19 Nov
Grow Your Expertise, Start Your Business

How Can I Monetize My Skills and Expertise?

Are you the one people always call for advice on a certain subject? The truth is when you are an expert in your field; people value your knowledge and opinion. The question is how will you monetize your expertise and create multiple streams of income.

Online courses, seminars, workshops and keynote speeches are some of the many way to create income streams. The goal is to create ways that allow you to be recognized for the things you are good at while you teach your audiences new skills. Your knowledge is why your friends and family trust you, so spend some time creating your offerings.

Being knowledgeable is one thing; knowing how to utilize, package and monetize that knowledge is another thing. Choosing the right strategy to diversify your skills. Then spend time in discovery and experimentation until you get it just right. By all means, don’t forget personality is as much science as art.

Monetize Your Expertise

Here are a few steps to help you strategically monetize your expertise in a profitable way.

1.    Audit Your Experience

Monetizing your skills and expertise goes beyond knowing your expertise or your field. It involves knowing yourself. You must know your strengths and how it compliments your expertise. As such, audit your experience. What skills do you possess? How will those skills solve other people’s problems?

The key to this step is to realize what you have in terms of skill and talent. Are you an accountant with great organization skills? Or are you a good marketer with super sales techniques? Perhaps you are a successful entrepreneur who is excellent at public speaking. You are an expert already, so how will you present that expertise? After you audit your skills and knowledge, combine what you have into a perfect and easy-to-consume product(s).

2. Who is your Target Market?

Before deciding what to do with your skill and expertise, you have to closely analyze your target audience. While you want to create a product from your talent and knowledge, you also want to create a product that your customers would appreciate. 

You have to figure out those who need your expertise and focus your energy on producing for them and selling them. 

For example, a writer can write any type of content, but if his target audience wants useful information and wants it fast, then a blog post would be most convenient.

Figuring out who your target market is would help you create the perfect product and content. It would also help you market yourself and your business strategically.

It is unwise to market an online class to busy execs. Consultancy or short, summarized content would be more suitable for their needs and schedule.

3. Creating your product

After analyzing yourself and the market, you are finally set to produce value. At the core of monetizing your expertise is creating value. People would pay for the amount you add to their lives and business.

Other than being conscious of your strengths and taste in the market, you must also ensure that your service or content offers value. 

A book, online course, or keynote speech, whatever you are selling, must change your customer’s life for the better. If it isn’t doing this, then your product is useless, and you have to go back to the drawing board.

4. Marketing

Irrespective of what your monetization strategy is, marketing plays a significant role in the level of your success. You must be able to convince your audience of your skill and the value of your product.

All marketing avenues are fair game, from online ads to free videos on YouTube and publicizing your portfolio. The key is to establish yourself as an authority and back it up with quality.

People wouldn’t buy anything you are selling until they are convinced that it is valuable. It is your job to do the convincing and no one else’s.

Conclusion

The process of monetizing your expertise is very technical and intentional. You can’t just wing it and hope for the best. Without adequate planning and in-depth analysis of yourself and the market, failure is a very likely outcome.

To get the best value out of your expertise, you have to offer the best value possible. With in-depth planning and execution, you can create multiple channels to monetize your skill and expertise with ease and convenience.

24 Oct
Grow Your Business, Start Your Business

Four Ways to Make Your Brand Stand Out

There are over 28 million small-scale businesses across the United States of America, per recent study. Safe to say there are a ton of brands in the world. So, how do you get your brand to stand out? Even if a small portion of companies are brand competition, you still have a lot of competition. You want your brand to be noticed.

Brands are competing against each other for improved visibility by using innovative advertising and marketing campaigns. They produce creative content and intriguing stories specifically for their target audience. Allison Todd, Operations & Digital Growth Strategist and founder of SiMar –a leading digital business agency, explains that if you want to get noticed amid the competition, you do noteworthy things. A lot of people think this is complicated. Many times, they are just overthinking their audience. People want you to show up, daily. They want to be able to know, you – your brand, is there for them. That’s hard to believe when your audience can’t find you, doesn’t ever see your content and is still trying to figure out what you do! For these reasons, your brand must stand out.

