15 RULES YOU DON’T HAVE TO FOLLOW IN YOUR FIRST YEAR OF BUSINESS

1. Have an official logo (in vector format….and Photoshop.). When I sent my first email to 41 people in April 2013, I mentioned that I didn’t feel “ready” because I didn’t have an official logo. TRUTH: I still don’t. I’ve been resizing it and screenshotting it (and pretty much every lil graphic you see here) in PowerPoint this whole time. That will all change VERY soon when my new brand pants debut this spring, however. (Thanks, Sarah!)

2. Have a business card. Smart, but not necessary to be successful…especially online. HELLO! Most of my networking is done in my PJ pants. Even though I survived my first year without a card, I’ll be VERY happy to have some to tuck into my new brand pants for year two.

3. Have your offer 100% figured out before you share it. Value? Absolutely. Offer? Not necessarily. When I first mentioned the offer that changed EVERYTHING (also back in April 2013), I didn’t even know what it would be. (And I openly admitted that.) Just knew I needed to put SOMETHING out there because folks would be (realizing they needed) my help that week. I still remember calling my sister the next day saying, “So what should I offer?!” Figured it out, shared it with my new subscribers via email, and the rest is history. (See #4.)

Start with the basics and know that you’ll refine a process as you get more experience (and more feedback!). Soon after my first free sessions (see #9), I had a process down. Every week that passed, I could get more and more detailed to let potential dream clients know exactly what to expect from a session. Experience doesn’t come from sitting around and thinking about what to offer. It comes from actually offering it. (Tweet that!)

4. Have a real website before you “open” for business. As a newbie to this world, I totally assumed I needed a real, good-looking website before I got my first client. Nope. Thanks to my knack for conversational copy, a huge group of potential dream clients on Facebook, and a simple splash page with an opt-in box, I had over 750 subscribers and 95+ clients before I launched the first draft of my site on June 7, 2013. There went that excuse.

5. Write a new blog post EVERY single week. Creating new content every week can be exhausting. (I’ve openly admitted – on several occasions – that regular blogging is one of the “hardest” parts of my business. Are you noticing the “openly admitted” trend here?) Writing takes me FOREVER. Toward the end of 2013, I decided to switch it up and just send my VIP list simple, “private” emails every now and then. While my Alexa ranking has temporarily dropped off the radar (which costs me nothing but cool points), my sanity has had a huge boost thanks to the extra freedom, and my daily subscriber rate has actually increased because my VIP list is that much more…important. That’s a win.

Fun fact: I may even start hosting guest posts in 2014! Trying to pick a theme first. Let me know what (or who) you’d love to see!

6. Have thousands of Twitter followers. As of right now, I have 461 Twitter followers (largely thanks to the “Click to Tweets” here in my blog posts). In the Twitterverse, that’s kind of embarrassing. In the real world, with the numbers that count toward my bizzy bottom line, I’m doing just fine. So for now, I’m okay plugging a tweet or two per day into Hootsuite and dealing with low follower count shame. We’ll get there one day, quadruple digits.

7. Go to in-person conferences. Also not happening anytime soon. I gotta say: I LOVE meeting my online friends and clients face-to-face when I can. We normally don’t travel this much, but I’ve been able to meet up with clients in London, Boston, Connecticut, and soon Virginia and Maryland recently. That said – once we’re back on the other side of the rainbow, I’m not going to spend thousands of dollars to leave my fam for a conference. (Don’t worry, I’m dreaming up a legit business reason for you to come visit Hawaii. VIP list gets first dibs on the pineapple fro-yo.) Nothing beats face-to-face interaction, but in the meantime, genuine connection and Skype calls can certainly do in a pinch.

8. Don’t spend too much time on Facebook. Ummm…see #4. Roughly 99% of my clients and customers first got to know, like, and trust me through my posts on Facebook. It’s a legit way to spend SOME, but definitely not all, of my work time. (And, since my word of 2014 is presence, I’m about to delete the app from my phone. It’s time for some boundaries!

9. Don’t EVER work for free. While I’d been teaching communication at the college level for over seven years when I started, I wanted to be SURE I had something valuable to offer entrepreneurs before I started charging for my time. (Turns out, I did. Two months after my free sessions, #4 happened.) NOTE: Remind me to do a workshop or call on how to make free sessions work for you. I had 36 people interested, offered 24 sessions, and exactly 0 no-shows…even though I had no street cred (or even a splash page) yet. It’s all about setting clear expectations!

10. Don’t change your rates too soon (or too often). I’m no pricing expert, but after five months in business, I (more than) doubled my single session rate, and my dream clients were totally comfortable with it. (More comfortable than I was at first! EVERY time I’ve upped my rates, I’ve held my breath a bit until I knew someone would happily pay it.) My first Power Hour Style Session offer was for $199 (with a bonus 30-minute follow-up). TIP: Don’t offer a bonus you can’t fulfill in case of a crazy (fantastic) influx of clients or customers. I never imagined 70+ people would take me up on that limited time offer. I kept my word and offered the live follow-up for anyone interested, but thankfully most took me up on a second option, a self-study “TLC” session – where on my own time, I helped them style up the copy they’d written after our original call.

