[00:02] you should do this weekend because it's looking wide open. Well, here's a suggestion for you. Why not start a business? Most people spend months, even years, on this process, but there's no
[00:15] reason it needs to take that long. You really can start a business in just two going to give you a step-by-step plan and even some tutorials on exactly how you can do this this weekend if you
[00:27] want. Maybe you've been thinking of starting a business one day. Well, why not make that day today and make today actually the day one of your new company. That's my challenge and my inspiration to you. So, you might be
[00:42] able to cram everything that I cover in this video into just one day, even really just a few hours, but I'm going to spread it out over 3 days. You've got some time to breathe, okay? So, we're going to start out on Friday. What are
[00:54] if you want to start a business this weekend? Well, I've got three big ones for you. The first one is to decide what this new business of yours is going to sell. Now, if you want to start a business in a weekend, I would recommend
[01:07] can sell. Because while you could start just about any kind of business in a weekend, services are generally the quickest and easiest thing to start a product, you don't have to prototype,
[01:20] of that. You can just come up with an idea of a service that you offer, put it down on a website, and then open up for business. But what service should you choose? Well, if you want to start in a weekend, then you probably want to pick
[01:34] something that you already know how to do and know how to do pretty well. Now, I would recommend that you choose the thing that you can do for people that is the thing that people would be interested in paying the most money for.
[01:49] think that you have any amazing skills that people would pay you a ton for, but make a list. Do some brainstorming, maybe fire up Chat GPT to help you out. gone to college, even if you are a blue-collar worker, you have plenty of
[02:06] to start a business with. Just a few different ideas for you. Maybe you have some design skills and you could do some web design or graphic design. Maybe you have organizational skills and you could offer admin services to online
[02:20] businesses. Maybe you're just a good communicator and you could work as a virtual assistant doing customer service for clients online. Or you could even start a customer service agency, starting with just yourself, of course,
[02:33] but with the plan to hire employees or freelancers in the future to build out that business. There are also all sorts of different content support services creating content yourself to helping
[02:46] clients manage their content, such as managing their YouTube channel or their podcast or their social media content, or even just editing content. So, for example, you could offer podcast or video editing services. And I think that
[02:59] for this video, that's the example I'm going to pick. I'm going to pretend that we are starting a podcast editing business. You could consider this a podcast editing agency or even just getting started as a freelance podcast
[03:12] editor. So, that's step one, deciding what you're going to sell. But step two want to figure out how you're actually going to package up this service. What does the service include? How long does the service take or how big is the
[03:27] package? And what is the price of this service? You need to put this into some so that when you're talking to a prospective client, you can give them some clear, cut and dry details. Now, if you need any help with this part of the
[03:41] process, check down below for the link to my easiest business plan ever, which that will help you plan out your entire business, but specifically we're looking at planning out your offer, which is one of the most important things that you
[03:56] need to organize and figure out the details for. Now, before we move on to little piece of advice here as you're planning out your offer. You need to pick a price. I want you to keep your pricing as simple as possible. And I
[04:10] that you're doing. If you're trying to start a business in a weekend, you need to keep everything super simple. So, don't get complicated with your pricing. packages or high-ticket offers. I want it to be one offer at one price point, a
[04:26] flat rate, and make sure that you are creating some sort of starter package. You might be able to sell people into higher-tier packages in the future, but right now, you know, you're just getting
[04:39] to discount your services at all, but we do want to make sure that this is an offer that will be appealing to new clients. And now we come to step three, which is the last thing that you're going to do on Friday or the first day
[04:52] of starting your business, and that is to build a website for your business. Now, this is a big part of the process because basically is like a multimedia business card for your business that lives online where
