Ten Tips to Ignore When Starting a Business

Ten Tips to Ignore When Starting a Business
by Cathy Goodwin

Summary: Everyone has advice for you when you're starting a business, but it's not all good advice! Here are ten tips you'd be better off ignoring.

1. "Career freedom means starting a business."
Clients often assume they can reach career freedom only by starting a business. I know dozens of people who feel very free in a corporate setting. They swim easily in the corporate stream and learn to balance their lives. Some even return after successful entrepreneurial ventures.

2. "Don't worry, be happy."
Some advisors tell you, "You'll be great," even if they secretly believe you're following a harebrained path that is doomed to fail. Do your own research and get second and third opinions.

3. "Visualize success."
While I support visualizing and attracting, I do not believe you can attract business from a non-existent target market. Better to attract prosperity and fulfillment. You might also try to attract knowledge and discernment so you can evaluate your various advisors.

4. "If you can dream it, you can do it."
You can dream of meeting the Queen of England at your local Wal-Mart but you may have to wait awhile. The reverse is often true -- you must have a dream before you experience the reality -- but some people manage to skip the journey and enjoy the arrival.

5. "If other people can have a successful business, you can too."
Unless you strongly resemble those "other people," they're irrelevant.

6. "You will probably fail."
Your advisor may be using fear to motivate you to work harder or sign up for his success course. Do your own research.

7." If you feel energized about your goal, you will be successful."
Feeling energized just means you enjoy some aspect of what you are doing. Figure out what you enjoy and design a life to include more of it.

8. "You can always go back to what you were doing before."
After months or years of trying to start a business, you and your former career will be different and your former colleagues will view you differently. Better to begin with a job that you can leave if you become successful. Stay in a position of power.

9." You have had a successful career so far and you'll figure out how to be successful now."
Basketball players do not always thrive on football teams and baseball is a different game altogether. Enough said.

10. "You will be fine; you just need more confidence."
If you lack self-confidence in several areas of your life, see a clinician. Otherwise your lack of confidence in your entrepreneurial skills is probably reality-based and should be viewed as a signal to find another advisor.

Cathy Goodwin, PhD, is an author, career consultant and speaker, who combines solid expertise with humor, common sense and intuition. Visit her at http://www.makewritingpay.com or for more info, e-mail Cathy at cathy@makewritingpay.com.

How To Turn An Idea Into A Business in 1 Day

Have an Idea For a New Product, Service or Business?

FREE INFORMATIVE SEMINAR – June 30 (5 – 7 pm)
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· Test Your Ideas Quickly & Cheaply
· Identify and Head Off Potential Points of Failure
· This Event is Hands ON! Don’t Just Learn It, DO It!
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· Learn Effective Ways to Market Your New Business or Service For Next to Nothing
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· The Information and Our Process Will Last You a Lifetime

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WHO BENEFITS MOST FROM ATTENDING:
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Laid Off? Do This to Run Your Own Business

Written by: Rich Sloan

You just got fired for the last time. Now you’re in charge of the hiring / firing policy. Why? Because you are starting your own business… FINALLY.

To hang the “BOSS” sign on your door, here are 5 quick tips:

1) Play to Your Passion: Figure out what turns you on – if you’re passionate about a business idea, your chances of success go way up. That passion will help you get through the tough times. See Life Planning at StartupNation, the first of 10 Steps to open a business.

2) Take Stock: No, not shares of the company. We mean take stock of what your skills are, the resources you have available, the track record you might be able to leverage from a marketing perspective.

3) Commit to Your Concept: create a short but clear statement about what your business idea is. It’s OK if this morphs into something else, but you need to force yourself to distill the idea into a brief statement that’s clear to any third party (money people, customers, partners, employees, web designers, etc.)

4) Google Like Mad: To collect some quick research, immediately start Googling for anything and everything associated with your idea. The faster you become an authority, the faster you’ll be able to come up with your business strategy, including pricing, target markets, milestone timing, operations and more.

5) Test Drive: Find someone—maybe a few people—who’ll be your sounding board for your ideas and strategies. It’s easy to buy into your own hype when working up a business opportunity. Use insiders for this, but don’t be afraid to ask people who have no relationship with you. One smart thing to do is find someone in non-competitive geographic market who runs a similar business and ask them to be a mentor.

If you take these quick steps, you’ll quickly replace confusion, fear, desperation or any of those kinds of negative thoughts with information, action items and the beginning of a path forward to get your own business off the ground.

Check out this video http://usat.gannett.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/gannett-usatoday-206-pub01-live/current/launch.html?maven_playerId=immersiveproduction&maven_referralObject=954278504