Want to know what's working for funnels in 2025? Free workshop on March 12th

The No-BS mental guide to actually launching your business

Hailey Dale
The No-BS Mental Guide to Actually Launching Your Business | Your Content Empire

HEY THERE!

I’m Hailey – content strategist and founder here at Your Content Empire where we help you create more profitable, purposeful and productive content — and hopefully enjoy yourself more while doing it too. Learn more about me here >>

Let’s Connect

Categories

Content Systems
Content Strategy
Sales Funnels
All
The No-BS Mental Guide To Actually Launching Your Business by Your Content Empire

It took me 3 years of obsessive planning and preparation before I felt ready to launch my first business and dream, Trunked Creative. What makes this even more extraordinary is the fact that I’ve helped launch dozens of businesses under the banner of my previous employer.

It wasn’t until I signed up for Marie Forleo’s BSchool (a huge investment that I could barely afford) in 2013 that I knew it was time for me to stop putting it off. Launching a business is way more about being confident than being ready – you will never, ever feel completely ready. There’s always something else you could do, but I beg you not to wait for a feeling that will never come.

What’s holding you back?

Getting over the loneliness of starting your own business is often thought to be the biggest challenge in motivating yourself to get a start-up off the ground. The long hours, mile-long project lists, it can often seem that there’s no end in sight. And to be completely honest, there probably isn’t. Not if you want to be successful anyway.

It’s like with any goal, it’s easy to get discouraged if you spend all of your time with your nose to the grindstone without letting yourself come up for air once in awhile. The trick to dealing with the pressure and anxiety of becoming an entrepreneur is to balance living your life with getting everything you need done to satisfy your business requirements. Easier said than done.

Here’s your five-part, no-BS action plan to getting that business launched.

The No-BS Mental Guide to Actually Launching Your Business | Your Content Empire

1. Remember why you started

Create a list – either write it down or make it visual – with all of the reasons that you wanted to start your business in the first place. Helping people who are where you once were? More money? Location freedom? Setting your own hours? Set yourself up for success. When your motivation starts waning, look at your motivation and remind yourself of why you have to keep going.

2. Eat that elephant

I hate to use a cliche, but there’s a reason that they’re cliches. How do you eat an elephant [read: launch your dream business]? You eat [read: launch] one bite [read: project] at a time. What are your next three biggest projects that you need to complete for your business? Make a list of each step needed to complete these three projects and then assign the steps to the next seven days. If you just focus on the project or task at hand, you’ll get to the point where your business is ready to launch, even if as mentioned above, you don’t feel ready.

3. Outsource your roadblocks

Stuck on a step of one of your three focus projects? Outsource it. Use Fiverr, Elance or UpWork (or any other freelancer service) to get your problem dealt with affordably and quickly, while you move on the next item on your list. Your dream is far too important to get caught up in potholes.

4. Take care of yourself

Launching a business, especially while juggling other responsibilities (such as a full-time job or family) requires incredible stamina. If you don’t take care of yourself, there’s no way you’re going to be able to do it all for very long. Yes at times it may require short bursts of uninterrupted focus but to stay with it for the long haul, you’re going to want to be gentle with and take care of your body. The four most unignorable aspects of this are sleep, food, exercise, and hygiene. What are a couple of things in each of these categories that you can do to take care of yourself? Quit working at a reasonable so you can unwind before going to bed. Sleep for 7-8 hours every night. Go to the gym or walk the dog in the morning. Have a shower every day to feel your best.

5. Remember who you were

Think of something that you enjoyed before starting your business or something that you don’t think you have time for anymore. Schedule a block of time in this week to do it.

Looky, Looky – A handy worksheet on this very topic!

Click below to download my go-to worksheet to create a no-bs plan to launch anything (including your business)

The No-BS Mental Guide to Actually Launching Your Business | Your Content Empire

You Might Also Be Interested In These Posts

The Complete Content Audit Action Plan

The Complete Content Audit Action Plan

I recently had the opportunity to do a massive audit of my content while I was preparing the new website and rebranding every single blog post and freebie I’ve ever published.  And while it was a TON of work, it was such a nostalgic trip down memory lane, and I ended...

The ChatGPT Survey System

The ChatGPT Survey System

You’ve heard that market research is important. Talk to your customers, talk to your customers. But what does that mean? And what the heck are you supposed to “do” with that information? In this video, I’m going to share my tried-and-true ChatGPT Survey System system...

Pin It on Pinterest

Your Content Empire - No-BS Project Planner
The No-BS Mental Guide to Actually Launching Your Business | Your Content Empire
The No-BS Mental Guide to Actually Launching Your Business | Your Content Empire
Hailey Dale
The No-BS Mental Guide to Actually Launching Your Business | Your Content Empire
The No-BS Mental Guide To Actually Launching Your Business by Your Content Empire
The No-BS Mental Guide to Actually Launching Your Business | Your Content Empire
The No-BS Mental Guide to Actually Launching Your Business | Your Content Empire
The Content Post-It Method: 30 Days of Content With This Simple Daily Challenge
The Complete Content Audit Action Plan
The ChatGPT Survey System
What happens after the funnel purchase matters more...