[05:05] potential customers can go to find out more about who you are, what you do, and how you can help them. And so, while technically it's possible to start a business without a website, I would not recommend it. I think it makes it so
[05:17] much easier to feel professional, look professional, and land your first client. So, let me show you perhaps one of the easiest and most affordable ways that you can get a website for your business set up in a matter of just
[05:30] minutes. Okay, big thank you to Hostinger for sponsoring this part of the video because they have one of the fastest, easiest, and most affordable ways to set up a website for your business, and I'm going to show you
[05:43] are on the Hostinger website. They've got this amazing deal going on right now as I'm filming this video for the new year. Now, depending on when you're watching this video, this offer may or may not be available, but if we come
[05:56] over here to the pricing page, you can get an idea what their pricing is like. Basically, if you go with one of their like 48-month subscriptions, so you are getting your website all squared away for the next 4 years, then you can get
[06:10] for the next 4 years, then you can get your hosting for just $3 a month. Um you also, of course, can opt for a shorter time period for the subscription, like 2 years, and then you're looking at 350 a month, or just 1 year, and then it's $4
[06:24] a month. Still obviously super, super affordable, but if you are working on you need a website for it, then you'll want to jump on their New Year's sale. And they also gave me a coupon code that you can use to get an additional 10%
[06:38] off, and that coupon code is Gillian10. So, make sure you use that when you sign up. So, for right now, um let's just go with the 48-month plan because that is choose this plan. And by choosing this plan, it obviously saves a whole lot
[06:51] over choosing just a 1-month plan. Um in fact, over the 4 years, it saves over fact, over the 4 years, it saves over $400, which is amazing. And when you are signing up for Hostinger, you get a domain name for free, which is awesome
[07:04] because most hosting companies charge you an additional 10 to 20 bucks at least for that domain. So, make sure you take advantage of that. And then right over here, you can use this coupon code, and this is where you can type in
[07:17] Gillian10, and we'll just hit apply. 10% off. So, for 4 years of website hosting, which includes that domain name
[07:29] website builder that we're going to take a look at in just a moment, you're paying only about $130, which is amazing. Like I said, might be a little watching this video, so I'll leave the
[07:42] out. All right. Now, once you sign up for the Hostinger account, you will come into your Hostinger dashboard, which looks like this. And we are going to do recommending to us right here, to create or migrate a website. I already clicked
[07:55] saying continue for me. For you, it will probably say start. Okay. So, we're going to decide is this business for you or for someone else, like you're an agency. Obviously, this website is for you since you are starting your business
[08:08] this weekend, and I'll just click next. Do you want to create or migrate a website? We're going to create the website from scratch. And then asks, how do you want to build your website? You can either do it on
[08:20] WordPress and just have Hostinger host it, or you can use the Hostinger website builder, which is what we're going to do because it's going to make this process so much faster. Okay, and now it's asking what domain name we want to use.
[08:32] Hostinger, you're going to get a free domain name. So, this is where we have to make some hard decisions. So, I am pretending that I am setting up this So, what I'm going to do here is I'm just going to pull up Chat GPT, and I'm
[08:48] going to have it suggest some potential business names for my podcast editing immediately spat out a whole bunch of ideas. Now, if you're starting a real think about this a little bit more. In fact, this might be the single thing
[09:02] that you spend the most time on in this entire process of starting your business looking for is just something that is unique enough that I will be able to get the domain name for. So, I'm looking at this one right here, Waveform Works. I
[09:15] kind of like that. Um so, let's give that a try. So, I'm going to come back over here to Hostinger and type in Waveform Works. And this right here, where you're checking the availability of the domain
[09:28] probably want to do when you are choosing your business name because chances are high that there won't be one name that you are dead set on. Most debating between, and something that can make one name a lot more appealing than
[09:42] make one name a lot more appealing than another can be if one domain name is now, waveformworks.com actually appears to not be available, and so we're going to have to go in and pick another name. So, I'm just going to
[09:56] I'll be right back. Okay, so it only took me one more try. I've got clearcutpodcastediting.com. It's a little bit long, but it'll work fine for the sake of this example. So, we're going to move forward with that.
