Build A Business: Ditch The 9 to 5 To Be Your Own Boss
In this video we are going to talk about how you can start your business, brand it, and get all of your systems in place before you leave your job. Make sure to stay to the end of this video because we have some amazing free resources for you. If you’re ready to get out of the 9-to-5, make sure to visit our YouTube channel, SUBSCRIBE to our channel and ring the bell so you get notified every time we post a new video.
Hi, I’m Kirsten Graham with Six Figure Business Coaching and we help people just like you start successful businesses. Have you always had a dream of being an entrepreneur? Do you want to be the boss? Have freedoms – time freedom? Do you finally want to be able to earn what you’re worth and be in control of what you’re earning?
You are not alone and I’m here to tell you it’s totally doable! Starting your own business is very exciting but we also know it can be very scary. You have to learn all kinds of new things. You’re going to be completely responsible for your income, so we want to talk to you about how you can do so many things to make sure your business is successful before you leave your job.
DO THESE THINGS BEFORE YOU LEAVE YOUR JOB
The first thing you can do is, do your market research. Make sure you know who your competition is. Who is your ICA (which is your Ideal Client Avatar), and what will the pricing be for your service in your area? This is really really important because you need to know this information as you start your branding process. We want to make sure that everything you do as far as branding goes, speaks to your ICA (your Ideal Client Avatar) and you also want to make sure that as you’re working the numbers and you’re planning to leave your job and you’re trying to figure out what your finances will look like, you need to know what the market value is for what you’re going to provide.
If you’re providing a service, let’s just say, professional organizer, we work with professional organizers who make anywhere from $75 to $100 an hour if they’re in big cities, but if they’re in smaller areas sometimes they make $40 to $50 an hour. You need to know that so you can figure out how much work you need coming in the door to pay your bills, and then how much work you need coming in the door to actually grow your business and build a very successful business.
Now that you’ve done your market research, you know who your ideal client is going to be, you know what you’re going to charge for your service, and you’ve got a good eye on your competition, let’s talk about setting up your business. This is something that’s so easy to do while you’re still working.
Are you going to operate as a Sole Proprietor? Are you going to set up an LLC, or are you going to Incorporate your business? These are all things that can be done prior to leaving your job. These are the little things that, if you leave your job and you have to do them when you’re out on your own, is taking up time.
Time that should really be spent getting business on the door, and that can be a real challenge, so go ahead and decide, are you going to be a sole proprietor, an LLC, or you can incorporate, and go ahead and get that done. It’s just one more thing off the to-do list. Again, we want to make sure that when you leave your job that you’re ready to hit the ground running and get clients in the door.
YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE
So just out of curiosity, hit me up in the comments below and let me know what kind of business are you thinking about starting, and I’ll move on to the next thing you need to consider, which is buying your domain name and setting up your website and starting the branding process. [This is the fun part!] You want to make sure that you do buy the dot-com so it may take you a little while to find a great business name where you can get the dot-com and if you’re going to set up an LLC, or you are going to incorporate you want to cross-reference and make sure that name is also available in the state that you’re in.
After you buy your domain name, the next thing is to start your website process and again, you already know who your ideal client is, you’ve already done some spying on your competition, and now you’re ready to start thinking about what do you want your brand to look like?
What do you want to say on your website?
What colors do you want to use?
Like I said, this is the fun part! It can also be a little paralyzing so one little tip that you can do is you can look at competitors in other areas, different states – because if you find something that they’ve got going on that you really like you could implement that – maybe not copy it exactly – definitely DON’T plagiarize but you could say, “Oh, I really like this company’s colors and I really like the flow of their logo,” so these are things that you could do to help get great ideas going about creating your own website.
After you go have your logo done and you’re getting your website set up, the next thing to do is think about your marketing plan, right? You need to do a marketing plan and next will be a business plan. So get your marketing plan down. Here’s what really stinks. Most people think I’m going to set up my website or I’m going to build my sales funnel and I’m just gonna have people ring my phone off the hook.
It doesn’t really work that way. Your competition has had a website up for a long time so it’s going to take a while for the algorithm to find you so you’re going to have to start doing some SEO work. You’re going to have to really do some keyword research. You need to figure out how to drive traffic to your website or how to drive traffic to your sales funnel and these are all things, again, that you can do while you’re currently working, and if you get these things done, like I said again, when you leave your job, you can go ahead and hit the ground running focus on getting clients on the door and making money.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?
Now, one of the questions I always get is ‘how long does this process take?’ If you’re in a position to hire a designer to design your logo and set up your website, that can happen really quickly. If you’re in the position where you need to work with someone at say 99 Designs and you need to work with them, and work on part of it yourself, it can take a little longer, and if you’re in a position where you have to learn how to do websites on your own and you need to do everything on your own, obviously that’s gonna take even longer.
So, depending on your financial situation will determine how long this process will take, but it’s not it’s not necessarily a race. The bottom line is, you want to build something solid. You want to have a great business before you leave your job. You’re doing everything now to make sure you can be successful then, so don’t panic, it’s not a race.
We have people who leave their jobs in three months, six months, twelve months, we’ve had some people take 24 months, so it’s really up to you and it’s up to your finances because the next step is doing a business plan and really looking at your finances. You need to make sure you have your ducks in a row when it comes to money. What’s your budget? What’s your budget for your business? How much money do you have in savings? …and this is where it gets really fascinating because we’ve had all kinds of really cool things happen for our clients. So now you’re at the point where you’ve done all your market research, your branding is done, your marketing plans done, your business plan is done, you got a good picture of your finances, it’s time to quit your job.
Well, we’ve seen this go so many ways. First of all, we’ve had a lot of our clients come back and say, “my boss asked me if I could work part time so I’m going to go in three days a week” or “my boss asked me if I would like to work from home” and if I could work from home, and not have to commute, not have to get dressed, I could work on my business even though I’m working full-time. Some of our clients leave their full-time jobs but get part-time jobs just to make sure they feel safe with their finances.
There is no right or wrong way. If you’re financially comfortable leaving your job and starting your business full-time, go for it but if you’re not, it’s not a problem, you haven’t failed, you’re just doing everything it takes, which is part of being an entrepreneur. Doing everything it takes to make sure your dream comes true and your business is successful. So you should be very proud of that.
Now that you’re working part time or you’ve left your job completely, the most important thing is to hit the ground running, get out there and get business in the door. Your focus every day should be ‘how can I bring money in the door’ and if you keep that as your top focus while providing great service or great products to your customers, you will always be successful.
If you’re not sure what kind of business you want to start, check out this link where you can get a whole list of business ideas: 85 Work from Home Business Ideas.
If you know what kind of business you want to start and you’d like to jump on a call with us to find out if there’s anything we could do to help you make your dream come true, book a call today with Kirsten here (https://go.oncehub.com/KirstenAGraham). NOTE: Spaces are limited!
If you can’t get a call right away, check back in a couple of days. We’re really looking forward to talking with you. If you found this video helpful make sure to check out our video, Best Small Businesses to Start from Home/Top 10 Small Business Ideas or you can check out this video, I Want to Work From Home But I Don’t Know Where to Start.
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Thank you so much for letting us be a part of your entrepreneurial journey and we’ll see you in the next video and until then DREAM BIG!
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MbmAL3fhhg