My Signature Online Business Model

This week I lead you through the 4 steps to creating money flow into your business (6:30) as well as the fail proof products and services list your business needs whether it is new or established (13:45).

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Audio Transcript

Intro (5s):
The Wanderlover podcast was created with a mission to enable travel and freedom through entrepreneurship. I’m your host, Danielle Hu business mentor, content creator, and founder of The Wanderlover tune in every week for episodes about travel online business, social media, and mindset that will inspire you to take massive action towards living the life of your dreams. If you’ve been enjoying the Wanderlover podcast, if you’ve been tuning in and finding inspiration and taking away value, it would mean so much to me. If you could take a second to leave us a review on apple podcasts, I continue to record these episodes for you every single week and take all of your comments and feedback to heart.

Danielle (52s):
Thank you guys so, so much. Hi everyone. Welcome back to The Wanderlover Podcast. I’m your host, Danielle Hu, and guys I am absolutely buzzing from a client when right now, and I just have to share with all of you. I have a dream soulmate client. She is self-motivated. She is so dedicated to her craft. She’s an amazing photographer. She loves animals. She loves traveling and she is three weeks into my start, your hustle intensive. And in the beginning, as with all of my programs, we always start with a goal mapping. Where do you want to be at the end of the program? Or do you want to be at the end of the year?

Danielle (1m 33s):
I just got off the phone with her. And she told me that in three weeks time, she had already accomplished one of her main items on our goal mapping, which was she wanted to land her first paid collaboration with a Marine park. She wanted to get paid for content creation and she landed her first collaboration. They’re flying her down to central America. And she was just so surprised. So happy of course, but also just so surprised how it all happened so fast and you can hear it in her voice. She was like, I cannot believe I’m getting paid for this. I get to swim with whale sharks. They’re flying me down and I just get to do what I love.

Danielle (2m 17s):
And just a few weeks ago, she literally thought that was impossible. And I see this all the time when clients first come to me, this is exactly why we always start with goal mapping because it’s like, this is what I want. I don’t know how to get there, but I have an inkling I know deep down, I feel like I can. And before you talk yourself out with self-doubt with limiting beliefs, you know, deep down there is a possibility of success, right? And my job is to help you realize the success. And sometimes it happens in three days, other times, three weeks, but you know that it is there and it is possible for you.

Danielle (2m 57s):
So let’s all give her a big round of applause. If you’re listening to this, you know exactly who you are. I am so proud of you, but I wanted to share this story because a, it just shows how much I love my job. Like living vicariously through all of my client wins. But B also having the support system around you in place to celebrate with you and also push you through when things get hard. When there are limiting beliefs coming in, where there are unsupportive people around you in your community, you need to find an establish your rock solid foundation. You need your people, the ones who celebrate with you, the ones who get you back on track, when you get distracted, or when people knock you off track, you need to have people around you who get you.

Danielle (3m 45s):
And at the time of this recording, there are still a few spots left for momentum mastermind. So if you are looking for other creative online entrepreneurs, if you want to celebrate wins together, if you want to go behind the scenes in other people’s businesses, launch together, learn from them and embark on a four month adventure for hitting your highest income ones, getting all the mindset, the marketing, the strategy in place for you to Excel online, then DM me to learn more about momentum mastermind, or you can sign up in the episode description. So today’s episode is all about my online business models.

Danielle (4m 25s):
So this is what I teach all of my private clients is what you’re going to learn in the business academy. In the mastermind. It is basically how I view any type of online business coming into any of my programs, how I encourage you to execute on your business so that it is the most conducive to time, freedom, location, freedom, and financial freedom. And it just basically has freedom as a core value. What kind of products, what kind of services where you should be focusing your attention? First, I developed this from experience. So when I was in finance, I wanted to start my own business. I knew I wanted to pursue entrepreneurship.

Danielle (5m 7s):
And if you go back to episode one, or if you download my free case study, you’ll know that when I was in finance, I tried drop shipping. I tried Amazon FBA. I started a travel blog. I started a travel Instagram, and I just did so many things to try to make something work. That was kind of like my take action and make mistakes phase. It also kind of felt like throwing spaghetti at the wall, but I learned so much in each of my businesses. For example, when I did drop shipping, when I was importing products for Amazon FBA, I learned the importance of marketing. I learned that if you start an Instagram account, it doesn’t mean that people are going to buy.

