9 Steps to Start Your Own Business

A lot of people have dreams of making it big with their own business and they think they have some great ideas that they want to act on but they don’t know what to do, so they don’t do anything. And that’s their biggest mistake – they don’t do anything. The first step to starting a small business is to take the first step. Take some action.

So whether you’re thinking of selling a product or providing a service, these are the 9 Steps to Starting a Small Business

1. Take Action – Don’t just talk and think about your idea. Do something. I guarantee that if you’re successful, it will not look anything like you originally imagined. It is IMPOSSIBLE to think of all the different possibilities so just do something to start and worry about making changes as you go.
2. Get Money – Most people are going to hate this one but I think it’s necessary. I think the question I get asked the most is what to do if the person has no money. It’s hard enough building a business with plenty of money and it’s nearly impossible with no money.
   Even if it’s just money that you have saved, set an amount aside so you have something to start with. Trust me, trading time for money is a VERY hard way to go and I don’t recommend it at all.
3. Register the Business – This one scares everyone because they think it’s a ton of work filling out complicated government and tax forms. The reality is that it is almost too easy. Just register your business and get it done with. It makes everything else so much easier down the road when you have a registered business. Here’s how to do it.
4. Set up a Bank Account – I was going to include this with the previous step because it’s so small but I realized that it’s too important to skip. If you’re working from a bank account, it’s much easier to manage your money, receivables, and taxes. Again, it’s a one time thing that makes everything else easier down the road.
5. Create a Two Page Business Plan – I’m not a big fan of business plans. I once created a 40 page document and realized that I went into so much detail that I was better off just doing what I was talking about. I also think that their main purpose is in the formation of capital (i.e: getting money from other people) and most small businesses aren’t trying to get that type of money. However, I do think it’s good to get your ideas on paper and if you just go off and write 2 pages of your ideas, it’ll help make your thoughts much clearer. Don’t worry about getting it perfect – just get your ideas on paper.
6. Create a Scorecard – I know it sounds minor, but along with getting money before I started, the lack of a scorecard was the biggest hindrance to our early success. A scorecard is a spreadsheet to track how your business is doing in different areas of your business. It allows you to focus on specific areas of your business and measure how well your business is doing. For example, I know how much it costs me to generate a new customer, so I use that information when I determine whether a new campaign is effective or not.
7. Create a Manual – In my mind, this replaces the long business plan. Until you start creating a manual for your business, you will not be successful. By putting on paper the exact steps to run each part of your business, you are creating a recipe for success. Without it, you cannot create a consistent experience for your customers and you waste your time reinventing the wheel each time you need to complete a task.
8. Create the First Draft of Your Product – If your plan is to create a new product or service, build it for the first time. Determine what needs to be done to manufacture the product or complete the service. If you’re just distributing a product or service for a supplier, go through that process to determine what needs to be done to go from sale to successful delivery of your product. Oh yeah, and make sure every detail is recorded in the manual.
9. Test the Market for the Product – Go out and try to sell your product or service. This is where some of that money that you set aside comes in. You don’t want a full-blown campaign but you want to see what type of response you will get on your service. You’re almost definitely going to lose some money here but you’ll start getting some data points (which will show up in your Scorecard) that you can start making decisions off of.

The most important step in starting a small business it the first one – take action. You can come up with a ton of different scenarios in your mind but until you take some action to begin testing out your idea, you will never know. Some ideas you think will be great will be horrible and ones that you think will be a waste, are your best ideas. Don’t just go at it halfway. Create some sort of structure with the steps above and you have something to start testing and growing.