The allure of starting your own online business has never been stronger. You are hearing the stories of wildly successful web-based start-ups and you are constantly inspired by the scale of the transformations people are seeing in their lives in very short periods of time. It feels like everyone is having 5-figure months and everyone has a sales funnel in place and you... well, you feel like you have been left behind.
I am not going to sugar coat this for you. Here it is, straight: You can have all that too.
Not really what you were expecting me to say, right? I bet you thought I would say “it takes time and hard work” or “yes, but these people have been working towards this for years!” and sure that’s true, it does take hard work, time and commitment. However, all those people that leave you feeling revved up and excited have one vital thing in common: they started.
That’s literally all you have to do and the potential to change your life is yours. You just have to start.
But I know that it’s overwhelming. It’s terrifying! There are so many things to do and most of them you don’t even know about yet! So where do you start?
Let’s talk about the 3, not so common, fundamental things that you should do to get started with your online business!
1. CHECK YOUR MINDSET + VISUALISE WHAT YOU WANT
Most ‘fundamentals to start your business’ lists will start with “Pick your product name!” Sure, that’s a super important step when starting your business, however I want to back right up. I would argue that before you can do anything, you need to check your mindset, get clocked on to what you want and how you are approaching it in your own mind and then start to visualise (or manifest) what you want actually happening.
Starting an online business can be a lonely road – not always and certainly not forever, but when you are starting out the reality is that you are often doing it on your own. Your family might not understand and your friends would really rather you just keep slogging away at your 9 to 5 like them. People fear people who are doing something different.
So it’s really easy to get sucked in by negativity and to be honest, this is why most businesses never even start. Brilliant ideas. Ideas with loads and loads of potential and the creator is stuck, paralysed by fear.
I learnt something recently. James Wedmore on his Mind Your Business podcast (if you don’t know that podcast, you really should check it out) reframed something I used to pride myself on: perfectionism is just fear of failing.
WOAH! I thought being a perfectionist was a good thing. It means attention to detail, it means calculated decisions, it means perfection! Right?
What if I told you that perfectionism was fear in disguise? Perfectionism is the excuse we tell ourselves to make it ok not to follow through, not launch that business now, not to take risks. We honestly believe we are reluctant to take off from the launch pad because we are being perfectionists. But it’s really just fear.
“Perfectionism is the excuse we tell ourselves to make it ok not to follow through, not to launch, not to take risks.”
Fear of stuffing it up, fear of doing it wrong, fear of looking silly or under-prepared or worse, like we don’t have all the answers. But the only way to learn and essentially, the only way to get those answers is to START.
SO here’s what to do: take a look at what’s stopping you. What are you telling yourself right now that is preventing you from launching your business. Is it something you can change, something like “I don’t know where to start?” if so, download my freebie for this post, it is a step-by-step guided workbook that will outline all the steps you need to take to get going. Or is it a belief you have that is stopping you in your tracks?
Write it down, identify where it’s coming from (and if possible eliminate the source, so for example if it’s coming from a negative friend or family member) and change the way you think about it.
Pro Tip: Another thing I learnt recently was the power of visualisation. This is sometimes called manifesting and while I am certainly no expert, I can see the immediate and very real benefits of establishing what you want and visualising yourself having it. I visualise myself working from anywhere I want, I visualise my bank account being so abundant that I can freely give to charity without feeling the guilt that I am taking from my own family. I visualise helping women start and build their dream businesses so much so that they become my friends and support network. There’s an immense power in seeing, inside your minds eye, exactly what you want to create. It’s motivation at it’s finest!
2. JUST PICK SOMETHING + GET STARTED!
I know what it’s like to have a mind that fills like it will burst from all the delicious juicy ideas that are wrestling for attention – that is natural when you have entrepreneurial bones in your body. It’s something that will never go away and will always tug you in a million different directions. People spend months, and some times years, waiting for all those possibilities to calm down and reveal the one great idea… but guess what. That rarely happens.
If you have one brilliant idea that you just HAVE to do, then go for it. Honestly, my friend, are one of the lucky ones. Go for it with all your might! But for the rest of us, we will always wrestle with which passion to pursue, which idea to breath life into. And the list of possibilities will never decrease. The hard truth: the further you go with online business, the more ideas and possibilities you will have.