Throughout the summer I increased again from $250 to $299, then finally up to $499 for the fall. I’d gotten better and faster with every session, the demand definitely outweighed what I could supply in the one-on-one model, and I saw firsthand the tremendous value my dream clients could get from that hour we spent together. (One client made over $24,000 within days of our session, thanks to the sales page we wrote for her six-month coaching package!) If I decide to bring back the Style Sessions in 2014, the rate will adjust again. In the meantime, my dream students have my full attention :)

11. Join a mastermind. I hadn’t even heard the word “mastermind” til this year, but these peer accountability groups are ALL the rage around here. Entrepreneurship (especially the online kind) can be REALLY lonely. I totally support the idea of surrounding yourself with like-minded folks who can cheer you on and share your successes, failures, frustrations, etc. But you don’t HAVE to be part of a formal mastermind to succeed. Having a few entrepreneurial friends to call, text, and Skype in a pinch has been a huge blessing for me so far. If I decide to join a real-deal mastermind one of these days and see the light, I’ll let you know when I’m ready to eat my words. (It happens. Rarely ;) But it happens.)

12. Hire a coach. Also very popular advice, for good reason. I’ve worked “a la carte” with a sprinkling of amazingly talented women in my first year of business, and their support has been HUGELY valuable. But I don’t have a business coach. Or a life coach. Yet. I think I’m comfy breaking this rule because I’m an intrinsically motivated person. I’m naturally motivated – especially since this whole business is a purpose-driven project for me. If I announce I’m going to do something publicly (which I tend to do), I won’t stop til I’ve done my best to get it out there. (Current case in point: My first course.)

13. Hire an assistant. This one’s coming…just as soon as I can figure out what to delegate. (Maybe customer support once I launch the evergreen version of my course and have a whole lot of students?) I’d talk about the value in learning the ropes on your own so you can appreciate HOW to delegate one day, but I totally realize that’s just a lame justification for not hiring help yet.

14. Say YES to everything in your first year. I’m super-thankful to all of the amazing folks who have “invited me over” for interviews, profiles, and features in my first year. (That’s one fun way to “meet” people you’ll otherwise never meet in person!) Still, after a while I realized I had to say no. Boundaries. Couldn’t say yes to everything or I’d be saying NO to something I needed to do for my own business. Juicy scoop: I recently said no thanks to a couple of seriously flattering “big-name” opportunities because my main focus for 2014 is on getting this course out into the world. (And thanks to smart, authentic communication, no bridges were burned in the process.) So there’s that. It’s totally okay to say no thanks when you know it’s not a right fit. (And after some practice, it starts to feel really, really good!)

15. Don’t reveal your price til the end of the sales page. I thought I had a launch plan all figured out for this first + only live run of A Course About Copy, but keeping the price a secret til “cart open” day just didn’t feel right. In online terms, I feel like I already KNOW a lot of the 300ish people who have signed up for “The Inner Circle” so far. I’ve been engaging with them for almost a year now through Facebook, here on my site, and in various groups we have in common. For the most part, they know the quality of content I share, they know if they like and trust me, and they’re just waiting to see if the content is a good fit. If they want to make it work, they will. Price isn’t going to make or break the deal.

For those reasons (and a few more), it felt weird to leave them in suspense on the price for another month. So I typed up an email to spill the beans and end the mystery. As I typed, I got the crazy idea to actually include a PayPal link to buy the course – as if someone would actually go ahead and PRE-PURCHASE before I even launched it. Threw the link in there with a special “P.S” – and boom. Four beautiful dream students registered just as soon as they read the email. Talk about a game-changer.

I’m so thankful. Humbled. Inspired. PUMPED. So totally excited to create this course KNOWING they’re ready for it. (And since they inspired me to kickstart our private Facebook group early, they’ll be able to give me real-time feedback as I finish up the lessons this month – along with anyone else who signs up in the next couple of weeks! This is gonna be fun.)

So that’s the list, version one. I took approximately five years to write it for you because I want you to know and BELIEVE with every cell of your being:

Breaking the right rules can pay off in so. many. ways. You’ve just gotta be bold and trust your instincts. (Tweet that!)

I could think of MORE (like “Join Instagram”), but it’s….

If you liked this mega-post, I’d sincerely appreciate it if you’d SHARE with your entrepreneurial friends and fans – especially on Facebook, where we all love to hang out work. Then, in the comments below, tell me:

What rules have YOUR instincts led you to break? What happened as a result?

Can’t believe how long this “list” turned out to be, but I pray that it helps you in some way. I love hearing what others do, and I love sharing what has worked (or NOT worked) for me. Together we can make this road of online entrepreneurship feel a LOT less isolated and a lot more fun.

To blazing our own trails – together,