I was talking the other
day with a very good friend of mine who has a brilliant business idea,
and he wanted my opinion on how to get started.
Mind you, he's not new to the business world, so he does know a thing or two
However, he had missed a very important
critical step that can either propel your business or kill it.
So today I thought I'd share with you how to start
a small business in 20, 22 and what I would personally do
if I had to start all over again before we dove in.
Let me thank today's sponsor, Taylor Branch, who can help you launch
your business in only a few clicks, but more on them later.
All right, you guys.
So step number one that you absolutely need to take before you start
any business is identified.
The business opportunity and this can be a business idea
that you have a need, a gap in the market or it could be based on a high income
skill that you already have or that you are willing to learn and perfect.
Let's take this step by step.
If you decide to use a high income skill that could be copywriting
or content writing, that could be video editing, that could be
sales, that could be marketing, that could be strategy.
There are tons of different skills that would allow you
to charge a high ticket, a high rate, and have a high income.
If you decide to go as a freelancer and start
a small online business or a part time business as a freelancer,
then you will need to completely depend on this high income skill.
And there are lots of ways
that you can continue learning and improving the skill and perfecting it.
And I do recommend that you start as a freelancer
before you go into launching a bigger business.
And I'll talk about that later on.
Why this matters now?
The alternative, if you don't want to be a freelancer
and you have a business idea like my friend,
then you need to really think about it
and understand what need is it addressing
and what gap is it filling in the market?
What do customers, future potential clients need?
That doesn't exist or is not being done
as well as it could
and what you could do to fix that gap.
Next step that you absolutely need to consider
when starting a business is to decide on your channel.
And this is critical.
It's also important, first of all, because you need to decide whether your business
is going to be online or is it going to be a physical business.
Will you have a store, a shop, or
will you be able to run your business completely online?
Now, of course, depending on the business idea and the business
opportunity that you've identified, there are some businesses
that really require that you are present physically somewhere
so if you have a barber shop or you need to sell
something that has to be sold physically, something that has to be delivered
physically, then you might need to have a physical business.
Most business ideas nowadays, regardless of whether they have to do with services
or if they have to do with products, can be done online.
You can have an online shop, you can deliver them using
your own platform, you can deliver them using other platforms.
So choosing the channel is extremely important.
If you decide to be a freelancer, then again you have multiple options.
You can use platforms that exist out there.
You can look for online jobs and gigs that exist out there.
There's no need for me to give examples because that's all
I talk about on this channel.
So you literally can pick whatever video you want
and there will be tons of ideas on which platforms you could use
or you can use your own website, you can use your own channel.
So that's in case you want to be a freelancer if you have a business idea.
Then again, think about whether your services or your product
can be delivered online digitally, or it has to be done physically.
And even if it is a physical product, you can still deliver it
through an online store.
So choose your channel wisely
because the rest of your business will depend on this decision.
It doesn't mean that you cannot expand into other channels later on,
but the decision that you make on your first channel is going to be super,
super important.
Step number three that you should consider when you start a business,
especially if it's an online business.
But any business needs to have this in mind is choosing a niche.
You've probably heard me talk about this before
because I consider it to be so critical to your success in business,
and having a niche has not so much
to do with you as it has to do with who you're serving.
I identifying very clearly, very specifically who is your ideal
customer will be extremely important for your success.
Because you can never serve everybody, no matter what business idea you have.
Let's say you are a copywriter.
It doesn't matter what you can write about.
It does a little bit.
But even more important is who will you be writing for
and will you be writing for blog posts, or will you
be writing for social media captions, or will you be writing emails?
So there is a need for you to be very specific on what you do and who you serve.
That is basically what the niche is all about.
And this applies to every single business idea,
even if you want to do print on demand and you want to print and sell
T-shirts, you are not selling those T-shirts
to absolutely every single person on the planet.
You should be picking a niche.
You should be picking up type of person depending on their passions, depending on
their interest depending on their job,
depending on where they live and so forth.
So you can serve a dedicated, specific
niche once you are able to do that,
you will be able to craft your offerings so that it addresses
that audience that you've picked as your niche.