The trick is to just pick something. Once you get started you might deviate, but if you don’t pick just one thing: one product, one service or one concept – you will be going round and round in circles for ever and ultimately, you’ll regret wasting time.
Some of the most successful entrepreneurs say that they learnt things on the fly – that their current, hugely successful business actually developed through another idea. And if they hadn’t just gotten started, that idea would have never come to life.
“By picking something and getting started you open yourself up to the possibility of transforming your life.”
By picking something and getting started you open yourself up to the possibility of transforming your life. It might not happen right away but without choosing an idea and making a move, you’ll never be open to finding your way to the business you were meant to have!
Pro tip: I keep saying “pick something” and “pick one thing”. I literally mean, pick ONE thing. I know with all those ideas it feels rather painful to commit to just one thing. You find yourself trying to create a business that will allow you to do all the things. But the trick is to pick just one thing and focus on that. So if you are starting an online business selling your artworks, don’t add in an eCourse that teaches people how to paint like you. That might be a great addition later on, but when you are just starting out, pick just one thing and focus your time, energy and resources on that!
3. INVEST + BE READY TO LEARN + LEARN AGAIN!
The thing I love most about the internet is the huge array of information at your fingertips. You can literally learn anything by just jumping onto Google or Pinterest and for the most part, you can learn something about anything for free or relatively cheaply.
That’s why I can’t accept “I don’t know what I am doing” as an excuse for not starting your online business today! There’s so many resources out there, websites that break things down for you, step-by-step (websites like Brand It Girl *shameless plug*!!) and provide you with the things you need to know – for free!
But I am actually a huge fan for paying for this info too. Enter online courses.
I love online training programs and I do honestly think that paying for them puts you at a huge advantage! Now that sounds weird, right? You are thinking” “why would I pay for it if I can find it free?” – well I have a few reasons, so hear me out:
- Sure you can spend the next month or two browsing through all the results that Google and Pinterest show up when you type in ‘Start an Online Business’ – in fact, that might just be how you found this blog post! You could do that, and you would find some really valuable information. But you would also be wasting time. If you can find the one awesome resource that would teach you everything you need to know then you could cut down that search time significantly and spend your Pinterest browse time learning and improving specific strategies rather than trying to learn everything!
- I am also a fan of paying for information because I believe it changes your relationship with the commitment you are making. If you put down money – even if it’s not much money – your commitment to learning and achieving is totally different. It’s a driver, you have skin in the game! You want to make it worth your while, so your relationship shifts. Think about it: if you invest in a new hobby or a new piece of equipment, there’s always a part of you that thinks, “Well, I gotta make this work! I have invested in this!” and that’s exactly what I did when I decided to start making online training programs. I invested in an expensive microphone and video editing software and thought to myself “ok, there is no turning back now!” Investing in yourself and your business is not only necessary for growth, it will also motivate and get you going when you are just starting out!
Now, I am encouraging you to find the perfect online course, however I know that the overwhelm of this task you are undertaking – to start and grow an online business – can be really daunting and if we are honest, I know you are not 100% sold on parting with your money. So I wanted to make it a little easier for you and offer you a freebie, the Online Business Launcher Guide Book (that I really should charge for!!) and this will walk you through launching your online business in just 14 days! Just click below and I will deliver it straight to your inbox!
The process of learning is never ending as an online business owner. You’ll learn, learn and then learn some more and you’ll feel like there is always something else to master. That’s part of the draw about being an online entrepreneur: there is always something else you can learn!
The potential for growth in more traditional 9-5 jobs is often so limited. Even the awesome jobs that outlay ladders of advancement in front of their employees are still capped with parameters around how much you can learn and progress. The best thing about being an online business owner is that there is no ceiling to how much you can learn, grow and develop. Your idea, concept or product offering could transform multiple times, and that’s just part of the fun!
Now I hope that I have enticed you to get going! Remember if you need support, I would love to be a cheerleader for you and I have a whole community of likeminded ladies that would love to meet you over at the free private Brand It Society Facebook group! However, in the meantime, if you are going to do anything today, I wholeheartedly encourage you to accept my gift of the Online Business Launcher Guide Workbook!
