Whether you’re trying to beat burnout, want a real maternity leave or just came down with COVID-19, every entrepreneur needs to be able to step away from their business for an extended period of time without worrying that there will be repercussions. That’s not just because controlling your time is one of the reasons you became an entrepreneur. It’s also because it just makes good business sense. When you’re too much of an essential employee, you actually slow the growth of your business by creating a bottleneck in the way of success.

What if you could sell your services to people who’ve never signed up for your mailing list, never attended one of your webinars and never seen a sponsored ad from you? Welcome to the power of affiliate programs. Working with an affiliate means that someone else is promoting your product or service to their audience and every time they successfully refer a customer to you, they earn a commission. Almost any entrepreneur with something to sell can use this simple yet powerful way to expand their reach and increase their income.

Your brand is undeniably one of the most valuable aspects of your business. A great personal brand creates credibility, consistency, and solidifies your position in the market. But how can we create a brand? And more importantly, how can we create one that not only conveys us authentically, but also draws in an audience?

We’re living in a time in which consumers are devouring content. They’re reading blogs, podcasts, videos, and everything in between. Content is king, and it’s an important strategy to nurture followers on the journey to becoming customers.

One of the most compelling ways for anyone to engage with your business is through storytelling. If you think you need a rags-to-riches or wild once-in-a-lifetime story to do that, you don’t. You just need a story that your customers can relate to, says content creator Catherine Nikkel, founder of Mindful Media.

We’ve all been there: we meet someone who says they’ve experienced monumental success and have a strong personal brand, so we consider working with them… only to realize from a Google search that they aren’t all they said they would be. They’ve exaggerated social influence, don’t have the press, or worse: you find bad press on them. That’s the blessing and the curse of the internet. You find everything you need to find.