The You CEO
The idea of a CEO usually brings up the vision of some kind of muckity-muck who wields enormous power and influence over well…her domain?
But what does the term CEO actually mean?
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Literally, CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer. That’s the literal and popular term for anyone who is the head of an organization including charities, social groups, and of course businesses. The CEO is the person ultimately responsible for all decisions regardless of who actually executes the actions on the ground.
When you set-up your business, you are the CEO and that’s a powerful and respected place to be.
If you think being CEO is a daunting challenge, and you’re an ordinary person, you may be surprised to realize you are already doing the job a CEO does, in the every day actions you take for your own life. And you may find that you are able to make the transition from CEO of your life to CEO of a business because you already have some of the core skills.
A CEO is generally responsible for the:
- Vision and corporate culture of the organization
- Strategy and overall growth plans
- Business decisions, like hiring staff, even if you delegate the task to someone else
- Technical tasks related to government regulations
These activities mirror the same work we do in going about our daily lives and managing our every day tasks. You are already doing the same activities as a big time CEO, which means you are ready to be CEO of your own enterprise.
Vision and Culture
As a CEO, your vision is the overall plan for your organization.
Examples from corporate American include Google’s unofficial motto “don’t be evil,” which is the popular conceptualization of the company’s mission. The company’s more official statement is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” American Express says it wants to be “the world’s most respected service brand.” Harley-Davidson says they “provide extraordinary motorcycles and customer experiences.”
A vision helps the company project its image to the world. As a person, you can emulate corporate behavior and have a vision for your life. With your personal vision you set an overall theme for how you function. My vision as an entrepreneur is “to be part of the solution,” which means I focus my activities on helping people start their own businesses. Since I want to be part of the solution, I focus on successful outcomes, and avoid the discussions and complaints that only talk about problems.
When you are CEO you think of your ultimate outcome. What would your company want to say to everyone about the value you deliver to the world? As a person, you may consider your own contribution to humanity. As you build your own business, the concepts align.
Strategy
The strategy for your personal organization is how you will execute on your vision. In other words, how will you do what you really want to do? If you think of your vision as your destination, your strategy is how you will get there. Will you fly, take a train, drive, ride a bike, hitchhike, walk? One of those options is your strategy.
Strategy is not the same as decision. Using the travel to destination analogy, when developing your strategy, you may decide to drive to the destination. But there is a scenic route and a more direct route, and maybe a route that avoids toll roads and so on. The decision is the route you will take, which you decide after you have selected a transportation strategy.
In my case, I have chosen to use broad communication to help deliver my vision. I deliver useful information in written, audio and video form to those pursuing the goal of obtaining a dream lifestyle through entrepreneurship.
In everyday life, you may have a strategy to eat healthy foods or exercise frequently or try to get more responsibility at work. Each strategy is tied to the ultimate vision of achieving your life’s objectives. If you can think about how you would achieve your personal goals, you can do the same for your business, and follow the success of the best corporate CEOs.
Decisions
People make decisions all day that affect the operation of their personal organizations including children, pets, colleagues and neighbors. Just like a corporate CEO, the selection of these decisions is often driven by a personal vision, culture, and the originally selected strategy for executing on the vision.
When you decide what to eat you impact your budgeting, time management and long-term health. Even where you shop for food could be based on your beliefs such as convenience over price, or vice versa. These micro-decisions have a basis in much stronger macro ideas about the world you want to live in.
If you have already set up a clear vision and strategy for your life, you can make these decisions much easier.
When you establish your business, you set up your vision and strategy for your business idea, and the answers to the decisions you make come from that foundation.
Mandatory Administrative Tasks
CEOs also have decisions made for them in the form of administrative and regulatory tasks that must be completed to avoid legal consequences.
You may think being CEO is overwhelming. But you have similar demands in your personal life. You have to register at DMV, pay your taxes, cover mortgage payments, or manage debt. Ignoring any of these types of activities could have serious repercussions for how you live your life. You had to find out what all the rules were and make sure you comply. You could do the same as CEO for your own company.
