Do you want tips to start your own business? What can I do to start my own business? This is a totally valid question for any professional who wishes to launch into the world of independent services.
All the experience acquired after the years dedicated to the profession in other companies certainly prepares them for many things, but not to have their own business.
This is the main reason why many professionals who have this desire to be independent are still thinking about it… and they do it for weeks, months, and years, and they don’t dare.
And unfortunately, it is also the reason why some that have been launched have failed.
The lack of preparation to have your own business is not a catastrophe. It is nothing more than one more need that you have to be able to satisfy on the way to being a successful professional.
If you feel identified with one of the two situations that I mentioned in the previous paragraph, if you have been thinking about it but the big obstacle that prevents you is “you don’t know how”, these keys will help you get going:
3 Tips To Start Your Own Business
Tip #1. What Is The Market Need To Solve?
First, you need to be clear about the need in the market that you will be serving. Don’t kid yourself that if you can’t find it then you have to create it because that’s not how the market works. You cannot “generate” a need. If the need in the market does not exist, you cannot create it.
What you can do is awaken a need or awaken a feeling that drives that need.
This is the typical case of those “so well done” advertisements, which motivate us to consume something we don’t need (of course, we found out later… first we think that what drives us is a necessity).
They didn’t really create a need but rather aroused a feeling that drove our consumption.
Of course, you could work in the same scheme, but this technique is not as decisive and effective in selling services. Especially if what you are selling are long-term services.
Maybe it works with specific, consumable, and mainly luxury products. Don’t confuse creating a need with creating a new way to satisfy it.
And as I tell my private mentoring clients, this is the main key: if the person you are talking to (your potential client) does not have a real and identified need, it does not matter what price you put on your services, you can give them. almost as a gift and that person will not buy you. Because he doesn’t need what you have.
On the other hand, if that person discovers that they need something, that they cannot solve it alone (or that it is not economical and efficient for them to solve it alone, as in the case of outsourcing) and perceives the value of your service with respect to that need, the money goes to the background.
Tip #2. How Are You Going To Satisfy That Need?
Here, not only your years of experience in the profession and your extensive academic training come into play, but also your talents and strengths, among which you can stand out if you have creativity, the ability to empathize with your potential client, and good people ” gifts of people”, understanding the latter by exceptional communication with your customers and potential customers.
At this point, you will be able to design not only the service/product but also its communication. Remember that you can have the most wonderful service on the market, the most effective, economical, and quality, but if your client does not know it, or does not “get” that information, you probably will not have a sale.
Tip #3. How Will You Run The Business?
I imagine that you have already realized that it is not possible for you to improvise or see on the fly what actions to take to make your business work from the beginning. You need a plan to organize such actions. But for this, you first need to know what actions or strategies, or initiatives you will carry out. That’s what a business model is all about.
Do not confuse this term with “business plan”. A business plan is a fundamental document where a business is described, with the intention of communicating the idea and capturing there the analysis of the market, the competition, the distribution channels, the cost structure, etc.
It is an essential instrument when looking for investors or even for some legal presentations. You will find a lot of information on the Internet to be able to prepare this document (for example here, here, and here ).
A business model is a step-by-step system that tells you how to get from point A (non-existent business) to point B (business going and growing). For this, effective and proven strategies are used (which led other people to go from point A to B) and are often applied differently depending on the nature of the business.
The business model is vital because it allows you to know what steps you must take, what objectives each of the actions you will undertake has, what strategies you will execute to achieve those goals, and what you will do if the results are not what you expect. Again, a business model is the opposite of improvising.
This is where I will always recommend you hire a specialized business mentor. Because? Because you can learn many things on the internet and for free (in fact you are learning from what you are reading today and it has not cost you a penny, right?).
But acquiring a model not only implies learning what to do, but also how to do it, and most of the time that “how” requires personalized help from someone who has the experience and who can teach you and pass on their knowledge, and help you to translate it into your own business (breaking paradigms and destroying beliefs that would take you a lot of time and money to do alone).
Conclusions
Beyond all your experience, if you have never started your own business (or if you have, it has not turned out as you expected), you will be doing something that is out of your comfort zone.
If so, it is very common that you do not know how to start, that you feel ill-prepared, that doubts invade you, that you do not know exactly what to do and for this, you need a mentor or a professional trainer.
So far the fundamental keys (without them, your efforts will fall on deaf ears) so that you can design and start your own business. Which of these keys do you already have well established and which one do you still need to reinforce? What will be your next step?
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