So you’ve made the decision to start a business. Woohoo. You’ve just made a great decision. But what’s next? What’s the first step that you need to take?
I’ll break it down for you. Here’s how you can get started in your business:
Get clear on the objective of your business
There are two questions for you to consider here:
- What is the purpose behind your business?
and,
- out of all of the businesses you could have started, what made you choose this specific one?
I chose to start my business because I felt lost in my career and I wanted to do something more meaningful with my life. Initially, I wanted to use coaching to help me to be a better manager. The more I started to coach, the more I realised how much I enjoyed it. I was making a difference to the people that I worked with and I was realising my full potential. It was win, win.
Not only did I start my business to help women to start & succeed in their business, I started it to create more freedom for myself. I was tired of working for other people who didn’t appreciate me and my skills and fulfilling someone else’s goal.
There are soo many different coaches out there. Stress relief coach, leadership coach, money coach, vocal coach, transformational coach, there are tons. I started this particular business (Business startup coaching) because as I was promoting my services women, who I initially wanted to work with for career coaching wanted to discuss starting a business. And I also realised that as I was building my business, I was developing valuable knowledge and skills, and I wanted to share that with others. I also really love helping people to build their businesses.
I was in a unique position because I was building my business and picking up strategies and tools that had helped me along the way, and things which definitely did not help me. So I could relate to my clients and meet them exactly where they were.
Being clear on the purpose of your business and why you started it is the first step towards creating a successful business. Because now you have a purpose, you have something to drive you forward and motivate you. You also have your very own origin story which every great business owner needs.
Research your area of business
Before you apply for a new job it’s likely that you’ll do some research to help you to better understand the company. You’ll probably also have read the job description so you can get an idea of what would be expected of you if you were to get an interview or get the job.
The same principle applies in business.
When I trained to be a coach I was surrounded by other prospective and experienced coaches who had years of experience in the industry. They were able to share their knowledge and experience which gave me a really good insight into what life would be like as a professional coach. I knew that as a coach I would need to identify my niche (business start-up coaching) and my target client (women working in a corporate environment who want to start a business).
It’s important to understand your area of business so you can prepare yourself.
- Carry out research that helps you to identify what day to day life would be like in your area of business.
- Identify the key people in your area of business so you can connect with them on social media and understand the content they’re posting and what their followers (who will be your ideal clients) enjoy reading and watching. You can also see the questions they’re asking which will help you to create content, including new products and services.
It also helps you to be aware of any emerging trends in your area of business and will give you a really great idea of how to prepare yourself for life in that area of business.
Identify your perfect person
We live in a big world and there are billions of people out there. What specific area of the population will your business be targeting. This stumped me when I started because I wanted to help everyone. But think about it. Everyone includes babies, toddlers, teenagers, adults and the elderly. Which group of people is your product or service created for?
Then think about what industry they fall within, particularly if you’re a service based business. Do they work in a corporate environment, retail, the restaurant industry, engineering or finance. Just like there are many groups of people there are many industries where your ideal client could be based.
The actions you carried out in step 2 above will assist you with this exercise. Use the research you carried out to help you to identify your ideal client.
Now, there’s more to identifying your ideal client, or as I like to call them your perfect person. But this is a really good starting point. By researching your industry you’ll have a much clearer idea of who your product or service is created for. If you need help identifying your ideal client, I’ve got a course to help you out. You can access it here.
Identify the skills you have and the skills that you need
The chances are you’ve spent your entire career as an employee. I know I did. As an employee you followed the instructions of your manager and whilst you may have had responsibility over a large degree of your work, you were not responsible for determining what the goals of the organisation were. As a business owner, particularly at the outset, it will be necessary for you to be the accountant, the marketer, customer service officer, content creator, designer and so much more. Now is the time to get clear on what your role as a business owner will be.
It may be helpful for you to create a job description which sets out what you think your tasks will be. Again, it’s useful to carry out some research to give you a better idea of the type of activities/roles you’ll need to carry out when you first start out in business. I’ve created another blog which sets out the difference between the role of an employee and the role of a boss. You can check it out here.
So to summarise:
- Define the objective of your business
- Carry out research into your area of business
- Identify your ideal client
- Identify the skills you’ll need to help you to succeed in business
So what’s next for you? Book a free Business Buster call to help you to get clear about what to focus on in your business and what’s holding you back. You’ll leave the call feeling motivated and clearer about what direction to take in your business.