For over 21 years, Alicia Forest has taught service-based entrepreneurs how to create profitable online businesses in their spare time.
Alicia decided to learn about working from home and online marketing when she and her husband were considering starting a family. Even though she earned her MBA, she didn’t want to work for someone else, but she still wanted to make her own money and wanted to be home to raise their children.
Alicia has always had a passion for business. In fact, she started with penny carnivals in her front yard at the age of 8. By the time she was a sixth grader, she was selling handmade ribbon braided barrettes for $2 per pair to the other girls in her class, and she continued with other business ventures as a teenager and throughout her twenties.
Even when she had a nine to five job working for someone else, she continued to pursue individual business opportunities, like resume writing and editing manuscripts for the self-publishing arm of Barnes & Noble.
“As entrepreneurs, we work hard and we’re passionate about what we do. We put a lot of time and energy into our businesses. But I never wanted to do that at the expense of living my life. We all have that intention, but sometimes we get busy or bogged down because we’re trying to figure out how to make it all work, and living our life gets pushed aside.”
One key strategy that works for Alicia is having a wall-sized calendar that she plans out her work schedule so that she can have the summer months free to spend with her family. Her parents always enjoyed the summer months with family at the lake and she has continued that tradition with her own family.
“I’m running my business, it’s not running me. We started spending summers at the lake as a family when my daughter was born, and this year will be our 17th summer.”
In 2014, Alicia published, “6 Simple Steps to 6 Figures for the Solo Service Professional: How to Create Your Lifestyle Business Based on Your Passion for Serving Others.”
It is a step-by-step guide about building a successful service business based on real-world proven methods that have helped thousands of solo professionals live the life they desire. It contains proven concepts and basic fundamentals that will help any businessperson build a solid platform to make their new endeavor profitable, as quickly as possible.
“It’s important to know your message, your market, audience and core content. What is the one thing that you can teach people to help them move forward? That is the basis of everything I have created, including my book, speaking engagements and all of my coaching and training programs.”
One of the things that Alicia discovered early in her marketing efforts was that she had to become more specific and narrow her target market in order to grow her fledgling coaching business.
As everyone that has tried to start a business knows, identifying your specific target market it key to becoming a success.
Alicia originally began reaching out to stay-at-home moms who wanted to earn some income from home with their own online business, but she was not able to gain any traction or sales. Even though that seemed to be a specific target, she learned that she needed to clarify what she was teaching and to whom she was teaching it to. Once she focused on service-based women entrepreneurs who were just getting started with building their online business, her business took off.
“By getting slightly more specific and understanding my best audience, all of my marketing, content writing and sales became easier. Step one in starting your own business is finding your unique message and niche.”
Once a specific market is identified, the next step is determining what problem is solved by your business for that target market. Becoming very clear on how your product or service will make life better or easier for a potential client is important. Once that clarity is achieved and the solution is evident, your product can be created, packaged and sold.
Online Business Breakthrough
Alicia’s flagship program is the “Online Business Breakthrough.”
Over the years technology has seen tremendous change, so it’s important to Alicia to review and update her program as technology and marketing strategies shift. Doing so has allowed her to streamline and update her online offerings to make them even more responsive to current business trends and practices.
“I’ve been able to consolidate the 21 steps of my core content down to 15 because of technological evolution and the ease of marketing today. It’s still the same core content, but it has been updated to reflect what’s current right now.”
Now at the age of 52, Alicia is planning ahead for early retirement with her husband while working on the second edition of her book, as well as focusing on Online Business Breakthrough becoming known as the #1 affordable and accessible online training program for new and emerging service-based business owners who want to create a highly profitable business online in less than part-time hours.
“I love being at the point of only focusing on my core content now. I’m not trying to market a new program or create something new. I just keep making the Online Business Breakthrough better and better. I’m all in on this core content and helping entrepreneurs with creating and growing their own successful online business.”
With two children ages 14 and 17, they are beginning to look at colleges, making travel plans before the kids are off on their own, and of course they are looking forward to more summers at the lake, where they enjoy watersports, board games and being in nature – and together.
Alicia Forest has created a successful business online and can help others build a profitable business endeavor as well.
We enjoyed our interview with Alicia. You can listen to it on iTunes or watch on YouTube.
To learn more, or contact Alicia visit her website: https://aliciaforest.com/
