How Pet Bloggers Can Plan For Entrepreneurial Success

Post by Blog Manager Robbi Hess

Wouldn’t it be great if you could be an overnight success? In a perfect world that would happen. In the real world pet bloggers and pet business owners can plan for entrepreneurial success, but they/you will have to work for it. While you hope it won’t take years, it sometimes can to achieve the goals you have laid out for yourself in order to consider what you’re doing a success. What can you do? You have to do the work and put in the hours. Are you ready?

As I head off to Oregon to speak at the Women in the Pet Industry Network conference and catch up with BlogPaws team members, Carol Bryant and Yvonne DiVita (who is up for a Woman of the Year award!) I was thinking about how attending a networking event or a conference is one step on the ladder of entrepreneurial success. You don’t have to fly from New York to Oregon as I am doing to find ways and places to network.

If you’re thinking of ways to grow your business you have to consider: Do you want more clients? Are you thinking strategically on how to make that happen and whether you have the capacity to take on more clients? If you aren’t sure you need to start today to build your capacity to bring in more clients.

Here are some steps you can take to realize your dreams of success:

• Write “strategic planning” on your calendar every week and devote yourself to at least an hour of thinking strategically about your business growth. Perhaps Monday morning is a great time to do this as it can be a motivator for the week to come. Maybe Friday will work out best because you can reflect on successes and make plans for the week ahead. Choose a time, put it on your calendar and make certain you do it.
• Celebrate your weekly (or daily) successes. If you’ve hit it out of the park, make a note of that in your calendar or shout it on your social media pages. Success breeds success. When you’re analyzing that success do so with an eye toward how you made it happen so you can duplicate it.
• Analyze the times you missed the mark. Don’t look at failure as a reason to throw in the towel. Look at them as learning experiences and also pat yourself on the back for having the wherewithal to try something new!
• Take time at the end of every workday to plan for the next day.  Write tasks in your calendar – whether electronic or paper – make time to network, take time to care for your mental and physical health and make time for marketing. As part of your coming-day planning write down the steps you need to take to achieve any large or long-term goals you’ve set for yourself.
• Take time at least once a week to write down the big projects you’re working on and to chart the progress you’re making on them. Don’t let procrastination of a large project or goal nag away at you. As Brian Tracy says, “Eat that frog.”
• Say “no” to projects that just don’t fit your business model. Saying no is a learned art form, but once you embrace the power of that word and its two tiny letters you will likely find your productivity soaring, your energy levels rising and your inbox being flooded with offers to which you can say a resounding “yes” because you said that earlier “no” to something that wasn’t a great fit. How do you know what you should say “no” to? It will be part of your business plan. You do have a business plan, don’t you?
• Attend networking events and conferences. Step outside of your comfort zone and meet new people. Remember, just because you are in the pet industry doesn’t mean you can’t network at an event that is not in the pet industry. In fact, attending events that are outside of your niche may open your eyes to new ways to do things and it may open doors to new opportunities!

What steps can you do today to help propel your business (and yes, your pet blog IS a business!) toward higher levels of success?

(Photo: Shutterstock Dog tangled in phone cords)