When You’re Small You Have To Look Big

Have you seen Natalie Sisson’s videos? They’re amazing and on location in some pretty cool places. I have to admit that her videos are better than mine I’m laughing as I write this because her videos are WAY better than mine!

My videos are better now and since figuring out how to use iMovies they’ve got even better. Right? When I started out I really didn’t think too much about how they looked. I just wanted to get the videos out there.

I felt the same way about my blog posts and website. Hey, I was taking action and putting myself out there, wasn’t that enough? When you looked at everything I did you would definitely think I was “small time.”

When we’re starting out we don’t focus too much on how things look, we focus on creating. That’s good and bad. What we release to the world doesn’t have to be perfect but you want it to look top-notch.

Look, at the end of the day if the content is killer people will be engaged and come back. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have great content and make it look good too. As a matter of fact if you want people to hire you when you’re small your stuff should look like a million bucks!

The little things go a long way

When you’re building this on the side you usually don’t have a bunch of disposable income. It would be nice to hire a VA to create beautiful images and do amazing editing on your videos and podcasts if you had the money.

Even though you may not have a bunch of money to throw around there are tools and services you can use to make your stuff look really good. Here are a few tools/services to make you look good. These are just the basics:

Bartering. There are many amazing people online doing all kinds of stuff. Maybe there’s a way for you to come together and help each other out by bartering services. One of the things you need is a professional looking website. To get one designed it could cost you between $900-$3000. Could you trade coaching with a web designer to get your site together? My friend Abbie did just that and now has a professional looking website. Whatever you do there is someone online that needs that skill and it can be a golden opportunity for both of you. Don’t just barter with anyone and everyone.  Look for people who this kind of arrangement would work best for both of you. Cost: Free.
PicMoney. As a blogger you always need good images and that’s where pic monkey can help. Take one of your photos and edit it to fit what you’re talking about in that post. Cost: Free.
Mailchimp. Now if you use Aweber that’s cool. I only bring up Mailchimp because that’s who I use as my email provider. They do a great job getting your emails out to your email list and there are many templates to make your emails look professional. Remember what we talked about a few posts away? Your email list is one of the most important parts of your online business. Cost: Free to $10 a month at their lowest plan.
E-Junkie. You need a shopping cart service to sell your stuff. Again, there are many great options but I use E-Junkie and am very happy with the service. They’re professional and very versatile. You can have a shopping cart service for everything you’ll sell plus set up discount codes and affiliates. Cost: $5 a month at their lowest plan.
Standard software. There is way too much software to list and I did release a post on all the stuff I use. To look good at a lower price the iWorks products and the basic Microsoft products will work.

Make an extra effort 

Even if you’re building you should treat everything you do very seriously. If you’re doing a webinar you should be well-practiced up ahead of time. It shouldn’t look like you just threw something together.

Your blog posts should look like they’re well thought out. Your products and services should be content that blows your target audience away. You don’t have to be a huge A-Lister to make your stuff look “big”.  You just have to make an extra effort.

Are you willing to give this all you’ve got? If you are you’ll make your online business stand out and grow to where it will support you. That’s what it takes!

What do you do to make your online business stand out? 

P.S. The winner of TC Avey’s book is Lawrence Namale! Congrats Lawrence and thank you for the generous gift TC