4 Secrets to Running a Successful Online Business
Search “how to run a successful business” on the internet, and you’ll get quite a bit of advice. Start with a great business idea. Have a solid business plan. Know your competition. Be prepared to market your business. You get the idea!
While these are certainly helpful, there are other skills and actions you can take to grow a successful online business. Ones that don’t get as much attention, in fact.
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Work on your business, not just in it
As the CEO of your business, you have an extra job to do on top of your everyday, run-of-the-mill work. That daily work means providing the services you offer or selling the products in your online shop.
If you’re a coach, that might look like meeting with clients or recording for your podcast. If you’re a graphic designer, that might look like creating new designs or waiting on approvals for current ones. If you’re a photographer, that might look like shooting on location or at your studio.
This is the work that your online business is known for. It’s what you market to your target audience. This is the work you do when I talk about “working in your business.”
In comparison, “working on your business” is that extra job you have as CEO.
Think of it as stepping outside of your business and looking at it as a product or a machine. What does your business need to operate and thrive? How can you better serve your clients and customers? Is your business on track to accomplish your goals?
For our hypothetical coach, this kind of work might involve adding an extra service to meet client needs. For the graphic designer, maybe it’s being more selective about the clients you work with. And for the photographer, it might mean bundling photography services or selling digital products.
Working on your business involves CEO-level decision-making and prioritizing your vision. It’s work that you alone can do as CEO, which is why it’s important to make time for it.
Set up solid systems and processes
One way to free up precious CEO time for yourself is to take yourself out of the equation where you can. Consider how you can improve your workflows so that you, and your team if you have one, can be more efficient and productive.
Start by pinpointing one task that you do for your business repeatedly. We’ll go with onboarding a new client.
If you don’t have a system or process for this task, you always have to remember what’s included in your onboarding process. That makes it really easy to forget a step or an important document! You also waste valuable time figuring out what to do next.
But what if you took the time to outline every single step in your onboarding process? You could even create a simple checklist and templates to be used for new clients in the future.
Systems and processes for your online business:
- Get tasks done the same way, every single time
- Ensure that you get the same results every time
- Save you time and stress remembering what to do and how to do it
- Let someone else on your team handle the task
- Free up your CEO time, letting you work on your business
Your business will experience more stability and grow more easily with solid systems and processes at its core. I have a YouTube video that dives deeper into the value of implementing systems in your business, if you’d like to learn more!
Hire at the right time
Another way to free up time for yourself is to grow your team when the time is right. As amazing as I know you are, there’s just not enough time in the world for you to do everything yourself! You need talented team members to build a sustainable, thriving business.
Growing your team at the right time is key. Hire too early, and you might waste resources that can be budgeted elsewhere in your business. Hire too late, and you risk losing customers or existing team members.
Not sure if you’re ready to hire? Here are a few signs that you are:
- You, or the team members you already have, are overworked and approaching burnout
- You’re turning down new clients or new opportunities because you have no bandwidth
- Customer service or the quality of your products is suffering
- Your business is successful and can afford to grow your team
Hiring doesn’t mean you have to bring full-time employees on board right away. You may prefer to work with independent contractors or part-time employees first. Consider your options and what’s best for your budget and business.
Know your numbers
Last but not least, knowing your numbers is vital in running a successful online business!
Your business numbers can tell you how your business is currently performing, as well as how it performed in the past and what it’s capable of in the future. If I had to choose, I’d say that knowing your numbers, aka your data or metrics, is the top secret to growing a successful business.
Because you can’t manage your business well or make the right decisions for its future if you don’t understand how it’s doing. Numbers can give you that information.
You have access to a lot of numbers for your business, so you’ll need to be picky about the data you track and analyze for your business.
For example, if you want to hire more employees, you’d want to evaluate your financial data like ROI or net revenue. If you want to see how well your marketing is performing, you’d look at cost per lead, email conversions, or other sales funnel metrics.
I recommend making a list of the questions you hope to answer by looking at your numbers. Then, choose which metrics to analyze in order to answer your questions. It’s a good way to reduce overwhelm and choice paralysis.
Grow a successful online business with systems, knowledge, and numbers
Let’s recap. Running a successful online business means:
- Setting aside time to work on your business as a CEO
- Repeatable, reliable systems and processes
- Hiring the right people at the right time
- And knowing your business numbers inside and out
These four secrets will help you become a stronger leader and more confident decision-maker who has the time to improve and scale your business. It’s crucial that you improve your workflows so that you can trust your team members to handle tasks for you. And knowing your business numbers is key.
You can start tracking and evaluating those important business numbers right now. Download my free guide, 5 Questions Your Data Can Answer for You! This guide will help you discover what you can learn from your data and how you can use what you find to make business decisions confidently.