Digital Engagement Package

The leading business coaching agency, SiMar, features a team of business experts who provide in-depth insight into the innovative ways to make your brand stand out.

Ways to Make Your Brand Stand

Here are some of the essential traits that you need to adopt as a brand to stay competitive:

Originality

Indeed, the first step is that your brand needs to be original. If you wish to mimic a brand from your competitor’s list; The target audience will not have a valid reason to trust your brand.

If your messaging lies in sales talk and clichés, it will not resonate with the respective customers. Therefore, you should aim to find an angle that has not been taken up by any other brand for developing an image.

Sincerity

Your brand should aim at demonstrating a sense of sincerity at the same time. If you respond to all the customers on different social media platforms with some type of copied template, people will feel something formal about your brand.

As such, they will never be able to develop an informal relationship with your brand. You should aim at investing in creating the “personality” of your brand. 

Understanding

Some of the most popular brands out there are known to understand the respective target audience effectively; This is demonstrated by creating customized messages that turn out relevant for a target niche. 

For instance, if your brand targets parents, you should mention some common parenting problems. Mentioning common parenting problems would instantly demonstrate the overall degree of sympathy while making it easier for the target audience to connect with your brand and would eventually lead to more traffic and conversions for your website.

Consistency 

If you have not defined the brand standards clearly, then you might end up alienating the audience. The ultimate goal is to retain customers and followers for as long as possible. Ensure that your marketing campaigns are well-executed and follow a consistent pattern.

Conclusion

For your brand to stand out, you should offer something unique to offer a personalized experience to the target customers. Make the most of high-end marketing strategies to ensure the best results for your brand.

Stand Alone Strategy Plan
Stand Alone Strategy Plan
16 Aug
Grow Your Business, Start Your Business

Website Launch: My Pandemic Pivot

Over the past few months, businesses have seen the effects of the global pandemic. They have faced closures and combat emotions of loss and lack. Now is the time to figure out the new normal now. Make your pandemic pivot! How many times have you heard that? Our immediate next steps are unknown. So, what can businesses do to stay ahead in the pandemic (and everything else in 2020)?

My Pandemic Pivot

People may be tired of hearing the “pandemic pivot” but I can attest, it’s a real thing. My decision to redesign my website and re-introduce my brand was not one made lightly. In December, 2019. I hired a coach to help me stay focused on the big picture. I planned some really cool events and more. As we began to make plans, I thought I had all the pieces in place. And then, the world changed.

One of the components of this plan was to redesign this website. I weighed the pros and cons with a focus on the budget. This is a time to stack, I thought, not a time for big purchases. It just didn’t seem like a smart decision. Many days, I would chuckle at my focus to plan growth goals instead of watch the news. Planning for moving forward, while it felt like time was standing still, what was I doing? Surprisingly, I think this is the “thing” that grounded me, amid chaos.

My message since March has been to remain focused and grounded. To keep going. Respect your feelings. Celebrate the wins. And, don’t forget to show yourself grace. For all these reasons, I had to figure out a workaround for the budget. Without many ideas, I reached out to a creative circle of friends. Whether they were cheering me on or lending their skill to get the job done, all were vital and needed.

Pivot, Position & Profit

If you haven’t guessed it, I’m here to share more about what I was working on (see blog title). And let me say, having my super friends support, was everything. I’m moved by their energy and expertise. They make me want to do more. I needed to do more. First, I created Position2Profit.com. This is a community for business owners to share and support while learning yours truly. And it’s in this community that I teach business lessons, share years of expertise and giveaway some goodies!

Next, I took 50% off some products in my shop. I want to build a community where business owners have support, accountability and motivation, like I do. That special circle of friends fueled me . They dedicated time and value to the redesign of allisontodd.com. As such, I hope to help and inspire others.

