Deciding which of the many online business growth strategies is the right one for you, can be daunting. Oftentimes, we find mindset strategies and spirituality to be entirely divorced from actual growth strategies. And employing one without the other will inhibit your growth in the long run. In this article, I offer you a framework to align your strategic decisions with your heart’s desire. You will create a new definition of success that is purpose-aligned and rooted equally so in spirituality and strategy. 

Strategy-Only Mentors:

First of all, let’s call out the potentially harmful messages purely strategy-focused business mentors tend to scream online:  
Get more 1:1 clients! 

• Your fees aren’t high enough, fix your money mindset! 
• Get on Pinterest, start a blog, post more reels, launch a course! 
• Why aren’t you running ads? 
• The EXACT framework I used to make $100k in 3 months.

Really, any of these strategies can work. But not all of them will work for you. 

It is also true that any of these strategies work best when aligned with a goal. But not all of them will work for YOUR goal. (Read: Some of these strategies will help you grow your business at the sacrifice of your own freedom which would lead you off-course from your definition of success)

Spiritual Coaches:

On the other hand, the Internet is full of “it’s all energy” spirituality messages: 

If you want to grow your business, you need to meditate more. 

• Just visualize your dreams and they shall become reality. 
• When you really want something, the Universe will conspire in your favor. 
• If you were to tune in, what message are you getting right now? 

In fact, you will hear ME say things quite similar to the above messages. After all, I’m trained in pranic (energy) healing, spiritual psychology-coaching, a student of A Course in Miracles, and I’m in training for somatics. And I’m a Type-A businesswoman looking to maximize her business growth for impact and income so we can all go and live the lives of our dreams. 

Sadly, the number of times I’ve come across and worked with coaches who call themselves business coaches and end up being all about the energy, no strategy, is staggering. That’s a huge problem because…if you need me to complete that sentence, you’re reading the wrong article. 

Here is what years in business have taught me time and time again: 

Strategy is a love letter to your heart. It’s your heart’s desire’s love language. Mindset, on the other hand, is the heart of strategy.  

You need both: the heart and the muscle. Mindset and strategy. Oftentimes, online coaches that prioritize income over impact won’t tell you to slow down and A) get clear on your purpose, and B) align your purpose with the right strategy to grow your online business.

This blog post will take care of that. Let’s dive in. FYI, for maximum benefit, do read the below strategies in order, albeit picking and running with just one will still help you tons. 

Strategy 1: Put your CEO hat on (the heart)

Chances are that if you’re here, you’ve been running your business as a solopreneur while traveling full-time. And you may well wish to keep it that way and still grow. For that to happen, the first strategic shift required is to turn Pro – and put on your CEO hat. Yes, even while drinking Sangria by the beach.

With your CEO hat off, you’re likely emotionally attached to your offers, your current clients, your marketing strategies: But I like them. I can’t let them go. 

With your hat off, you might also have a tendency to trade time for money and to work in the business as the sole provider of all services, funnels, operations, and marketing. You may have a far-off dream for your life and business but no strategy to help you realize that dream.

Here is a simple question to help you find out if your CEO hat is on or off: 

How much time do you spend, on average, delivering your own services?

If your answer is anywhere above 60%, your CEO hat is off. Excitingly, once you’re below that percentage, you would have carved out space for you to lead with a possibility mindset, focused on opportunity and on your vision for the business. 

Freelancers deliver a service. CEOs streamline processes, aligning strategy to their vision, and guiding their team towards one goal. Same is true for solopreneurs: you’re guiding all parts of your business towards one goal.

CEOs are woking ON their business

In the tech world, CEOs may spend upwards of 80% working on the business. However, in the online business world, many CEOs tend to also be the face of the business, ie the main service provider or face of the service. The brand of the CEO and of the business, in that case, are deeply interlinked with one another. Here is an example to illustrate this: Most people might still buy a Tesla even though they think Elon Musk needs to see a therapist. But most people won’t buy from Jenna Kutcher if they think she’s not likable (I LOVE HER, go follow her). 

You have now determined how much you’re embodying the CEO mindset. If you’ve answered way above 60%, don’t fret. This is such a crucial stage in your business.

There are two powerful shifts you can create in your mindset today:

First of all, you can decide that your business will be successful and that you will not be the reason it fails. In other words: You can decide today that you are ALL in. This doesn’t have to mean quitting your job. But adjusting your language from “this is my social media side hustle” to “I’m building a business that’s going to impact thousands of people and bring in millions of dollars” will shift your perspective and open yourself up to a new way of thinking. 

Secondly, you’ll want to start asking yourself new questions: What does my business have to do for me? 

• Who do I need to become in order to get to the next level? 
• If I was already successful beyond anything I can imagine right now, what would my life look like? 
• Who are the five people in business I look up to – and what steps would they take at this point in their business? 

DO THIS NOW:

If you’re resonating with this message, and if you’re ready to exponentially grow your online business in a way that is not only purpose-aligned, but deeply intertwined with your actual definition of success and freedom, you’re invited to grab a free copy of my eBook: 

It’s a 20 page, comprehensive guide leading you through questions to reflect on, re-align, and plan out your business strategy. 

