How to Start Your Own Business in 2021 | Episode 1 - Small Business 101

  

down eight of the most important steps

to do this

this video is the first episode of our

brand new free series

small business 101 so if you are in this

process and

on this journey of starting your own

company then make sure you subscribe to

the channel and also that you click

the bell so that you can get notified

every time

a new episode is released and learn

everything that you need to know i also

want to let you

know that i put together a free

checklist of these eight steps

to help you stay focused and on track as

you go through this process

so check it down below for a link to

download that free

checklist the first step for starting

your own business is simply deciding

what business to start

now i know this might seem incredibly

obvious if you've already made the

decision

but there are a lot of people out there

who want to start their own business

but they haven't decided yet and they

can't move forward you can't move

forward if you haven't made this

decision yet

personally i had a lot of ideas and

i really had a hard time narrowing down

what business i wanted to start so that

was

my biggest problem i tried to start a

few businesses at once and that really

didn't go that well

because i mean really building a

business can be a full-time job it's a

big

project even just doing one and if you

try to build multiple businesses at the

same time

you are just kind of setting yourself up

for failure not to say it's impossible

but it's going to be a lot more

difficult

so set yourself up for success choose

one business idea

for you to work on at least for now you

can always pursue other businesses other

ideas later on

but start by deciding on one business

you're going to start

as i mentioned a minute ago this is the

first episode of our small business 101

series next week's episode is going to

be about

this topic how to decide what business

to start so if that's something you're

trying to figure out right now

make sure you have notifications turned

on once you've decided what business to

start you're going to want to write a

business plan

now don't worry because this doesn't

have to be a 20 plus or 100 plus

page document describing absolutely

everything about your business

and everything you're going to do in the

future it doesn't need to be that at all

this can be super short

super simple you can make a business

plan that is as short as one page

or i have this framework that i like to

use that's about six pages long

but you can do it in just a couple hours

at most

and it is just going to really give you

a lot of clarity

about exactly what you're trying to do i

mean you once said off on a trip

without a map right without like queuing

up google maps typing in the address of

where you're trying to go

especially if you've never been there

before you've never built the business

you're trying to build before

and so you should have the best map you

can

or at least some sort of plan about

where you're trying to go

two weeks from today i'll be releasing

an episode walking you through

exactly how to write your own business

plan the third step is to validate your

idea

now this is a mistake that i see so many

the majority of new entrepreneurs make

when they're trying to start a business

they have a business idea they write a

business plan

and then they get to work just building

their business they're investing

all this time and energy and they don't

even know yet for sure

if people want what they are going to be

selling and so

they might be building a business that

sells a product that people aren't

really interested in

when you think about it that's pretty

risky business

i mean you probably wouldn't go and

invest a whole bunch of your money

into some random business that you have

no idea if it's proven no idea if it's

going to be successful

but for some reason a lot of us myself

included can feel very just

free with investing our time investing

our energy

into unproven ideas i don't want you to

do this i want you to take the steps to

validate your business idea this process

involves

market research where you go out and you

talk to people who you think might want

your product

and you ask them if they'd be interested

in it why

why not and other questions about their

related desires and their related

challenges

and then you're also going to want to do

some sort of beta launch of your product

so this is where you make a really

simple version of your product

so before you spend all the time energy

maybe money

creating the product that you're

dreaming of you just make some sort of

simple version

and you offer it up for sale and you see

if people are interested in buying it

and then once you get those for sales

that really validates your business idea

and then you can go back and build the

product out even further

and sell it for a higher price point

later on i'll have a video about this

entire process coming out in three weeks

from now

step number four is to set up shop now

if you're running an online business

what this means

is you're going to create your website

do you have to have a website

no it's not absolutely required but it's

gonna make

running your business and building your

business a lot easier so i really would

recommend

that you set up a website this really

doesn't have to be that complicated

you can diy it completely from scratch

with something like wordpress

or you can use one of these nifty tools

that exist

today like squarespace or wix that makes

building a website really easy

step number five is setting up your

business finances

so you need some way to keep your

business money completely separate from

your personal money

and also to keep your business money

organized so you can use a software to

do this like quickbooks or wave where

you can just use a simple spreadsheet

like a google sheet

and do it completely for free honestly

when you're first starting out that's

really what i would recommend you don't

need a big complex system to manage the