Danielle (5m 49s):
I learned how to do Facebook ads. I learned how to run Google ads. I learned how to run promotions on Amazon and similarly having the travel blog, having the Instagram. What I learned from that is even though if you’re getting traffic, if you have nothing to sell, if you don’t have any packages, then you’re not going to make money, right? People aren’t going to be paying you. And so that was kind of when I learned to integrate everything, have it all under one brand and develop my own online business model. That is the most conducive to how I wanted to live my life. I still had inventory from Amazon. I knew I didn’t want to be in New York forever.

Danielle (6m 29s):
And so that already made me question, do I want to do this for the foreseeable future? And so full disclaimer, online business model is signature to me, signature to Wanderlover and my values. And if you vibe with this, if you resonate with my lifestyle and that’s what you want, then pay attention and listen closely. So what I teach all of my clients, this comes in a really neat diagram, but I’m going to try to explain it to you via audio, any type of business. It doesn’t have to be online. Any type of money-making business. It can be a restaurant. It can be an Etsy shop. It can be an influencer money flows from the consumer or the client to the producer or the seller in four steps.

Danielle (7m 15s):
You need to be generating leads to you need to be nurturing your audience or nurturing. Those leads three. You need to have a product or service to sell. And four, you need a way to close the transaction. You need a way for them to pay you, and you should have some automations in place to upsell or to retain those clients. And customers think about a boy and a lemonade stand a young five-year-old boy. He wants to make some cash, make some quarters selling lemonade at a busy boardwalk. How does that work while he has his lead generation? He has the leads. He has the people walking by his lemonade, stand on a busy boardwalk.

Danielle (7m 59s):
He nurturing those people. They trust him. They know like, and trust him because he is an innocent five-year-old child and he’s very sweet. And then he has a sign. He has the marketing of lemonade, 25 cents. This way, he has a product or service, and he has a way to close the transaction and make that exchange happen by collecting the quarter, by having that quote unquote payment processing in place. So that is a very physical, real world example. And we are bringing the same concepts online. It is the exact same in any online business. So whether you are a content creator, a blogger, a fitness coach, a spiritual coach, a psychologist, or a therapist, or an online course creator, any type of online business still needs at least one under each of these categories in order for money to flow from the consumer to the producer.

Danielle (8m 60s):
And if I go a little more into detail about each one, how we generate leads online, obviously you can’t just set up shop in a busy city, right? Or a busy boardwalk. We generate leads differently. So online, this looks like reels on Instagram. This looks like Tik TOK videos. It looks like paid advertising through Google or Pinterest or Facebook. This also looks like Pinterest marketing, but it can also look like meeting new people, going to conferences, networking, getting your name out there, except you’re not directing people to a store. You’re directing them to your website or your social channels, right?

Danielle (9m 42s):
It’s the same concept, but we’re just applying it all online next. How do we nurture our audience after they learn about you? How can they learn more? How can they get on your email list or sign up? So in the online business world, I do this and I encourage my clients to do this by releasing weekly podcast episodes, or maybe weekly YouTube videos or weekly emails, or having blog posts up on their website or posting consistently on social media. And if you notice here, social media and Instagram, they fall under lead generation and nurturing, but the next step, creating your product or service that can’t be Instagram.

Danielle (10m 29s):
You need to formulate your own product and service to get clients and customers for. I see a lot of people there on Instagram posting every single day and they’re not making money. And they’re wondering why is no one paying me for all of the time and effort I put into my content? And the simple question is, what are you selling? Do you have your rate card? Do you have a media kit? Do you have offers on your website? Do you have the payment processors set up so that people can pay you? Right. If you have a gap in this money flow, that money isn’t going to be flowing. So last but not least closing the payment gateways, I mean are like PayPal or Stripe or having invoices, having QuickBooks by now book.

Danielle (11m 15s):
Now, buttons. Those are all how you close. So at this point you should be assessing, okay, in my business, what can I improve on? Because there is always something you can improve on. You can either expand on one of your existing channels, or you can even add in additional social media channels or nurturing channels to your business. But there is always always room for improvement. I’ve been in business so many years and there’s still so many things that I want to improve on in my business. So ask yourself, how can I invite more money into my business? What can I improve on? And if you’re listening to this episode and you’re not making money, or you want to make more money and you don’t know how you need to be really self-aware ask yourself, do I have a product or service?

