Entrepreneur

Good morning, it's Jeanette Bennett. I'm excited to talk to you about my advice for getting started. So before I started my magazine publishing company, I had done a few things that got me ready to be at that point. First of all, I got an education. I got a bachelor's and master's in communications. Now that may not be necessary for every type of entrepreneurial venture, especially the master's part. But for me, it helped me gain confidence and help me meet other people in the industry. So it was really helpful. Also, I feel like one of the important things that I did was getting my financial life in order, getting a little bit of money, which I'm talking a little bit of money, ready for me to have in that business account. So that I had a little bit of breathing room as I paid those first expenses and waiting for some income to come back. Also, I did a lot of asking around of people who had done both the thing I was wanting to do and also other entrepreneurs to see what advice they had for me. And often they shared the things that had gone wrong. So I would say, start your network and get asking questions and you can do it.

My name is David Bradford. Listen, I wish you the best, but you got to get started. And the way you get started is to shower and get out of the shower and actually do something. So many people have their greatest ideas in the shower, but then they don't do anything about it. They towel off and then they go to the rest of their lives. But you need to do, do, do. Nolan Bushnell, who is the father of the Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, once told me that everybody who's ever taken a shower has had a great idea. It's someone who gets out of the shower, towels off, and goes and does something about it that changes the world. You can change the world, but you got to do. Take care.

Advice for getting started is to just start. If you don't have any understanding really of business or of starting a business, I would read a little bit to get some fundamentals and some perspective. If you do have a basic understanding, you just have to start. What I would say is start a problem journal. Write down the problems that you hear people say. Listen to people complain. Complaints are good. That says that there's a pain and I want it solved. When people have pain, that's when they're willing to pay to have it solved. If you hear consistency or redundancy of problems, that's probably a good indicator that there's a good opportunity. Also, remember the bigger the pain, the more people whine and complain, or the more it feels like a shark bite compared to a mosquito bite, that's a bigger and better opportunity. People don't want something that's just cool or nice. They want something that solves a pain. They want to feel beautiful. They want less pain, more pleasure, things to be easier, and to save money.

Failing to plan is planning to fail. That is one of the key approaches that I take before I embark on virtually anything. It's crucial to have clearly defined objectives and clear strategies because this is what's going to determine the execution, the outcome, as well as the results. So definitely, in my opinion, having a clearly thought through and well-defined planning is crucial to anything you want to do in life, particularly in the pursuit of success.

A common piece of advice that you'll hear about getting started in a business is to start with your client or just to get started. But my advice is a little bit different. As a business coach, my advice is for you to start with you. What are you good at? What do you love doing? What are you not good at? What do you have to offer that's different than everybody else? What's your money mindset? What's your mindset about working? What's your mindset about failure? Are you good at persevering? Are you good at seeing things through till the end? Are you creative? Are you curious? All of these types of things are going to help you build your business well. And starting with yourself before you focus on anyone else is going to help you get your business built faster and much, much easier.

Make sure that you are actually solving a problem. Not a problem that you envision, but an actual problem. Sometimes people feel like, I'm going to solve this problem for golfers, but they're not a golfer, so they're not sure they're actually solving a problem. Second, make sure it's financially viable. Do the math. Say, if I do this well and this is, you know, possible for me to do, then I'm going to make a profit. Also make sure that that amount of money that you're making is the amount of money that you want to have. If you run the best case scenario and you're making 100 grand a year, is that how much you want to make? And if, you know, that's the best case scenario, that's 100 grand and that's not enough for you, then don't start. Again, make sure it's an industry something you know about. Make sure it matches skill sets that you have. Make sure it can scale without you, or otherwise you're just creating a job for yourself. Make sure it matches your personal goals. If it means you're going to be traveling all the time and you don't want to do it, then don't start that business. And make sure it's an acceptable amount of risk.

Hey everyone, this is CJ Lewis with Jolt. And one of the, you know, my advice for getting started was advice that I got as I was getting started. And that is to get 10 raving fans. You know, you hold the phrase cash is king, which is not necessarily not true, but I think customer is king in a lot of instances. And when you set a goal of having 10 raving fans, it gets, I think, your mindset right. Because in order to get raving fans, you first have to have a solution that solves a problem that would have people wanting to be a raving fan, right. So a lot of people say, you know, just get started with an idea, which is true. Make sure you're solving a problem, which is true. But at the end of the day, I think if you really focus your mind and heart and attention on getting 10 raving fans, you'll be successful.

One of the most important things to think about first is your personal financial situation and your personal financial needs. One of the great things about starting a business is it's a brand new invention and you're going to learn a lot along the way. Now as you're getting something off the ground that's brand new, it's a learning process and you might not get it right immediately. It might take six months, it might take a year, it might take 18 months for it to be profitable or to even generate the kind of revenue where you can pay yourself what you need to get paid to be comfortable living, to have rent and take care of your family and car payments and so on. So you got to understand how much money do you need coming in a month right now or how much do you have in savings that you can live on for a period of time while you take this risk. And you got to be really clear about those numbers and draw a hard and fast line and say, if this doesn't work in 18 months, I got to do something else.

Two pieces of advice. First, if it's something that you want to do, that you love to do, then you're going to have to figure out a bunch of ways to get people to sponsor and then to not let that burn you out. But typically, for success, it's something that you may not love to do but has a lot of potential of being greatly successful. Good luck.

The reality is you just have to get started. You just have to do. So if that means you've got an idea, go start talking to customers about your idea. Go tell them about your product or your service and ask them, hey, would you be willing to pay X dollars for this product or this service? And then actually try and collect money. Try and do it. I know it sounds insane to sell something you may not even have, but the whole concept of pre-sales will validate that your business model is real and that people actually want your product or service. So I think the idea behind like the kickstarters of the world out there, if you're a product-based business is genius. If it's more of a service-based business, then literally just go talk to somebody and just get it going. And I think just getting up and doing is going to be the best. Now, obviously you're on here listening. So this is a huge first step. Go talk to a bunch of entrepreneurs and listen.

Just get started. Don't wait for the right time. There is no such thing as perfect timing, perfect clients, perfect marketing strategies, perfect tools. There's nothing like that. Just get started. And but always remember, you must have a goal and always keep your eyes on the goal. Otherwise, you're going to feel drifted and you're going to feel very overwhelmed.