[10:09] the domain. While this is for a business, I am registering it as a personal domain because we don't have the business all the way set up yet. tomorrow. So, I'm just clicking next and then I'm going to type in my name and
[10:25] information here so that we can get this all set up. And now we'll just click name registered, it is now time to build the website itself and Hostinger's AI website builder is going to make this super easy. So, again, we are going to
[10:40] super easy. So, again, we are going to type in here clearcutpodcastediting. And then here we're going to put a description and I'm going to come over here to chat GPT and ask it to write a description. Okay, so I have a
[10:55] want to ask chat GPT to describe the website. So, when you're working with Hostinger's AI website builder here, you can keep this description super simple. that needs to be on the website. You just need to tell it what's important to
[11:10] you. So, tell it what the business is, what the business does, if there are any specific pages that you want on the website, you can tell it that. And tell it a little bit about what you want the branding to look like because otherwise
[11:23] it's going to come up with something that will look good, but just may not can see in their example here, they put I want a clean modern website with earthy tones and an online store for selling my cakes and pastries. And
[11:36] need to give it. Okay, now I've gone back and forth with chat GPT a few times overly complicated, so I'm just going to type it myself. Um we're going to say um
[11:49] type it myself. Um we're going to say um website is for a podcast editing website is for a podcast editing company. The website should be simple. Website is for a podcast editing company. The website should be simple
[12:02] and minimal with green branding. Include a services page with three podcast editing package options as well as an about page and an FAQ page. Website call to action should be book a discovery call. And Hostinger also gives us the
[12:16] option here to add and enable appointments on my site, which is going to be super helpful. This is a logistical detail that we can work on more tomorrow, but Hostinger has some pretty incredible widgets that the AI
[12:28] can build right into the site, which can definitely save you some time and some steps when it comes to setting up the admin side of the business. So, let's click this button now and see what it comes up with. Okay, so I know we cut
[12:40] the video there, but that took less than 1 minute for it to create this website. Now, we can scroll through the preview of it here and we can also continue on to edit the site because chances are there will be some aspects of this that
[12:54] where it kind of missed the mark and you want to change things. So, this is what section with this video, which I think that this is a nice idea, but I'm not sure if this video is like nice enough to be that header image. Obviously, we
[13:09] need a logo here, but we've got all of the structure. It set up the different pages and they're linked up here in the menu. You've got that big header. You have that book now link that we were looking for as well as a learn more
[13:21] different page sections with this nice green branding for our services and then a contact form, which I didn't even ask for, but it filled it out very nicely. Okay, so I think this looks pretty good, but there are a few things I want to
[13:36] to go ahead and edit the website. Now, while AI created the first version of the site, we can now change anything we want and Hostinger's website builder makes this really easy. We can just grab stuff and drag it around to move it and
[13:51] you can also click on stuff to just swap it out. So, for example, right here they just have this kind of placeholder image for the logo and so you could come in here and what I'm going to do actually is I happened to just have my business's
[14:06] logo pulled up and it's not going to match the rest of the website, but just to show you how easy this is, we're just going to click on replace image here and said, it was something I used very recently,
[14:18] so there it is. Uploads in just a moment and then we are going to select that image and now that is up here in the corner as the logo for this website instead. And of course, you can also click on text and you can change it to
[14:32] say anything you want. Um for example, I think this is a little too generic, podcast editing made simple. Um and so instead we could go over something like So, now this is just a lot more specific. Now, don't spend too long
[14:46] editing your website because that's obviously something that you could spend countless hours on, months even, refining. That's a mistake I made when I first started my business, what was now something like eight years ago. Spent
[14:59] way too long on the website, but do set aside an hour or so to go through this website that the AI built for you and change anything that you don't like how it looks. For example, I'm not loving the green color it picked for this
[15:12] background here and down here. And you could just click on that section and I'm going to do instead is go over to styles and I'm going to find that green color that it says was used four times and I'm going to change it. I'm going to
[15:27] click select right here. And I just want something that is quite a bit more like something that is quite a bit more like earthy and brown almost. Maybe a little can find here. Basically, I think I want something that's more like a moss green.
[15:40] So, let's see what that looks like. Okay, I think I like that a bit better. And then we also we could change this color here. Let's see. Let's go back to styles. I think that that's probably the black that is used here. So, let's see
[15:53] if we can change that. I'm just wanting like more of a dark green. There we go. I think that looks a little bit more refined. And of course, you can also come in here and you can change things like the fonts. So, it used this
[16:06] So, it chose this one. Now, before I do that, I'm going to just click save on the changes I already made. Come back in here to styles again. We're just going to try one of these kind of preset font options that they have. Okay, so I think
[16:19] I actually like this font style a lot better. Um but it did cause a little problem up here, which is now that this part is obviously way too big. So, I'm then click edit text and then we're going to change the size to make it be a
[16:34] size that fits here a lot better. Okay. So, that's fitting in pretty well now. We'll just kind of reformat it and then we'll move a couple things around here. Okay, and I think that looks a lot better. Now, the background here I'm not
[16:47] here. This is the last thing I'm going to change because of course, we don't want to spend too much time on this. Let's see what it can come up with if we free images and we just want to choose something relating to podcasts. I'm
[17:02] going to leave this really broad for right now. I kind of just like I mean, most of these are better. I like having this really dark one maybe. Let's try that. Okay, well I think that looks a lot better already.
[17:15] this green background here. So, of course, we could come in here to styles and we could change that color further. So, again, you can spend as much time on hour, have at make it as good as you can be. And then since this is the last task
[17:30] for you to do on day one of this process of building your business in a weekend, if you want to spend some time this evening, Friday evening, working on this more, you totally can. But just make sure that you are ready to move on
[17:43] tomorrow with the next steps so that you don't get bogged down and you are able to move forward and get this whole business started in just these three business website all set up and you're actually looking pretty legit. But
[17:57] you're not quite ready to open up for business yet. But we are going to call this a wrap for Friday. You've done a lot of good work. Yes, it only took you a couple of hours, but that's okay. It's time to go to bed so that tomorrow you
[18:10] time to go to bed so that tomorrow you can wake up refreshed on Saturday to set business. So, this second day of the process is where you're going to figure out all of the logistics for this new business and figure out the tech so that
[18:24] people will actually be able to purchase your service. So, the first thing I'd recommend you do is set up some sort of scheduling software. So, you can actually use a scheduling software like Calendly, Acuity, or TidyCal as almost
[18:39] like your point of sale system. So, what I mean by that is that you can send people to your booking link to sign up for your services by scheduling an appointment and paying for that appointment. So, this is going to do a
[18:52] lot of the heavy lifting as far as the tech goes in your business. You can even configure some emails inside of these different scheduling tools so that after somebody purchases your service, they then get some onboarding emails and even
[19:05] some reminder emails, which is going to really help with the logistics of getting this new client onboard. Now, to be able to accept payments with your also need to set up some sort of payment processor like PayPal or Stripe. So,
[19:21] you'll want to look inside whatever scheduling software you chose to see what different payment processor options that they have. But because these tools like Calendly, Acuity, and TidyCal are designed for anybody to be able to use,
[19:34] they accept some payment processor types that are really easy to get approved for. In fact, you might be able to use something you already have like PayPal. technically be able to purchase your
[19:47] services, which is pretty cool. But what's going to happen after that? Well, you will probably want them to fill out some sort of form to tell you more about they need your help with. So, you'll want to go into your scheduling software
[20:01] and set up a form that people fill out when they are scheduling the tons of different software options that you could use for having your new clients fill out forms, everything from something super simple like Google Forms
[20:15] to something way more robust like a client management portal like 17hats or remember, we're starting this business everything super simple. So, I would recommend that you just use the form
[20:30] that is available inside of the scheduling software. It really will do this job quite nicely. In fact, even today in my business, that is what we prefer to use for our new clients for their initial onboarding because it is a
[20:44] seamless process. Those new clients fill out that form as part of the booking process, which means they don't have to click to a different page or link where they can sometimes get lost in the process or forget to finish everything
[20:57] that they need to do. Now, another operations thing that you will probably want to set up on Saturday or day two of this process is some sort of checklist for anything that you need to finish doing to get them onboarded. Maybe there