Danielle (12m 1s):
Am I nurturing my audience? Do I have enough leads coming into my funnel? These are all constructive questions that you can ask yourself. And if you’re lacking, let’s say on a scale of one to 10, you’re at a two in lead generation. That’s great. There’s opportunity for you to improve. And once you work on that, you know, that you’ll be making more money. So I first learned this concept. I kind of put it together. Like I said before, I created a travel blog and a travel Instagram, and I was posting so much. I was writing so much and I was not seeing ad revenue. I was not making money from it. And I asked myself, how are other people doing it? Or what can I do in order to make this work?

Danielle (12m 44s):
And after I self-assessed, I realized even if people wanted to pay me, I didn’t have a rate card. I didn’t have any packages that I could offer. So I sat down one day and I was like, I can offer shout outs on my Instagram. I can create ads on my Instagram page and I’m going to charge $50 per post. I can start offering content creation because I know hotels want pictures and videos for their websites and for their social channels. And I can do that. So let me create a rate card. I’m gonna position myself as a photographer and I can offer a package a for this amount, package B for this amount package C for this amount.

Danielle (13m 25s):
And do you see how after focusing on these packages, I’m inviting more people into my funnel so that they can pay for my services and therefore let the money flow more easily than if they had to jump through hoops and be like, what do you do? Like as an influencer, what’s you offer? What can you offer me, position yourself as a business? The next part in my online business model, I explain the types of products and services that you should have as an online business owner. This doesn’t matter if you are an influencer. If you’re a coach, any, any business that you can run online, it can follow this model.

Danielle (14m 6s):
And in my diagram, I have two columns on the left column. I call them my core online products and services on the right column. I categorize them as passion, products and services. So the core online products and services from the top down the top, as in higher ticket, and you can sell immediately. I have one-on-one services. This is always, always, always where you should start. If you don’t have a one-on-one service in your business, no matter what industry, what niche you’re in, get one up right now, start thinking about it, have it in your product and service offering under one-on-one.

Danielle (14m 50s):
We have to many, this can look like masterminds, round tables, retreats, webinars, anything where you are teaching or coaching or helping a group of people next under that is a digital course. So with any online course, it’s going to take a while to set up. But once you have it packaged together, once you have it all recorded or however you’re delivering it, it becomes more passive under that. We have memberships. So monthly recurring charges to your business. And last but not least under that are digital products. This can look like eBooks guides, templates, anything that you can package lower ticket.

Danielle (15m 35s):
So the further down you go, they’re lower ticket and they take more time to set up. But the more ability you have for it to be passive, right? Because if you are offering one-on-one services, it’s usually going to be tied to your time and your time is not scalable. Your time is very finite. It’s very limited. And this is why we want to be charging high ticket, higher prices for your one-on-one services than we would for let’s say a membership or a digital product. And then on the right hand column, under your passionate products and services, we have physical products. This can look like stickers.

Danielle (16m 15s):
This can look like merge. It can look like jewelry. I have Ananda, which is a jewelry line with my best friend, and it’s a physical product, but it’s not the main source of our income. And we do pay for shipping for overhead, for inventory, right? So there’s already a little more barriers to entry. I’m not saying this can’t be a part of your business model. I just encourage you to have the online pieces set up first. So another passion product or service you can offer collaboration’s content creation, anything that requires you to be in a specific place, working for someone else, trading your time and kind of doing things on their terms.

Danielle (16m 60s):
So when they want to pay you their contract and anything else that requires you to be location dependent, all falls under what I call your passion products and services. So do you see how after you set up your online product and service suite, you have more stability, more flexibility to work on things you’re more passionate about without having to rely on those things as your main source of income. And what I see all the time is burnout. It causes a loss of creativity. You feel really pressured and suffocated by all the pressure you’re putting on all of your passions. And that’s what I don’t want from you.

Danielle (17m 41s):
So I really encourage you to just have the core products and services in your back pocket. You can be generating leads for your membership for your digital products, but maybe some people want a more high touch option. And they’re like, Ooh, this person has one-on-one. And even if you’re not marketing your one-on-one, they can still see it on your website and sign up with you. So you get that major cash injection. Ultimately with any one of my clients, my goal is for you to have at least one of each thing in your online service suite. So I want you to have your one-on-one programs. And when you get booked out, you can have group programs.

