Start Your Own Business In A Week

How To Be An Entrepreneur In Seven Simple Steps

Kevin Duncan

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781473609365
• eBook ISBN: 9781444185997
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

Sunday: Get started with realistic goals and a detailed business plan, and do your market researchMonday: Learn strategies for building a network of contacts and how to handle meetingsTuesday: Learn how to get the product or service right and increase your marginWednesday: Choose the most effective ways to communicate with customers and prepare useful marketing materialsThursday: Market yourself and your business and learn how to cut the jargon and describe what you do in 30 secondsFriday: Motivate yourself to work hard and ignore distractions and make a good impression as the face of your businessSaturday: Avoid difficulties and problems through using personal planning and business planning tripwires

It’s a daunting prospect, isn’t it? An empty desk, no customers, no confirmed money coming in, and no one to gossip with. Welcome to running your own business! Every issue is now yours to wrestle with, and yours alone. But then so is all the satisfaction – mental and financial – when things are going well. Today we are going to work out exactly how you are going to turn what many would regard as an ordeal into the start of a fantastic success.

We are going to look at:

• how to be honest with yourself about your offer

• what you need to prepare in order to be a success

• how to write a simple, realistic plan

• working out the materials that you need

• how to get it all under way.

Assume that you have something to offer

‘The beginning is half of every action.’

Greek proverb

Let’s start by assuming that there is a market for your talents; otherwise you wouldn’t have got this far. We have to believe that this is true because you probably wouldn’t be reading this book unless you were convinced that you have something to offer. By now you will have established the basics in your mind. Your thought pattern will have been something along the lines of:

• I am good at what I do.

• I believe that there is a market for my product or service. (Whether this is actually true, and how you set about proving it to yourself, will come a little later.)

• I can do my job better on my own than in my current set-up.

• I have a way of doing my job that people will like.

• What I put in alongside what I get out will be a better-balanced equation than my current state of affairs.

Thousands of people go through this thought process at some point in their working lives – sometimes on many occasions. However, even if you have been able to tick all the boxes so far, the issue that you have to grapple with next is far more fundamental: ‘If I ran my own business, I’m not sure if I could live with myself.’

When people say this, they mean that they are thinking about important issues such as where exactly they are going to do their work and what their domestic arrangements are. Could they possibly accommodate getting everything done that they need to without disrupting all the other aspects of their life?

Secondly, there is your frame of mind: are you cut out to operate outside a conventional office environment? Could you cope without the interaction? Could you motivate yourself when no one is giving you a kick up the backside? It is essential that you feel good about yourself and what you have to offer.

Feel good about your offer

You must genuinely believe that you can offer something of value to others; otherwise you should not take the plunge to start up on your own, or even be toying with the idea.

Be honest with yourself

Do remember, however, that confidence can be misplaced. In fact, over-confidence could beguile you into believing that you have a viable idea or a successful way of doing things when in fact you don’t, so confront your own hubris and work it out privately before it trips you up.

You are starting your own business now, so you shouldn’t have to pretend about anything. In fact, you mustn’t ever stray into the realms of fantasy, because you would only be fooling yourself if you did. From now...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title
• About the Author
• Contents 
• Introduction
• Sunday: Getting started
• Monday: The right tools for the job
• Tuesday: Getting the money right
• Wednesday: Communicating effectively
• Thursday: Taming the telephone
• Friday: How to conduct yourself
• Saturday: Setting up reminders and tripwires
• 7 × 7
• Answers
• Copyright