How To Start a Small Business
How To Start a Small Business.
So you’re ready to take more control of your life and start a small business?
On the surface, the idea might feel good but you might be feeling overwhelmed at the same time. You want to be right from day one.
Successfully
On the right foot
With low-risk
Starting a new business isn't easy. If it was, 8-10 new businesses wouldn't fail. But they do. And then it can be even harder if you survive - staying in profit, thriving and growing.
There are a lot of articles online about how to start a new business. I have purposely written this blog in the simplest of words based on what I have seen and experienced over 35-years of business.
How To Start a Business - My Quick Story
I started my first business when I was 10-years old. I painted my old Raleigh Chopper bike with some old spray paints. I’m not sure how, but my friend’s parents started asking me to paint their kids old bikes. I got paid around 50 pence per bike.
I had started my very first business. I was a rich 10-year old.
Today, I am now totally unemployable and can and have only worked for myself since my teenage years. Yes, I tried jobs but got fired from all of them.
I had brick and mortar businesses from 1989 to 2003. Today all of my business is done from home using the power of the web through multiple websites.
And of course, through powerful networks and connections, I have built up over the years. (There are many more)
I work hard.
I get paid WELL.
I buy most things in cash.
I am my own boss.
I take time off when I want.
I start my days when I want.
I finish my days when I want.
I even eat my breakfast out everyday or stay at home – if I want.
Today I sell stuff online including services and products. I’ve been doing that since the late 1990s but fulltime since I sold my last hairdressing salon in 2003 when I made another transition into another new career.
And I’ve made tons of mistakes and learnt from them – even bankruptcy.
So - How To start a Business?
Here’s what you should know on how to start a business from a businessman that has started many businesses and has run his own business for done for decades.
Grab your idea with both hands
Believe in that idea
Research that people actually are buying what you are selling
Know your numbers to the penny where possible
Locate your product
Know your service
Find out how to get what you’re selling in front of buyers eyes
Just do it
Mistakes are standard get over them and accept the lesson
Pay for good advice
Model a company doing what you do but do it better
Model companies outside your industry
Buy the best or make the best of what you can afford
Get your marketing right
Find an angle for your business
Get a cool name no one will forget and make it mean something
Be predictable but take risks
Develop a sales system that converts
Scale it up
Keep up the momentum
Never assume its all good
Don’t go and buy a luxury car in the first year
Build your cash
Pay taxes because if you are paying them you’re making them
Never rely on staff just accept their best but when it isn’t their best fire them
Nothing is bad in business it is all just business.
The slow times, the bad times, the terrible times and the great times… it’s all just business.
When I am asked how to start a business I think a lot of what I say above is valid. So many people think that starting a business is easy – it isn’t but when it goes well it is worth every minute of effort.
Here are more than a few mistakes I have seen from my own client’s businesses.
Spending a fortune on infrastructure and nothing on planning.
Ordering new cars to sit outside their offices before they make any money.
Ordering a Rolex before building a business.
Trying to make success happen on the cheap.
Failing to create marketing systems that work.
Creating marketing systems that work but failing to upscale them
Trying to do everything they are not qualified to do
Trying to do everything on their own.
Not asking for advice.
Asking for advice failing to act on that advice.
Thinking marketing is a single event rather than a daily part of the fabric of the business
Sitting and waiting for something to happen
Expanding too fast
Ignoring the web
Working with amateurs
The truth is to the answer to how do you build a business is just get started and do it. Take as much advice as you can get and run with it as long as there are buyers.
One or two personal things I will add on how to start a business.
Aim the highest you can
Reach even higher
Believe you are what you want to become
Treat yourself regular when business is doing well. It makes it all worth it.
Buy the best of everything – even something as small as your pen. This will empower you to be your best.
Work for as long as you need to every day you need to. If you need to do 30-minutes today that’s good.
If you need to work 18-hours to make things work – stop moaning and work 18-hours – when it has to be done – it’s always worth it.
Make your yes mean yes and your no mean no
Don’t fall in love with your business – it is a business that supports your life not the other way around.
Stop flogging a dead horse – if it isn’t going to work – close it down and move forward on the lessons you’ve discovered.
Keep learning.
Stay interested.
Get excited.
Stay in control but let go of control where you need an expert.
I have had some serious setbacks in business. Like when I lost £91,000 to one single client. Like when I had to go through bankruptcy or when county court bailiffs came to take away my car.
But the reality is this is how you build a business. You learn from the lessons and move forward all of the time. That is the only way I have managed to stay in business for myself over the past 32-years.
The uncertainty in everything is a time when I am thankful that I control my own business. I rarely know what is taking place in the news with politicians because my own truth is that politics has rarely affected what I do. Yes, it will affect others depending on the marketplace but I can say it rarely affected me.
I have lived and thrived through three major recessions and am still here thriving right now.
I don’t believe there has ever been a better time in history to learn how to build a business. The web has opened so many new doors and created so many opportunists. Yet so have the emergence of the new artisan and the rise of the marketplace. This is an exciting time to be in business but it still has its pitfalls that are all too easy to fall into.
My own mentor program has now been running and refined with my AFS METHOD for over 12-years although I began mentoring people for business in 1989. My very first metro student was a girl named Kerry Dawson. She was my hair salon junior. By the time I had finished mentoring her, she had become a really great salon owner herself.
If you want to know
How to start a business – your business
Get off to the right start with proven advice
Create a perfect business online or offline
I am ready to help you build your new business with my 32-years of experience, over 20 years of experience with successful business building online and more.
You can read more about my mentoring here or simply call me.
Being in business has never been so exciting but more important it has never been so critical to control your own future.
Should we talk?
If you are ready to start a business I am ready to help you do just that.
Tele: 00 44 (0) 1619296902
Text: 00 44 (0) 7793069486 With the word TALK
WhatsApp: 07793069486
Alan Forrest Smith