By Gregg Hall
You may have heard some people saying that starting your
own business is difficult. Guess what? They're not kidding.
Starting a business, in many ways, is a lot like having a
child and before you get started there are lots of things
you need to think about and discuss with anyone you can.
Can You Afford to Fail?
You might have heard the old saying 'only gamble what you
can afford to lose'. Well a large percentage of online
businesses fail in their first year, so if your financial
situation is such that you will agonise over every small
amount you spend, starting a business is probably a bad idea.
Put it this way: Expect that you will not to make any
money in the first few months as very few people achieve
success immediately. Most often it takes anyware from 3 to
6 months before you start to see a return for your efforts.
Note that this doesn't mean that you shouldn't believe in
yourself and your business - simply that you have to
realize the kind of odds you're up against and stay
realistic.
Will You Stick at It?
You can't get halfway through all this and have a sudden
change of heart, or feel like you're doomed to fail. All
successful business spend plenty of time doing badly before
they start to pick up. You need to prepare yourself for a
steady stream of failure being slowly replaced by success.
Don't expect the world all at once.
Could You Take the Stress?
Starting a business is one of the most stressful things
you can do. It will affect you mentally, physically and
emotionally. You need to be strong to deal with this kind
of stress, and you need to have someone to turn to for
support.
Are You a Survivor?
There are some people who always seem to make it in the
end, regardless of what life throws at them. You need to be
the kind of person whose response to things going wrong is
to work harder and get it fixed, not someone who cries and
goes into hiding.
Many entrepreneurs say that this, more than anything, is
the secret of success. You need to be a 'never say die'
kind of person. You need to be always ready to try again,
no matter what gets thrown at you. Remember that it's not
when things start to go wrong that you fail - you haven't
failed until you've given up.
Be Prepared to Work Hard.
If you've been doing a standard nine-to-five job, you're
probably used to a world where it's someone else's
responsibility if the work doesn't get done - you work as
fast as you can for the hours you're told to, and if it's
not done on time then it's the manager's fault for not
hiring enough people.
When you work on your own, though, there's no-one to blame
- the buck stops where it starts, with you.
You Need to Satisfy Every Customer.
When you run an online business, you can't afford to lose
your customers. You need to always be nice to them, trying
to meet their needs. You have to remember that you're the
most senior person they can talk to in your organisation,
so you have to act like it.
When there's no-one other than you to handle complaints,
you have to either give in to customers at every
opportunity or watch them take their business elsewhere.
Do You Really Love What You Do?
If you don't love what you do, then sooner or later you're
going to want to stop doing it - and when you run an online
business, that's difficult. Besides, you can't run a
business if you're always sitting and thinking about how
great it'll be when it's the weekend.
Think of it this way:
Could you run up to someone on the street with a leaflet
about your business and tell them all about it in a way
that would really leave an impression?
It doesn't matter whether you actually could or not - if
you think everyone will be interested, then, believe me,
they will be.
Gregg Hall is a consultant for online and offline businesses and lives in Navarre Florida. Get reviews on executive business books at Executive Business Book Summaries
You may have heard some people saying that starting your
own business is difficult. Guess what? They're not kidding.
Starting a business, in many ways, is a lot like having a
child and before you get started there are lots of things
you need to think about and discuss with anyone you can.
Can You Afford to Fail?
You might have heard the old saying 'only gamble what you
can afford to lose'. Well a large percentage of online
businesses fail in their first year, so if your financial
situation is such that you will agonise over every small
amount you spend, starting a business is probably a bad idea.
Put it this way: Expect that you will not to make any
money in the first few months as very few people achieve
success immediately. Most often it takes anyware from 3 to
6 months before you start to see a return for your efforts.
Note that this doesn't mean that you shouldn't believe in
yourself and your business - simply that you have to
realize the kind of odds you're up against and stay
realistic.
Will You Stick at It?
You can't get halfway through all this and have a sudden
change of heart, or feel like you're doomed to fail. All
successful business spend plenty of time doing badly before
they start to pick up. You need to prepare yourself for a
steady stream of failure being slowly replaced by success.
Don't expect the world all at once.
Could You Take the Stress?
Starting a business is one of the most stressful things
you can do. It will affect you mentally, physically and
emotionally. You need to be strong to deal with this kind
of stress, and you need to have someone to turn to for
support.
Are You a Survivor?
There are some people who always seem to make it in the
end, regardless of what life throws at them. You need to be
the kind of person whose response to things going wrong is
to work harder and get it fixed, not someone who cries and
goes into hiding.
Many entrepreneurs say that this, more than anything, is
the secret of success. You need to be a 'never say die'
kind of person. You need to be always ready to try again,
no matter what gets thrown at you. Remember that it's not
when things start to go wrong that you fail - you haven't
failed until you've given up.
Be Prepared to Work Hard.
If you've been doing a standard nine-to-five job, you're
probably used to a world where it's someone else's
responsibility if the work doesn't get done - you work as
fast as you can for the hours you're told to, and if it's
not done on time then it's the manager's fault for not
hiring enough people.
When you work on your own, though, there's no-one to blame
- the buck stops where it starts, with you.
You Need to Satisfy Every Customer.
When you run an online business, you can't afford to lose
your customers. You need to always be nice to them, trying
to meet their needs. You have to remember that you're the
most senior person they can talk to in your organisation,
so you have to act like it.
When there's no-one other than you to handle complaints,
you have to either give in to customers at every
opportunity or watch them take their business elsewhere.
Do You Really Love What You Do?
If you don't love what you do, then sooner or later you're
going to want to stop doing it - and when you run an online
business, that's difficult. Besides, you can't run a
business if you're always sitting and thinking about how
great it'll be when it's the weekend.
Think of it this way:
Could you run up to someone on the street with a leaflet
about your business and tell them all about it in a way
that would really leave an impression?
It doesn't matter whether you actually could or not - if
you think everyone will be interested, then, believe me,
they will be.
Gregg Hall is a consultant for online and offline businesses and lives in Navarre Florida. Get reviews on executive business books at Executive Business Book Summaries
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