Social Distancing Solutions for Small Businesses

Social Distancing Solutions for Small Businesses

by | Mar 15, 2020 | Productivity, Technology, Training, Vision and Goals

Social Distancing for Small Businesses

Social Distancing is affecting small businesses in a bad way, especially those that rely on customer traffic in a physical location. The hardest hit are those like restaurants, cafes and concerts where cancellations or lack of attendees can cause major issues for businesses that have small margins, but all small businesses are being affected as consumers focus shifts to the current atmosphere during the Corona Pandemic. It can be hard to get people’s attention right now with everything going on and it can be very difficult for small businesses to make ends meet with consumer traffic downshifting with the recommendations for social distancing. It can be difficult to figure out how to continue to reach your audience when recommendations for social distancing, flattening the curve and laying low are continuing to come out.



I did a quick recording this morning talking about how to combat this for small businesses. It’s important right now to come up with new ways to reach your audience. In this video I talked about a few of my recommendations to continue reaching your audience, including:
    • Zoom Webinars
    • Facebook Lives
    • Recorded Videos
    • Online Facebook Events
    • Skype or Zoom Coaching, Consulting, Sessions
I encourage everyone who runs a small business to take a little time today and think about who you teach or reach with your business. There are platforms that are easy to get setup and be active on and with a little time invested, you can create a different track for your business where you deliver your product or service virtually. Some of the platforms I recommend in this video are:
      • Udemy – Great for teaching adult learners, can leverage video courses
      • Outschool – Great for teaching young/child learners, does require a background check.
      • Thinkific/Teachable – Great for setting up an online course, mini course, digital downloads. Handles all payment processing and can be branded like a mini website.
Do you sell a physical product? If so is there a way to make part of it virtual? Every day searches are made for those looking to become an entrepreneur. I’ve included quick recommendations below for the Top 20 Entrepreneur Search Categories:
          • Clothing Line: Can you offer personal styling advice online, capsule wardrobes, Closet teardown – show people how to mix and match what they already have.
          • Restaurants: can you offer online cooking classes, Make our meal at home, Gift certificate with delivery order offers?
          • Food Trucks: This is one the top searches. Can you create a mini course on how to start a food truck business, How to layout your food truck, Ways to market your food truck. Create a simple course that will help others and sell it to help yourself.
          • Record Label: If you’re in the music business can you offer bonus buys, virtual recording prep, if people can’t come to the studio what can the prep to get ready. Can you make a mini course on recording your first album?
          • Daycare: Can you create a download of the best schedule for preschoolers, Offer short learning videos for preschoolers, or activities to keep them engaged at home.
          • Coffee Shop: Disclosure I’m a coffee fanatic. I would be all over a short mini course on how to brew the perfect Latte at home.
          • Farm: Mini course or ebook on urban gardening tactics, Grow your own garden bundle, How to start seeds tutorials.
          • Catering Business: Meal plan downloads usually sell well, Recipe ebooks, Freezer meals plans and shopping lists
          • Landscaping Business: DIY Landscaping plans, Mini course on landscape a bed, or xeriscape your yard.
          • Trucking Company: Mini course on how to start your own trucking company.
          • Bakery: Signature Recipe ebook, How to Tutorials or mini course, how to decorate a cake, online cookie decorating classes for kids
          • Brewery: Getting started with Home Brewing Mini course, E-book on Brewing at Home
          • Construction Company: DIY video on how to build projects, Skill building Video course
          • Bar: Mix your own drinks course, Ebook of Cocktail Recipes
          • Property Management Company: Style your apartment like the Pros Course, Everything you need to know about the lease agreement…before you sign ebook or course.
          • T-Shirt company: Getting started with T-shirt Business Mini Course, T-shirt designs – create designs and sell the rights to use them
          • Group Home: Activities to do with the Elderly, Activities for Seniors with Dementia
          • Real Estate Agency: Strategies for Selling High E-course, Ebooks for those Listing, Styling Your Home for Maximum Sales course
          • Dog Walking Business: Recipe book for home made dog treats
          • Gym: Personal training via Zoom, Workout videos on demand
          • Author:  Can you sell your book online, or convert it to a Kindle book. Hold an online book tour via Facebook events,
  • Links to Tools to get you started
Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a 90 Day Plan

Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a 90 Day Plan

by | Oct 8, 2018 | Marketing, Productivity, Vision and Goals

It’s October, and while the rest of the world might be dreaming of pumpkin spice lattes and planning their holiday menus…as an entrepreneur, you are likely focused on closing out the year strong. With less than 90 days to go, it’s time to ANALYZE, ASSESS, and ALIGN your actions for the next 90 Days to finish successfully!