A CEO’s job is to oversee the vision, culture, strategy and decisions that lead an organization forward to accomplish its goals. As a human being managing day-to-day life, you are already a CEO fulfilling many of the same tasks.
You have a vision of wanting professional growth, financial security and lifestyle freedom. You have a strategy of getting to that vision by starting your own business, and being CEO of what initially would be a small company. And now you make decisions to execute on that strategy.
The number one decision is to get started. You know it’s time to end your inertia and pull that business idea off the shelf and get to work on making it happen. The ‘You’ CEO is possible and achievable because you already have the skills you need to complete the tasks. You only need to encourage yourself to begin.
MORE RESOURCES
Want help to get started? Click the link to check out free video training series for wantrepreneurs. This training is for those of you who have always wanted to start a business but need to find the confidence, time and money to get started.
Facing money challenges? Download my book: A Better Plan: Spend to Live, Save to Wealth: A Real Life Guide to Building Wealth from Nothing and Living a Life Without Financial Fear
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Want to discuss the content of this blog or other ideas? Send me an email: contactcase(at)readyentrepreneur(dot)com
Freedom, Satisfaction, Security – Do you like those words?
Three Reasons Why You Should Get your Business out of your Head and into the World
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” That is a line credited to motivational speaker Jim Rohn who basically said that given the law of averages – any given situation would be the average of all outcomes. When it comes to personal relationships is his pronouncement a harsh or valid view of your friends, family and co-workers?
When people who succeed make a move towards their goals, they inevitably pull away from those who are holding them back. They seek out people who are more like them, high achievers who set goals and work to pursue them. They try to avoid spending more time with people who are bringing them down.
The law of averages basically means given many, many trials of the same thing, the results pretty much even out over time. If you take this definition into personal relationships, you could interpret the idea as meaning when you are working with large numbers, if you do what everyone around you is doing, you are likely to end up just like them. But if you want to break away, you have to push yourself to find the people who are where you want to be.
Most people who decide to break away are looking at three great reasons for doing so – Satisfaction, Security and Freedom. Three popular words associated with having your own business.
If you have business ideas in your head, or have ever wanted to own your own business, you are probably seeking professional satisfaction, financial security and lifestyle freedom. Those are three of the important reasons to be your own boss.
Professional Satisfaction
Having professional satisfaction means you are doing the work you really want to do. Whether you are creating online, or working with your hands, or running a restaurant – every day presents new and exciting challenges that propel you forward. Instead of the space you are in with work you no longer enjoy, you get up feeling ready to learn and contribute to your own enterprise. The results double back to you.
Many people are dissatisfied with the daily grind of their jobs. When you have your own business, every minute is dedicated to your own advancement. All of the business activities, benefit you, and your goals, dreams and objectives. Instead of satisfying someone else’s work agenda, you dedicate your time to your own. The result is the difference between being fulfillment and hollowness.
Financial Security
Many people want their own business to ensure control of their finances. When you first start a business, the goal may be difficult to achieve because you are investing directly in setting up your enterprise. But financial security is not only about having a million dollars in the bank.
Financial security also means knowing if you will have one dollar in the bank. When you work for someone else, you typically have no insight into whether or not you will have a job the next day. People are often surprised by layoff notices, and they are unaware of the true financial state of the company. You are basing your activities – family vacation, education fund, retirement – on decisions that will be made by others without consulting you. If you ran your own business, you would make all those decisions yourself.
Of course, running your own business can also be financially insecure because you take on increased risk. But again you would be aware of those risks and can predict and plan for them. Risks you can see are certainly better than ones that come up and surprise you later. And when you own the business, those risks rapidly turn into rewards that change your life forever.
Lifestyle Freedom
The greatest benefit to running your own business is the freedom to manage your own lifestyle. Do you have to go to the doctor? Just go.
Do you want to do your holiday shopping on a Tuesday afternoon? Do it.
Do you want to take your summer vacation in April? Enjoy.
All the decisions that are currently dictated to you by someone else’s rules disappear when you have your own business.
