Are you thinking of starting a business? Are you already overwhelmed by the idea? You’re not the only one! We know how you feel. Women build businesses differently. We build with our hearts. Our businesses are built to protect, to heal, to support, to thrive. With more than 100 years of combined entrepreneurial experience, our team has built this list for you of the best tips for starting and maintaining a strong, sustainable business that work for your life and your family.
- Start with the smallest viable(buyable) product and sell it. Before you have a following on social media, before you have events in huge stadiums, before you have a logo, sell something. Don’t spend time and money on something before you have tested the viability. You could start with events, retreats, conferences, one-on-one sessions, Zoom calls, group discussions, etc. Start with something that is free to you. Having a world domination goal is essential but you have to know how to work a lemonade stand first. If you can’t run a lemonade stand, how are you going to run your first restaurant? Or your first yoga studio? Or your Airbnb empire? Start with your very first buyable product, and grow from there.
- Get clear on your mission
Why are you doing what you are doing? Is your purpose enough to keep you motivated? If you are working on a business that doesn’t resonate with you, then you’ll burn out. Find your calling and stick with it.
3. Get clear on your customer’s pain
Who do you serve? Why do they need your product? What pain does your product or service solve? One of the best ways to understand your customer’s pains is to set up problem interviews with your potential customer base. You need to build a product for your market, not the other way around.
4. Practice Marketing
It takes a little while to feel confident in your marketing and that’s ok! Start practicing now. The worst that can happen is someone tells you no. Practice receiving rejection so it stops having so much power over you. Connection and repetition are the two things to remember with marketing. Connection is focusing on your customers and not on the sale. It’s not marketing, it’s inviting. Invite your customers to participate in this cool thing you are doing. Repetition is just frequency. People need multiple reminders.
5. Network – Connect with Community
Get yourself some good entrepreneur friends. Find your support team and work with them to get your questions answered. Learn more about where to be, when to be and how to be. Entrepreneurship is hard but you don’t have to do it alone.
6. Get a business coach
Get yourself some good entrepreneur friends. Find your support team and work with them to get your questions answered. Learn more about where to be, when to be and how to be. Entrepreneurship is hard but you don’t have to do it alone.
7. Be friends with new tech
There are so many programs out there that are completely free for entrepreneurs. Tech can increase your efficiency and accuracy. It can speed up your processes and remove friction with your customers. You can always take a class or reach out to your entrepreneur friends to learn more about the pros and cons of each program.
8. Hire out the things you don’t want to do e friends with new tech
Again, you don’t have to do this alone. If social media is not your thing, hire someone to work on it part time. If you don’t have the energy to google a list of leads or contacts, hire someone to build that for you. If you aren’t ready for a full time assistant, you can hire virtual assistants for a few hours at a time. Get help so you don’t burn out.
9. Create Standards of Operation NOW (don’t wait for an assistant)
This may sounds weird but write down what you are doing. When you create a policy on the fly or make a decision for how something needs to be done, write it down. When you accept a payment or send a thank you email, write down the procedure. When you receive an email, take a screen shot and then write down how you responded. Trust me. This will make not only your life easier but it will make it 10 times faster to on-board your first employee.
10. Lastly, Read
There is always more to learn. If you don’t know where to start, blogs are easy but we also have been building a beautiful list of incredible books to support women as they build sustainability. Check out our book club here: https://soulseedacademy.com/book-club/
