1. Find Your Passion
Finding your passion is more arduous than people think. Since birth, people were attempting to get you to become what they want you to be. 15 to 20 years of this you kind of lose your identity. Play this sport, read these books, hang with those friends, go to this school, get this type of job after all of this how will I know what I want? The first advice I can give is to obtain your voice. Let people grasp the fact that you are your own person, so you need to find something you enjoy doing. Next, try countless different things it is ok to miss time to time. How else will you know what you prefer if you never tried it? Travel, eat try unconventional foods, cook, party, study, watch T.V, play video games, join social groups, hang alone, write books, grow a garden there are so many things to try. Get started now and don't quit until you find something you love. How will you know it's your passion? You will do it all day every day without looking for something in anything in return.
2. Read, Read, Read
I know numerous people are not going to like or agree with this one. Reading is the root to success; every rich and prosperous person with a business will agree. Reading can show you someone's whole life of mistakes and success in a few hours. This will help with the constant change of the business world and tax laws. There are thousands of self-help books to train you to handle any type of situation life throws at you. There are books on saving and investing, books on starting a family, saving a marriage, books on forming a business or taking one to the next level. books on sales and marketing. Even books on public speaking or parenting. If you need some help ask the experts and that means just pick up their book for a fraction of the cost of going to a school.
3. Know Your Business
Knowing your business appears really cut and dry. There are no such things as in and outs of any business. Your business no matter what it is; is built on many hidden layers. The first thing is fundamental research on how many competitors are in your area. Next, you have to ask yourself what is the demand for your product or service. Now you have to ask yourself what makes your business distinctive from other companies? How are you helping your customers because at the end of the day its not about you and your profit? It is about how can people benefit from my business. You need to solve a problem, like Uber they made it simple to get transportation from anywhere right from your phone. What about Air BNB this is a way travelers can find an affordable place to stay no matter where they travel on this planet same as Uber right from there phone. They changed the taxicab service and hotel booking overnight and provided people more control over how to book themselves without a third party. Let's not leave out the most important thing about your company knowing the numbers. You don't have to know advanced math just simplistic math will do. Before you start any project you need to know how much will everything cost. The employee to the office supplies, shipping cost, taxes is different in each state. The equipment needed to operate the business on the day to day. The time it will take to accomplish each job, the time it takes to start each job. How many clients do you need to keep the doors open how are you billing your customers? What are your profit margins and how can you lower that cost. Is it more economical to do the work in house or out source it? What about insurance and lawsuits are you covered just in case? Are the new laws going to help your business or threatened to shut it down? Finally how long before you see your first profit and can you stay in business until then?
4. Set Up Your Business Accounts
If you are like me you have about 5 accounts set up for your business. let's do a list
1. Your BUSINESS checking account. This is where you manage all your business Payments collected or payouts dealing with your company. Such as rent, office supplies, payroll and things as a company car and petty cash.
2. Your TAX account. open a savings account just for the purpose of your taxes for every dollar you collect put 30% of that money in your tax account. More businesses closed due to taxes than any other reason don't get caught in the IRS web.
3. Your INVESTMENT account. I recommend an index fund. Always put 10% or more of your earning into this account. You heard me say Pay Yourself First this is where you pay it to.
4. Your PERSONAL account after all your business expenses is paid. plus you reinvested what is needed into your business then you can put some money into your personal account which is a small amount because this is the money that will be taxed the most.
5. Your SOCIAL MEDIA accounts are more important than you think. This is where if done right where 80% of your marketing and revenue will come from. Social media is the new platform for any thriving business. If it's not on social media it does not exist.
6. Your FUNDING, DONATION AND GRANT account. This is one account that most start-up companies drop the ball on having. This is what people refer to as leaving money on the table. This is where people give money to help businesses or show their appreciation by tipping in a sense. If you put out a great product or service some people will love to help your company grow. Trust me open one today; just make sure you are doing good with the gifts and not just putting them in your pockets. It a term called Pay It Forward. Someone helped you now you do the same and help others.
5. Ready To Sacrifice Your Old Life
Starting a business, you need to understand there will be many sacrifices like your family. People say just be yourself, what they should have said was to become the best version of yourself Some of them will be harder than others. Time yes, you will lose a lot of sleep in the beginning. Friends, you will need to change your circle and be around people reaching for the same goals. Not saying that you will never speak with them but, you do need to hang with people that will push you to do more. Entertainment mainly T.V most successful people are focused on getting on T.V instead of watching others already there. Another is being, a know it all. Whatever field you are in, remember there is room for you to learn. People that are way ahead of you made 1000 more mistakes than you so far. Even your diet will take a hit; some people had to eat food they didn't like for years until they made it to the point when they can afford to eat everything they love. Your cost of living should be bare minimum until your wealth can pay for all your living expenses. A dollar a day is nothing. A dollar a day for ten years is $3650.00 without putting compound interest on it. How many people today have that much in their bank account? I'm not talking about 401k or your pension plans, I mean you have access to it right now if needed. This is just a few but I did find you guys a link and video to share more ways you need to sacrifice to start a business.
6. How To Sell
How to sell, to be honest, this topic I literally can't have too much to speak on. I'm still working on this myself. What I can tell you is it's one of the most significant and most difficult for me to learn. This one is not just about one area of yourself but a combined effect. You need to know how to identify with the potential customer. You have to be a great listener. You need to know how to address their concerns and solve a problem they don't know exist yet, plus the whole time staying completely honest. Then you need to know how to get rid of the fear of rejection without coming on too strong. Know how to close a client or when you are wasting your time. How to present yourself so you don't come across as a typical salesman. Most people hate Salespeople. Lastly, you need to believe in the product you are trying to sell. This goes back to the first key point of finding your passion.
7. Find A Way
If you know my children, they will tell you my favorite three words are Figure It Out. With every problem, there is a solution. Most of the time, there are dozens of ways to solve any one of them. Most people either quit or just settle for any outcome. Let's say they're taking an important exam and there are questions they are having problem-solving. Instead of knocking out the easy ones and coming back to the hard one, the common people will usually put down any answer. Then at the end of the exam, they will hope they did good enough to pass. Whereas successful people will tackle the hard ones first get them out the way and the rest of the test is a piece of cake. If you want to be the owner of a company your livelihood depends on your abilities to solve problems day in day out. Matter of fact that is your only job. Part of that is finding the right people to work for you. Discovering a way to increase profit and lower expenses. Being able to adapt to any new trend that might shut your business down if you don't make modifications. If your business needs more resources you need to find it. If your product supplier goes out of business you need to replace them. If a new law is in place that regards your product unsafe you need to make the necessary alterations to make it safe again. If sales are going downward you need to find a way or a person to get them back up immediately. If bad weather is hurting the business you need to fix that as well. Not the weather the way your business can survive with climate change. If a new competitor opens up, you need to find a way to get your consumers back and theirs too. Finding a way is getting on top and never letting anyone knock you down.
Today's call of action is to tell us if this helped you to start a business. Do you feel we left any important keys points out? Plus tell us a story about when you started your business.
