Are You Thinking About Starting A Business?
If you’re thinking about a business start-up and entrepreneurship, it’s really useful to look at your situation from a broad perspective. By widening your view, you can open opportunities you might not have considered. Coaching can support you in expanding your perspective, giving you an insight into what’s possible.
Moreover, it’s useful to do a little preparation before we launch into plotting and planning our empire.
Business-Start Up And Entrepreneurship Is Best Approached From An Abundant Mindset
The fact is that many people start thinking about setting up a business because they’re unhappy with their job, or after a job loss. Honestly, moving away from what we don’t want rather than towards a what we do can be an unhelpful start point.
Moreover, we can often find ourselves replicating our employee behaviour. For example, doing what we’re good at rather than doing what we enjoy.
This is fear-driven behaviour based on the idea that there is not enough money in the world, specifically, not enough for us to do what we love!
Actually, we can do what we love, if that’s the direction we want to take. The fact is, we want to honestly assess where we are in lives, what family commitments we have, and what kind of lifestyle we want to lead in order to decide what kind of business is best for us.
It's Got To Be Your First Choice!
I was chatting with a client about starting a business recently. We had discussed a couple of ideas for a business and left it there. Suddenly, my client said ” I think I’ll only set up a business if I can’t get another job.”
I stopped in my tracks. There was simply nowhere to hide from the simple truth, so I said it. “In that case, setting up a business may be an inappropriate choice for you right now. In your honest opinion, do you believe that setting up a business, similar to having a baby, should be a second option?”
Being an entrepreneur is a journey of endurance. It requires belief, determination, tenacity, bravery and above all else 100% faith that whatever you put in, you’re going to get back – somewhere along the way. Quite simply, if we think of a business as a second option, it’s only every going to be something on the side.
Needless to say, it can be a good idea to start a business while you have a full-time income, and yet you want to have a clear plan to be working on it full time within 12-18 months.
So Where Do We Begin?
Surprisingly enough, it doesn’t always begin with the business idea itself.
Firstly, it’s useful to understand your career values, what’s important to you about your working life going forward, and how you can align with those values.
Next, you might want to consider the type of business you want to set up. Do you want to sell a product, or do you want to sell you and your time? There are so many articles out there telling you to make ‘money in your sleep’ by selling a product. However, it’s useful to consider whether that is appropriate for you. You may want a business that connects you to others and makes you a reasonable income. If that’s the case, you may want to sell your expertise and your time. This decision is worthy of a long ‘thrashing session’!
Furthermore, if you’re planning a business start-up and launching into entrepreneurship, it’s a big shift to go from being part of a company where we tend to have one main role. When we run a small business, we wear many hats, and deciding what to keep in-house and farm out is critical.
When you feel comfortable and certain with these two areas, it’s time to consider the WHAT and the HOW.
Testing Is The Key To Achieving What You Want
What’s really important is that you become increasingly comfortable with the idea of testing. What we sometimes forget is that selling ourselves is totally different from promoting ourselves when we work for a company. Indeed, when we work for others we use the brand, product or service as an emotional barrier between us and the client. When you’re selling your own business, you’re passionate about and deeply connected to the impact it has on others. Quite simply, it feels different. Moreover, when business goes well the reward is so much greater and when we face challenging it can feel so much bigger.
What’s more, when we launch a business, whether in the same or a different field to the one which we may have been working in as an employee, testing is really important. We test specific approaches to find out what works and what doesn’t. If we’re prepared for some of our tests to be unsuccessful then we become emotionally prepared to manage feedback – whatever that feedback is! We allow ourselves the freedom to gain feedback rapidly, be philosophical, analyse it, and use that feedback to guide us towards a newly-refined approach that places us in the optimum position to succeed.
Money Is Not A Goal or Value, It's A Resource
What I have learned personally, is that having a goal of ONLY financial reward can be misleading and deeply unhelpful.
In a new business we face ups and downs financially and if your primrary goal is earning money, you can experience de-motivation when you hit a low financial point.
If you align your values and business goals clearly, you’ll define what success means to you. Moreover, you’ll probably find a balance of values that reflect a higher representation of money and other that relate to personal achievement. I share this because when you face a challenge in your entrepreneurial experience, it’s the desire for personal achievement that keeps your nose to the grindstone.
Always Consider Your Resources: Time, People And More
Unless you set up your business with a large amount of financial backing you’ll probably find yourself challenged in terms of resource. You may find yourself successfully selling your services and then finding the time to do the administration of your business will seem like a lesser priority. It isn’t, and yet how do you find the time?
What’s more, if you’re starting from a position of me, myself and I, as you grow you’ll find yourself juggling, constantly chasing your tail and balancing your time between delivery, selling and administration. There will come a point where you will want to delegate out to people, even if they don’t do it just the way you want it done. This leap of faith will support you in delivering your services more effectively and it requires emotional disconnection to keep your sanity.
Further disconnection is required when you decide where and with whom the most effective place to direct your attention is. It’s important to resist the urge to work take up every opportunity if you’re time challenged. Keep an overall goal in mind and assess every opportunity based on whether it supports you in achieving your higher-level goal or distracts you from it. This is easier said than done and I’ve learned this through the price of experience. What’s more, I probably will again!
Adding My Thoughts Into The Mix
How you go about setting up your own business will depend upon a number of factors, the main one being your relationship to risk. Now, I’m currently working on my third business and I’m far from an expert. But I am a risk taker so I have many tales of risks that have paid off and risks that have left me eating brown rice and butter for a month at a time!
Fortunately, I have a sense of humour and with the large amount of feedback I’ve received, I am always delighted to share. Honestly, there are things I’ve done that have worked and many that haven’t.
What’s more, I can share my perspective on the actions that I’ve taken that with 20:20 hindsight I can look back now and consider how I’d probably do them differently next time. And I’m still learning everyday, with my current business interests.
For A Business Start-Up I Vote For Passion Every Time
The one piece of advice I can give you is to ensure you choose to set up a business in something you’re truly passionate about. That passion will get you through the times when it seems as if you’re knocking your head against a brick wall!
What’s more, when you’re doing something you truly love, it will give you the motivation and desire to push through barriers of tiredness and reach deep inside yourself for that little bit extra when you’ve had 5 “no thank yous” in a row.
If you want to set up business as a coach or trainer, or any other business then you’re going to want self-belief in bucket-loads! What’s more, you’re going to want to ‘do’ rather than talk and be prepared to get out there and make it happen …even if you’re not quite sure how.
Find Out More About Business Start-Up And Entrepreneurship Coaching With Me
To find out more about coaching with me, or if you’d like to arrange a call to see if we’re a good fit for one another, please send me an email to sarah@sarahmerron.com.
You can book coaching online here.
Find out about NLP Training here.
If you’re interested in group training and coaching, you can check out my Farcical Life Programmes here.
