February 11th Newsletter

Author

BA Jenkins
February 11, 2024



The Conversation

The Generation of “I Do Not Care To Be A CEO”

Over the past few years, many of us have realized it's not worth being a “CEO”. This title demands that you have a team that you overlook while making executive decisions in tandem. If you're starting a business from scratch with no money, no team, and little to no experience, it is okay to not give yourself the title of being a CEO.

Over the past few years, we've learned that you can make incredible money without having to lead a team. This is called being a solopreneur. Being a solopreneur comes with its pound of stress, but in comparison to holding a CEO title, it can be less daunting.

I remember when starting my business, I wanted the title of CEO so badly without realizing what it meant and its true responsibility. Even if you're running a business with a team of consistent freelancers, you still have to have leadership skills to maintain your team and constantly have the vision for expanding your business.

Being a solopreneur is about setting up foundations for your business. You can scale a business all by yourself from $0 to multi-million dollars. We've seen this happen over the last 10 years with the invention of social media and more digital platforms.

Your focus as a founder is about setting up systems that will have your business automated in sales, reviews, and marketing/promotion. This is the hardest part about any business as it's all about building proof of concept that your products and your brand as a whole are needed and wanted throughout the marketplace.

On top of building proof of concept, building systems is an exhausting task that has to be done. This isn't something a CEO typically does. As your business grows, you will eventually need key people who can help expand your business and systems to create a well-oiled machine if you're not looking to be part of the day-to-day business after its first growth spurt.

Right now, do not put pressure on yourself to outsource by using employees or even freelancers. There are many systems/platforms you can put in place and learn to create a profitable business without the need of employing help just yet. For example, utilizing e-commerce marketplaces to automate sales.

Remember that the goal of business is to make your business as profitable as possible with as few moving parts as possible. This includes employing help. In 2024, we are lucky enough to have AI and automation systems that can help us with 95% of the tasks we need done to start seeing our first six figures come in.

It may feel incredibly difficult right now, but enjoy the process of building your business without a Team. You can become a solopreneur who does big business without the headache of managing other people (and paying taxes to employ these people).


Curate your Feed

Here are the videos I am loving for the week that can help you get in the zone and clean up your social media feed.




You’re Disappointed In Instagram Due To A Big Misconception

If nothing else goes right in your business, understanding that social media can convince others to support what you are building is essential. How other people use it may not work for you. Your time and capabilities are limited. Therefore, content creation has to be done wisely with impact in mind.

Social Pages Make Your Business On-Demand

Set up your social pages as a binge-worthy resource for those interested in similar products. The longer time they stay on your page and consume your content, the higher the chance of earning a new audience member.

Build personal brand and content

We have all come to the consensus that building a personal brand is the right thing to do. It does not have to be your face upfront, but the brand voice should have an essence of “you”. The best thing to do is use an app like Threads and start building content on the fly from your genuine thoughts as an expert. 

Of course, it does not have to be stuffy and corporate. What I find is, that taking a few days per week to get the words out will help in creating the brand’s visual content library.

Remember, it is not necessary to do how-to’s and tutorials all the time. I would only make that 20% of your content. However, starting your page as the watchdog of what’s trending in your niche industry,  adding your thoughts on if it's good for your specific audience is great content. 

Example 1: Hoodie dresses getting A-line stitching is a new trend. You serve plus-size women who appreciate comfort essentials. Bringing attention to this and teasing a possibility of delivering this style to plus-size women is content curated for them specifically. This can also lead to adding products to your site with pre-approved interest.

Engage With 100+ Accounts Per week

The reason you feel like you are posting into the wind… is because you are! You have made yourself an island if the social media method of “post and ghost” is the framework being followed. So if you want to attract an audience to the brand page and stay on the page longer you have to:

  • Know who your potential customers interact with already

  • Set Instagram up as the brand’s binge-able resource.

This concept is not new. This is called the law of big numbers in business. Interacting with 100 accounts a day is not easy, but it is not hard. If there is a post that is on brand for you, start liking comments genuinely and go to the list of people who like it. If their page is not private, find a few posts you genuinely like and comment authentically.

While your goal is to be discoverable, you have to discover others as well. This is the equivalent to standing outside your physical shop door and handing people flyers to come by and take a look.

As long as you can find on-brand posts that are popular, you will always have 100 people to greet per day.

Prompt It Up

I hope you are using ChatGPT to help you save time in your business. Unfortunately, there are many horrible prompts out there that can take away time due to frustrating incorrect outcomes. An AI prompt is meant to warm up the system to what you are looking to do. This does not happen with a paragraph or a sentence telling AI what to do.

For example, when I was building the ChatGPT Press Release Prompt, I could not just say, “Write me a press release about my company. Here is the announcement I want to make [enter announcement]. Here is my company information and what we do [Enter company information].” This would come out lacking and out of tone. I would also miss opportunities to find a new perspective on what my release could be announcing.

A prompt is a series of statements and questions that convey your requirements to the AI. Sometimes, this is done in 8-20 steps before you start asking for results.

If you are trying to ask ChatGPT to write social media captions, prepping is needed. It needs to know about the content it will be captioning, the tone that is required, the call to action (if any), important points that need to be made throughout the caption, reminders of your audience, and if it should be in a storytelling format or informational.

AI is not perfect; you will always need to go back into proof. However, if having a social media manager is not in the budget, a good prompt on ChatGPT can help you tremendously.

I will be launching additional ChatGPT prompts later this month. Prompt categories will be in social media, product descriptions, audience identification, and brand messaging. This library of tools is made especially for those who cannot afford to hire out for these tasks.

Free resources for you

Download the ‘Brand Product Discovery’ worksheet


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