What Does the New Entrepreneur, Exit Employee, and Retiree Have in Common?
Answer: "Turning their great idea into their own startup business."
We’re never too young or too old to start our own business. At the heart of your business is a great idea and with any luck, you have people willing to support, partner and share in your dream.
Beginning a start-up has both short term and long-term investments of time, energy, finances, and relationships. Your character, talents, and skills will be challenged with a range and types of learning curves. You will not be the expert in all aspects of small business planning, so it's a good idea to understand what you bring to the table and what you will eventually need to bring to the table.
As leaders, It is wise to list your personal assets. I’m talking about your personal character and qualities, skill, and talent you bring to this venture. This inventory will be of value when identifying who can do what task or take on aspect of the business. It is of equal value to recognize what talent will be needed from outside your circle.
I suggest looking at the categories and list I have outlined in my Service Page to help you establish your plan of action. The task list and timeline, offer a basic structure that start you off mapping and measuring actions and progress.
Before signing up for small business workshops; buying a website and domain name, and or purchasing 10,000 units of product, it’s in your best interest to take time to respond to as many questions as you can. If you have already taken steps to begin, it’s ok to take a pause and measure your progress in this moment. It may be a matter of noting if valuable steps have been missed. You are not alone, not by a longshot.
I have explored starting my own consulting business more than once. My idea was to provide a service and make enough income to take care of my family. At the time, I secured a business license and figured out my tax payments. Yet, I really had no idea what steps followed to build a successful business. After all, it was a "simple" consulting idea.
Needless to say, it didn’t work out and I put my idea away, though my dream simmered. I chipped away at it and began my website, not because I had a plan but because this is what I thought was going to bring me the business. By creating my website, I thought it would force me to focus my idea. It only became broader.
Where did you jump-start your idea? We gravitate to places that are familiar and believe we will find success. However I had not learned enough about small business planning and was wrong again, so I decided to reach out to take advantage of community workshops made available by Small Business Administration. These groups design and offer support to women developing small business.
The opportunity was ripe, I made the best of a challenging situation. As COVID hit the U.S., I I had also retired my job and began to sign up for "free" small business workshops.
Trusting these workshops would lead me to developing my small business, (and being the eager student I am), I took as many online workshops as I could. I signed up twice, sometimes three times a week. I also began to investigate HubSpot and LinkedIn trainings.
What I realized after six or so months is, there was little to no practical ordering of these workshops for the truly new entrepreneur. The most helpful was a five-week seminar intended for the start-up entrepreneur. Unfortunately, trainers didn't begin with an overview or outline of these important steps for planning a startup.
After 6 months of very informative workshops, I realized this merry-go-round was endless and I needed to pause to reset, identifying steps on a timeline to map my own plan. My business continues growing based on completing steps I've been able to draw from my own experience. I use this outline to help determine each next step; what needs to be expanded on; who will take on the task, and schedule which training and when we will take it on.
It is my goal to save you time, frustration and eliminate early confusion that can defeat you early on, by organizing and offering a basic outline to begin a strategy and organizing your plan of action.
If you are ready to step up, view the startup outline in my Service Page.