Start A Business Today In 5 Steps

One of my big goals in life is networking. I attend networking events every month and walk away with a profound appreciation for people. I find so much inspiration in hearing how people overcame to be achieve their version of success.

Through all the events, I have found something incredible.

People are starting to recognize that the best way to change the world is through business.

This is sweet, sweet music to my ears.

But, we both know, it’s not enough to simply dream about starting a business. You have to take action. You have to create a game plan, make mistakes, pivot from those mistakes, and try some utterly ridiculous things sometimes.

You can’t be afraid of looking dumb. There are always people that don’t appreciate what you are trying to do- forget them. They aren’t your customer.

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To recap (and elaborate) on the video, the 5 steps you can take today to start your business are:

1. Write down your skill sets.

What cool things can you do to help make people’s lives easier? For me, I absolutely adore teaching people how to mange their money. I can do this every single day and feel like I’m making a difference. 

2. Find a mentor.

I have several mentors. All for different reasons. All from different industries. This is on purpose. I find so much value in discussing and learning about different challenges from different industries. I also find a TON of inspiration for my own business from studying industries outside of the financial world.

3. Find out who your paying customer is.

Yes. You need to narrow down who is actually going to be paying for your product or services. It’s not enough to find an end user. While an end-user may be a key influencer of the purchasing decision, they are not always your paying customer. After you create a customer archetype (mentioned in the video), GO TALK TO THOSE PEOPLE.

Take them to coffee, learn about their likes, dislikes, day-to-day activities, and most importantly, their pain points. What is keeping them up at night? When I went through this process, I found that people are losing sleep because they are in over their heads in debt.

Once you find out who your customer is, and talk to as many of those people as you can, research the hell out them. Get inside their heads. Learn to talk how they talk, post on social media how they post on social media, learn everything you can about them. Sounds creepy….I know.

4. Go try something!

It wasn’t until I decided, with great fear, to put myself out there, that I started earning revenue. One thing that helped me put myself out there is to view every business decision as an experiment. I create a hypothesis. “26 year old females will purchase a course on financial literacy if there is a focus on paying off student loans.” Then I test that hypothesis. How to test a hypothesis is for another Vlog, but you get the point.

Go try something. Adopt the mantra: Fail early, fail often.

5. Recognize entrepreneurship is HARD work.

As much as I wish you (and myself) are the overnight successes, it just statistically doesn’t happen. A vast majority of us will have to plug away, day after day, hustle, network, fail, over and over and over again, before we start seeing big results.

The great thing about this is most people quit.

They go through the excitement of starting a business, they try a few things. Then they stall. They stop pushing because they aren’t seeing overnight results. Don’t be that person. Be the person who consistently works at something every single day, and you will wake up 5 years later and realize YOU DID IT! Yay!!

I had a sad, sad realization earlier this week. I wondered how many hours I work a week between my day job and business? Something to the tune of 60 hours a week. And it’s not enough.

Starting a business is hard. It’s fun. But hard.

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Thanks for hanging out. 🙂 I always appreciate the support.

I also have great news!

I am creating an online version of the Manage Your Money Like A Boss Workshop. Stay tuned. This online workshop will be offered to a select group of people.

Email me ([email protected]) if  you want to try the workshop during it’s first Pilot program- it’s heavily discounted for the first go around.

Best,