You too could have a specific work timetable, if you were in charge of the schedule in the first place.
Satisfaction, Security, Freedom
Starting your own business helps you achieve the satisfaction, security and freedom you are looking for. If the idea of starting your own business has already been in your head, it’s time to take action and begin to build towards your controlled future.
Check out free video training series for wantrepreneurs if you would like some help in getting started. The training is for those of you who have always wanted to start a business but need to find the confidence, time and money to get started.
Facing money challenges? Get my book: A Better Plan: Spend to Live, Save to Wealth: A Real Life Guide to Building Wealth from Nothing and Living a Life Without Financial Fear
For Amazon (Kindle): Click Here
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For Smashwords (all formats): Click Here
Want to discuss the content of this blog or other ideas? Send me an email to: contactcase(at)readyentrepreneur(dot)com
Four Steps to Finding your Business Idea
The idea of owning your own business conjures up an image of personal independence, professional freedom, and financial security. Many people want to get there, but struggle with uncovering the world beating idea that will take them to their dreams. If you know you want to start a business, but have no idea how to find an idea, read on.
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First, clear time for yourself to do these steps. Start with a half-hour to an hour, you can repeat these steps as often as necessary.
- Start with a Personal Brainstorm
What are your strengths?
What do you do?
What do you like to do?
What have you overcome?
You are trying to identify activities you enjoy or have experience in or are good at, to see whether you can transform one into a viable business. Being paid to do something you are already doing is a wonderful opportunity for a business owner.
Put the above questions in your mind, on your phone or on a piece of paper you carry around with you, and think about your answers. You want to identify every aspect of your life where you may have something to contribute. Be totally open and all inclusive about what you have to offer. You could be surprised by how much you know, and the abilities you are capable of sharing with others.
Write everything down. Even if you believe the activity is small or insignificant. Write it down anyway and go on to the next step.
- Identify issues or problems that come up in everyday life? Use the answers from #1 as a guide.
What do you want to solve for yourself?
What do other people ask you to solve?
Given the full range of activities you do each day, where are the pain points? Think about the frustrations you face in your day, and the questions others ask you to answer. Again, include all the scenarios you can think of. Imagine your whole day and try to pinpoint when a colleague at work, or a friend or a child asked you to solve a particular problem.
At this point, technology, legal processes or other “structural” complications are not an issue. A good idea forces the existing structure to adapt to consumer demand and a changing marketplace. Focus on the issues and your opportunity to implement fixes.
What bothers you every day? I used to hate getting up from my desk and going to search for lunch. The service I would pay for: delivery from the nearest Food Court.
- Given the above, consider which products or services would make your life better.
Let you imagination go with this step. You are looking for the solutions to the problems/issues you have identified. Do not worry about products or services that already exist in the marketplace. Ask:
Is there a better way to a desired outcome?
Is there a less expensive or more efficient way?
Can you adapt something that exists somewhere else?
Also there is no need to worry about technology or other infrastructure issues here. If your idea requires a technology solution – yes flying cars, when will we get them – you can always work around the engineering until the technology catches up.
- Select two or three product or service ideas that align with the education, experience, knowledge or hobbies you identified in your personal brainstorm
Your business is in this package of ideas. Focus on the solutions, which are also activities you like to do – that’s your sweet spot.
Ideas can be adapted, molded or changed to suit all other circumstances. You will be able to make the idea work for you, as so many have in the past.
Here are some examples following the four steps above which led to existing companies, which may sound familiar to you:
Example #1
I work in a coffee shop, love to travel and linger over my coffee. The cost of traveling to have a good cup of coffee in a foreign country is expensive. What if there was a local coffee shop that pretended to be in a foreign country (use foreign sounding words), and allowed people to sit and enjoy their beverage without pressure?
Example #2
I always send my relatives gifts for their birthday. The gifts never arrive on the actual birthday, instead sometimes earlier, later or not all. What if there was a service guaranteeing delivery of my package on a certain date?
Example #3
I am an elementary school teacher with three kids. Every time I walk into a bookstore I cannot find the types of books I need for the diverse children I see every day. What if there was a way to see a variety of books published all over the world?
