I am Stuck In A 9-5 & Trying To Start My Business – How Do I Balance It?

Asked by a new DM Club member…

Here is my answer

Not the easiest at all…

No doubt about that…

And yet, you have a new focus now…

No longer are you just going to work, you are also building your dream and your job is funding it…

It is temporary…

Not the permanent ‘soul-sucking’ thing it used to be…

Or at least, that is how you can now see it!

When I started in business, I had to work too…

We did not have that much money at all.

I was a pharmacist and I was hating it – I know it sounds great but I had racked up all manner of debt thinking that being a pharmacist would save the day – IT DID NOT!
I ended up with more debt because I THOUGHT PHARMACY WOULD SAVE THE DAY and I was blessed to be a blessing and all of that so I did not say ‘no’ much and tried to save the world…
I dabbled at all kinds of businesses – only to quit when the going got slightly hard leading to more debt…
And I was just plain old stupid – Now I realise I had a problem with money – Having lived with lack for so long, I had started to believe that having money was a bad thing (not helped by the church I belonged to, at the time!) and honey, I was getting rid of the thing as fast as I could make it!!!! (well, FASTER!)
I went bankrupt
Got depressed
And finally digged my head out of my butt when I had my children and got serious about handling all of it
So, when I started business, I had gone bankrupt recently and was just dragging myself out of depression…
For some of the time, my hubby was at Uni so I was the one bringing in the money…

It was hard and I was usually pregnant or longing to be with my babies…

And so, the growth of my business became paramount in my mind…

I had to find a way to not be away from them…

And so they became my ‘WHY!’

When I would want to cry and die, I would stare them in the eye and bolster myself up and keep going…

There were lots of tears that first 18 months or so of business…

But the job meant I was not desperate. I was grateful for that – Not always, but mostly…

And then lots of joy when I was able to quit all together and be home, working the business only (except it was the wrong business but that is a story for another day!)
So, right now, you need to see everything as a means to an end – Your job is not something to resent because it is paving the way for your new life…

And truthfully, anything you resent, you tend to keep until you learn to be grateful for it!

So, time to start the discipline of training your mind to find things to be grateful for…

To remind yourself that this job is paving the way for your fortune and your purpose-driven business…

But then, FOCUS!

OK, every business needs people’s eyeballs on what you have to offer so it is time to start building that audience…

And even if you do not yet have something to sell, you better start building that audience! An online business requires A LOT OF EYEBALLS!!!! so do not delay! START!
Commit 90 minutes a day to this – Yep, you may have to wake up earlier…
Or go to bed later and hold your eyes open with matchsticks…
AND STILL BE GRATEFUL! (I know, it seems impossible but the person you will become, is too amazing for words!)
1) Blog – 2 times a week
2) Video – once a day – Livetream is magic at the moment and hey, you don’t need to prepare all that much – Get on there and share who youa re with the world and end with an offer of some sort.
3) Advertising – start with a teeny budget ($5) and build up as you grow
4) Spreading the word organically – Groups, other platforms, etc
5) Building a mailing list is also something to do but get the ones above happening consistently and then figure this out. (There is training in the DM on all of this)

With 1.9 billion people on Facebook and 700 million on Instagram, there are people available to buy your stuff but you have to boldly Ask them to come take a look…

OK, a bit more detail…
1) Define your person
2) Create content that will interest them – Do some research around this – Look at magazines and other people doing what you are doing – How do they engage your people?
3)Post 5 times at least on your Facebook page – Some images, your blog (new or reshare), your video – Remember to tell people what you want them to do next particularly on a blog or video!
4) Even if you do not currently have a website, please ensure that you keep those blogs somewhere safe to put on your website at a later point
5) Your images can then be reposted to Instagram and Pinterest to start building an audience on those platforms too – Try to take each piece of content you create and spread it to as many places as you can. Put content in Facebook groups as well. Some groups allow pure selling – Use those too. And now, there is the marketplace – Go check it out as well.
6) Advertise some of your content to build the audience on your page – Remember these people who click on your content on the page can be targeted specifically with an ad to buy your product. And Facebook allows you to invite those people who like the content to like the page so that is one way to circumvent having to pay for likes alone and it means that you build an audience on your page of people who have already demonstrated that they like what you have to say or to offer.
7) To create blog posts, a simple thing to keep coming up with ideas is to write a list of questions that your people may ask and then each day, answer them. This current post is an answer to a question asked. If one person is thinking it, then the chances are, that others will be interested too.
8) Please be conversational – Take off your professional head and connect with your people. You do not have enough money to be distant from your audience. Show up, be a real person, get on those livestreams and talk about your day, inspire them and then tell them about what you have on offer. Be bold and be HUMAN! Share your story, share your lessons learnt, tell them what you have to offer. This is where you start to see that EVERYTHING You have been through can be used to impact someone else. We live in a day and age where everyone can be heard – SPEAK! Share your story, inspire someone, educate someone and at the same time offer something that wil help them – You would not be selling it, would you, if it were rubbish so boldly share you and share your stuff! Your videos can show you demonstrate creating the product or reading a chapter of your book, or how you come up with your art, or answer a question someone asks, or simply share what inspires you. Ultimately, show up, BE HUMAN, Help your people to like you! REPEL everyone else!

9) The work does always work – There is a lot of stuff you can do to get more complicated than this but start here. BE a human being, communicate numerous times daily, knowing that everyone is not online all the time, put your products on your Facebook page (particularly if you do not yet have a website, or mailing list then use all the powerful tools on Facebook – You could have a WHOLE BUSINESS just on this platform) and tell your people EXACTLY what you want them to do.

10) Your job is temporary but it is a blessing that allows you to build a business that makes you happy – Everyday, write out reasons that you are thankful for your job because you get to keep the thing that you resent and you can move away from the thing that you are thankful for – It is a spiritual principle but it is true so get to being grateful for things hat you are ready to move away from. I know it seems contradictory but it is the truth. Try it consistently for 18 months and you will change things. You will be a more powerful and resilient person and in that time, if you have been consistent in the work, you will be in a COMPLETELY different place from where you are now.

11) Ask, ask away – I tried to keep this blog simple to have somewhere to start but simple to me, who has been doing it a while is not always simple to you, who is just beginning. So come into the DM group, do those daily check ins and ask your questions – Lets get you to $5000 a month or more as quickly as you will let me.

And there you have it!

Fight for, deliberately design the life you are born to live

Because you want to!

PS – Want personalised support every single day (if you want it