By Six Degrees Society
From our experience, it’s so much easier to start a business when you’re mentored or guided by someone. So, let us guide you with the advice below on how to start your first business and what we’ve learned from starting our own.
Know your strengths and weaknesses.
As a successful business owner you will be good at a lot of things, maybe even most things. But, you have to set boundaries and limits for yourself in order for your business to grow in a healthy way. If you don’t know where to start, you can first define the things you’re really good at. What do your friends ask you for advice most frequently? Is it how to apply for a job. How to see a button? How to find the best restaurant in town? Literally anything. That can be your next business. It’s also crucial in this step that you know what you don’t like doing out of those things. You can’t make money from a process you hate doing. So, if you hate telling other people how to find the best restaurant in town, maybe food blogging is not for you. On the other hand, you should also know what you suck at. Do you have no clue how to make a spreadsheet? What do you need help with? Define those areas and you might realize, you shouldn’t base your business on something you don’t really care about.
Automation.
After you decide what you’d like to sell and who’s going to buy it, and doing the simpler tasks like setting up an LLC. It’s a good idea to free your time as much as possible. Define the tasks that you’re doing on repeat and see if there’s a tool out there that might help you do that task in bulk. A simple google search should have your answers for this question. For example: how to post on Pinterest in bulk? How to create an Instagram feed for 30 days? Don’t know how to make a sales pipeline and guide your leads to a sale? No worries, google it. Automation tools are money makers if used correctly.
Delegation.
Delegate, delegate, delegate. There’s won’t be a case where my best business advice is to delegate your tasks. Get the stuff that you suck at and give them to someone on your team. Also, give the stuff that you hate doing, someone on your team might love doing them. You can be completely open about not liking a task, for example, my team is very vocal about liking to write blog posts but doesn’t like researching keywords for SEO. Those two tasks are divided between two team members and are executed outstandingly because the people who do them, enjoy doing them. Free up your time to be the captain of the business, leave the actual sailing to your team.
Managing fear.
Managing your fears is the best game plan to mitigate risks. Whatever you are fearful of, will eventually happen in business and if you think it won’t happen to you, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Be ready for every ridiculous scenario to happen that you’ve run through your mind and then some. This definitely doesn’t mean that you’re going to fail or you’re doing something wrong. Most of the time your business will run smoothly, but be ready for when it doesn’t. It’s a realistic and even expected scenario. But if you’re on cloud 9 all the time it’s going to catch you off guard. Only when you prepare for the worst, the best happen.
