Business start-ups happen everyday. Unfortunately, many also fail everyday. Last year alone over 80,000 businesses closed according to Dunn & Bradstreet. The scarier part is the close association between business failure and bankruptcy.
I am not here to rain on anyone’s parade, I just want to encourage you to do your homework and make good decisions about how you start a business. I have learned a lot from the school of hard knocks, and I am here to tell you there is a better way. Start small, listen to your gut, dip your toe in the water before diving in, & avoid borrowing money to start
I bet I know what you are thinking. Does it sound something like “that’s impossible” or “easy for you to say”. Remember, I have been there, done that, got the t-shirt! The purpose of my website is to try and help others discover legitimate ways to make some extra money from home. My personal specialty is baking, but that is not the only avenue I want to cover here.
Work from Home
If you are reading my blog, I assume that you are someone who would like to work for themselves, and probably at least checking out if there is any possibility of using your talents with food to start a business. A lot of the things I talk about here will cover other ways of making money, but for now, I am focusing on starting, without going into a ton of debt. I am qualified to talk at length about that since I did exactly the opposite, and paid dearly for it.
If you have started doing your homework, as I talked about in my last blog and found out there is a real interest in the product you want to sell, the next step is to start using your connections to get the word out about your culinary talents. This is probably going to involve freebies. Consider it cheap marketing, because that is exactly what it is. You need to develop a loyal following, so that you will have customers lining up to buy your product when you are at that point. You are developing a “hungry” market, pun intended.
Books Are Your Friend
There is a great book I would recommend to you . It is by Seth Godin called “Tribes”. In summary, it talks about how you should develop a loyal following by frequent and relevant interaction. It is an easy read, but should be on the bookshelf of every business owner. I want to take a minute here to give you some advice. It does not matter if you are a solopreneur. You need to adopt the mindset of a business person. When you look at businesses that are successful, you can bet that the owner is a continuous learner. There are lots of helpful books out there, and I am going to get in the habit of recommending some of them to you. It is simply part of building that solid foundation..
Yeah, I know, reading, researching, networking, etc all take time, and you need money now. You are anxious to get started. I know you don’t want to hear that, I didn’t either. I did however, take the time to take some classes, to get ready to make the leap. I had mixed results, and I will tell you more about that later. One of the things I do wish I had done was develop a healthly appetite for reading. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but as a matter of fact, there are design changes being made every day to the wheel that powers business, and those books will help you stay or get to the cutting edge.
I recorded a short tidbit, I am really liking using this new recording too, I hope it is helpful to you. Please leave your questions in the comment area. Let’s talk about your ideas, and work on a plan that you can implement.
