So You're a Solopreneur...
Can't figure out where to start?
Being an entrepreneur is about being bold and it comes with making mistakes. You haven't done this before.
I was once there, too. And I learned through trial and error. Then I got smarter. I learned the value- yes, the dollar value- of seeking quality advice.
Don't wait for hindsight. Be smarter, right now.
Business Plans
Dispelling the many myths.
99% of the time I will advise an entrepreneur to write their business plan. Writing your business plan is what prepares you for running your business. Skipping this step is dangerous! Going through this process helps with gaging the feasibility and viability of your business idea. And it teaches you about every facet of your business. Yes, you need to have a varying level of understanding of every part of your business to see how all the many parts come together. It teaches you to be able to think quickly, assessing how one change can have a cascading effect on to other parts of the business- because businesses that can pivot quickly are the business that have the best chance at lasting.
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If you don’t understand what good marketing is, how will you qualify a marketing company? If you can't qualify them, you are essentially hiring them based on blind faith.
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If you don’t understand precisely who your target market is, how will you know how to tailor your advertising to be targeted enough to reach them?
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Suppose you don’t understand the tremendous financial implications that, for example, changing your hours may have on your revenue (profit). In that case, you might make what seems like an insignificant decision, only to find yourself struggling and wondering why you're no longer making a profit.
Writing your business plan is your education on your precise business. I have written one for each of my businesses. (I don't care how they look. I care that they have all the components required to lessen surprises.) Done well, writing your BP is like going to school to prepare you to become a business owner of your business. By the time you are done with it, you should be able to competently speak with anyone about your business, intimately. You should feel Shark Tank ready.
How do I get started?
Crippled by overwhelm? Don't know where to start?
Then you are probably doing a great job. Your mind is a buzz with what feels like a hundred tasks and the order in which to do them is impossible to sort out. Welcome to the life of the entrepreneur. Now, you need a road map. You need to organize those tasks, check them off, and whatever you do- keep the momentum going.
It is NOT easy in the beginning. Yes, you do have to deal with a lot of chop and change, stop and start, and get really comfortable with non-linear workflow. You can't focus on one task and see it all the way through. You HAVE to pursue many tasks and keep each of them moving forward. The good news is that it gets easier. Working with someone who can help you navigate the path takes the sting out of this phase, and gives you the confidence that you aren't doing this in the wrong order or missing anything crucial.
What are the first things most people focus on?
Thing 1: Picking an entity. Wrong!
Thing 2: Second, buy website domain. Usually, that's also wrong.
After having started and run a handful of small businesses, I'd say the first step- is feasibility. You should determine whether your business idea has a place in the market, and whether it will make enough money to survive. If you have done the above things first, don't sweat it. Most first-time entrepreneurs have done the same thing. You're in good company.
I like starting with a market exercise where we try to prove that your idea is BAD. We put to the test the question: Is your business really a good idea?
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Are there too many products like yours already out there?
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Or can you ride a successful company's coattails by offering a similar product with a twist or at a different price point?
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Can you make enough of a profit by undercutting your competitors price point?
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Will your offering get lost in advertising because it's appeal is too broad? (Unsure what that means? Give me a call. I'm happy to explain. No, really!)
If we get through that exercise and still feel that your business idea is a solid one, then we move forward. We look at start-up capital. While there are many avenues to start-up capital, I have found that many people think that capital is easier to come by than it is. (Spoiler: It's only going to get more difficult and more expensive.) If you aren't going to be able to secure the required funding for your business model, you'll want to know this right away. You can change your model, or do the required prep and wait until you are ready.
The next is to do a few exercises to make sure that there will be enough profit in the business for it to stay afloat, and hopefully to grow and scale. Often working a business plan as a template comes in handy as a guide. It requires you to think about all the aspects of the business. From this you get a to-do list, and you can begin your financials. You will create a basic budget for all outgoing money and then one for all incoming money. Is there more incoming than going out? Fingers, eyes, and toes crossed that the answer is yes.
Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.
Don't fear failure.
Fear being in the same exact place next year as you are today.
Start doing.
Work hard.
Work smart.
Succeed.
Brick & mortar and online?
Are you biting off more than you can chew?
I often hear that prospective business owners are planning to open a brick-and-mortar store, and also begin selling online from the start. The thinking is that 2 sources of revenue are safer than one. That seems to make sense, right? Unless you are a very well-funded start-up, experience begs to differ. Starting a brick-and-mortar business requires you to learn a lot of new things. It in itself, can be overwhelming. Consider what you will be going through to launch your brick-and-mortar. Here a snippets from conversations I have:
BUS OWNER: Do I want the more expensive location with better visibility or the space with less foot traffic and lower rent? Lower rent fits my budget better. But doesn't that increase how much I'll have to spend on advertising?
BUS OWNER: On the lease agreement- what do they mean by a "personal guarantor"? Isn't that why I got the LLC?
ME: Your LLC is new. It doesn't have credibility yet. It doesn't have references or its own credit history. So the landlord needs assurance that someone will pay out the lease."
BUS OWNER: I have to plan for supplier issues and have a backup supplier? Really? That's a lot of work.
ME: What if your supplier screws up or shuts down and you run out of your main product? You are only offering a few products. Think about all the momentum it took to launch- it took a year! What happens to the excited customer who visits only to find out it isn't available and you don't know when it will be again?
BUS OWNER: One bad review on Yelp can hurt me for years?