Get the picture? Did you guess the global companies that were invented from the need to solve a problem or approach a product or service differently than is being done today? How many “gaps” do you believe need to be filled in your daily life? Are you going to wait for someone else to make the change, or are you going to seize the opportunity for yourself?
ARE YOU FOLLOWING THE RECAST PATH?
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Entrepreneurs, What Does Jack Ma’s One Million Jobs Plan Have To Do With Your Economic Future? Time To Go Global?
Imagine you open your specialty store on a quiet street in a peaceful town like Boise, Idaho, and from the first day your customer base equals seven billion people. That’s billion with a “B.” Why? Because you sell on Alibaba and being on the platform means you automatically have the ability to access the entire world population. This is the stated intention of Alibaba CEO Jack Ma.
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With rising consumer demand for high quality products from China’s middle class, Ma has a vision that small business entrepreneurs in the U.S. can use the Alibaba platform to create online storefronts, and those small businesses will employ at least a million people, just as the process works in China (estimated 12 million entrepreneurs, employing 30+ million people in China). At Ma’s own conference, Gateway ’17 held in Detroit in June 2017, he repeated his intention to support one million U.S. jobs by helping American entrepreneurs reach the Chinese market. China represents one-fifth of the world’s people. And Alibaba’s reach through the Internet covers the whole world. For anyone looking to start a business in the 21st century, within our known worlds there is no greater potential market than…everyone on earth.
The whole idea may seem far-fetched to you as a small-business owner in small-town USA, but it should be standard practice for those entrepreneurs opening businesses right now. Understanding this reality will put you ahead of others who are considering becoming an entrepreneur, but limiting their market to only one country.
How will this form of online entrepreneurship work?
To start online with a global market, technically, you the entrepreneur would set-up your account on Alibaba (or any other similar site by the way), and use marketing and promotional techniques to attract interest in your product or service. If you are currently in a job destined to go overseas, or to a robot, your best chance to bounce back and continue to earn a living, may lie in your knowledge, hobby or personal skill, which you can sell as a product or service to the global marketplace.
The average consumer does not want to be average. People are constantly looking for specific products aimed at their particular tastes. Recently I was shopping for a slim shoulder bag that would fit my laptop. My specification requirements included specific shades of red or green (the colors of my company readyentrepreneur.com) that I also wanted to carry around. To find this bag, I was not going to go to a shopping mall and walk aimlessly through every store. I went online to Amazon.com. After entering a few search terms, I looked at various options and selected the one meeting my criteria – color, number of pockets, fits laptop, and also good reviews. Later, when I attended a conference carrying the bag, everyone commented on how much they liked it, and no one had heard of the manufacturer. That’s the opportunity that exists for every small business. The Internet is the infrastructure of the 21st century, playing the role taken by roads and railroads in the last century. But in contrast to the physical transportation infrastructure, cost and access to the Internet is inexpensive, and available to almost everyone. Setting up your business should always include the concession that you are global.
The Alibaba platform was originally designed as a business-to-business e-commerce site, think Amazon (as they do) for entrepreneurs looking for other entrepreneurs to provide products and services. Today additional companies under the Alibaba umbrella provide consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales, and the entire behemoth is on its way to $400 billion in market cap value. By the way, this is a company projecting $1 trillion in revenue in the next three years. The growing consumer demand for deepening niches of products is the rising curve accelerating small businesses into global companies.
Why will this work?
Availability of support services
The Internet has made access to business services possible for anyone in the world. The business infrastructure is readily available to anyone who wants to use the software. The work of managing consumers, suppliers, finances, logistics and technology is performed by many competitive Internet companies, and new ones arrive every day. In contrast to last century manufacturers, in the Internet age, a company can focus only on creating a product or service, and outsource the manufacturing, delivery and record-keeping to other systems, again at a reasonable price.