few transactions that you're going to

have

and it will be much easier for you to

maintain and also

you will be able to really practically

see where your money is going a lot more

easily

on a simple spreadsheet the next step of

the process is where i think that it

starts to get really fun

and that is building a sales machine so

now that you have validated your

business idea and you know that people

want the product that you're selling and

you also know who those people are

and you've set up your systems i.e

primarily your website and your money

systems

to be able to process more transactions

now you're ready to start to scale

and that means you're going to take your

product to the masses and start

generating a lot more sales

so in order to do this you're going to

need to figure out a good way to get

traffic this could be just ranking your

website on google

or it could be making content like blog

posts or youtube videos or using social

media marketing

or using paid advertising there are lots

of different options here but you need

some way to consistently get traffic and

visibility

so that people find out you exist and

then you need a process

that takes that visibility and turns it

into sales

so this is sometimes called a sales

funnel but whatever you want to call it

you need some sort of process to guide

people from

first hearing about you to eventually

making that purchase

a lot of people especially those with a

marketing band like myself

uh want to do this whole sales funnel

building process

way earlier on in the business building

journey

i know when i started my online business

it was one of the first things that i

tried to do

and i knew a lot about how to build a

sales funnel but

i did not make any sales with my sales

funnel and the reason for that was i was

missing a couple really essential things

like traffic nobody knew i existed so

there wasn't any traffic

flowing through my sales funnel i wasn't

making any sales at all

but also i hadn't taken the time to

validate my idea

and so the thing that i was trying to

sell nobody wanted it

and especially nobody wanted it the way

i was explaining it to them

and so i had to take a big step back and

really start over from scratch

and validate my business idea first

offer my

product directly to people and see how

they responded to it

and then i knew how to build a sales

funnel that would actually convert

actually make me money for the seventh

step of the process

you're gonna double down on your

visibility you've built this process

that can turn your traffic into sales

but in order to make more sales now you

need to rev up your exposure

and what that means is you need to

double down on your marketing you need

to get in front of a lot more eyeballs

maybe this means that you increase your

budget for paid advertising but for a

lot of entrepreneurs who are just

bootstrapping

it means that they are going to have to

get creative and do

collaborations to team up with brands

that already have audiences

and get in front of a lot more people

that way the final step of the process

of starting your business

is to get some help you need to hire

some people so that you can delegate

some tasks

so that you can accomplish even more

reach even more customers

without having to work crazy hours

yourself

because here's the truth being an

entrepreneur can

be a very time consuming thing in fact

it can consume your entire life

and i really don't want that for you and

i don't think you want that for yourself

either

even if you love what you do even if you

are super passionate and you want to

spend all your time doing it

there's still a cap on the number of

hours that you have available

to invest in anything and so if you want

to grow your business beyond a certain

point

and have an even bigger impact on the

world then you're going to have to get

some help

now you really don't have to wait to

start bringing on this help

until you have a crazy amount of profit

and just like more money than you know

to do with as soon as you start making

money

you might consider outsourcing some

small tasks in your business

just to freelancers who are working very

part-time to get some things off your

plate so that you can use your time and

energy

to really build the business and do the

aspects of building the business

that only you can do there are some

things

that anyone can do but to advance your

vision for the company

there will be some things that only you

can do so now that you understand the

eight steps of starting your own

business

what i want to know is where are you in

this process

have you decided what business you want

to start have you written a business

plan

have you set up your website have you

made your first sales tell me down in

the comment because i'm really curious

as i mentioned earlier on this video is

the first episode of our brand new

series

small business 101 if you want to get

access to every single episode in this

series

where i cover each of the points that i

talked about in this video

then make sure that you are subscribed

to the channel and also that you have

notifications turned on

to turn on notifications you need to

both click the bell and you also need to

turn on youtube notifications on your

phone

also don't forget to download that free

checklist i mentioned earlier on

to help you stay on track and focused

throughout this journey of building your

business there's a link in the

description where you can download it

for free i'll be back next week with the

next episode of this series all about

how to decide what business to start

this is the most important decision

that you need to make if you haven't

made it already because you can't move

forward to

any of the rest of these steps until you

have made that decision

and i know that you want to make sure

that you are choosing your best

idea so that you aren't wasting time on

an idea that isn't going to pan out in

the long run

so if you'd like some guidance on making

this important decision then be sure to

join me again here

next week

you