If you don't have a niche, it will be very hard to reach your ideal customer.
The next step that I want you to consider when starting a business is building
your brand.
And this can be a chosen name like Superhumans Life, or it can be your name.
If you are a freelancer,
it doesn't really matter what you choose as long as you build a professional brand.
This can be done
based on a lot of different little things that you need to consider,
or you can use a solution that can help you from beginning to end.
Today, I want to talk to you about Taylor Branch,
because I genuinely wish I knew about them when I started my business.
Otherwise I wouldn't have spent the time, effort and money
that I did spend in order to build my brand.
So I want to show you how you can do this as well, because it's
so, so easy with Taylor Branch, because it's an AI based solution.
They will help you build everything about your brand
so you can look professional and build that trust with your ideal customer.
A lot easier.
So when you go to Taylor Branscombe, you will just go ahead
and put in your brand and the fun begins.
You're going to start designing what you want to use as your corporate branding.
They'll ask you a few questions and prompts to help you get the best
design possible.
In my case, I'll save services
they ask you about your industry, so in my case, I'll say coaching.
They want to know if you want an I can base name based or an initial based brand
and what kind of style you would like to use.
Once you've opted for those, you can leave it to the
AI to come up with something really, really creative and really
fun for you to use as your corporate branding.
You can start right here, and as you've seen, it was literally
a matter of seconds, but you don't have to stop here.
It gets even more fun.
You can go ahead and customize whatever they suggest to you.
So let's see. I like this one
you go
ahead and customize and you can choose a different style,
a different font or a different text format.
You can change the shape, the color or the layout.
So you have freehand in how you would like
to come across to your customers and how your brand will look like.
You can change absolutely everything about it, but honestly,
it already looks incredible.
So let's say I'm happy with this
and I want to go ahead with their suggestion You can tell them
you're finished and you can go ahead and download the files for your logo,
but you can do so much more once you're done.
Creating your logo, then there is a myriad of opportunities that you can explore.
You can create a branded website and you can attach your domain to it.
You can create business cards, be that physical or digital business cards.
You can create social media templates, you can create merchandise
and print products that you will be offering to your customers.
You can even apply to incorporate your LLC if you are based in the U.S.
or to apply for a patent for your brand.
Literally, everything you need related to your corporate brand can be done
directly through tailor breads Now, if you think this could come in handy,
you can go ahead and explore tailor brands on your own.
As you've seen, you can do a lot just by
creating an account and signing up for free if you do want to
create a paid subscription and work with them longer term.
So you can really build multiple brands for your business,
then they have generously offered a 40% discount for you,
and all the details are in the description down below.
The next step that I really encourage
you not to skip is to run your market research.
And I've seen so many businesses that just believe their product
is going to completely revolutionize whatever industry.
And they forget to ask their customers, you cannot understand how important this
is because even if your idea is absolutely extraordinary,
if it does not talk to the need, the problem, the challenge
that your ideal customer has and they do, they do not understand it
to be the solution to that problem, then they won't see how extraordinary it is.
What I encourage you to do from the bottom of my heart
is to run your market research, and you can do that super easily
just by identifying some ideal customers and going in asking them
what do they think
about this type of solution and to tell you more about their problem.
Or you can use tools that exist out there where you can find existing audiences
and send them a survey that they will answer and get the answers and understand
what they truly want and need
so that you can tailor your offering
to their actual problems, to their actual needs and challenges.
Next step for you to consider when you want to start a small business,
be that online or physical business is to test your idea
and you can test the product if you're selling a product
or test the service concept that you would like to offer.
And here comes the loop back to my reference on freelancing.
The reason why I see so much potential in freelancing, it's because it can be
a very easy accessible way for you to test
your service offering idea.
You can offer that on a platform that already exists like Upwork or Fiber,
and see if customers really find value in whatever you're offering.
That way you know that when you're ready to scale and actually make investments
you don't fail because a lot of companies fail.
Not having done this step, they jump into spending a lot of money
investing, hiring people without having tested their idea.
If you, instead of offering services, would like to offer a product,
then you need to learn everything you can about a concept called
MVP, the minimum viable product.
