Too many people jump straight into business with little to no experience and only to get burnt because of lack in preparation and knowledge.
Business is a unique skill set that needs to be nurtured and developed over time, with experience. So how do you maintain your level of sanity in starting a new venture? Here’s 4 simple strategies that will help you achieve this:
- Start Your Business Part-time And Outside Your Day Job Hours
Everything takes time to get going and your new venture will require you to not only have a steady income coming in to pay the bills, plus keep the business afloat, but a calm and steady mind as well. The biggest thing you can do to ensure you get your business up and running, is having cash-flow to support it, especially in the early days.
Whether you are working full time, or part time, keep that job going while you are setting up your business. If you are broke, desperate and without funds, you won’t be able to get much happening with your business as you won’t have the resources to fund it, nor will you be in a credible position to attract business because you will be acting out of desperation and fear.
- Plan For The Future And Focus On The Present
Whilst you put a lot of effort into planning your business and working on all the different components needed to make it work, don’t let this distract you from the job at hand. It’s important to remember not to bite the hand that feeds you. If you are at work in your corporate job, then put 100% into doing the best job you can. After all it pays the bills right? Plus you need to keep that job going till you have managed to create another income source, which will give you options down the track.
If you are working part-time and after hours on your business, then do not allow yourself to be distracted by things like TV, long phone calls, partying with friends. Don’t get me wrong; there is a time and a place for everything. However, once you set a plan in motion to build your business part-time, then that’s what you need to be doing religiously. Your business is a direct reflection of you. If you are consistent, dedicated and focused, you will build a strong foundation for your business.
- Always challenge your ‘why’
Building a business is a massive undertaking! Its going to stretch you financially, time-wise, physically, emotionally and even spiritually when you need inspiration to move forward. So why take on such a challenge? There has to be a purpose that drives you each day to get out of bed and be motivated. When times get really challenging, your WHY will be the only thing that carries you forward in that moment.
Your WHY will fuel your passion and people will sense this. Bill Gates from Microsoft is successful because he had such a powerful WHY to bring computing to every home in the world and he was so driven to achieve this in the face of numerous setbacks. Work on YOUR Why.
- Leverage yourself around smart people
When you are kicking off any venture on your own, it’s a mountain of work that needs to be done – i.e. sales, marketing, production, admin just to name a few. It makes sense to get help and advice from people in the know. Know what your time is worth and do the work that will grow your business as much as possible. Outsource everything else, within reason. Having this mentality early on will be one of the smartest things you can do.
Make a list of all the things that need to be done and look around you for who you can work with to get it done as part of a team. You can outsource a lot of work these days to people all over the world for very low cost. However knowing this in advance can save you thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours from doing the jobs you don’t enjoy doing – i.e. book-keeping, or website design, when you could be out there promoting your business.
Hopefully the steps described above help you to maintain a clear and sane head as you launch your business and create the lifestyle that you deserve.
About the author
Having completed an MBA and a successful corporate career at IBM and Oracle, Gavin Sequeira successfully made the transition to running several of his own businesses and has helped many others to do the same. Gavin is an active speaker, coach and author of ‘Break Free From Corporate – Be Your Own Boss’ (available on Amazon) and runs a program designed to help people during their transition. For more information please visit www.breakfreefromcorporate.com or email gavin@breakfreefromcorporate.com