[21:12] are some files you need to create or some more questions you need to ask them appointment or you need to send them a certain email. Whatever it is, you will again, keep this super simple. We don't need a fancy process here. You literally
[21:28] need a checklist. Now, if you are using some sort of project management software like ClickUp or Asana, that's what I love to use, then you certainly could set this up in there and that could help you to automate things from day one
[21:44] where you will be able to duplicate this client onboarding task and have all of the subtasks just automatically populate. And that is really cool and it you don't already have a system like that set up, I would recommend you don't
[21:57] try to do that this weekend unless you just end up with some extra time to lost in the weeds of that. We need to keep charging forward so we can actually get this thing off the ground and hopefully land your first client by the
[22:10] end of the weekend. That's right. I'm hoping that not only do you actually officially get the business started, but also you land your first client. Now, might take you a few more days or even a couple of weeks to find that first
[22:24] client, but we are definitely going to have all of the admin type things set up including your website in this weekend, so your business will be technically started, but I would love it if you did get that first client this weekend as
[22:38] well and even that first payment in your bank account. All right. Now, the next logistics thing that you will want to do on Saturday is to register your business with the state. Now, technically, if you are using your own name as the business
[22:52] name, you don't have to do this, but generally it's best to create a separate entity for your business with a separate name. And if you're going to do that, you at least need to register the business name with your state as an ABN
[23:07] or an assumed business name, sometimes also called a DBA, which means a doing business as name. And this is a really simple process. You do it on your state's business bureau website and in most states, it costs about $50. And
[23:23] this is what will make your business officially recognized by the government. Now, alternatively or additionally, you can register your business as an LLC. This generally costs about $100. A lot of people think they need a lawyer to do
[23:37] this for them, but actually you can do it yourself really easily and safely again on your state's business bureau website. And you might not want to do this if you aren't feeling very confident with your business idea and
[23:51] going to go at all or even if it's going to make any money. But, if you're confident with your business idea or you are sure that you want to make this work out one way or the other, I would recommend that you do create an LLC for
[24:04] your business because it offers you additional protection and further separates your business from your personal finances and it's just a smart business. It also only takes a few minutes, so it's not going to really
[24:19] extend the process of starting this business. Of course, though, if you are not quite sure yet whether or not you want to create a full-blown LLC, it is totally okay to wait until later this week or a few weeks or months down the
[24:32] road is fine, too. Okay, now that brings me to the next thing I'd recommend you do on Saturday, which is that you open a business bank account. Now, in order to do this, you generally need an EIN, which is an employer identification
[24:46] number. Basically, it's like a social security number for your business. It is the number that identifies your business with the government and banks generally want you to have one to be able to open a business bank account. Now,
[25:00] fortunately, it is super easy to get an EIN and it doesn't cost anything at all. You can just go on the IRS website, fill out a simple form, and you will have your EIN within minutes generally. Sometimes it can take up to a couple
[25:13] generally they process it immediately. And I will try to leave the link down below where you can find that EIN application form. So, that's definitely something you'll want to do on Saturday and then at least schedule an
[25:26] appointment with your bank to be able to go in in the following week and open that business bank account because it is going to make your new business so much better organized and really help you to keep your business finances separate
[25:40] from your personal finances if all of the funds from your new business go straight into a separate bank account dedicated to the business. All right. That is a wrap for Saturday. I know that that was kind of a lot. There are
[25:54] to do on Saturday, but they all are quite quick and easy and so it really should only take you a few hours to do all of those tasks. And then you'll be ready to move on to Sunday, day three of starting this new business. And I bet
[26:09] you already know what we're going to work on during this final day of the process. It's getting your first clients, of course, right? Somehow we need to get some people coming in the door and deciding to work with you
[26:22] because that is, in my opinion, what really makes a business legitimate. It's not that the government recognizes it, it's that you are making money with this So, how can you do this? Well, I would recommend doing two main things at the
[26:38] certainly if you're going to start a business in a weekend. The first is business in a weekend. The first is announcing the new business. So, if basically like step five of this whole process. You can use social media for