And when you want to sell a product, be that an online course
or an Amazon product or an Etsy product,
be that physical or digital, you will be very, very well off
and you will succeed if you first test things out.
And this is significantly more relevant if your idea involves
something that takes a lot of time to develop something like a mobile app,
for example, or a product that requires
a lot of research and development, you want to feel fast.
You want to test at various stages of your product development
so that you don't finalize everything
and then realize that it is not exactly what your customers wanted.
Next up, for you to have a successful small or large business in 2022
is to get yourself out there and provide value to your ideal customer.
Because think about it, you cannot ask somebody to marry you
before getting to know you and before liking you.
And it works the same with selling.
You need people to get to know you.
See what you're about.
See what your product is about.
Get to like your product and then offer to sell it to them.
Though, by doing something that is called victim value added marketing,
you get yourself in front of your ideal customer and you give them so much value
that they will see how amazing your offering is for them.
And nowadays with social media, you can do this very, very easily.
Take me for example, right?
I have this YouTube channel where I can give you a lot of free advice
and I started this without actually thinking about a business idea.
Later on.
I literally just wanted to have an opportunity
to share a lot of the learnings.
A lot of the things that I've come across and that I've seen other people
fail on and a lot of things that I think you can
avoid if you understand how they work.
It was not necessarily intended as a business idea at the beginning, but
it is a very, very good way, a very good channel of getting myself
in front of you and getting you to see what I'm about and what I stand for
and what I know and how I can help and build that trust relationship.
I will never ask you to buy something without trusting me first,
and you should do the same.
So think about all the ways that you could get yourself
in front of your ideal customer.
Ideally, not through ads,
because there is not so much opportunity to build that trust when you run ads.
Think about other ways.
That could be an Instagram following.
It could be a blog, it could be a YouTube channel.
It could be tick tock.
There are so many ways nowadays that you can bring value to your customer.
Teach them, educate them,
give them so much knowledge and so much valuable information.
And advice that they start trusting you that they see that you mean
well, that you're there to help them, to give them value, to support them.
And only after you've done that, you can ask them to purchase from you.
Because if you ask them to purchase without having that trust,
the conversion rate that you will see is going to be significantly lower.
And probably the most important step that you need to master
is to generate demand and the way you do
this is by building a funnel or more
to bring your ideal customer on a journey before they end up purchasing from you
and there are tons of ways that you can build funnels,
and there are lots of books out there where you can learn how to do this
in a proper and effective way.
And by the way, if you want me to talk more about this in another video,
let me know in the comments below and I will absolutely create a video
where I talk to you more about how to build a funnel,
because I'm seeing this a lot with some of my current clients
that I'm working with, and they don't have
the right funnels in place and they make so much money,
but they could make so many more times more if they had the right funnel.
So what do I mean by a funnel that is the number of steps,
the sequence of steps that your customer goes on before
they know about you until they buy from you?
And probably even after that.
So let's say somebody is completely new to your brand.
How do you first get in touch with them that could be through this channel
that you choose to build trust, or it could be through ads,
or it could be through, let's say, using a platform that already exists
like Amazon FBA or like Etsy and so forth.
Once you've found them, then you need to take them on a journey
to build that trust
you need to send them a sequence of emails, or you need to bring them
to a landing page where they can learn more about you and so forth.
There are different ways that you can continue nurturing
those ideal customers until you can ask them to buy.
So this journey, this sequence of steps is called a funnel,
because as you go down this journey,
some people will churn and some people will go to the next level
but you start with a bigger number of people,
and then it becomes lower and lower and lower and lower
because of the conversion rate, down to the point where you actually sell.
There is a whole theory about funnels and how they should be built and all of that.
So if you want me to talk more about it, I can absolutely do this
and I would be more than happy to share everything
I know about building funnels until next time.
Don't forget about Taylor Brands.
The link is in the description below and in the pinned comment
if you'd like to try them out
and remember you have a coupon code so you can get a discount.
Until next time.
I suggest you go ahead and watch this video over here
where I talk a lot about how to pick a niche
that might be helpful when you start a business.
Thank you so, so much for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye.