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Hello! I’m Wanauma and the founder and digital content creator here at Boss Free Media. I spend most of my time creating digital products for our Etsy shop for women entrepreneurs—if you've purchased a BFM product, you have likely seen my work before.
Today I’m sharing a few of my top tips on managing your business growth as a solo woman entrepreneur using my Simplified Growth Strategy, which is a way to gain the clarity you need by focusing on a few key things (or collection of action items).
1. Create a customer persona. This is your target audience and primary customer. Establish a clear representation of the audience you serve. In other words, describe your ideal customer.
A customer persona (also known as buyer persona) is a collection of key traits and demographics, such as: problems, frustrations, interests, behaviors, values, economic status, hangouts, age, gender, location, work, and personality type. Use it as a cheat sheet when communicating your brand (via email, social media, speaking, web copy, product descriptions, etc.), developing products, and establishing an effective business strategy.
Problem: The biggest mistake you can make is trying to be everything to everybody. This approach lacks clarity and focus, which causes confusion for both you and your prospects. It is the slowest growth model and the fastest route to failure.
Solution: Create a customer persona. It fine tunes your messaging and also helps you create better content, attract the right customers, create a better product, build meaningful customer relationships, and boost sales conversions.
Bonus Tip #1: Be flexible. In a new business, everything must be tested and refined, including your customer persona. Use research, analytics, and surveys to gather more information. Your ideal customer base should be a large enough audience to sustain your business and growth.
Bonus Tip #2: Create a one page customer persona cheat sheet. Include an image of your ideal customer. Print it out and put it on your desk. Looking at it each day will help you become more familiar with your audience.
2. Develop a solid growth strategy. This is your key to success. With a business strategy in place, you'll have a roadmap to what your success will look like 1 year, 3 years, or even 5 years from now. Your growth strategy is the heart of your business and what you will use to accomplish your BIG goal. It includes, identifying your industry and audience, being clear on your high-level vision (your aim), understanding your mission, knowing how you will differentiate your business, knowing your specific business goals, and here's the heartbeat of your strategy... knowing the key things you will do on a daily and monthly basis to achieve your yearly goal.
Know how it needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and who is going to be responsible for it. Your business strategy will help you focus and know what you're doing, but more importantly, what you won't be doing.
In summary, the key elements of your plan include your vision, mission statement, detailed goals and objectives, action plans, and scorecards to help you track your progress.
Problem: If you're starting out you might be tempted to "do all the things" for fear of missing out on a client or opportunity. Lack of clarity and focus can take you in many different directions, causing confusion and stagnancy instead of growth.
Solution: Having a simple business strategy that you can implement and follow day-to-day will help you scale your business. If successful, rinse and repeat on a yearly basis.
Bonus Tip #1: Develop a simple, one page, strategic bullet points action plan and review it often to keep it top of mind. Your business decisions should be guided by it.
Bonus Tip #2: A strategy does not predict the future, so you'll need to monitor your plan, review it, and adjust it as external and internal conditions change. Schedule a quarterly review.
3. Emphasize your ONE thing. As outlined in my course Purpose Activator, this is how you achieve your income goal and business financial goals in year one without (too much!) trial and error. Focus is key to your business success. The first year in your new business is the toughest because it's a testing phase. You're learning what works and what doesn't. While you wouldn't want to skip the learning phase (it gives you valuable insight into your specific business and personal capabilities), there is a cheat code to achieve your first year financial goals.
Cheat Code
1. ONE dream customer.
2. ONE sticky message.
3. ONE signature product.
4. ONE main interactive social platform.
5. ONE sales process.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Bonus Tip: Whenever you post about your business, products or services be sure to leverage your ONE sticky message—and talk directly to your audience. This helps create a sense of community and adds to the excitement of your offer.
If you’re a woman entrepreneur interested in learning more about new business strategies—as well as hearing some other tips around business growth— Subscribe here!
Have you ever created a successful business strategy or customer persona? What tips do you have for a woman who’s new to being an entrepreneur or solo business owner?
All the best,
Wanauma
Wanauma Graham is a “do what you love” enthusiast and author of Totally Unstoppable and Her Mark. She’s the founder and creator of BossFreeMedia.com, a personal development hub for women entrepreneurs (…in the making) looking to start and scale a business that's centered on "purpose". Her digital products Shop for Women Entrepreneurs, offering templates, courses, and guides is gaining popularity. Connect with her:
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