ME: Let me share this from a rant on Reddit, "Yelp’s advertising model is controversial, to say the least. If business owners don’t fork over money for ads, Yelp allegedly hides positive reviews and showcases negative ones, essentially holding business reputations hostage."
You know what they say about the details...
Social Media Marketing
"I see social media marketing everyday. How hard can it be?"
One of the first things I do when looking at small businesses accounts is see how many customers are engaging with their posts. I count, and get I get out my red pan and I delete- friends, family and employees gone. Now - are their numbers sufficient? Are their numbers growing? Very often the answer is no. They are putting out content, sometimes even constant content without any actual return.
What marketing professionals want you small businesses to know is that all marketing materials are supposed to have a goal. They are supposed to be created backward from that goal. A narrowly crafted message is a clear message. A clear message has a far better chance of doing it’s job.
Marketing materials are supposed to be created backwards from a narrowly defined goal.
Goal: You are trying to get more people to come into your store the 2nd week of July because it is always slow.
Post: Limited time offer running from today through July 13th. Don’t miss out. Bonus: The first 12 customers get a free glass water bottle.
Now you can track the effectiveness of your post. Did you get at least 50 people in? The outcome tells you the effectiveness of your marketing. You can use this information moving forward.
Do you see how this is different from the common post that goes something like, “We have this item in the store. Isn’t it nice?” How do you track how effective that effort was? If you had a busy week is it because of that post or a coincidence such as school break?
The other often missed element to social media posts is visuals that evoke emotion and desire. Most businesses are in the business of creating desire. Nestle wants you to desire chocolate. A masseuse wants you to want a massage. A furniture store wants you to want furniture. Does your photography evoke desire? Or are your post's videos of your store’s products going by so fast in the frame that it is impossible to connect with any item? When creating a video, ask yourself, "What is the intention of the video? How do I want to make the viewer FEEL? Does it tell them what to do next?".
There are many little tips that when combined can turn a bad video into an effective video. Stop wasting your valuable time. Make all your hard work, work. Want those tips? Give me a call.
"Make the plan; don't plan the outcome."
-Aunty Becky
“Entrepreneurs
must be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.”
Jeff Bezos
Stats
Why do these statistics matter?
Just like we beg our children to learn from our mistakes- we need to learn from those who have come before us.
The margins between success and failure are often very small.
Save time, money and protect yourself from failure. And remember, we need your small business. It matters!
5 Years
Most businesses don't make it past their 5th year. What do the successful entrepreneurs do differently?
16%
The personality types that are ideally suited to being entrepreneurs make up 16% of the population. Yet, somewhere between 42-55% of adults have tried to start a business at some point in their lives. Who are you? What traits do you need to learn or outsource ?
Entreprenuer
For the true entrepreneur, these statistics don't scare us. We are bold. We aren't afraid to take risks. We trust ourselves. We recover from mistakes. Was the mistake a failure or a lesson?
9 out of 10 people...
Around 89% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase. Small businesses need to know what big businesses know, to be able to compete. Do you know what their recipes are?
I'll get a loan or find investors!
Let's see...
Most small businesses that start as a sole proprietorship or a one to two-person business are funded by personal savings. Many clients come to me with the idea that they will use a bank or SBA loan, or get investors. Most of the time, this isn’t realistic. Why?
Pretend you are the loan provider. What would you want in order to lend someone money? You'd want to feel very secure that they would know how to use the money wisely. How many first-time entrepreneurs are worth that gamble? Here are some questions a lender might ask:
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Have you run a business like the one you want the loan for? For how long? Was it successful?
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If you get off to a slow start or hit a rough patch, do you have enough money to repay the loan from personal savings?
These are often the first two questions that kill the application. Banks and investors are looking to make money on the loan. So they need to feel very confident your business will turn a profit. Remember, most start-ups fail by the 6th year.
Between the lack of directly relevant experience and lack of substantial savings, many first-time entrepreneurs don’t qualify for a business loan. They have a far better chance of getting a personal loan, raising funds from friends and family, starting with a micro-budget, or looking to a creative funding source.
Don’t let this dissuade you. Every one of my businesses was started on a no or very low budget. I had to be extra creative, sure! But isn’t that what being a first-time entrepreneur is all about?
Where do I begin???
Someone please just tell me what to do next!!!
The beginning is tough. You have so many ideas, so many questions. You don’t know where to park them nor what to do next. The start-up phase is a time of juggling a lot of balls and trying to drop as few as possible. If you don’t have a background in juggling, it should feel hard - overwhelming even.
What you need is structure. You need to know what to prioritize, and you need to see how it all comes together. There are ways to approach this but it is never a linear process. It is at best a stop and start, mix and match, until you have gone crossed-eyed- and gotten through to your launch. Then it calms down. Well, kind of. It changes. It becomes more orderly anyhow.
The nature of learning every facet of your business is such that you need to first learn all the 101’s. You need to learn marketing 101, finances 101, advertising 101, market research 101, software 101, employment norms 101, and so on. I am your 101. Then, depending on your path you need to graduate and learn some 102’s.
The learning curve is steep. Many of my clients will take an onboarding survey so that I can gauge where they are with these different topics. Even 4 months in they can’t believe how much they have learned (or that there was so much they didn’t know). They quickly become competent.
Having started a handful of businesses I know the path well. I will help simplify. With structure, your mind will become more at ease and be able to better focus. You will do better, more efficient work. Knowing that someone else is always double-checking allows you not only to limit mistakes but provides peace of mind.
