When starting a business, it’s sometimes hard to know what to prioritize, and going at it alone may be overwhelming. But there are strategies you should use to avoid common pitfalls.
My mission is to show people the right way to earn money from their passions. It’s what I did: I went from living on food stamps to constructing two online businesses.
Today, I run a music blog, The Recording Revolution, and a entrepreneurship coaching company. I work just five hours per week from my home office and make $160,000 a month in passive income.
Here’s what I tell my 3,000 clients to take into consideration in the primary 30 days of beginning a business:
1. Be clear about how you would like to spend your time.
Many latest business owners I meet know just one thing: how much money they have the desire to make.Â
While that is a fantastic start line, it’s incomplete. What you are promoting should serve your life, not the opposite way around. So be certain that it aligns along with your hopes, dreams and goals.
To get clear in regards to the variety of business and life you would like, ask three questions:
- What does an ideal day appear to be to you? Don’t just take into consideration your typical workday. Consider other life activities you would like to fit into your day, like exercising or spending time with family.
- What number of hours do you would like to work per week? You haven’t got to follow the usual 40-hour workweek. Knowing exactly what number of hours you would like to work will make it easier to higher prioritize tasks.
- How necessary is day off? Some people don’t care much about taking day off, so long as they love what they do. Others value prolonged day off. To be able to have money flowing in whenever you’re not working, you’ll have to have some kind of passive income stream.
2. Simplify your small business model.
After I began my music education business, people told me I needed to check my sales pages, throw launch parties and pre-record a bunch of ads with the intention to grow.
Slightly than stretching myself thin doing things that did not make sense to me, I kept it easy and focused on three things: creating weekly content for my blog and YouTube channel, growing my email list from that audience, and promoting the paid products I created to that list.
In case you’re just starting out, develop content around your expertise to grow an audience. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You possibly can iterate as you go and design latest products based on what your customers want more of.
3. Cut out unnecessary every day tasks.
Discover what every day activities will make it easier to earn more. Don’t waste time or burn yourself out specializing in unimportant tasks.
It would feel good to get to inbox zero or change the colour of the buttons in your website, especially within the early days where you would like to feel like you’ve got achieved a goal. But neither of those things will make you money.
Before you begin a latest task, ask yourself three questions:
- What is the expected final result for doing this task?Â
- Does it result in extra money?
- Can I point to a direct link between doing that task and earning income?
- What’s the price of doing this as an alternative of something else?Â
4. Prioritize having fun.
People can tell in case you’re just doing something for the cash or in case you actually love what you do. That authenticity will connect you deeper to your customers and it is going to sustain you for the long haul.Â
You do not need to burn out since you spent all of your time doing things that weren’t meaningful to you.
I all the time give my students this framework once they are starting their entrepreneur journey: Construct a business around something you see yourself doing and having fun with for the following 10 years.Â
Graham Cochrane is founding father of The Recording Revolution and creator of “Learn how to Get Paid for What You Know.” He has helped greater than 3,000 people launch and improve their very own businesses. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter.
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