Establish why you want to be self-employed
This might not come off as the most critical thing you should do when you are readying yourself for that leap of faith but believe it or not, it is. Identifying the purpose and the motivation for you wanting to venture into the world of entrepreneurship is very important. This is because it enables you to have a clearer idea of what you want to achieve in self-employment. Knowing the motive behind your decision will also help a lot in keeping you grounded once the going gets tough and disillusionment sets in. Once you start feeling like giving up you can always look back at what pushed you to work for yourself and if the purpose is still valid, you’ll regain your focus and keep your eyes on the prize. Therefore, whether it is financial freedom, personal fulfillment, or the love for a good challenge, always make a point of knowing what your motivation is.
Identify a business problem
Once you have a clear understanding of why you want to become self-employed, you need to figure out what the objective of your business will be. Every business that you see around is built with the primary objective of solving a particular problem or satisfying a certain need in people’s lives. Offering a solution to a specific problem is what makes a commodity or service valuable thereby enabling a business to generate profits from its sale. Therefore, you must find a gap in the market that can be filled and set out in search of a solution.
Create a business solution
A business solution is essentially a valuable commodity or service that is offered in exchange for money to satisfy a need of the consumer. A business solution fills the gap in a market and provides value for customers. The business idea that you come up with has to be of high-quality and be able to offer a durable if not a permanent solution to a problem. This ensures that the business becomes profitable in the short-term and remains so in the long-run.
Conduct extensive research
After conceptualizing your business idea and coming up with a product solution, the next step is to conduct extensive research. The subject of this research should be the industry you want to venture into and the specific product you will be selling. Researching extensively is essential because it will help you establish if there is adequate demand for your product or service.
Research helps you determine what your target market would be and gives you an insight into the purchasing behavior of your prospective customers. This allows you to come up with strategies that are tailor-made for them to ensure they purchase your product. Also, research is critical in cost-benefit analysis. This analysis informs you of the benefits, risks, and challenges that you are likely to encounter doing business in your industry of choice.
By conducting thorough research, you get to know and prepare for everything that your new business will require from you. Research can be done through reading publications on similar businesses and industries, listening and watching people who have succeeded in it, and speaking and consulting with business leaders in that particular niche.
Find time and money for your business
Once you have all the details concerning your prospective enterprise, it is time to assemble your resources. Building a new hustle requires time and money. While money is important as it forms the capital outlay required to finance the business’s operations, a new business requires way more time than money in the early stages.
Therefore, to get this extra time that your new business requires, you need to make a few adjustments. This may be in form of increasing the number of hours you work in a day or reducing the number of hours you work at your 9 to 5. You can achieve this by either taking up part-time responsibility or by quitting your day job entirely.
To finance your startup, there are several options you can choose from. You can save part of your salary and direct it towards funding your new business. To increase the rate of your savings, you can cut back on unnecessary expenditure and put that money aside for your business. You can also get a loan from your bank or search for funding from private investors.
However, it is recommended that you avoid loans when starting a business as this is a period in which you are prone to making mistakes. Therefore, it is wise to avoid any financial obligations that may cause you a lot of stress if something doesn’t work out as planned.
Come up with an advertising and marketing strategy
The importance of advertising and marketing in a startup cannot be understated. Advertising is important as it makes potential customers aware of your product or service. This awareness is what draws their attention and gets them interested in your product. On the other hand, marketing is what sells them on the value of your product as a solution to a particular need or problem they have.
Advertising and marketing also create the initial impression of your product or service and forms the image with which consumers will be associating your business. Therefore, it is absolutely important to craft a winning advertising and marketing strategy that will sell your product as the best in the market. This way, you can be assured of adequate demand which will translate to economic profits.
Build a team
Having a team that shares your vision and is committed to the success of the business just as you are is important. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have people working for you and taking your orders. Your team simply refers to like-minded people who you’ll be in constant collaboration with whether it’s for creating business strategy or executing those strategies. It is important to fill your team with competent, reliable, and hardworking people that can be trusted to deliver when called upon.
Have an elaborate financial plan
The discipline with which you handle the money from your business is a key determinant of its success and longevity. Therefore, it is vital to have a clear financial plan of how you will be using your business proceeds. Profits can be reinvested in the business or directed towards other viable business projects.
Setting aside some cash for business-related contingencies is also critical as it protects the business from economic shocks and low business cycles. Spending away all the profits limits the growth of a business and can even lead to bankruptcy. Therefore, if you don’t wish to run to your boss begging for your job back, it’s important to have a clear financial plan beforehand and adhering to it regardless of how difficult it could be.
Seek professional business advice
If you are a first-time business person, there are a lot of things you might not know about how to run a business. Recruiting the services of a professional such as a business coach can greatly help you. That way, you can avoid learning from experience and instead take advantage of their extensive business knowledge and expert guidance to make wise ad effective business decisions. This saves you a lot of time and money that could have been lost due to the folly of inexperience.
Have a survival fund
Before you officially quit your job and dive into self-employment, remember that a business takes a while to break even. In the intermittent period, you will still need to meet your basic needs and other mandatory financial obligations. Therefore, ensure that you set aside money that will help you sustain yourself up until your business becomes profitable. This will save you from unnecessary stress as well as prevent you from sinking into debt.
Be prepared to make sacrifices
For the first several months or years depending on the scope of the business, you will have to endure a lot of inconvenience and pressure to get your business off the ground. You will have to work more hours in a day. You will be forced to sacrifice time for fun, sleeping, and even family and dedicate it to making your dream work.
If you were used to a certain lifestyle, you may have to readjust to reduce your expenditure and redirect that money to your business. While this may be very stressful, if done the right way, it will all be worth it in the end. All you need to have is patience, resilience, and the long-term vision required to see to it that your efforts all come to fruition.
You can do it
Leaving your 9 to 5 to build your own business is a bold move that needs to be lauded. While entrepreneurship has many challenges, it provides one with the fulfillment and eventually the financial freedom that is difficult to achieve working as someone else’s employee. Therefore, do not be scared of taking that giant leap today. Follow the above directions and you will do just fine. To success and prosperity!