Becoming a Millionaire: Step 2

If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that I’m working through Jacqueline Harrison’s soon to be released book How To Create A Business From Nothing. The aim is for me to follow her advice and go from being $12k in debt to becoming a millionaire blogger (among other things).

She suggests working backwards.

The second piece of advice in Jacqueline’s book is about travelling to the end point of my business dream and working back from there. My interpretation of that is that I will create a step-by-step process that I can then follow. Hmm, sounds easy(ish), so here goes…

[End result]

So, first off, I can smell the beach from my home, which is also my office. I live in a gorgeous four-bedroom beach house in Queensland. I run a small yoga and meditation studio that’s housed in my backyard, and I have regular meetings with amazing people about inspirational and healing workshops from my home: both on phone, Skype and in person. My office has a window that overlooks the surf and it’s a lovely, calm and open space with plenty of natural light. My office is also where I write my hugely successful blog, although sometimes I do it while I’m at the airport waiting to catch a plane to Hawaii or Sydney for one of my workshops. I travel a lot. My husband is involved in the business and we often have people staying with us who are inspirational leaders. Mike Dooley, creator of Notes From The Universe is now a very good friend of mine, thanks to the success of the workshops, and Jacqueline Harrison has come to stay many times with her beautiful family. Oh, how I love being around her. The book went crazy and sold over a million copies! It became a New York Times bestseller, which we celebrated by spending 4 days on a catamaran in the Whitsundays.

Ooooh, well that was entertaining and it feels so real!

But, now for the work: so, I need to take a step back.

My interpretation of that is I need to break the whole thing down into bite-sized pieces. I am also thinking that my end result is very sensory. Maybe I was supposed to write it as more of a business plan? Maybe that’s my inner critic rearing its head again? I don’t know the “right” answer so I’ll carry on because this is fun, and surely becoming All That I Am should be fun? Right?

1)   4-bed beach house in Queensland. How much does a 4-bed property on the Sunshine Coast cost? How much deposit do I need to save? How much do I need to earn to get a mortgage on a place like that?

2)   Looks like the yoga and meditation studio is popping up here even though what I wrote in my initial business dream was to run a successful healing practice. Interesting. I guess I can take it that meditation classes might be where my healing practice is heading? Well, that’s what my end result looks like so I’ll need to ensure the house has enough space to build a small studio unless I can use one of the current rooms. I also need to find yoga students, so there’ll be marketing and networking involved. And I’ll need equipment: mats, blankets, cushions and blocks. And I’ll need to start a meditation group!

3)   Meeting with inspirational workshop facilitators. Need to build a network of people who do this. Need to get involved at ground level and learn the how’s and where’s of running said workshops. Locate people who might attend and learn how to market to them successfully. Speak to anyone I know who already runs successful workshops – what can I learn from them?

4)   Write the blog. Continue to write. Learn more about the art of successful blogging. Read other successful blogs. Speak to people about blogging and find out what they want to know/read. Study the stats of my blogs and understand which topics work best. Increase my audience through marketing, advertising and any other (currently unknown to me) methods.

5)   Travelling for work. Need to extend my business network to people in these areas. Who do I know who does business in Hawaii and Sydney? What are the requirements of doing business in these locations? How many workshops do I need to run before I can expand overseas? What topics will work overseas? How will I find this out? Need to do a lot of research here!

6)   Build a business relationship with Mike Dooley. Find out how to contact Mike. Do I know anyone that knows him? Attend one or more of his workshops and become more familiar with his work. Create a workshop that he might be interested in getting involved with. Email and tell him about my blog!

7)   Get Jacqueline’s book on the NY Times bestseller list. Find out what it takes to get a book on this list. Ask people in my direct network who work in book publishing how their authors reached this level of success. Ask other people in the industry for advice on how to leverage a book to this status. Expand my contact within the book publishing industry.

That’s some list!

I’ve written business plans before but I’ve never done it this way. This feels more like pleasure, and although the to-do list is pretty broad, I feel confident and comfortable that I can achieve at least some of them within a single phone call or internet click. What strikes me as interesting here is that my tone and mood are calm. I’m less jaunty and more serious. That’s not to say I will become a bore in order to make my business plans a success, but it’s interesting for me to note that my usual hippy chick, beach babe, make people (myself) laugh persona is not evident in these words. Instead, I sense a more adult and mature me. Perhaps a side of myself that has remained undercover, frightened of the real world and my potential success?

Well, well, I’ve learned a lot about myself already. How fascinating!

And now, I have a reasonably comprehensive list that is ready for me to open first thing tomorrow and get started on. What will I choose first? I think I’ll do something from each bullet point and go from there.

Boy, this feels good.