Three Questions to Answer Before You Start Building Your Online Business

Are you designing your online business, or just building one?

If you're an experienced professional looking to turn your expertise into an online business, you've probably encountered plenty of advice about what you should build.

Start a website. Create an online course. Build a sales funnel. Launch a podcast. Grow your social media following. Start an email newsletter.

All these activities can contribute to a successful online business. But how do they fit together into the business you actually want to create?

That's the question I encourage you to answer before investing significant time and money building things.

Design Your Online Business Before You Build It

An online business is more than a collection of websites, courses, marketing campaigns, and technology systems. It's a business designed to serve a particular group of people, help them achieve meaningful results, generate sustainable revenue, and support the life you want to live.

There are four essential elements to creating your online business design:

1. Clients and Mission: Who you serve and the value you contribute.

2. Signature Framework: Your processes for helping clients achieve their desired results.

3. Customer Journey: How you attract, engage, and develop relationships with prospective clients.

4. Business Model: How your offers, pricing, and operating approach generate the revenue you need.

I recommend starting with three fundamental questions about your clients and yourself.

Question 1: Who Do You Want to Serve?

As an experienced professional, you've probably accumulated knowledge and skills in several areas. But having expertise doesn't necessarily mean you want to build a business around everything you know. Start by asking yourself:

• Who do I most enjoy working with?

• Whose success would give me the greatest satisfaction?

• What challenges or aspirations do they have that I can help them address?

• What meaningful benefits could they gain by working with me?

Think about the people you've enjoyed helping throughout your career. What made those experiences satisfying? What results did you help them achieve? Your ideal clients are people whose success matters to you and whom you're particularly well-equipped to help.

Clarity about whom you serve is the foundation for everything else in your business design.

Question 2: How Do You Want to Serve Them?

Once you've identified whom you want to serve, consider the transformation you can help them achieve. Think of your client's journey of transformation.

Point A: Where are they now? What problems, challenges, or circumstances are they experiencing?

Point B: Where do they want to be? What meaningful results or changes do they aspire to achieve?

Your expertise provides the bridge between those two points. Eventually, you'll want to organize your knowledge into a Signature Transformation Framework, a structured methodology for guiding clients toward their desired results. But first, get clear about the transformation itself.

Turn Your Answers Into a Business Mission

You can combine these ideas into a simple, three-part mission statement:

I work with __________________ (who I serve)

To achieve __________________ (what they want)

So that they __________________ (the benefits they gain)

This statement becomes a useful guide for designing your business and explaining what you do. It keeps your attention focused on your clients and the results you help them achieve, rather than simply describing your professional credentials.

Choose How You Enjoy Working

There's another dimension to how you serve clients: the type of work you actually enjoy doing. Experienced professionals can deliver their expertise through many formats, including:

• Coaching and mentoring, individually or in groups

• Advising, consulting, and professional services

• Training, workshops, and online courses

• Speaking and live presentations

• Writing, books, newsletters, and other content

Which activities energize you? Which are you particularly good at? And most importantly, which delivery formats produce the best results for your clients? Your answers will help you design offers that provide meaningful value while allowing you to work in ways you enjoy.

Question 3: How Do You Want to Work and Live?

This third question is sometimes overlooked, but I believe it's one of the most important. You're investing your time, effort, and money to create an online business. What do you want in return?

Certainly, you want to help your clients succeed. But you also want your business to support the life you want to experience. Perhaps you want more flexibility in your schedule, additional income, opportunities to travel, or more time with family. Maybe you simply want to continue doing meaningful professional work without the demands of a traditional full-time job.

Whatever your aspirations, design your business with the end in mind.

Consider these questions:

• What kind of life do I want to experience?

• How much income must my business generate to support that life?

• How much time do I want to spend operating my business?

• What characteristics must my business have to meet those income and time-freedom goals?

• How much time, effort, and money am I willing to invest to create that business?

These considerations influence your offers, pricing, customer journey, delivery methods, and business systems. A business built primarily around individual consulting engagements will have different time demands than one combining consulting with group programs, online courses, or subscriptions.

Neither approach is inherently better. The right design depends on your clients' needs and your personal goals.

Create an Online Business You Can Trust

Before building websites, funnels, courses, and technology systems, take time to answer these three fundamental questions.

Get clear about whom you want to serve, the results you can help them achieve, and the kind of working life you want your business to support.

Then use those answers to guide the rest of your business design: your Signature Framework, Customer Journey, and Business Model.

Design it first. Then build and evolve it in focused sprints.

Your Invitation: Design Your Online Business in Five Days

I'm preparing a five-day Online Business Success Design Workshop, October 26-30, where we'll work through the four essential elements of your initial online business design.

The goal is to help you create an Initial Business Design and identify your best path forward, based on your expertise, circumstances, and goals. You can participate in the live workshop for free, with an optional VIP experience offering additional resources and support.

Visit OBSDesignWorkshop.com to learn more and join the notification list.

You already have the expertise. Now let's design a business that puts it to work for your clients and for the life you want to live.