If you’ve been putting off your dream of becoming an entrepreneur, you should stop putting it off and start your business now. Why? Well, tomorrow isn’t promised and the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll get to where ever it is you want to go.
Procrastinating on your dream is not the move. The problem with procrastination is that it leads to more procrastination. In fact, it leads to endless procrastination. We convince ourselves that we’re not good enough as we are and that we need something else in order to be successful. Unsurprisingly, we never actually acquire that something else.
When you’re lacking things like large budgets, a ton of expertise, and an audience with money in hand, what do you do? How do you start your business in spite of imperfect conditions?
You master the art of the imperfect start. Here’s how:
- Give yourself permission.
The first thing you need to do is allow yourself to believe in your ability to achieve success. Whatever your gifts are, you are more than equipped to share them in a way that only you can.
2. Be honest with your audience.
Telling your audience that you’re a new business will make things much easier for you. So many entrepreneurs think that they have to pretend to be a huge corporation in order to get customers, but that’s not true. Connect with people and they will loyally follow you from your humble beginnings to your grand success. Don’t be afraid to be honest about exactly where you are.
3. Be honest with yourself.
Be aware of what your limitations are. If your budget can’t support buying Super Bowl ads, then don’t buy Super Bowl ads. If you aren’t well versed in Particle Physics, don’t try to convince yourself that you are an expert in Particle Physics. Just be honest and grounded in where you are and what you’re capable of. When admit that you don’t know something, you can always learn it.
4. Learn as you grow.
Always be learning. Always. Study as much as possible, pay attention to what works and what doesn’t, and get constant feedback from your audience. If you don’t already have a lot of experience in your niche or in business, you’ll be getting a real life crash course. Don’t let this deter you.
5. Constantly test and improve.
Test, test, test to figure out what works for you. Check out the podcast episode I did about testing. Be willing to try different things to see what works for your business. When you don’t have big budgets for research and focus groups, you have to come up with creative ways to find out what your audience wants from you. Testing is how you do that.
6. Don’t be afraid to fail.
Since we’re talking about testing, you have to be okay with failing. When you’ve been honest with your audience and honest with yourself, failure hurts a lot less. It actually just becomes a part of the process. If you launch a product that completely bombs, you’ve already given yourself cover because you were honest from the start. Fail as much as you need to to figure out what works.
7. Leverage your strengths.
Whatever you’re good at, do that often. Use it to your advantage and put that talent at the forefront of your business. Keep reminding people how good you are at it by showcasing it every chance you get.
8. Collaborate.
Where you struggle, collaborate with someone who excels. Hire people, as needed, to help you get through the things you struggle with. If having a beautiful website is important in your niche and doing technical things — like building a website — really stomp you, hire someone to help.
9. Be flexible.
Remember your vision? Your vision — or where you want to go — should be rigid, but how you get there should not. Be flexible and able to adapt to different situations and challenges as they arise.
10. Fully Commit
Fully commit to your business with 100% certainty that there is no option other than to keep going. Be confident (not cocky) in your ability to make it happen and to get where you need to go. Marry your business and give it the time and attention that it deserves.