Have you ever asked yourself ‘should I start my own business?’ In the second instalment of a two-part series, we look at the real costs, in terms of dollars, time, emotions, and more…
In our previous article Should I Start My Own Business: What are the real costs? we took a genuine look at what it takes to be an entrepreneur. I gave you upfront facts about the actual sacrifices and expectations of running your own business, and… well, they can be tough when you’re starting out and used to comfortable things. The rewards for creating your own business, earning your own unlimited income and living your passion all the time are incredible. I recommend it, I really do.
My aim in that first disruptive business article wasn’t to put you off, I want to give you an honest look at what you are giving up and getting into. You can find that out the hard way (like I did) and spend a year having coffee and hanging out with mates, pretending to work and getting nowhere, or you can jump on my learning curve and get 100{3074427a60ee844d8c262f6d1f836dd02851d4cd3279224535523a8a0dfb42d9} committed to giving it your all.
I want you to have an incredible business that moves you rapidly towards success and I’m prepared to give you all my secrets, all my knowledge and my support to get you there. I think that the more small businesses there are in the world, the more secure, creative, and satisfied we can be as individuals, families and communities.
If you haven’t weighed up the risk-reward to see if you are ready to stop daydreaming and step into your own personal power do that now.
For those of you who are willing to take on the costs and have dialled up your commitment for long-term results, it’s time to ask the next question: Do you have what it takes?
There are a few essential ingredients you need to get started in owning and running your own business. One is a great idea. Two is a market. Three is follow through.
In our Troublemakers community, we will give you all the keys to getting these three things transformed from concepts to actual working business modules, plus the support needed to turn a vision into reality.
The most important thing is knowing if you have the mindset to bring it all together.
Part One: Find a Good Idea
Ideas are everywhere, they are in every conversation you have, any complaint, any product you get excited about or that pisses you off. They are in your daydreams, your shortcuts and your system improvements. Basically we all have the potential to have ideas every second of every day. Once we start exercising our idea muscle we have more and more ideas. Some of them will be amazing, others, not so much. With practice, you will start to see which ideas have serious merit and you can start to test them against an audience to gauge their reaction.
Really amazing entrepreneurs have a skill for identifying a great idea quickly and acting on it almost instantly, it’s what keeps them ahead and maintains their success. It’s tempting to think that multi-millionaires only have great ideas, actually, they have a stack of failed attempts and thousands of ideas they never bothered to develop.
No one, not even the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet know if an idea will take off. There is no way to look into the future and know for a fact what people are going to go crazy for. If you attempt to only think of ideas that will sell to millions, you probably will end up with a lot of nothing. Millions is too many people, their wants and needs as individuals are impossible to gauge, so you can’t really get to the details of what will work to satisfy them. History proves that small, simple ideas that really connect with people are the ones that go big. So use the ideas you already have, make sure it serves it’s purpose and fills the need you have identified. Nurture that idea, fine tune it and give it room to grow. The beauty of these small projects is they take almost no outlay costs. Being able to launch a business on your smartphone gives you greater flexibility and more resources to work with.
When you are starting out there is so much to learn. This isn’t just about business growth and capital growth, this is about your personal growth and development as well. Small ideas can have a big impact, so rather than thinking, “I need to have a KO idea so people will take me seriously”, think about the skills you will bring, your resilience and determination coupled with focus and commitment. That’s twice as professional and admirable as a ‘big’ idea.
TM tip: for really crazy highly lucrative ideas, get together with a bunch of like-minded people and dedicate 30, 45, 60 minutes to throwing ideas around. The only rules are: Everyone has a chance to have their say and, Anything is possible. Do this at least once a week and some seriously cool and fun things will start to happen.
Share your ideas with your friends and social networks. Pitch it to people at parties (just factor in drunkenness when you take on feedback). Do you get a consistently excited or interested response? It gives you an indication of what tweaks are needed and what ideas are likely to shine.
Part Two: Have a Ready Market
Is there an audience of people who’d like to buy your good idea?
You can have the best idea on the planet, but if you are not pitching it to the right audience, using the right language or showing it in the right way exclusively for them, it’s never going to take off.
Sliced bread is a fantastic example of this!
We love sliced bread, it’s super quick and easy and makes our life simple. There’s even that saying, “best thing since sliced bread”…only sliced bread didn’t pitch to a concentrated audience when it first came out. There was a mismatch of a product created to please the public that needed to be sold to bakeries. Bakers wanted nothing to do with it. It wasn’t until the Kleen Maid brand started marketing it effectively to the public, that people actually started paying attention. To get that response the inventor, Otto Rohwedder had to make multiple adjustments to try to influence bakers to take his slicer on board.
I’m a firm believer that if you like it and you would buy it then there are other people out there, like you, who will make the purchase. You need to do the background work, believe in your idea, believe in your resolve and know your avatar inside out.
The biggest part of launching your own business is finding and reaching your audience. A shortcut that requires some patience is to develop a database of well-nurtured followers, people who you dedicate your time and knowledge to. You can pitch ideas, designs, even products to them for advice and feedback. One of the really big advantages to this, apart from your product moving quickly, is that you can use your group as a sounding board for what they want, what they are interested in and what they need and change your idea so it’s tailored to them, well before you get started. It’s perfect when you don’t have any ideas, but you have a lot of content in your area of expertise or passion.
TM tip: Share. So many people think if you have a good idea you need to guard it with your life, lock it in a secret vault and throw away the key. If you hide your idea, or even if you live with the mentality that you are going to get ripped off, you are stifling creativity and success. Open up, get feedback, share your story and idea. Even if someone does copy you, they won’t have the passion or dedication and the end result will be completely different. If that’s how they want to get ahead, so be it, you need to spend your time and energy on your project and your business success.
Part Three: Follow Through
You can get away without having a product or audience while you find your feet, do your research and get ready to cause a serious disruption. The one thing you can’t afford to skip is character.
So when it comes to asking, “Do you have what it takes to start your own business?”, inside yourself is the first place to check in. It’s the one place to keep coming back to whenever you hit a snag, need to deal with some tricky problems, meet a milestone or get runs on the board.
How do we know these traits work? Simple, we study the very best, the most successful and the most influential entrepreneurs to see what their common traits are. What we find when we wipe out all the differences is the similarities are really strong. The thinking patterns of successful entrepreneurs are similar, even when they come from completely different cultures, different backgrounds and have very different reasons for becoming successful.
We can use these traits to make an accurate treasure map.
You don’t have to be born with these characteristics to be an entrepreneur, all you need to do is identify what works (see below) and find ways to adopt new beliefs and behaviours on a deep, unconscious level. When you do that you have a straightforward way to rapidly reach your goal in the fastest timeframe possible!
Character traits of successful entrepreneurs
- Energy and drive
- Confidence (in self, ability and success)
- Accepts responsibility for their actions and emotions (At cause)
- Show initiative
- Feel in control of their future (not drifting in the wind)
- Okay to drift on the wind when necessary (not having to force things to go their way). Wait for timing, creativity or situation to open up to their benefit.
- Fear of missing out overrides fear of failure
- Okay to take risks within reason
- Have realistic expectations of limitations
- Commit to long-term projects
- Use money to measure progress, not to define the end goal
- Take feedback constructively
- Continuously seek out opportunities for logical problem solving
- Are resourceful
- Set their own standards
- Have clear goal setting strategies
- Are super passionate about what they do
The more of these personality traits you have the easier it is to overcome the reasons and excuses why you shouldn’t have a successful business.
Should I Start My Own Business? The Conclusion
Okay, so that’s it. If you are ready you can start RIGHT NOW! You don’t have to give up your day job just yet, in most cases, there are usually plenty of ways to step down from full-time employment as you move through the steps of setting up and going live in your own business.
If you don’t have all of these traits just yet, it’s never too late. All you need is a change in perspective. I can say that because I was a shy, quiet kid who was terrified of public speaking. My passion for being a presenter and helping people through their challenges was far bigger than my fear.
There are so many ways to break out of the shell you show on the outside and let the inner you out. Start by hanging out with entrepreneurs, give yourself daily or weekly challenges to get you out of your comfort zone, expand your hobbies and interests to get a feel for what’s actually out there and meet different people. The idea is to challenge your comfort zone and get comfortable with being in unfamiliar territory. Make a vision board and get really connected to what you want – if fear is holding you back, a really big and tangible goal is a great way to send it packing. Get a coach to help you identify the underlying behaviours you practice and play out every single day that sabotage your ability to get success, or enrol in any of my courses to uncover your true potential.
Your life is in your hands, if you have enough dedication to go out and get it, you can live it exactly as you desire. Having your own business is the best way to break out of the system and start living a life of passion and purpose.
Join me on the Disruption Tour to meet up and coming business owners, rub shoulders with those who have already made it and get a whole new angle on how incredible life can be when you make some trouble.
See you there!
Matt Catling
