
The top of the list is an FTP client like CoreFTP Lite. There’s a free version you can download & it has everything you’ll need to manage your site files. (You’ll need an FTP client in order to download and install themes, plug-ins, and other files.) There are others like CuteFTP, if Core isn’t right for you. Just hit that handy-dandy Google search bar and ask it to dig up some “free FTP software.”
A way to unzip files
If you’re using Vista or other OS with the ability to unzip, you can simply right-click the zip folder and choose “Extract all.” Otherwise, you might need something like WinZip which offers a free trial, or jZip which is completely free. Just Google “free zip software” and you’ll find a gazillion free utilities.
A domain and hosting of your own
I’ve made a few recommendations on easy hosts to work with in terms of Wordpress, based on my experience. But these are by no means the only hosts out there. To make your life easier, look for a host who offers CPanel and Fantastico. (You might also want to consider paying for a year’s hosting at a time. You’ll save money and not have to worry about a monthly bill.)
When picking your domain name, remember your branding. Pick something easy to remember, but hard to misspell/type incorrectly. Avoid hyphens, plural forms of words, or other little characters that are easy for folks to forget to type in. And you’ll want your domain name to be easily associated with the rest of your branding elements. (For example, don’t register “yourownname.com” if all of your branding elements say “ABC Life Coaching.” You don’t need to make it any harder for people to learn who and what you are.)
An autoresponder service
Services such as Aweber or 1ShoppingCart will be essential to your business. Personally, I prefer (and use) Aweber. It now integrates with Feedburner, which is my choice for RSS. (If you’re planning on having affiliates at any time in the future, you might want to look at 1ShoppingCart or another service which offers affiliate management as well as email marketing/autoresponders. I promise you, once you pick your autoresponder service you don’t want to move it. You’ll lose most of your subscribers due to the necessary re-opt-in issue. So, pick the one you can grow into the best.)
Next up…we’ll talk about why we’re going to build a blog site, rather than just a plain old-fashioned static website. I’ll walk you through getting Wordpress set up first, then we’ll dive on into all the other fun stuff! Stay tuned! And if you just tuned in? Don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS (that blue icon on the top right over there, just above my picture) or bookmark the Business 101 Series URL.
Before we go any further, let’s talk a little bit about what Business 101 is, and what it’s not.
Business 101 is not intended to be an all-inclusive, all-encompassing, business-in-a-box (or blog, I guess would be more appropriate) solution for new service professionals. Let’s be honest here, there are a million and one gurus and info marketers out there who can teach you the core concepts behind what we’re doing here. I’ll leave it to those folks to teach you what you need to know about branding, marketing techniques, strategies, SEO, and the like.
Don’t get me wrong. We will touch on those subjects and topics throughout Business 101. However, my goal is not to teach you the concepts, but rather show you the technical how-to’s to implement those concepts and strategies.
For example, if you have participated in Alicia Forest’s 21 Step Take Action Group, read Alexandria Brown’s newsletters, attended AuthorSmart webinars, and the like, then you should have a good idea about the concepts I’m talking about. If you’ve gotten that far, then you should have a pretty clear understanding of what you should do in terms of getting your new practice off the ground floor. (I’m by no means suggesting that you should only listen to these folks, as there are literally tons of folks out there who can help you understand the business concepts you need. I’m just saying that we won’t go in-depth on these concepts themselves. We’re just going to cover the technical how-to’s.)
Like I said, I’m not here to teach you what to do. Instead, Business 101 is designed to teach you how to do the things the experts are telling you to do. How to get your blog site built and customized to reflect your brand. How to set up your autoresponder. How to create squeeze and landing pages. How to integrate those elements with social media to create an entire web presence, rather than just a static website (that really does nothing.)
So, before we go any further, you should make sure you’re ready. Before you try to build your web presence, you should have already done a few things such as
- Chosen your niche or target market.
- Found your niche/target market’s greatest pain and determined your unique solution to it.
- Decide on branding elements such as business name, logo design, etc.
