entrepreneur - Express Writers

3 Major Lessons from 8 Years: What It Takes to Be a Successful Entrepreneur (Video)

March 23, 2022February 18, 2019 by Adam Oakley

Way back in time, February 2011, I decided to follow my dreams and build a life and career I’d love. And I’m so glad I did. This is my eighth year since stepping out and deciding to be a full-time entrepreneur — and this coming May will mark eight years for my company, Express Writers. The idea of figuring out how to make money doing what I loved came to me like a lightbulb moment, and I acted on it same-day, Googling “how to write and earn money online” and building my first freelance profile. (To the action-takers the world belongs!) Waking up and doing something I loved gave me a brand new reason to get up every day and embrace Mondays. I’d always loved to write, ever since I was a 12-year-old kid writing a 200-page medieval fiction. And I loved the internet. I’d made my first paycheck doing online surveys at 13. I blended both passions, and found online content. Within three months, I had an entire career on my hands, and dozens of clients asking me for more. I was suddenly at a crossroads: stop taking more clients (I already had more than I could handle), or build a team. I built a team, that May. (This was just four months after making the decision to drop out of college and quit McDonald’s!) Today… eight years later, 90+ people on staff, thousands of clients served… I am proof that anyone, anywhere, can follow their dreams. I was living in a cult when I decided to build my own life — which I later escaped, thanks to the freedom and income I’d built! That means you, my friend, have no excuse. Since this benchmark has come, instead of my typical how-to videos, I decided to film a special video for you today. Being an entrepreneur may look pretty from the top, but it’s a hellauv a lot of hard work, especially if you have BIG, hairy goals (like me). My constant goal is to build the best content writing agency in the industry. I don’t consider my brand fully ‘there’ — but we are at an incredibly exciting place today, and I wanted to stop and celebrate that with my latest video for my YouTube channel, @JuliaMcCoy. Without further ado, here it is. This is dedicated to each and every one of you as motivation to never, ever, give up on your dreams. If today feels like your greatest struggle, then your greatest moment is just a few steps ahead. The best is yet to come. [bctt tweet=”Don’t expect everything for nothing. Put in the work to reap the results. This and more in @JuliaEMcCoy’s inspirational video, celebrating 8 years of #entrepreneurship ” username=”ExpWriters”] 3 Major Lessons from 8 Years: What It Takes to Be a Successful Entrepreneur Being an entrepreneur is a twofold thing. It’s incredibly rewarding, and incredibly difficult. It’s an exhilarating ride when you win and achieve your goals. And it’s a letdown when people desert you, things don’t work, and you get overwhelmed. For the past eight years, I’ve been an entrepreneur. I’d never call it easy, but I call it rewarding. The process of becoming a full-time entrepreneur, learning the skills necessary to grow a team, earn hundreds of clients, and make my own living has taught me so much. Today, I identify as a content hacker. I take online content and create it in a way that directly leads to bottom line revenue and growth, like growth hacking but with content. Content marketing is the new marketing, for today and tomorrow’s entrepreneur — it provides value to your end user and puts you where they’re already searching for answers. So, I’m a college dropout who taught myself everything simply as I went! I got out there and put in the work. Today, my methodologies in content marketing have been the sole means of growth for my agency, Express Writers — and millions of dollars in revenue. As I go into my eighth year of entrepreneurship, with hundreds of people hired and fired, countless failures, lessons and letdowns, incredible wins and moments where it all became worth it, and millions of dollars in revenue… what are the top factors that have contributed to my entrepreneurial success? 3 Lessons that Equal Entrepreneurial Success Here are my top three lessons from 8 years of entrepreneurship. They might not be what you think. 1. Quit Chasing Shiny Objects If you’re chasing shiny object after shiny object, and you have serious FOMO about the things you want to do, STOP right now. Focus on one goal, and do everything in your power to achieve it. Then focus on another, and achieve that. Think in terms of single goals. And make these goals big—the bigger the better! It’s better to shoot for the stars and land on the moon than shoot for the hills and land back in the weeds. Here’s an example of a big hairy goal: grow my business to seven figures in 12 months, or build an industry-leading course in 8 months. The how and the path will get clearer when you know and focus on one goal and what it takes to get there. 2. Getting Up After Failure is the Key to Success Don’t expect everything for nothing. Put in the work before you reap the results. After your hard work is done, expect to do more hard work. Get up after you fail. Don’t dwell on your failures; dwell on what you’ve learned from them. Your three best friends in success are Self-Discipline, Hard Work and Perseverance. This means not letting a failure stop you. Get back up and try again! 3. People Aren’t Unicorns I hate to break it to you…but all humans make mistakes. It’s just a human thing. So, never put your faith in a single human. This means both your clients AND best team leader. Be ready and anticipate change, hold your people accountable no matter what, never blindly treat someone like a unicorn, a cash cow–ditch all that thinking now. It’s up to … Read more