The main goal of your funnel is to make a sale, right? But after you make that sale comes your biggest window of opportunity (my customer multiplication formula) and most people are majorly dropping the ball here ↓

They send the offer and then treat new customers like everyone else on their email list → when they should be treated like anyone but.

Those who do take advantage of this opportunity turn new customers into brand ambassadors, repeat purchases and referrals.

How does this relate back to touchpoints?

This comes back to building your funnel around touchpoints. Looking at data for 2025:

📊 Past customers only need 1–3 touches on average
📊 Warm inbound leads need 5–12 touches
📊 Cold prospects require 20–50 touches

Even though it takes WAY less touchpoints to upsell existing customers, most people hyper focus on bringing in new sales when focusing on your existing customers is a much better way to bring in repeat AND new sales.

What is the delight and invite funnel?

That’s where the delight and invite funnel comes in. It becomes your offer delivery sequence with more delight and invite opportunities woven in.

The main goals of this funnel:

🏆 Incorporate feedback loops to get ahead of challenges your customers experience + be first to hear about wins

🏆 Create assets and campaigns around customer results

🏆 Connect directly with new customers to let them know they’re seen and appreciated

🏆 Incentivize them to share the offer with their audiences and friends

🏆 Invite them to exclusive offers

Here’s the customer multiplication formula this funnel is built upon:

Delight x Invite = Turning Every Happy Client Into 2-3 More

This formula (and the strategies behind it) is one of the things I’m covering in an upcoming workshop about designing a funnel offer that’ll sell in 2025.

Want in? Comment WORKSHOP and I’ll send you the link to sign up for the free workshop on Mar 12th!
With any new tactic that comes on the online business scene, there’s a saturation point. When it first makes an appearance (think: micro-offers, paid workshops to upsells, or anything else that’s been viewed as a magic pill in marketing): 

🔄 Someone does it and gets amazing results

🔄 Raves about it

🔄 Starts teaching it

🔄 Other people starting doing it, raving about it, teaching it

🔄 And the returns start diminishing over time 

It’s the same song and dance we’ve been through (and will continue to go through) time and time again. 

It’s one of the reasons I build all of my marketing plans around timeless strategies with a side of timely tactics. 

One of those timeless strategies that has always worked: Connection. 

In a space obsessed with automation and making it easy, connection is one of those things that makes the biggest difference but that most people are not willing to do (because it takes effort). 

But there’s a big advantage in zigging while everyone else is zagging. And even though connection does take effort, there are ways to streamline it  so it not only takes less time but prioritizes the people most likely to become customers. 

This is one of the strategies I’ll be covering how to do in an upcoming workshop all about how to design a funnel that works in 2025.

Want in? Comment WORKSHOP and I’ll send you the link to sign up for the free workshop on Mar 12th!
🛑 Your funnel’s got traffic but no sales? Before you slash your prices or scrap everything... 

After auditing 100+ funnels, I can tell you it’s probably NOT what you think. I recently helped a photographer DOUBLE her rates by fixing just ONE of these issues 

Swipe to discover the 5 real reasons your offer isn’t selling (and exactly how to fix them) ➡️

PS - I just dropped a detailed video breaking down each reason + the exact action steps to fix them. Comment “FIXER” and I’ll send you the link!
Feel like your doing all the right things but your offer still isn’t selling the way it should?

I’ve audited hundreds of funnels, and there are usually 5 specific reasons why offers fail - and spoiler alert: it’s usually not what you think.

⬆️ And that’s the key...

Because the secret to fixing your sales is making sure you’re focused on the right problem. Otherwise, you’ll waste a lot of time fixing something that doesn’t need to be fixed.

So if your sales funnel is letting you down, comment FIXER for the link to my latest video where I’ll help you identify the real problem and how it to fix it.
Linear funnels are dying, but what’s replacing them is actually easier to implement 🔄

The truth is that most funnels need to evolve (I won’t say all because there are always exceptions to the rule but those are becoming less and less when it comes to funnels).

So if you’re still white knuckle gripping onto your A → B → C linear funnel, you’re likely going to see diminishing returns over time. Or it might even feel like your funnel just stopped working overnight. Or you might not be able to get a new funnel to ever work no matter what you do.

Here’s what’s replacing the standard linear funnel → the touchpoint funnel. Here’s an example of what that looks like:

✅ A hand-raiser freebie to identify, attract and validate leads
✅ A validated offer and messaging that taps into authentic urgency
✅ An automated “pulse” email sequence that shifts between at least 2 cycles of priming and inviting
✅ A lead scoring system to identify your most engaged people so you can layer on direct connect strategies on those most likely to become customers
✅ An omnichannel campaign to increase touchpoints across multiple platforms
✅ A customer multiplication system to turn every happy customer into 2-3 more

The key is to keep each of these elements simple while stacking them together to compound results.

This is what I’ll be covering how to do in an upcoming workshop all about how to design a funnel offer that’ll sell in 2025.

Want in? Comment WORKSHOP and I’ll send you the link to sign up for the free workshop on Mar 12th!
The No-BS Mental Guide to Actually Launching Your Business | Your Content Empire
Share This