- Have already begun crafting your marketing message, 30 second elevator speech, etc.
If you haven’t completed these initial steps, then I suggest you do a little more work before embarking on your journey through Business 101. If that’s what you need to do, then by all means, do a little more digging. Then come back & pick up where you left off here. We’ll be easy to find. Just bookmark the series URL http://www.thesoundingboard.virtuallyyoursllc.com/series/Business-101
I will say, if you plan to make blogging part of your routine/business, then you should check out the links in my blogroll. (over there on the right, under “Links.”) I especially recommend you check out folks like Remarkablogger and Liz Strauss, as these folks know what they’re talking about when it comes to blogging and business.
Are you new to the coaching, speaking, author, or consultant industries? Struggling to get yourself or your practice out there in cyberspace? Not sure where to start, if you have to learn html or css, having trouble figuring out how to get an email list started?
Then do I ever have something for you guys!
Last Spring I started working on something just for you guys. It’s called Business 101. I even did a Sneak Peak Week to give everyone a chance to see what Business 101 was going to cover. It’s all about helping you learn what you need to know to get yourself out there in cyberspace, building your dream business. I had planned on releasing it this past Spring or early Summer. However, after going through the review/edit phase going into publication, I realized that it just wasn’t turning out the way I wanted.
I didn’t want to go the route of “I’m an expert, even though you’ve never heard of me” like I see so many info marketers doing these days. I wanted reality. I wanted authenticity. There was a time when I was where you are right now. I understand what it’s like trying to get your business off the ground with little to no budget or know-how. When I first started, I knew how to be an executive-level administrative assistant. Heck, my last job was as Operations Manager for a state-wide contract building maintenance firm. I had 100+ employees working under me. But that didn’t mean I knew the first thing about building or marketing a business online. I had to learn it all the hard way, through long, late nights reading, researching, or just plain old trial and error.
When I started writing Business 101, I wanted to offer genuine help to folks who are where I was just a few short years ago. but as I got further and further into the writing process, something changed. Suddenly my genuine desire to help started sounding like a sales pitch, like just another info marketer trying to sell something. I hated it. Somewhere in the writing process I lost my own unique voice. So, we held off on our release plans while I reworked the entire Business 101 concept.
So what is Business 101? Quite simply, Business 101 covers some of the basic behind-the-scenes geek work required to get yourself out there. Setting up a blog site, customizing it with your own branding elements, setting up your email list, building squeeze and landing pages, etc. All those things I had to learn how to do the hard way when I first started. (And I’m still learning and perfecting my skills. You’ll never hear me use the term “expert” in reference to myself. I think “expert” implies there’s nothing left for me to learn, and I’ll never get to that point.)
In Business 101 we’ll cover the basics like:
- Chosing a novice-friendly web host
- Installing Wordpress
- Customizing Wordpress to build a complete website - no serious HTML experience needed
- RSS feeds
- Setting up your email list
- Marketing your blog site to your TM without spending a dime!! (Seriously, no money needed - I promise!!)
- Leveraging free tools to get the most value for your most precious commodity - your time!
Subscribe to the Sounding Board RSS feed (click on that blue RSS icon over on the right) and be sure not to miss this series!! If you’re new to all this website/blog stuff and not sure where to start? You definitely need to tune in to this portion of Business 101.
You won’t get this much information all in one place anywhere else, and definitely NOT for free (I won’t even try to pitch anything to you later.) So do yourself a huge favor, eliminate some of those headaches & subscribe to my RSS so you don’t miss out! Posts will be updated twice a week to give you time to process each step of your journey into getting your new cyber image out there for all to see!! We won’t leave any stone unturned & there will be plenty of opportunity for you to ask questions & get help building your online presence. If you don’t understand something, I’m just an email away!
Sandi is the author of The Sounding Board. She specializes in supporting passionate, creative professionals (coaches, speakers, authors, designers, etc.) through administrative support, marketing assistance, and training for the die-hard DIYer. Visit 
