Getting Started – An Entrepreneur’s first steps

The first cardinal sin in marketing is assuming your product or service is THE answer to everyone’s dreams and prayers.

Needing some motivation to help get you off center and take that first step? Here are 5 ideas to help get you going.

Trying to launch a new business but don’t know where to begin??? Wow … where do I start? 😉 That sentiment is echoed by thousands of new entrepreneurs every year! I had the same problem.

I spent hours upon hours every week consuming everything I could about marketing and advertising and social media and all things business-related. YouTube and websites and bears, oh my! But still, NGOA syndrome persisted (not getting off @$$!). It was information overload on steroids. I was consuming so much information, under the guise I would make tons of money someday with all that knowledge, that it was next to impossible to retain even a small portion – let alone put any to good use. But eventually, my motivation to make money overpowered my motivation to be the most educated marketer on the planet – and my posterior suddenly became … lighter. So, if all this sounds familiar, here are 5 tips to stop the content consumption madness and start putting all that information to use.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Do you have a product or service already? Great, use some of the tips below to help get it off the ground. But I find most pre-entrepreneurs have the hardest time landing on a product or service to offer. And we’ve all heard the “expert” suggestions before – follow your passions, analyze trends, copy a successful business model, start with an affiliate offer … shall I go on? At the end of the day, no one can answer this question for you. But I will say inventing a wheel and figuring out how to make it turn, too, can be challenging. Affiliate offers can be a great way to test the proverbial waters (and your marketing skills) while putting you in a great place to come up with your “next”, million-dollar idea! Here are a few places to get started: Commission Junction, and ClickBank.

One last thing here – I play poker, as a hobby, and it’s taught me two things. One, Lady Luck can be a brutal opponent and two, there’s ALWAYS another hand. Don’t get caught up in thinking this will be your only idea or opportunity. You might hit a home run on the first swing – I sincerely hope you do – if not, mixing metaphors, there will always be another hand.

Lady Luck can be a brutal opponent and there’s ALWAYS another hand.

Reach out to a friend. Now wait, before you blow past this idea as an empty page filler, hear me out. We all have successful, or, at the very least, friends we look up to. And I guarantee they’re just like you and me and suffer from NGOA syndrome from time to time. The great thing about this approach is the credibility of the information. You already look up to or admire their accomplishments and credibility = more likely to listen, and the fact that they’re a friend means they’re more likely to give you the time. Reach out to 5 friends like this and ask them for 30 minutes. I guarantee you’ll leave these meetings with at least a few good suggestions or ideas.

Spend some cash. This one is a little tricky because notice I didn’t say, throw some money away. And you can easily do that by putting your trust in an “expert” without the experience or cred to give advice that will help. You’re going to have to do some research here and find someone whose approach fits. Only you will know who that is. But here are some leaders in the industry that have been successful giving advice to others: Pat Flynn and Neil Patel.

Pardon the corniness, but most times the road does leads to a destination – not the other way around.

Just start building. I know, what??? Wing it here. If you have an inkling of what you’ll be doing start building a website around that. The point of this suggestion is to start giving you real-world experience that will benefit you when your idea comes together. Unless you’re ripe with cash, and plan to outsource all your web development (more on that in a later post), you’ll need the expertise this exercise will help build. And you’ll be pleasantly surprised what this process will … inspire (aka, force) you to learn. And trust me, as someone who has used this tactic themselves, it really can help you connect the dots. Pardon the corniness, but most times the road does lead to a destination – not the other way around. Here are some places to start: WordPress; Wix; Website.com; Weebly. I’d recommend starting with WordPress.

Make a date. No, not with your significant other or hot person down the street, with yourself!. First, sit in front of your PC or phone or whatever you use as a calendar. Next, set up a reoccurring date – find an hour a day when you get up in the morning or get home from work or whenever works, and block out time. Force yourself, I guarantee you can find the time if you’re committed. I have a saying, we make time for those things important to us and excuses for everything else. Are your dreams important? You’ll be surprised how effective this simple tactic can be. Force yourself to create and follow that schedule. Devote the time to a modest amount of consumption (YouTube, podcasts, blogs, etc.) supplemented with a larger amount of production (blogging, website creation, etc.). Like it or not, the web, your primary sales mechanism, is ALL about content. What do you think this is? And you’re eventually going to have to procure or produce some content in support of your marketing. So again if you ask, about what? Again I’ll say, just pick something. If your idea is fully baked then blog or vlog or record content around that. If not, you’ll be surprised how this exercise will get the creative juices flowing and potentially, lead you from pre-entrepreneur to business owner! It’s time to get off your … you know ;). You can find a few more ideas here. 

Good luck!