No market specific requirements
If you have a product or service, even if you think it’s unique to your market, you do not have to change your item and create different versions. In fact, maintaining its culturally-specific uniqueness will likely be a selling point. The world is waiting for products suiting their personalities, interests and desires. If you have the idea you can market it everywhere. Although there are many cultures were conformity is still implemented, sometimes violently, this is not the express wish of the world’s rising youth, liberated women and mobile workers. Think of the Filipina nurse who has worked in Saudi Arabia or New Zealand. Or the Barbadian restaurant manager who works on a cruise ship serving customers from ten countries traveling to twenty others. These global workers, spread their knowledge and experiences at home and abroad. And that movement is only expanding, not diminishing, as countries continue to build for a rising middle class, and expanding incomes promotes the demand for more professionals and service workers, including foreigners. Even if you think the market will not understand your product or service, you lose nothing if you at least offer your idea to the world and see what happens. You lose completely, by not attempting to go global.
No trade barriers
You have no free trade barriers in this scenario. Free trade agreements, and non-agreements, tend to focus on commodity items a country is trying to protect such as wheat, coal, oil and automobiles. But if you are making a unique item of clothing, or specific learning materials, or household decorations, or technology software, you are unlikely to face online barriers to trade. Meaning the economic value of cross-border trade may continue to grow, even if the government puts up trade barriers for other products. As people see traditional job opportunities continue to fade away, as is inevitable, those who are anti-globalization will be superseded by those who are desperate to make a living by running their own business. Individuals who are building businesses, will know they have global reach.
Expanded opportunity to make money
Individuals rarely turn down an opportunity to make money, even in the face of government policy or their neighbor’s disdain. In a world where old jobs are gone, education is expensive, and marginalized people are increasingly frustrated with their world, people will begin to search for new opportunities. If the technology is available, and the market is demanding your product or service, why would you leave money on the table? As a small business entrepreneur, you are positioned for global growth, and have an opportunity to embrace, not reject, the opportunity.
The issue is not the logistics of using Alibaba or any other e-commerce platform, it’s only about ensuring you are actually in the game. Ignoring the global market means you will miss out on revenue available in locations you may have never heard of. But if you are at least aware that these platforms are available, you will be able to see where the market is going, and take advantage of the movement.
Okay so what does Jack’s one-million jobs mean to you?
Influence legislative agenda
If the vision of a million Alibaba entrepreneurs comes to fruition, they will influence the augmentation of a global, free trade, self-supporting, entrepreneurial, technology-driven and controlled, individually-minded world. If you are resistant to any of these realities, your best defense is preparation.
Encouraging people to become self-supporting entrepreneurs is usually in most government’s portfolios. The more legislators focus on the opportunities Ma is evangelizing, the more realistic the global marketplace will become for small business entrepreneurs. If an influential percentage of the population can continue to earn money without the need of government assistance or the repatriation of a factory from another country, the government is relieved from its mandate to be concerned or involved in these people’s lives. The more Jack Ma and people like him can simplify the online tools used by entrepreneurs, the more people will jump online and their dependents will be removed from the government’s umbrella.
Promote free trade
Online marketplaces are the definition of global free trade. This is a case where technology will drive human interaction, not government. Free trade automatically exists online and there is no government ability to end this reality. Even if legislators pulled the plug on the Internet, clever technologists would figure out how to directly deliver the connection services. Global free trade is a fact of economic life, and online entrepreneurs do not need a trade treaty to work with people all over the world.
Further impact of technology
The ongoing ability of technology to drive our activities, and help us make money, becomes even more ubiquitous in a world where the average entrepreneur has to think of the online presence as a branch of the business, not only a function of the business’s administration, like the accounting department. Although earning a living income online increases a person’s dependency on Internet technology, the benefits outweigh the risks as the number of people utilizing online services increases exponentially.
Redirect competition
A global online marketplace for small business also changes the nature of competition. With everyone operating in a niche, there are no competitors. You will design your company to be unique from the beginning, and you will target a market others are ignoring. In my everyday life, as likely in yours, I can think of dozens of products I wish I had which could make my life easier and more efficient. If I can find these products on the Internet, as with my slim laptop bag, I will buy it. Do you want your products or services to be available to those who are looking for it? If so, you must begin researching the options available to you. If you are afraid of globalization, an individual self-interest driving the economy, a million online global storefronts could be your worst nightmare, until you are looking for a specific item to buy at an inexpensive price. At that point, you are likely to imagine you did not know how you could have lived without the service for so long.
