Welcome to the latest installment of the QuickBooks Ask the Expert Series. In this series, we take a deep dive into the minds of small business owners and knowledgeable business advisors.
My name is Charlie, and I’m a serial entrepreneur, content creator, and investor. I graduated from UCLA with a degree in psychobiology, and started doing tons of side hustles until I found social media. Once I decided to go all-in on making videos online, I started to see traction. From there, I was able to scale up that to the multi-7-figure business that I have today.
But enough about me; I want to talk about Stephanee Beggs, a creator and entrepreneur who is absolutely crushing it in the digital products space. She is even featured on the 30 under 30 list in the Education category!
Stephanee’s main business is RNExplained, an educational company that provides college students in the medical field with tons of useful tips and tricks. Her business generates over $100K per month in passive income.
For this installment of the QuickBooks Ask the Expert Series, I asked her about her social media, her business, and how she approaches entrepreneurship.
What is her business?
Stephanee runs a business with two main branches: she uses social media to teach nursing students, and then sells online everything she teaches in the form of study sheets—a tangible product that they can use to succeed in their academic exams. She helps tons of nursing students every day with their exams.
How much does her business make per year?
Stephanee reports that her online business makes roughly $1.2 million per year with over 90% profit margins. The reason she’s able to keep most of the profit is that her product is primarily digital, meaning the only expense she has is the cost of materials to make the books she sells.
Selling digital products is a great way to generate passive income, due to low fulfillment and startup costs. Additionally, with digital products, you can create evergreen listings that can generate passive income for a long time. I do this with my social media videos, creating evergreen and searchable videos that continue to get views for a long time, sometimes 1–2 years or more. That’s the power of selling a timeless digital product: all you have to do is make your product once, and then it’s just a question of continuing to market that product.
How can younger entrepreneurs reach success like you have?
The three main things you need to do are:
- Pick a niche
- Develop a good product in that industry
- Go all-in on your vision (As Stephanee likes to say, you should work “25/8” as an entrepreneur.)
That’s it! Pretty simple, but great advice for those that tend to overthink the steps to becoming successful.
I’m always telling new entrepreneurs to start off focusing only on one group of people that they can relate to and help. You can charge more when you offer specialized services. Plus, it’s a lot easier to market your product when you’re targeting such a specific audience.
What is something successful entrepreneurs should do every single day?
Stephanee’s biggest piece of advice is to communicate with your audience. If you’re not communicating with them, you’re not developing the relationships you need to market, sell, and build a reputation.
Every content creator or personal brand should heed this advice, if they aren’t putting it into practice already. This is a huge one for me, as well. When my clothing company failed and I lost over $20,000 that I had personally invested, I learned a huge lesson about marketing, since a lack of marketing was the primary reason my business failed. I swore to never make that mistake again.
How do you plan on scaling your business moving forward?
Stephanee is looking to expand her team so that she can start posting more content on social media platforms. Building out a team can be a good move for entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses, because it allows them to delegate tasks, freeing up time that they can reinvest into the other areas of the business that need attention.
If you’re new to entrepreneurship and your company is growing faster than you can handle, I recommend finding ways to hire staff in order to buy yourself more time. Even though it costs money, you can buy back precious time that might otherwise be sub-optimized, freeing you up to: take courses, attend networking events, and find mentors to teach you invaluable lessons. One of the most affordable investments you can make is to buy a book. When you read a book written by someone successful, it’s like diving into their thought processes for just a few bucks.
I encourage you to take massive action on the things you’ve read here today and not be too worried about the details. I started my social media channels not knowing they would grow to a multimillion-dollar business, and I’ve heard plenty of other stories of highly successful entrepreneurs who didn’t worry about having everything perfect before they started.
So go out there, invest in yourself, start that online business that you’ve been dreaming about.
Related:
- How to create a website for my business: 8 steps and tips
- How to start an e-commerce business and succeed in 2023
This article originally appeared on the Quickbooks Resource Center and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.
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5 tips for organic business growth
It’s no secret that startups have a prodigious failure rate. In fact, according to a recent Entrepreneur.com study, the four-year survival rate for a startup is just 49%.