That brings me to one of my favorite productivity strategies and tactics…The 90 Day Plan. In 90 days you can accomplish amazing things, profitable things, direction changing things! If this year hasn’t turned out like you wanted, or if the numbers just aren’t hitting the goals you’ve set…it’s not too late! Let’s buckle down and make it happen! Plan your next 90 Days like you would plan a vacation you can’t wait to go on!

In 90 days you can Brainstorm, Plan, and Execute. Sometimes getting started is the hardest part. A lot of the resources that I develop at MentoringU are intended to inspire action and are free for you to use. If getting started is an obstacle for you, try my action planner.

Break Down Your Goals Into Tasks You Can Take Action On

Ready to Take Action? Need help breaking down your goal into tasks you can take instant action on? Give the MentoringU Free Action Planner a try!

Give the Action Planner a Try!

When I first developed the action planner, it really was an effort to help entrepreneurs think through what they needed to do to make a difference in their business. It will help you break down your goals into actionable tasks that you can quickly put into action.

For instance, if you want to build your email list to 5000 people… what are the actions that you take to get there? Your 90-day goal likely would not be ‘build my list to 5000 people.’ That’s not realistic for most entrepreneurs. However if the actions that you’re going to take to get to that final goal of 5000 people on your list include things like – conduct 3 webinars, develop a new lead magnet, and run $200 worth of Facebook ads…those are actionable items that you can put on your to-do list that will eventually help you get to your goal.

The action planner helps you take one goal and break it down into what tasks you need to do to be effective. Every one of those items that we just listed has other actions that need to happen before they become an effective promotion. You’re not just going to hop on to zoom and hold a webinar. You would be holding it to crickets.

You might need to

  • Develop an outline of what you’re going to teach
  • Begin building your presentation
  • Create advertising graphics for social media channels and email
  • Create advertisements on Facebook and Instagram
  • Create a marketing email campaign
  • Hold a trial run of your webinar
  • Hold your webinar

What this really shows us is that even something as simple as ‘hold a webinar to grow my list’ has multiple steps and actions that will all take time and effort. Using a tool like the MentoringU Action Planner, or even just pen and paper, you can back out things to the lowest common denominator, the smallest task where you start and then begin to put that in play. To-do lists become difficult and we feel like we’re not accomplishing anything because we put big multi-step tasks on our to-do list. We can’t cross off hold a webinar to grow my list until we have done everything else that it takes to lead up to having a webinar, to maintain momentum and motivation, we have to start thinking smaller.

My single-minded, somewhat obsessive focus at MentoringU on the 90-day Plan is really an effort to help you start thinking smaller. If we work on the small tasks we begin to see big results.

Even better, we can identify tasks along the way that we can automate, taking the task off your plate! Right now we are just under 90 days from January 1st. This is the time to start thinking about where you want to start your business in 2019.

What do you need to accomplish in the next 90 days to consider 2018 a success?

  • Do you need to grow your list
  • Do you need to develop new content
  • Are you launching a new product
  • What is going to make this year a success for you? (And be sure you are defining success in both financial and emotional ways.)

Once you have aligned your goals and know what you will consider a success, let’s back it out and figure out what steps you can take to accomplish that in the next 90 days. If you haven’t already, go ahead and give the free online Action Planner a try. It’s going to prompt you to define a goal and a timeline, and then begin to break that down into actions that need to happen and tasks you need to tackle. When you finish it’s going to summarize all your inputs, and send it to you via email so that you can plug it into either your MentoringU planner or you can plug it into an online calendar like Google Calendar, just be sure to use something that’s going to hold you accountable.

If you need more accountability, or just want to keep on track, come on over to the EntrepreDOERs Facebook group and let us help you. I’ll be challenging you to keep on track and finish strong this year! Whatever method you prefer…just start somewhere!

Pick a goal.

Pick a task.

Take action.

Entrepreneurs need a 90 Day Plan to keep us on track and working towards a goal that brings us the desired end result…cash in the bank. When you are a small business or a one man shop, it’s more important that ever to have a plan that keeps you on track. We’ve all been there. If you need help getting started, don’t forget I offer a 30-minute strategy session on me, and we can use it to map out your next 90 days!

The #EntrepreDOit Revolution

The #EntrepreDOit Revolution

by | Jun 6, 2016 | Business, Efficient Entrepreneurs, Productivity, Vision and Goals

How do I…

I’m going to …

I have an idea…

So often we start off strong with a question, a plan or even just an idea. We tell other people about our idea, we dive into research, we get excited, ramped up and even obsessive to make something happen. But just like an ambitious workout plan that you start on the Monday morning after a pizza binge Sunday night, the momentum and dedication often fizzles out far too soon. 

