It has never been easier than it is today to start your own business. But despite this people today are still struggling and feeling overwhelmed when trying to start their own business. I put together this article to help those of you out who are ready to become an entrepreneur and are not quite sure how to get started. Be sure to read until the very end to read the 2 most crucial mistakes most business make.
Step 1
Think of a business idea and name it. I know many of you are probably aggravated I even mentioned this but here me out. Too many business fail these days and most of the fails can be avoided. I read that 20% of businesses fail in the first year and 50% fail in the fifth year. So rather than flipping the coin let’s take our time at this stage and really think it through. The first thing you need to do it dream up what your business is going to be. Once you successfully do that then you can move onto step 2.
Step 2
Define your market early and test the value of your product(s). There are many ways to do this but be sure to really find a niche. If you try to sell to everyone then no one will buy. You need to get specific so really think this through. Because the next part of this step is to test the market.
Testing the market is a lot simpler than you think and can be done very cheaply. Once you determine what your business is and who you are going to sell too you can easily create a google AdWords account and start a click-to-pay marketing campaign. I recommend directing your click to pay marketing campaign to a free landing page that you create using mailchimp. On the landing page you can add a form to collect the information of people who are interested in your product or service. It is important to note that you will not be actually collecting any information but just gathering how many times people submit the form.
At this point you will get from Google how many peopleviewed your Ad, how many clicked it, and then from mailchimp how many submitteda request for more information. This will give you a great understanding on howdesired your product is in your defined market.
Great, you have an amazing product let’s go to step 3.
Step 3
It's time to develop your business plan and determine how you will make money on your business. To find a free business plan Google search “Free Business Plan.” I recommend just going to google images and typing out one of the plans you can see in the image. This will not be the most robust or perfect plan, but it’s a great step in the right direction. On that business plan there are 5 basic questions that you need to answer in addition to everything else:
How much are you charging per product/service
What do you expect to earn in a year and how didyou come up with the numbers?
What do you have to sell in order to make aprofit
What is your expected growth
How do you plan on marketing yourproduct/service
Congratulations, you now have your business plan. It’s timefor you to make your business legal. Let’s look how to do this in step 4.
Step 4
This is probably the most exciting step, this is where youfill out the paper work and become a recognized business. While this may seem complicatedbecause of the paperwork it’s actually the easiest step. That is because I donot recommend doing this on your own, I recommend using a third part website thatmakes this process extremely easy and painless. You just answer a series ofquestions and they do the rest for you.
The site I have used time and time again to start nonprofits and LLC's is Legalzoom. The pricing of this service is very cheap with the lowest package costing $50 plus filing fee’s which vary per state. I highly recommend using Legalzoom for all of your business formations. The biggest benefit of using them is you get access to their library of legal documents that will help you run your business once it's fully formed
Step 5
Perfect, now you have an official business it’s time tosetup a business bank account. The best advice I can give you is to look for abusiness account with no hidden fee’s and no minimums. That way you ensure youkeep expenses to the absolute minimum. Here are some companies I have used inthe past:
Citizens Business Bank Account
Chase
DCU
Now that you have a you banking setup lets look to settingup your internet presence. I always recommend using your business account topurchase your website so that is a business expense when taxes come around.
Step 6
Your online presence can be a difficult decision, especially based on what your business is selling. For those of you who are not technically savvy and just want plug and play I recommend using Wix or Squarespace. They have beautiful templates that allow you to plug and play, and you can get started for free.
If you are more tech savvy and want complete flexibility on the configuration of your website then I highly recommend Bluehost for the ease of configuring a very powerful Wordpress website. While Bluehost does have an upfront cost of $300 is well worth it since it last 3 years. That’s right a one-time payment of $300 for 3 years of website hosting. And that includes a free domain. Bluehost also allows you to spin-up as many websites as you like, so definitely a good choice for a mega entrepreneur.
No matter what service you use I highly recommend that you buy your domain through your selected service. The cost of a domain usually lands between $2 to $10, and when purchased through your service the auto configuration makes the setup as easy as clicking a button and much faster.
Congratulations, you now have a business with an amazingplan, a business account and a website to start turning a profit. Now let’slook at the top 2 mistakes most business make that causes them to fail earlyon.
Crucial Mistakes to Avoid
As mentioned previously in this post, the percentage of business failing in the first 5 years is great. So how do you avoid this and not become another failed statistic? I have found the two most common mistakes for you to avoid at all cost:
Do not take money out of your business the first year or two if you can help it. All profits should go back into marketing or improving your business infrastructure. The vast majority of it being marketing. Think if you spend $500/month on marketing and earn $10,000 in profit the first year of business. You can then bring on a marketing team to turn that 10k profit into 100k. And that should keep compounding year after year.
Most business do not think with the end in mind. Your business should be set up so you can complete one business transaction or 1 million from day 1. There should be no bottlenecks that stop you from growing at any pace. So automate whenever you can. Do this in a reasonable fashion at first since budgeting will be tight starting out.
That’s it, 6 simple steps to starting your own business today!