The energy, the late nights, the intricate details ….all the reasons I kept going on the many days when it felt easier to stare out of the window. The feeling of putting your heart into your vision, is unique and fulfilling. Creating something special and impactful is just what the doctor ordered.

What About the Team?

While wanting to stare out of that proverbial window, I wondered if it made sense to keep the team. Would I have enough work to keep them busy? They wanted to keep working. So, I figured out a way. And Team SiMar jumped all in. They managed work projects and collaborated with curiosity and creativity. I think working on the website and the new packages and products was a good dose of what all needed. Thankfully, my pivot project kept us busy and active.

During this time, I understood how crucial coaching and guidance is to entrepreneurship. I can’t help but wonder how many business owners need someone to help them find their reset button. How many more business owners needed to hear my message? How many needed superfriends in their life? Maybe 456 because that’s how many Position 2 Profit members we have so far. I want us all to win. Creating this website will help me to find more business owners with a story, untold.

The Keys to the Digital Door

With that, I snap the digital red ribbon and open the virtual doors to allisontodd.com. Today, August 16, 2020, I announce the relaunching of my website. My intentions are to ensure that I am more available in a digital space. To motivate and inspire business owners. To guide them in the positioning of their businesses and their brand. To assist them in building profitable teams. And to offer my expertise and information where it is needed.

I’m hopeful this site will help me reach a wider audience and solve more problems. Eagerly, I share my knowledge with brands and businesses. My goal to position businesses to profit and scale. I want to do my part to make the world of entrepreneurship a better place. In the meantime, I promised my twins I would move the launch up a day, today, their birthday. And here we are, let’s celebrate!

P.S. Please share your feedback. I would love to know what you think.

23 Jan
Grow Your Business, Start Your Business

Starting a Business with Zero Experience

Don’t let the fear that comes from no experience stop you from starting your business.  The art of becoming an official entrepreneur is both exhilarating and demanding.  There are many emotions that emerge while building your business.  But, don’t be discouraged, there are many solutions!  In fact that are some challenges you may be able to avoid.  Below there are three challenges that occur as a result of little to zero business experience: 

Unstable Cash Flow
People often start their business with ideals of cash flow but no real plan that guarantees return on your investment.  It’s important that you have an accessible cash flow with the ability to cover expenses.   Equally important is that you are tracking your business cash.  Business doesn’t run without cash flow but you would be surprised how many entrepreneurs do not know how to manage their cash.  Remember managing your business budget allows you to have a financial overview of what your business needs.  Without the ability to do so, your business is limited with more promise of loss than growth.  Don’t put the open sign up and open the business doors if you don’t know what it will cost you. 

Time Management 

Have you ever started your day knowing what you want to get done and gotten distracted by emails, addressing challenges or dealing with the non-stop ringing of the phone? You are not alone.  Many entrepreneurs struggle to manage their time with too much to do and not enough time in the day.    However, to increase business success, you must be able to effectively manage your time.  It is vital to manage time wisely.  Start managing your time, by managing your day.  Spend time scheduling your day, BEFORE, you plug in to the digital world.  Then, hop on the computer and schedule your day.  Finally, follow your schedule and manage your time.  Once you have developed the habits of effective time management, you will find you can deal with almost anything.

Lack of Knowledge

The greatest challenge begins with a lack of knowledge.  Failure to understand your market, your audience and current trends can lead to numerous challenges.  One of the major facets of business success is knowledge, research and more knowledge.  In order to effectively manage and GROW your business you must KNOW your business.    Without acquiring good business knowledge, you won’t acquire good business profit.  You must be willing to do your business research before you can be of service to your customers.  Being unfamiliar with your market niche can create unwelcomed business chaos.  In order to equip yourself ongoing knowledge, you are equipped to manage business operations, business inventory and business teams, your business could face many difficult situations.
12