Strategy 2: Align your goal to your strategy and to your actions (the heart)

This next strategy piggybags off of the first. Your growth as a CEO will directly affect the growth of your freedom based business. Similarly, any strategy you employ is only as good as its alignment with your goal and its implementation. With your CEO hat on and clarity added to your goals, there are three main aspects to aligning goals and online business growth strategies: prioritization, project management, and consistency.

Prioritization

In order to prioritize, you need to be willing to let go of certain things: 

On the heart level, that is going to be limiting beliefs, scarcity mindset, and any form of people pleasing which Simone Grace Seoul wonderfully re-coined as “self abandoning”. Also on the heart level, you’ll want to take a look at what clients, activities, strategies, or team members are draining you, and which ones are energizing you. This guide will help you do so. And as you define your drainers and your energizers, ask yourself what it would take to remove your drainers? What would that create space for? 

On the muscle level, you’ll want to adopt a mindset of “going all in” with the strategy that you decide to implement. For example, if your goal is to grow your email list and you’re determining your strategy is going to be focused around Pinterest, you’ll want to put your time, money, and effort behind that strategy. Over time, you will be able to juggle multiple growth strategies at once, but if you’re getting started on an entirely new one, it can’t succeed if the approach is haphazard. 

Do this now:

Write down 10 things that drain you in your business and come up with a minimum of three ways how you could eliminate 20% of what drains you in business by the end of the month.

Project Management

The muscle-level is where project management comes in: Are you clear on your timelines? Have you decided which milestones will support your ultimate goal? And have you determined when these milestones need to be achieved? Have you broken your strategies down into accomplishable daily tasks? And do you have this scribbled down on a piece of paper or an actual project management tool? I love a good butcher-block-paper overview, but if you’re like me and move countries every few months, Trello or Asana are the way to go with this. Personally, I use Asana to project manage and Trello to plan my content. 

Do this now:

Ask yourself: Are you dilly-dallying your way through differing online business growth strategies? You are if you don’t have clear timelines and a goal broken down into daily actions. If that’s the case, make a decision to have that change TODAY. Then take one of your goals and slice it up into daily actions. If you’re ready to go all in, begin to integrate a tool like Asana or Trello into your project management. 

Need help defining your goals in a way that actually inspires you? Download a free copy of my ebook.

Consistency

And finally, consistency. Implementing online business growth strategies will always have a snowball effect, no matter the stage of business you’re in. However, you won’t see the ball rolling in the beginning. But if you prioritize, manage your project properly, and PUT IN EFFORT CONSISTENTLY, there’s a 99% chance you’ll see the needle move over time. Notice how this is a two-way street: without the right mindset and definition of success, you won’t decide on the right strategy. And without the right approach to that strategy, you won’t succeed. And even employing the wrong strategy consistently won’t lead to good results. 

Do this now:

Look at your calendar. Take a good look. How can you adjust your calendar to support your business growth strategies consistently? Personally, I like flexibility in my calendar, so I don’t add in blocks of time, but I do add recurring tasks to Asana that enable me to be incredibly consistent with certain things, every single day.

 

Strategy 3: refine your audience, message, and offers (heart and muscle)

Going back to basics is such an important part of business growth, and yet, it’s also one of the most-often-overlooked online business growth strategies. As mentioned before, as a business owner who is a coach, service provider, or content creator, your brand is deeply intertwined. Chances are that, as you evolve, your message evolves, too. Enter: ‘integrity.’ Cambridge Dictionary defines integrity as the state of being whole. Specifically, integrity encourages us to be aligned in thought, action, and emotion. And since our thoughts and feelings will change, our actions have to follow suit. This is why re-branding every 18 or so months is crucial to growing a business that is purpose-aligned.

Careful here, I’m not saying, change it all. I’m saying, refine your message: Are you still saying what you’re feeling? Refine your audience: Who are you speaking to, and who do you want to be speaking to? Who is the client you want to be working with in 2 years from now – and how will you call them in through your messaging? Are your existing offers have the impact you want them to have? 

Millie, from It’s Modern Millie, recently posted a great video about how she’s ready to change (heart) and what that means for her strategy moving forward (muscle). I highly recommend you watch it here. 

Think of this as spring cleaning. Or shopping as a digital nomad. I LOOOOVE shopping. And my boyfriend has such a good eye for fashion, it would be EASY to fill up Carrie Bradshaw’s walk-in closet. BUT, I love my current lifestyle as a digital nomad. And with two suitcases, instead of adding ever-new things to my storage (read: store), I ask myself: what needs refinement, mending, what can I repurpose, how can I use this one top to create a new style? Same is true for your business: How can you capitalize on what you’ve got?

Do this now:

Who are the three clients you’ve loved working with the most in the past 12 months? Note down their pain points, why they came to you, and what their transformation was. How can you capitalize on this through your message? 

Now, look at your existing offers – which ones do you love selling the most? Which ones yield the best results for your clients? How can you provide MORE of that? Or: How can you keep serving the clients buying these offers? 

