If you’ve never owned your own business before, it can be very daunting when you’re starting out. Here a few top tips to help you on your journey.
1. Have a vision of what you want for your business – This is the most important thing. Make sure you know where you want your business to go, where you want it to be in three months, where you want it to be in six months, and so on. Whether this happens or not doesn’t matter, as long as you have tried your best, and have something to aim for. If your business is online, the industry changes so quick that you may need to change your business model from time to time, and hence your vision will change.
2. Don’t get overwhelmed - If you work within the IM (Internet Marketing niche) like myself, you will soon realise that it is probably the most “hypey” industry in the world. Make sure you don’t get caught up in all of the hype and the bull. My best advice to you is to choose one solid product and follow it through until success. Make sure that you have done sufficient research or had the product recommended by someone that you know and trust. Then DON’T BUY ANYTHING ELSE until you have completed that course and really given it a try. Forums such as the Warrior Forum are good for gauging whether or not a product is any good, but still be wary of people promoting products just so you buy through their affiliate link. You can apply this principle to any business, one thing at a time, find a good system and stick to it.
3. Plan - Planning is essential. Being your own boss is not always easy, there is no wage at the end of the month unless you make one for yourself. Only you can push your business forward, so give yourself daily and weekly goals, and try your best to meet them. Without a plan or goals you have nothing to aim for.
4. Manage your Expectations - Be realistic with your business goals. There is nothing wrong with aiming high, there are people out there who have made millions of dollars in their first year of business, it’s really all about how much action you are prepared to take. Big Work=Big Results. However, all successful entrepreneurs have come across some sort of failure and adversity, so don’t let failure get in your way, just use it as a motivator. Things very rarely go 100% to Plan!
5. Be Patient - Nothing in business happens overnight. Many people, including myself, thought that starting an online business would be a great deal easier than it has been. Keep working hard and don’t get disheartened with setbacks, and your hard work will eventually pay off.
6. Make Sacrifices - No one who is now successful worked 9-5 hours when they were starting out. Yes, some of these “Guru’s” may now work an hour a day and have multi-million dollar businesses, but this was normally preceded by them working 16+ hour days for the first few years. I’m not exaggerating either. If you’re serious about setting up a long-term and sustainable business and generating a large amount of income, expect to work hard and have to make sacrifices.
7. Network - The online business is, in principle, the same as any other business. It’s about WHO YOU KNOW. It is no coincidence that the top guru’s in the Internet Marketing field all know each other. Don’t think just because you’re working from a computer all day that you have to ostracise yourself. At the very minimum, try to spend a small portion of your day being active on blogs and forums. A few months down the line when you feel like you’ve got something to offer, why not approach someone who works in the same industry and see if you can do some kind of work together?
8. Work harder - I’ve kind of covered this point already, but it’s a vital point. The people that achieve at high levels in any walk of life are the ones who work the hardest. You may not be the smartest person in your Industry, but if you’re willing to work hard, you’ll do well. It’s all about the hustle!
9. Stay Calm - When things go wrong, don’t panic and don’t worry! There are many ways you can limit potential damage. For example, pay for decent hosting on your sites and be sure to back up your website files. Then, if things do go wrong, at least its not the end of the world, and you can recover most of your work.
10. Enjoy Yourself! - Ok, so I’ve not exactly painted a pretty picture, but this is the reality if you are starting out in business. It’s not easy, and success does not happen overnight. However, if you have started your own business then I guess you’ve chose to do something that you love? Well I hope you have! So although the road will be a little rough, try your best to enjoy the ride and make every moment count! Your hard work will pay off!
Sean Malarkey posted this blog post on LinkedIN – “Why Startups need to blog…” I think it will be useful so check it out if you have time.
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