For more information about becoming an entrepreneur, visit my website, https://www.readyentrepreneur.com.
For a future world vision of the impact of Jack’s idea, see the version of this blog created for my Life Online book series at http://www.claneworld.com.
Want to discuss these ideas? Send me an email: contactcase(at)readyentrepreneur(dot)com
The Top Ten Psych-Outs Wantrepreneurs Have to Conquer
The negativity is deafening. In an economy transitioning from industrial to technological skills, with fewer and fewer people capable of performing in traditional jobs, large numbers of us have to find another way to make a living. Polls often show the majority of people would like to own their own business. These are the same people who want individual challenges, professional creativity, schedule and lifestyle freedom. But only a fraction actually start a business. Why? Because potential entrepreneurs get psyched-out, by friends, family, co-workers, the media and most of all…themselves.
What does it mean to be psyched-out? The phrase is an informal term but it does have a dictionary definition. To psych-out is to intimidate, or frighten psychologically or make nervous or, when you do it to yourself, to lose your nerve, to lose your confidence. Where I come from people just say ‘psych’ as a way to scare you away from doing something you show any hesitation in doing. Your ‘psych,’ your psychology is a huge barrier to getting started with your business, but it can be overcome.
For many wantrepreneurs – the following statements said by or to themselves, or stated by others, are exactly the phrases used to prevent people from following through on their ambition to start a business. But if you are serious, and committed, and really want to move forward with your business plans, you have to conquer these ten big psych-outs. So here are the psych-outs and some ideas for fighting back.
The Top Ten Psych-Outs Wantrepreneurs have to Conquer…to start a business
#1 – I do not have the – time, patience, knowledge, skill – to write a business plan
If this is your obstacle…good…do not write a business plan!!!
A business plan is for third parties who want a document for themselves to justify their time or financial investment in your company. The business plan is not for you if you have not even prepared yourself to work on your business. You have many other activities you can do before sitting down to write a long, formal document. The most successful business ideas did not launch because someone first sat down and wrote a business plan.
You need to find the time to work on your business, identify upfront cash you can use, and layout the detailed action items to actually get the digital or physical door open. You can do all those activities without a business plan.
So if someone told you to start with a business plan, and now you are doing nothing because you are intimidated by paperwork…skip that step and get to work on other business building activities.
#2 – I may be the only person in the world who thinks this product or service is a good idea
Okay, let’s test your product or service and see if you are right. The only way to find out if your product or service would be purchased by customers, is to make it available for customers to purchase. The consumer marketplace is always open for new and innovative ideas. Nobody has any clue as to what will be the next great consumer product or service. Think of the amazing industrial and technological products, which replaced other products people thought would last forever. The marketplace will switch gears as soon as a better option comes along.
You probably came up with your idea because you saw a gap in the marketplace or a need to be fulfilled or an opportunity to do something better. Do not give up before you have even tested your own intuition. You have a business idea in your head, and you want to turn it into a functioning business. Your inner entrepreneur is encouraging you to move forward and get it done. You are alert and aware of these issues. So the fact you have the idea means there is an opportunity to turn it into a functioning business.
Understanding why you came up with your business idea will help you overcome your fear about trying to turn the idea into a business. Avoid the trap of thinking your new business idea is no good, and go ahead and at least make a commitment to yourself to launch the business and prove yourself wrong.
#3 – The economy is saturated and there is no room for my business
You are in the 21st century global economy and the technological revolution is changing all facets of how we do business. This means you have access to a world market with a current (January 2017) value of around – $78 trillion – that’s Trillion with a ‘T’ dollars. And growth is pushing forward all over the world. Which means as the world economy marches towards a $100 trillion dollar value, you have ever opportunity to be right there – with your business – earning, contributing and fulfilling your entrepreneurial dreams.
