#015 How to GROW Your Online Business in 5 HOURS a Week

TSFF #015

How to GROW Your Online Business in 5 HOURS a Week

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What do you do if you only have about five hours a week to grow your online business?

A lot of people are in this situation, especially at first if you have a 9-to-5 job and you're trying to build something on the side.

I recently got this question from a subscriber. He says,

"At the end of the newsletter, you said, 'Simply reply to this email and tell me where you're stuck or struggling in your business, and I'll make future newsletters that will help you tackle those challenges and get to the next level in your online business. I have about 5 hours a week I can commit to building an online business. How would you recommend I spend those hours? I'm a guitar teacher with 30 years of experience. I have filmed a couple of beginner courses and I already have ideas for intermediate courses. My weakness is in building an audience. Many thanks."

If you only have a limited amount of time to work on your business, what do you do? 

Sprint Vs. Pacing

First, you want to think of the time that you dedicate to building your business as a combination between sprints and pacing. When you run a race, there is a difference between sprinting, which is a short-term activity, and pacing, which is how you do long-term. I know nothing about running, but I do know this: most runners have a pace. And once they figure out what their pace is, they can run at that pace for miles and miles and miles.

And in the race of online business, you really need both.

So the first thing I want you to think about is how can you carve out some time upfront to sprint.

Could you carve out a weekend - two days in a row - a Saturday and a Sunday? Is there a couple of days that you could take off work during the week and pair it up with the weekend where you have a Thursday, Friday, a Saturday, and a Sunday? Get creative and carve out at least two days, but three or four is better. And this is going to be your sprint.

When you do this sprint, you're going to focus on four things that are part of the foundation of your online business.

The Four Focuses of Your Sprint

During your sprint, you're going to focus on

1. Building your website
2. Building a lead-magnet
3. Creating your first email funnel
4. Making your content plan

Let's talk about each one of those in order.

Building Your Website

Your website is simply going to be just a site that is going to get people on your email list. That is it.

You don't need to do anything fancy. It can be one page. It just has to center around a compelling lead magnet.

Building a Lead-Magnet

The lead magnet is going to be your free helpful resource that you put in people's hands in exchange for their email address. This is what's going to help build your list.

So the website has a page that contains your lead magnet. Pretty simple so far, right?

You'll be tempted to complicate things, but please don't. It's way better when it's simple.

Creating Your First Email Funnel

The next thing you're going to do is build your email funnel.

Don't be afraid or intimidated by the word "funnel." It's just a set of emails that are automatically set up that people get once they download your lead-magnet.

You are going to set up a sequence of emails that is going to welcome new subscribers to your list.

In the emails, you're going to ask them for more feedback like "Hey, what are you struggling with? Where are you stuck? How can I help you?"

And eventually, you're going to have something to offer for sale.

Making Your Content Plan

Take your main niche, your main topic, and break it down into four subcategories.

For example, over at my other online business, Preaching Donkey, my main topic is preaching. But I have some subcategories or content buckets under that: sermon prep, sermon delivery, church leadership, and lessons for pastors.

Take your main topic, split it into four or five content buckets, and under each one of those, make a list of 10 to 12 content ideas.

If you do video, it's video ideas. If you do written posts, it's post ideas. Whatever the case, make 10 to 12. That will give you a supply of 40 to 50 content ideas that you can begin to work out over time.

Moving from Sprint to a 5 Hour a Week Pace

The sprint is now over, and now we're back to that question of what do I do if I only have five hours a week?

In the case of the person who asked this initial question, I recommend he do two things. And I'd recommend the same pacing for you if you have 5 hours a week:

1-2 Hours a Week: Make One Piece of Content a Week that Pitches Your Lead-Magnet

The first thing is to make one piece of content a week such as a YouTube video, and email it to your email list.

In each piece of content, you are going to pitch your lead magnet. Pitch it loud, pitch it proud. I'm not shy about my lead-magnet because I know it's going to help the person watching my content.

Make the piece of content, share it, and be sure pitch your lead magnet in it. From there, your email funnel will do the rest.

3-4 Hours a Week: Work on Building and Launching Your Course

While that's happening, any other time that you have during the week, work on your course.

Get your courses polished up and ready to go and launch them.

Your content should only take you 1 to 2 hours a week. That leaves 3 to 4 hours a week at this point to just work on courses.

Get a product finished as fast as you can, work on the pre-launch material, and get it launched asap.

Because as soon as you can get that into your funnel, what you now have is a system where you make content, people get your lead magnet, they go through the email funnel, and they're offered a product.

Once that's done, you can start working on the next product, or you can do one-on-one coaching with the remaining time during the week.

Over time this process becomes more passive and scalable, but periodic sprints will be required.

Here's two ways I can help you:

#1 Get on the Waitlist for my upcoming course, Six-Figure Online Business Fastlane, a complete, end-to-end system to equip you to start and grow an online business that makes life-changing passive income.

#2 Jumpstart your business on the best all-in-one online business platform there is: Kajabi. Get it free for 30 days with my link plus exclusive bonuses from me. Find out more: LaneSebring.com/Kajabi