Danielle (18m 23s):
When those are booked out, you have your digital courses, you have your memberships and your digital products, and that’s how you start making these consistent five figure six figure months, because you have all of these pieces working together and notice that let’s say you do create one of each of these pieces. And you’re like, I can’t wait to launch everything that I have. I can’t wait to fill up all of my programs. Then you can start assessing, okay, how many leads do I need to be generating for my programs to fill up? Right? How can I get more people into my funnel? Do I have the things in place to nurture all of those people so that when they come into my funnel, they sign up for the programs and last but not least, how can I retain these people?

Danielle (19m 8s):
Maybe they S they bought one of my digital products. How do I now get them into my group program? And these are all questions you need to be asking yourself as an online business owner, not only okay, how do I post and create pretty content, but how do I make it so that the people entering my community, they’re getting the most value and their lives are being changed by the products and services that I can offer them online enrollment for momentum mastermind spring 2022 is now open. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So if you’re ready to focus the next four months on monetizing mindset and marketing, then momentum is for you.

Danielle (19m 53s):
This is My signature four month group coaching program designed for creatives and online entrepreneurs seeing inconsistent income month to month. And you’re making less than five K a month. We give you clarity, guidance, strategies, and accountability to help you map out and reach your business goals. You get a support system like no other and personalized guidance from me through June. We start in March and you can sign up in the episode description. We cannot wait to welcome you in and help you hit your highest income months. So, as a recap, we have your core online products and services. Those consists of one-on-ones one to many digital courses, memberships, digital products.

Danielle (20m 38s):
The farther along you get, the more passive it is, but the lower ticket it is because it’s not tied to your time. And it takes more time to create on right hand column, your passion products and services, physical products, collaboration’s location dependence. And with all of these in place, this is what we call multiple streams of income. You’re not only reliant on one service that your business offers for you to be successful. You can expand on every single one of these. You can optimize and increase your sales and increase your conversions for every single one of these products and services.

Danielle (21m 19s):
And that’s what makes an online business so exciting because you’re not just reliant, let’s say on an employer for your weekly salary, you have so much control in what to offer in how you price them and who you let into your audience. And on the last slide that I have for my clients, I teach them if you’re trying to reach five figure months, let’s be realistic and let’s break it down. You can offer a one-on-one coaching program for $2,500. And how many clients would you need to reach that 10 K for? You can offer courses for $500 each, and you can get 20 enrollments.

Danielle (21m 59s):
And that’s also a 10 K month. You can run a group program. You can charge a thousand per member, get 10 group members. And that is also a 10 K month dun dun dun. The secret sauce is you can have any combination of any of your products or services going on. At the same time, you can have the clients and the core sales and the group members. It’s not just focus on one and make that attend K month. It’s having everything in your business suite and choosing where your attention goes. So let’s be realistic as well with the numbers.

Danielle (22m 40s):
If you have a small audience, it will probably be harder making 10 K a month selling an ebook for $10 because you need a thousand sales versus if you had four clients at $2,500, right? So we want to start high ticket. We want to have that high ticket offer in your back pocket. We want to be patient and keep learning, work hard for your dreams, because it is possible for you. Do you see how all the numbers kind of make sense now? And you’re not just like, okay, I want to have some figurative, imaginary. Like this is my income goal for this year.

Danielle (23m 21s):
Let’s map it out. What are you offering and how are we going to get there? It is all within reach. If something went off in this episode and you’re like, that’s what I have to focus on right now. Listen to your intuition and get to work, write down how you’re going to make it happen. Let me know if you have any questions about this online business model. I hope it kind of breaks down how I operate in my business and what I encourage my clients to do, because it’s just worked so well for me having this freedom-based business, not really having inventory or any overhead, really recognizing the types of online business that they’re not all created equal.

Danielle (24m 1s):
And some of the ones I tried in the past, they weren’t the most conducive to freedom and scalability. And so this is just what is optimal for me, what I’ve experienced, what my clients experience. And I know if you want to experience this, you can too. I will see you in the next episode, have an amazing week.

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