#EntrepreDOit is a movement, a revolution if you will. It’s starting off small like these things always do, but I hope to see it sweep the nation and circle the globe over the next year… inspiring thousands of Entrepreneurs along the way. We’re revolutionizing entrepreneurship and turning ideas into actions!  The idea here is to recognize that actions lead to success so we need to be intentional in our planning, our tasks and our to-do lists, and ensure that what we are doing each day is taking action on what will result in our success. This is a pledge, a voluntary opt-in to join other like minded ambitious entrepreneurs in owning your schedule to make change happen! #EntrepreDOers plan and tackle their to-do’s everyday to make #EntrepreDOit a lifestyle.

A little over a decade ago I left the office to start working from home. I did the same corporate job, just from a home office, but let me tell you everything changed. I had to set different schedules, adjust both my and my co-workers expectations of my availability, and most of all embrace the flexibility that a schedule could provide. I began writing here and there, just chronicling my journey and the chaos that happened as I had three kids, two dogs and a few inner city moves happen along the way. I had to let go of the fluff and be selective about what would help me accomplish my goals. I had to learn to balance both work and life priorities if I wanted any semblance of balance. Most of all I had to learn how to just buckle down and get stuff done! Working from home can be such a productive strategy when you look at it as a tool. 

As time went on I began to get more and more questions on how I made it work. People wondered if I worked in my pajamas or was ever off the clock. They asked how to got work done when my baby had a rough day and if I ever took sick time. I found myself giving advice so frequently I started blogging and just handing out a web address. Recently I decided to pull this all together into a book and fulfill a long time dream of one day being an author. I’m super excited to be in the final stages of writing and soon to be moving on to editing #EntrepreDOit, my story (the good, the bad and the ugly!). I’m hoping to have it available for pre-order by July and ready for delivery to your eager hands by August.  It’s the behind the scences prequel that is my foundation for the #EntrepreDOit Revolution. I can’t wait to share it. In the meantime, if this call to action, this no-fluff, action oriented strategy is speaking to you…then I invite you to join us in a hashtag happy, obstacle overcoming, caffeine fueled mission!

[activecampaign form=13]
5 More Tips on Rocking Your Entrepreneur Journey

5 More Tips on Rocking Your Entrepreneur Journey

by | Mar 28, 2016 | Efficient Entrepreneurs, Vision and Goals

As I promised last week, I’m back with more Tips on what I think makes Entrepreneurship amazing, and what you need to know to be successful! I hope you are finding this series inspirational.
ab85ac_a447a5deea3f4a72aa926baf111b5fd7
If you like the content, you would be a great fit for our Free Goal Planning mini course! Over the course of 10 days we send 1 email each day guiding you through identifying, understanding and analyzing your goals. The exercise is designed to help you create actionable steps to take that will guide your business in the direction you desire! If this sounds like a good fit for you, check out the details at the end of the post.

(more…)

Goal Planning for EntrepreDOers

Goal Planning for EntrepreDOers

by | Mar 14, 2015 | Business, Efficient Entrepreneurs, Productivity, Vision and Goals

Ever wondered what all the fuss is about coaching? There are life coaches, business coaches, personal wellness coaches, the list goes on and on.  Here at Mentoring Mompreneurs we obviously thinking coaching and mentoring are important…we’ve built a whole business around it! We lead busy lives and it is so easy to have an idea, get excited and enthusiastic about it and then … life happens. Someone gets sick, you get busy, it’s the holidays, the excuses start piling up until one day when you look back and wonder why you were so excited about that idea. 
That’s natural, it’s human, but it’s not a formula for success. If you are committed to being successful, coaching or mentoring can help keep you on track. It helps with accountability, with focus, goal planning, and more. It gives you someone to use as a sounding board and offers you unconditional encouragement as you figure things out. 

(more…)

MentoringU’s 10 Must Read Tips for Entreprenuers

MentoringU’s 10 Must Read Tips for Entreprenuers

by | Mar 11, 2015 | Business, Efficient Entrepreneurs, People, Vision and Goals

Entrepreneurship – it’s the dream for more and more people these days. We live in a world that continues to devalue the personal approach to business. It’s all about the sale and the profits, with little regard to loyalty and longevity.  

It’s a weird system we’ve created, where we look at college and a good job as proof of a successful life and promising future.  We have schools that recruit students by promising application to and acceptance at a 4 year college. This is the path we set our children upon…but how many of us reading this article are paying off school debt while struggling to start, launch and grow a business?  I know I am. I received an amazing education, and it definitely shaped who I am today, but looking back I wish I had seen the fork in the road, the place where I could have detoured from the societal norm and pursued an idea, a dream.  
Many Entrepreneurs don’t find the confidence or determination to strike out on their own until a tipping point occurs. For some, it’s starting a family and realizing that the 9-5 isn’t the lifestyle they want. For others it’s the moment they realize that the path they are on doesn’t fill their soul, doesn’t provide the opportunity to create that drives so many of us.

(more…)