With demoralizing stats like this in mind, entrepreneurs may be tempted to grow their profits through any means necessary, including inorganic strategies like acquisitions or mergers. However, the truth is that business owners can achieve impressive growth through organic strategies as well, allowing them to retain control of the companies they built from the ground up.
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Also known as “true growth,” organic growth refers to the process of growing a business by reducing costs and increasing sales, either by finding more customers or enhancing output to current clients. On the other hand, inorganic growth occurs when a company merges with or is acquired by a second business. Entrepreneurs should take the time to familiarize themselves with the advantages of organic and inorganic growth, as well as some of the top strategies for execution, so they can decide which is the best choice for their business.
As a new business owner, you’ll likely want to increase profits as quickly as possible. By employing inorganic strategies like mergers and acquisitions, startups can grow their businesses more quickly while taking advantage of resources such as stronger credit lines and expanded market resources. Additionally, joining with another company lets you take advantage of its expertise and experience in the industry to develop your own brand.
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By merging with another business, you agree to hand over some of your control and equity to another company. Not only can your initial vision become diluted, but you may also be forced to take on new business and managerial challenges before you’re truly ready. In some cases, you may have to rush to grow your staff and production capabilities to keep up with demand.
On the other hand, organic growth techniques allow you to grow your business on your own timeline. Because you aren’t sharing control with another company, you can hire employees and expand sales at your own pace. Additionally, entrepreneurs who maintain their autonomy now can sell for a larger profit later when the company is fully developed.
While retaining control of your company offers many advantages over the long haul, it can make business growth challenging in the short term. Some entrepreneurs struggle to grow beyond their current marketplace, while others find themselves cut down by the competition. Additionally, new businesses must often fight to make ends meet from month to month. Fortunately, strategies exist to help startups grow their profits without handing over control to partners or investors.
Here are just a few of those strategies to help you grow your business organically:
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Want to grow a business that will feed your family and employees for years to come? The first step on the road to entrepreneurial success is starting the right kind of company.
With home-based and e-commerce businesses, you can avoid expenses like rent and commuting during the early, lean years of your company. As an added bonus, working out of the home lets you write off parts of your mortgage and electric bill. You can then invest these savings back into the business to help you grow in the long term.
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A common conundrum for new business owners is whether to take your full cut of the profits or invest the money back into your company. While you may be tempted to keep some of those hard-earned dollars for yourself, you should aim to reinvest gross profits whenever possible to help your business grow. Investing your own money shows prospective clients and lenders that you are confident in your company’s long-term potential.
Not sure where to put profits? When in doubt, invest in marketing, SEO and other tactics likely to generate more business for your startup. If your income permits it, you may also want to invest in employee training and technological improvements, as these can yield large profits down the line for your company.
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No matter how happy your current clients are with your offerings, you will have trouble growing your business organically if you don’t put effort into finding new sales channels. If you don’t currently sell your goods online, you should definitely consider starting a website to expand your reach to other regions. Additionally, you can introduce new products, cross-market services to your existing clients and expand to different markets. For example, a company that specializes in SEO may want to expand its services to include social media and search engine marketing.
Finally, business owners should employ market segmentation to customize their strategies according to the specific channels they are leveraging and the specific markets they are trying to reach. This way, you can create unique campaigns based on customer location and demographics and watch your sales rates skyrocket.
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As a new business owner, you may feel the urge to micromanage everything that happens at your company. However, the truth is that macro-management is a far more effective way of enabling organic growth for your startup.
To keep your company moving forward, you should train top employees to take over some of your daily responsibilities. While you may be tempted to keep costs down by hiring employees who will work for less, in the long run these staff members could end up costing you more if their efforts aren’t up to par. Find people you can trust to get the job done—even when you’re not around—so you can focus on growing and developing your business in the years to come.
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From minimizing spending, to reinvesting profits back into the business, organic growth strategies help ensure that you will retain control of the company you worked so hard to build. Do your research, and consider all the growth strategies available in order to give your business the best shot at success.
Do you know how sales taxes are impacting your bottom line? Check out our sales tax calculator.
This article originally appeared in the QuickBooks Resource Center and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.
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Featured Image Credit: Michael Krinke.