Even if you are thinking about launching a hometown store or restaurant, there may be elements of your plans that are global. Are you selling a product that can be shipped worldwide? Do you live in a tourist area? An idea may look local to you right now, but with today’s technology, it may also be a much bigger opportunity.
#4 – I’ll start a business next year when I might have more time
Let’s see what could be holding you back – spouse, kids, work, weather, sports finals, chores – will all of these factors be around next year? Using the facts of your current life as an excuse for not building a better future is simply put…procrastination. Probably little will change between this year and next. You will continue to trade dollars for hours in a job you no longer want to do, while managing all the daily life activities just as you did last year.
Postponing the opportunity to create the dream of your life will only prolong your pain. If you begin right now, on even the smallest steps towards your business like researching product production or looking at other service providers, you will begin to put yourself in a business-building mindset. Over time you will add more and more activities leading to the launch of your business.
There is no perfect day to start a business. Everything in the world is very fluid. Start small, but start immediately. If you are constantly thinking about starting your business, you do not want another year to pass you by.
#5 – I don’t have the money
How much money do you need? Do you know? If you have done no work on launching your business, you probably do not know how much the set-up would cost. Claiming you do not have the money before you have made an effort to figure out your costs is inventing an excuse for not starting the business. With technology changing daily, your business start-up costs may be falling, but you are still thinking about last year’s possibilities.
Give yourself an opportunity to find out the true cost by taking the time to get started on business activities. Research actual costs, which will help you develop an understanding of your industry and market. At the same time, consider potential funding sources. By the time you have finished your analysis, you may find you have all the money you need to get started.
#6 – I do not have the experience or relevant skill to start a business in my field
Passion is the skill most desperately sought in almost all endeavors. You need to identify only your desire to create the business, and education will follow. Have you determined exactly which activities need to be completed to make your business successful? Take a look at the competitors in your field, or investigate a local operation. The more time you spend actually creating the business, the more experience and education you develop along the way.
#7 – Potential customers will never find me
Are you a potential customer of your own business? If you are looking for the business, where can you be found?
Opening a business is an event. And events, whether in the physical world or online, typically have build-up and fanfare. You can begin reaching out to potential clients even before the business has been created, and build anticipation and excitement for your launch. Many different strategies and options exist to reach new customers and appeal to their tastes and interests. You will be able to set-up your marketing strategy and find people who are interested in your product as soon as you begin speaking about it.
#8 – My family and friends will not support me (and maybe they’re right to think I’m crazy)
A lack of support from family and friends has nothing to do with your business idea and everything to do with how we are wired as human beings. Our number one instinct is survival. Most people are risk adverse, and survive best within groups, tribes, of those who feel a certain obligation to ‘stick together.’ So if you are within a tribe (as we all are), and you do something innovative, you present a fellow tribeperson with an ancient fear.
If your innovation is so great and other people in the tribe begin to look up to you, the fellow tribeperson will feel as if their personal value has diminished (the person falls behind you). If other people copy you, the fellow tribesperson will feel pressured to keep up (the person falls behind everyone in the tribe). And scariest of all, if you take your innovation to another tribe, the whole other tribe will become stronger than your fellow tribeperson (the person falls behind outsiders).
These options put your fellow tribeperson’s figurative survival at risk. Given those odds, their reaction is to discourage you, maybe even prevent you from going forward with your innovation and making progress.
Understand why people are behaving the way they are, it’s because they are scared for themselves. But do not let them force you to live a backwards life. You have to fight their survival fears with your own, and believe your innovation will provide safety, security and opportunity for all who associate with you.
#9 – Business is so competitive; people will try to sabotage me
In economics, the competitive marketplace is generally defined as a situation where a lot of producers deliver products and services to a lot of consumers who want their product or service. And in a truly competitive market no one producer, or producer groups, and no single consumer, or consumer groups controls how the market functions.
Guess what? That’s exactly the situation you want. Because in a competitive market, consumers will decide based on the merits of your product or service, and you must deliver to the consumer. You are a consumer yourself, so I’m guessing you do not want a situation where you have to accept what only one producer has to offer.
