Today more than ever people want to be self-employed. The job market sucks. Oh I know there are lots of jobs but most of them really suck. Are you kidding me, being stuck in a cubical for the next 20 years or with someone else in control of how much I earn? Forget that.
No matter what you do, whether you start a business part time on the side or you already have a business, read this.
I wrote this for you.
When it comes to owning your own business there are a lot of skeptics out there who advise against the risks. But self-employment is neither risky nor a bad thing unless the individual who wants to be self employed is delusional. What do I mean by delusional? Well, there are a few things I mean by it.
First, if you are going to write your own ticket, as they say, you need to be an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is not someone who simply does not want to work for others. When I started out in 1992 I had dreams of owning massive company. If there was a definition of ignorance on fire, I was it.
I absolutely knew my trade, which at the time was locksmithing. I serviced new and old, complex locks, automobile ignitions and door locks and every type of safe you can imagine. That’s what good locksmith’s do. And the answer is yes; I can get into any safe on the planet if I have 2 things, the right tools and enough time. I have the knowledge.
They say “knowledge is power” but without the right tools, it is frustrating at best.
Business is about vision, action, knowledge, tools and time.
Everything starts with a vision but does not end there. When you have a vision for business you will use the best tools available to drive your business. A lot of people who want to be self-employed just want to work for themselves where they will unknowingly go to work every day as an employee with employee mentality. Simply put, you work harder than you have ever worked for any boss because you want to please your current boss, you. If this is you, you are insane and you need to wake up before it drives you to the poor house or worse, your death bed. How do I know, I had a business steal 10 years of my life. I missed thousands of dinners with my family, and the longer I did it to more I tried to drown my sorrows in a bottle. I learned this the hard way. I had to crash and burn before I was able to change my life. I was self-employed but I worked for an idiot, me.
I felt successful at the time but I realized my success was because I am honest and hard working. But being honest and hard working does not make you an entrepreneur; there are millions of people who do that every day. Being honest and hard working just makes you a good employee. If you are just going to be an employee why not let someone else stress over payroll, insurance, rent and all the regulations? It took me many years and many businesses and lots of failures to learn that business is not about work.
It is about vision, action, knowledge, tools and with enough time, a business can find more than enough customers to make any entrepreneur wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. With the right vision, taking action on that vision, the knowledge it takes to build systems of operations, accounting, marketing and sales, it’s simply a matter of time. There are sub categories of each of these but thank God as an entrepreneur we get to assign or outsource nearly all of them.
The second part is, you do have to be willing to work on your business and not in it. I mean you have to put extreme focus on the activities that matter most. When I say the activities that matter I am talking about the activities that attract prequalified leads and bring income while developing systems to drive your company exponential growth.
Yes, you must create qualified leads. Lots and lots of them.
This is your first job and must be your primary focus for however many years you decide to own your business.
You have to decide who specifically do you want to reach. You need to be super clear on who it is and if you are, you need to go after them with every dollar you can spend that brings any return above a break even. Once you have done this, where “your phone rings” as they say, now up your game to higher ticket items that bring the profits. It’s a math equation, nothing else. Very simple, honest and measurable. If its working, you know it, if its not you keep tweaking until it is.
You must track them, measure their actions and know what your prospect is thinking about at all times. You must seamlessly take orders, AKA sell your product or service. You must seamlessly account for the money. You should outsource or delegate nearly everything, especially the stuff you don’t like doing, even if you are good at it. When I say outsource, I mean you don’t do the work, they could be your employee or someone in Cincinnati or Bangladesh. Just now you.
You must have enough money aka profit to operate your business and pay yourself profit. Profit is the only reason you are in business. Many argue about this point saying money isn’t everything and million other excuses on why they don’t have the money they need. Profit is the only thing that makes this game, the entrepreneur game, worth playing and if you are not making profit, get help or play a different game.
To your lifelong freedom,
David Mulvaney
Keep an eye on my blog. I’m going to show you everything you need to do to make money in a business of your own.