Navigating the Startup World: Effective Strategies for New Entrepreneurs
Starting a business can be an exhilarating journey filled with highs and lows. As a new entrepreneur, navigating the complex world of startups can be daunting. However, in the 16 years since I started my business, I’ve discovered that with the right startup strategies and mindset, you can set yourself up for success.?
Before anything else, it's crucial to understand your 'why'. What motivates you to start your own business? What is the driving force behind your entrepreneurial journey? By clarifying your purpose and passion, you can stay focused and motivated, even when faced with challenges. Your 'why' will serve as a guiding light, helping you make decisions that align with your values and goals.
Beyond Money: Unveiling the True Motivations
What do super-successful entrepreneurs all have in common??
It’s not experience.?
It’s not extraordinary skills.?
It’s not even a powerful drive.
Although all of these things can definitely help your business grow, they’re not a prerequisite for success. After all, no one is born with experience or skills, and plenty of successful people lack drive.?The one thing that does make a difference, though, is your “why.”?
The “why” is what ultimately drives us to success, but here’s the thing: it’s different for everyone. Your why is not my why, and my why is not her why. It’s a deeply personal choice that can have great meaning…or not.?
For example, a survivor of domestic abuse might happily spend 60 or 70 hours each and every week mentoring other victims of abuse, or counseling couples on how to break the cycle. Her big why is a strong desire to prevent other women from suffering in the same way she did.?
A young, fresh out of school entrepreneur might resist taking the same path her parents took, working for a corporation for 40 years, only to retire and find themselves with barely enough to live on. Instead, she dreams of having the income (and the time) to see the world while she’s still young enough to enjoy it.?
As a mother of small children, I wanted to be with my boys instead of sending them to daycare just so I could go to work to (barely) pay for it. My? big reason was a drive to spend as much time with my kids as I could, while still supporting my family.? Of course, this changed after my children were grown, and your why will likely evolve over time.
So what’s your big “why”? It might be the freedom to travel, the option to spend time with your family, the ability to take weeks off at a time to care for a sick family member, or even to earn enough money to support a charity that’s close to your heart.?
Whatever it is, your “why” is the driving force behind every action you take. When you’re deciding whether or not to take on a new client, ask yourself if it’s aligned with your “why.” When you’re setting goals for the year, ask yourself if those goals are moving you closer or further from your big why. Thinking of branching out into a new business venture? Make sure it’s in alignment with your big why, and success is suddenly much more attainable.?
Startup Strategy: How to Turn a Dream Into a Workable Plan
As an entrepreneur, it can be difficult to watch the lack of progress of so many promising entrepreneurs. They’ve dreamed for so long about creating a solid, sustainable business, and yet, all they do is dream.?
You know the people I’m talking about. They attend conferences, sign up for free webinars, buy paid training, and sometimes even work with a coach or two. And yet week after week, month after month, year after year, they fail to make any progress toward their dreams.?
Are they just lazy? No. It’s something worse. They don’t know how to move from a dream to a plan and they’re stuck.? And dreams alone are not enough to build a successful business. It's essential to turn your vision into a concrete plan of action. Break down your big goals into smaller, achievable steps. Create a business plan outlining your objectives, target market, financial projections, and marketing strategies. A well-thought-out plan will provide you with a roadmap to follow and measure your progress along the way.
Start With the Long-Term
Ever found yourself in a job interview, puzzling over the classic question, "What's your five-year plan?" It might have seemed peculiar then, but for a business owner, it's essential thinking.?
Understanding your ultimate business destination is crucial. Without it, charting a course for success is futile. With clear long-term goals, you're able to regularly track your journey, ensuring that every single day, week, and month, you're navigating towards your envisioned future.
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Create Milestones
Once you know your ultimate destination, you can draft a plan for getting there, and create the interim goals that will help you stay on track.?
For example, if in five years you want to be free to travel for 4 weeks every year, then you need to have a few pieces in place before that can happen:
With this list, you can then work backwards from your five-year goal, and create milestones along the way. If you know you’ll need to earn $180,000 annually in order to fund your travel plans, and right now you’re earning $90,000, then reasonable milestones might look like this:
With these milestones in place, it’s much easier to figure out exactly what you need to do to achieve them, by setting monthly, weekly, and daily goals.?
Create Small Goals?
If you say to someone, you need to move from $90,000 to $180,000 in five years, that’s a pretty overwhelming task. After all, it’s a $90,000 increase and most people will look at that and immediately dismiss it as impossible.?
But when you break it down as we have above, and then again into smaller steps, it suddenly doesn’t look so daunting.?
In the first year of the plan we have outlined here, your income needs to increase only by $10,000. That’s less than $1000 per month! Surely that’s easy enough to accomplish!?
You can further break that down by week: $1000 per month is just $250 per week. If you sell just one more service package, or five more of a $50 service or product, you’ve already reached your milestone.?
That might mean sending one more email to your list, or investing an additional $20 per month in Facebook ads, or perhaps reaching out to one more JV partner. The point is, reaching this much smaller goal is far easier than thinking about that five-year plan.?
What's the grand vision you're chasing? How can you break it down into smaller, attainable steps, clear objectives, and eventually, into everyday and weekly to-dos? Believe in your ability to do this because once you master the art of deconstruction, there's no limit to what you can accomplish – in your entrepreneurial journey.
Beyond SMART Goals
One fundamental we've learned about setting objectives is that they must adhere to the SMART, right? This concept has been deeply ingrained in us over time. The essential aspect is ensuring your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
While smart goals are effective in guiding our actions, don't be afraid to think beyond them because they can also limit our thinking and potential. Consider setting stretch goals that push you out of your comfort zone and challenge you to aim higher. By solely focusing on attainable and realistic goals, we may overlook bigger dreams and aspirations that could lead to extraordinary achievements. Going beyond smart goals opens up a world of possibilities and allows us to aim higher, dream bigger, and achieve the extraordinary.
If your heart desires more, if your dreams are bigger than what seems attainable, then why settle for less??
Think about it. Do you want to be stuck with “attainable” and “realistic” goals when what you really dream about is enough money to fund a boat or race car? (Trust me both are expensive!)? Embrace the challenge of reaching for the stars and pursuing goals that ignite your passion and drive.
Another problem with smart goals is they can inadvertently create a subconscious ceiling on your earning potential. When you only aim for what seems achievable based on our current circumstances, you may limit your financial growth and overlook lucrative opportunities.?
By breaking free from the constraints of smart goals, you can expand your mindset, take calculated risks, and explore new avenues for increasing our earning potential.
As you navigate the startup world as a new entrepreneur, remember that success is not defined by the absence of challenges, but by your ability to overcome them. By embracing effective business management strategies you can position yourself for sustainable growth and fulfillment. Stay resilient, stay focused, and believe in your vision. The journey may be tough, but the rewards of entrepreneurship are truly priceless.