Why Content Marketing is an Entrepreneur’s Best Friend

December 31, 2020December 28, 2016 by Adam Oakley

Today, we’re living in a time when entrepreneurs are everywhere, and it’s exciting. As we head into 2017, the rise of entrepreneurs is seriously growing. While starting a business used to be something reserved for those with extensive training or excess family money, just laying around and waiting to be spent, entrepreneurship has become something that everyone can access. As a result, companies like Facebook, Snapchat, Dollar Shave Club, StitchFix and – hey – Express Writers! – has popped up as a result. Today, however, people who are trying to get startups off the ground are struggling to figure out where to best invest their efforts, and which type of work will pay off most seriously down the road. Fortunately, the answer is straightforward: content marketing. Those doing the “side hustle” will SERIOUSLY benefit from a blog and a web presence (and social media), aka, content marketing. Think about it for a moment: content marketing is low-cost compared to traditional advertising, it’s meant for the social media age, it performs well with customers who want to develop honest and long-lasting relationships with the companies they frequent, and some of it can even be done yourself, within reason. Today, we’re here to talk about why content marketing is an entrepreneur’s best bet in terms of marketing, and how it can help new businesses grow from the ground up. Read on! Content: The Entrepreneur’s Lifeboat Content is the one thing that will work when virtually nothing else does for the entrepreneur. Think about it: most forms of traditional marketing are expensive and time-consuming. While large enterprises might have the budget and the in-house staff to accommodate that, entrepreneurs seldom do, and content marketing can be much more accessible. Although content marketing costs 62% less than traditional advertising, it generates triple the leads, which makes it an astoundingly perfect option for marketers who want to spread the word about their startups online. What’s more, since breaking into content marketing doesn’t require a huge staff, it’s easy to DIY some of it on your own, saving yourself money and learning something new in the process. By developing an online presence, entrepreneurs can build their brand story, connect with their customers, and set themselves apart from their competitors. A social media presence can also serve to expand your reach and make it easier for you to connect with your followers – both online and in person. 7 Ways Content Marketing is Perfect Marketing for the Entrepreneur Regardless of whether your startup sells tangible goods or services, here are seven incredibly strong benefits content marketing has to offer for entrepreneurs. 1. Content Marketing is Amazingly Cost Effective Entrepreneurs rarely have a ton of money to start out with–unless they walked into inheritances like the Rich Kids of Beverly Hills did. 😛 But truly: self-startups don’t usually have an unlimited reservoir of funds. It’s usually the opposite. Funds are low, time is tight, resources slim. I began Express Writers with $75–trust me! I know what it’s like to start with nothing. Enter content marketing as an effective way at building a brand and starting out when you’re doing the side hustle, trying to build your dream biz while you work on leaving your 9-5 that pays the bills. Check this out. From one blog post (roughly a $50 investment, between resources and my time), I gained $5000 back – a 100x return on investment. A warm lead walked in from my blog, and converted on our content services at that amount. Proof that content marketing can be a strong endeavor for startups and those trying to brand themselves with limited finances. To repeat the cycle that I created, you want to focus on these three things: Building your presence online (your website, starting a blog). Getting off the ground is key here! Consistency. Build up that presence, don’t just start it. Blogging at least 2x/week, minimum, and pairing up social media to your content presence, is a good consistency to start with. (We blog up to 5x/week for maximum outreach and SEO results.) Guest blog. Outreach and start putting together a list of key sites you’d like to blog on. Presence there is a tremendous key to the ROI of your content marketing. (My 100x ROI featured in the graphic above came from my column on SiteProNews.) 2. Content marketing helps you develop your unique brand voice Today, the startups that make it big are the ones who know how to talk to their audiences like nobody else does – in their content, bleeding all the way through social media posts, pulsing through video marketing, shining through blog posts. The voice you establish in your content marketing is key to helping you stand out online. Take, for example, Dollar Shave Club. Witty, a little edgy, and funny through and through, this is a startup that’s achieved billion-dollar valuation because of its content marketing. Without content marketing, it’s tough to spread your voice the way Dollar Shave Club has done. In fact, it’s tough to be heard at all. Content is the one central factor that allows marketers to be heard in various places across the web, and it’s the one guaranteed way for small business owners and founders to showcase their unique brand voice to all the critical customers out there who want to listen. To succeed with content marketing, founders must first have an idea of their overarching brand message and how best to leverage it. This will help people connect with the message and will make it easier for readers and customers to connect with online information. It will also help produce continuity in brand messaging, which will make it easier for a startup to grow in the coming years. 3. Content marketing can welcome people into your world As a founder, you live a life that people are interested in being a part of. Even if you’ve never met many of your customers personally, they want to know who you are, how you come up with your products, … Read more