[26:52] this. You also could use email, but the point of this is basically to let people know about your new business. So, I'd recommend that you post this announcement on any social media platform that you are active on or even
[27:06] haven't been active recently. And basically, you just want to tell people decided to start it and how you're going to be helping clients and also just give them the heads-up that you have some sort of special offer that is available
[27:21] to the first three clients who work with you. As a real-world example, a few years ago, someone I follow on social media they just announced that they were They told a little bit about what sort of services they were going to do for
[27:36] their clients and why they had decided to start the company and then they concluded it with explaining that they had a special rate that they were going to offer to the first 10 clients who started working with them. And I jumped
[27:49] and I knew that I trusted them and I knew that they knew their stuff when it came to podcast management and that rate sounded like a good deal to me for the services they were offering. Now, when you post this, don't
[28:04] necessarily expect to get clients from it, but it's worth the try because if nothing else, it kind of puts a bug in people's ears so that then when they hear somebody who they know mention that they are looking for help with something
[28:18] related to what you do or that they're looking to hire someone, now your name will be in their mind and it is highly likely that they will mention it to their friend because of course, we all want to help out our friend, right? So,
[28:31] you might get some clients from this directly or it might be more of a slow burn, but again, it's worth a try at least and it's also a good habit for you to start early on. We have to get into the habit of talking about our
[28:44] businesses because nobody can hire you, nobody can buy your product if they don't even know it exists. So, we got to get the word out. Now, beyond this public announcement post, I want you to go a step further with the final step
[28:57] that you're going to take to start your business in a weekend and that is to do some direct outreach. Here's what you need to do. You need to make a list of everybody you could reach out to to tell about your new business. And how you
[29:11] you announced it on social media. This is not a pitch. You are not trying to sell them anything. This is letting them know what you're up to again to get the important thing to communicate to them is that special offer that's available
[29:27] for the first three clients who sign up for your new services. Now, when you're reaching out to people, make sure that you don't only reach out to people who you think might be interested in these services because that list is probably
[29:39] going to be really, really short. So, instead, I want you to make a list of some people who you think might be interested and also a list of people who you can reach out to, who you are pretty sure have no interest at all. You will
[29:53] talk to these two different groups of people slightly differently. The people you'll say that to them. You'll be like, "Hey, I think you might be interested in them why, you know, because you're interested in this thing or because you
[30:07] mentioned to me such and such, right? Whereas the other group of people, the no interest at all, you'll say that to them. "I'm pretty sure that you won't be interested in this, but I just wanted to let you know what I'm up to." Or "But I
[30:21] just wanted to tell you about what I've got going on." Something along those lines. You don't want them to feel any pressure because that can cause people to kind of distance themselves, push you away, and not really listen. Instead,
[30:33] you want them to be interested in what you've got going on because that is how they might turn into a client or turn into someone who connects you to a client. Now, my final piece of advice when you are doing this direct outreach
[30:45] is that you really personalize these messages. Do not do a mass blast. Don't just copy and paste the same message to everybody in your contact book. Really. everybody in your contact book. Really. People see through that so quickly, and
[30:59] it makes them so much less interested in what you have to say. Personalize these messages. Of course, you can copy and paste some parts like the part where business does to save yourselves some time and some energy, but personalize
[31:12] them as much as you need to to make them authentic and real and more meaningful or significant to the person you're sending them to. It truly will be better to send way less messages that actually people pay attention to than to send way
[31:28] more messages that people just ignore. And there you have it, a simple plan for starting a business, a real money-making business in just a weekend, just about business in just a weekend, just about 72 hours from start to finish. Although,
[31:42] if you were counting, we were really looking at about 6 to 8 hours of work. So, you could do this all in a day. Now, don't forget to check out Hostinger when new business because their website builder is so powerful and makes the
[31:57] process of setting up your website so quick and easy. And they've got some of the most affordable web hosting plans on the market, especially when you add on that additional 10% off that you can get with the coupon code Gillian 10. Next
[32:10] up, watch this video right here to learn how to get all of your content for marketing your business planned out in just 20 minutes.