Starting and Growing a Business Without Being Overwhelmed
You want to start a business. You have a great idea, you have a need and/or you want to get financial independence. You will hear a few things as you start this journey.
Entrepreneurs take risks
No they don’t. Entrepreneurs do everything in their power to mitigate risk.
The entrepreneurial path is less risky than holding a job. Most entrepreneurs count on many people or businesses to sustain them, with a job it is only one.
It’s up to you to make the decisions about your business. That feels riskier, because in a job, someone else is making those decisions. Personally, I’d rather be the one making those decisions.
You have to have a plan to start
No you don’t. Not these days anyway.
Steve Blank says, “No plan survives first contact with customers.” You build your business to work for you; you build your offer to work for your customers. You can only know what that offer will be by selling to your customers and hearing what they have to tell you.
I remember a time when we made 10 year financial projects. Without laughing out loud. There was even a chance that it would play out relatively close to projections. Not any more. There are too many variables and too many unknowns.
You are much better off having resilience, strength and agility. You are better off having a way to listen and to incorporate what you learn.
Here’s the thing. You don’t have enough information at the beginning to create a plan that has any chance of success until you get going. So get going.
To start without overwhelm you must
recognize there is an order that makes sense
not try to make decisions before you have adequate information
gather the information in a way that builds on previous information
the 6 stages to building your effortless business done in order, means your business will be perfect for you, profitable and effortless.
The 6 Stages to Building your Effortless Business
- Owners Journey — clarity about what is important, what you bring, and what you need. Prepare yourself mentally, emotionally and physically to do the work.
- Discovery Dance — where you learn what is important to your customers and hone your offer. You learn who, what, and how your business will be by selling into your market.
- Official Start — only after you have validated your business, do you turn it into a business. You start putting the bare bones of administrative processes in place.
- Customer’s Journey — clarify and document how you attract, engage and serve & delight your customers. What is important to make them feel delighted. Gather their stories and tell them to attract more customers.
- Team’s Journey — now that you can reliably get and serve customers, it is time to build your team. What do they need? How do you help them to help you?
- Essential 11 — there are 11 Essential Algorithms that are required to make your business effortless. Put systems in place to make every part of your business hum along nicely.
Every week I post the next Project. You are welcome to work on it here, ask questions in the comments, answer questions in the comments and let us know how you are doing.
For more resources and deeper discussion, get “6 Stages to Building Your Effortless Business” here.