As for sabotage, in the 21st century with 24-hour news channels, social media and independent news organizations, it’s very difficult for a company to behave illegally in the marketplace and get away with it for long. People are using their smartphones to record consumer injustices everywhere, and if your competitor wants to stay in business they will most likely have to play by the rules. Some businesses may slip through and continue unethical or illegal market practices for a while, but these things do have a way of catching up with people.
Forget about an action that has not even happened, and focus on creating and delivering the best business you can imagine to a waiting marketplace of eager consumers.
#10 – Most new businesses fail (so why would I be successful)
But what about most new entrepreneurs??? Do they fail? No! Entrepreneurs keep going testing and promoting new business ideas in the marketplace. Have you ever heard the term, serial entrepreneur? That’s the name given to people who have started many businesses, and if you look at the history of successful entrepreneurs you will often find they made their success not on their first or tenth or twentieth try, but on the 21st. Maybe the first business idea did not fail, but morphed into a great success.
The statement about most new businesses failing is what I like to call ‘twisted statistics.’ People take a portion of the information, use the data to illustrate the point they want to make, and leave off the rest. You do not fail in starting your first business. Instead you gain valuable knowledge and experience towards establishing your successful business. The act of setting up a business and finding out what works, and what does not, actually accelerates your business education and broadens your entrepreneurial experience. Remember the statement about most new businesses failing is not about you, the entrepreneur.
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Okay we have called out and addressed the top ten psych-outs for wantrepreneurs. Take a look and see which of these psych-outs are attacking you, and then use the suggestions to conquer those very points. If you can get beyond these old claims against you, you can move forward with your business idea, and secure your place in the thriving 21st century economy.
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Imagining Your Successful Business
As you are contemplating your business idea, an entrepreneur should also be thinking through all aspects of the business to determine the time, cost and resources needed to start-up. Many rising entrepreneurs ask – how do you visualize your successful business in a way you can clearly see the actions needed to get the doors or website open.
One trick we like is to imagine yourself as a customer of your own business. What does the customer experience look like? When the customer walks into your store or restaurant or office, or engages through your website, what does the customer see? How is the service delivered? How does the customer pay? What options are available? As you are walking through as your own customer, think about every aspect of the business the customer touches, and write down the action items you would need to do to ensure the customer has the experience.
Being able to ‘see’ your business is critical to your planning because it allows you to carefully think through the actual process you would need to complete to get your business going. You will never know about all the unexpected surprises or unpredictable variables that arise when launching a new business, but you will feel confident you have identified many of the steps you need to take to be successful.
Remember to keep thinking about your business on all levels, especially the reasons you came up with the idea in the first place. Before you know it, your visualization will be actual action items towards your goals. Then your goals will be your new reality of opening your business.
Avoiding a Wantrepreneur’s Fear of Mistakes
Many aspiring entrepreneurs say they are afraid of doing something wrong with the business. With all the risk inherent in starting a business, with the huge investment of time and money, new entrepreneurs are terrified of errors.
Well as everyone who goes through the wonderful process of starting their own business will tell you – you will make mistakes. In fact, mistakes are important. Because fixing mistakes becomes business experience, and the more you learn the better you will be. Ready Entrepreneur approaches business building by actually having you start the business – at least on paper or virtually – by creating a vision of your successful business, and then making decisions leading to the vision. But you will have no idea which variables will be a factor on the day you go live or open your doors to the customers. So you are more likely than not going to experience challenges with all the possibilities you could not predict.
Don’t worry about the issues you did not or could have known. You will be able to work through all disruptions and solve the problems that arise. And even if you can’t, you will learn valuable lessons to help you the next time.
Avoid letting the idea of mistakes get to you, and stay focused on the goal you want to achieve – building your own successful business.
Here is a mistakes to avoid list from Inc magazine and another from Entrepreneur. At Ready Entrepreneur, we try to address all these issues up front, so any mistakes you find may be coming from the variables no one could predict.