Read also:

Habits of a Digital Nomad Entrepreneur: earn while traveling

Strategy 4: strategize around your numbers (heart and muscle)

It’s getting juicy now. If you haven’t noticed, we’re following a thread here: In my opinion, the most powerful way to determine the best online business strategies for YOU is by exploring from the inside out. My intention here is really to help you start with you, turning the outside noise off. Starting with you allows you to tune into your goals and success in a way that will help you discern much better which strategy is best for you. 

We’ve looked at three HEART-matters so far: your mindset, your way of approaching strategy, and your brand. Now, let’s take a look at what you’re putting out and the story our output is telling us. The keyword here is research! It’s so easy to drop everything and follow the latest trend the IG algorithm is pushing to our feeds. Get on this now!- the message is. But remember, this message is from people who are after income alone. Conversely, we want to amplify our impact by increasing our income. 

On that note, let’s look at what is working in your business. And not your feelings. What are the numbers saying? And if you were to follow the numbers, what would you be doing strategy-wise? At this point, I’m confident to have you solely look at numbers, because, if you’ve been following along, you’ll have a great grasp of what works for your heart. 

Do this now:

Watch Vanessa Lau’s YouTube Video to understand how studying your numbers can help you make life-design and purpose-aligned goals for your business.

Following, ask yourself: Which offers are bringing in the most revenue? And which ones the most profit (do you have to be on live to deliver these offers or do they deliver value while you sleep?) 

Which of your marketing efforts create the most traffic/sales/subscribers? (And what’s the ROI?) 

Dig deeper now: Which offers are creating the highest client retention? Which type of marketing Is yielding the most engagement? 

Remember step 2? Prioritization? This step will help you prioritize what drives the most growth in your business. It’s like a spring cleaning – before you can set up the new bouquet of flowers, you’ll need to create space. 

Strategy 5: diversify your income (muscle)

Now, to the good part: adding on! Truth is, once you’ve put on your CEO hat, buckled down on what already works, and cleaned up, it’s time to grow your business by diversifying your income. While you want to be sure, your banking systems are set up for diversification, first, let’s return to purpose-alignment for a minute: Purpose has two directions, in and out. 

Purpose-in looks at what you want from your business, which is typically some form of freedom of location, time, or money. How can adding a new income stream align your purpose with your definition of freedom? 
Purpose-out looks at the impact you want to leave on your community, which is typically some form of betterment, relief, or transformation. How can a new revenue stream create a new avenue for your audience to create that transformation? 

There are PLENTY of revenue streams you can add all day every day. Instagram/YouTube monetization, brand partnerships/affiliate marketing, User Generated Content, a new mastermind, a different type of private coaching, a short group container, or a self-paced course, ebook, webinar, the list goes on. As you’re deciding your next strategic move, 

Do this now:

• Which NEW income stream will be most aligned with my purpose in AND out? Why? 
• Which new income stream will be least aligned with my purpose in AND out? Why? 

You may want to do some research here to ensure your answers to the above questions are rooted in reality and numbers, not your feelings. You know, CEO hat and all 😉

Also note that diversifying your income can only be done successfully if you’re setting your digital nomad banking up for success, so ensure that your money systems are strong.

 

Strategy 6: hire a coach or professional support (heart and muscle)

Really, the question inherent to the previous step is: Are you trading time for money? As a CEO looking to implement online business growth strategies, you want to be trading in less and less of your time for money. One way to do that, is by adding the right product and adjusting your marketing strategy accordingly. The other way to do that, is to hire a coach or mentor who can get you in the right mindset AND show you what actually works and, ultimately, save you a lot of time. 

Read: If you hire a coach, you’ll save time which, in turn, will save you money. It’s a simple equation every successful business owner knows and implements regularly. 

Now, there’s an art to hiring the right coach. And there’s an art to using your coach in the most effective way. I write about both in this article. 

Do this now:

Note down the three top areas where you need help, and determine what your budget is (it might be $100, or $1,000, or $10,000). Once noted down, reach out to your network (via IG, newsletter, mastermind, friends, current or former coach, or me) to ask for recommendations of people that can mentor or coach you through one or all of these areas. If you’re wondering how to make the most out of working with a coach, read this blog post first. 

Conclusion

You’re someone unique: You travel. You’re committed to growing your business. And it’s important to you to grow your business in a way that’s aligned with your purpose and your actual life-goals. Not any strategy will work for you. This blogpost has offered you a framework to determine which strategies work for you. Remember, introspection is KEY…as is taking ACTION in a strategic manner.

Ideally, you want to implement growth strategies that are aligned with:

🌟YOUR definition of Freedom? 
🌟 YOUR definition of Impact? 
🌟YOUR long term business goal? 

• Put on your CEO hat.
• Prioritize, become consistent, and project manage.
• Refine, before adding.
• Research YOUR numbers.
• Diversify your income streams.

If you desire to go deeper, go grab a free copy of my ebook, “Creating Purpose-Aligned business goals“.

Let me know in the comments how you marry a daily mindfulness practice with daily strategic actions in your business! ❤️❤️