- On today's episode we're talking all about
how to start your business from scratch
to set you up with the maximum opportunity for success.
Let's get to it.
Hey there, Adam Erhart here, Modern Marketing Strategist
and welcome to the Modern Marketing Show
where we help you make marketing that matters.
So today we're talking about one of the most popular
and common questions I get, which is how to start
a business from absolute scratch.
Now, whether you have an idea or you have no idea
or, whether you already have an established business,
the things we cover today are gonna be equally applicable
because they're gonna help you to build a brand new offer
or a brand new service or product based business
or whatever it is, using proper fundamentals
and proper foundational concepts, which,
when properly applied are gonna give you
the most opportunity for success, the highest probability
for profitability and you'll have the most fun doing it.
Quick disclaimer, you do need to be
at least somewhat proficient in what you're trying
to sell here for this to work.
After all, that's only right and businesses that don't know
what they're doing don't last long.
So starting from the top and working all the way through
the process, number one is to pick your business.
Now when choosing your business or your new service
or offer, there's three crucial ingredients
that are going to ensure that you've got
the greatest likelihood of success
and all three are equally important
if you want to give yourself and your business
the highest likelihood of success
and number one is that you need
to find something that you like doing.
This is because if you choose something
that you really just hate doing,
well you're not gonna wanna do it
and you're not gonna wanna dedicate
the amount of time necessary
to building a thriving business.
Number two is this should really
be something that you're good at
or that you can hire someone that's good at.
Again, businesses that don't do a good job,
no surprise here, well, they go out of business
and number three and maybe most importantly of all
is that there needs to be market demand
for what you're trying to do.
Just because you like something, just because you're good
at it, doesn't mean that the market wants it.
It's a tough pill to swallow but it really is important
to understand so when choosing your business idea,
pick something that you like, pick something you're good at
and pick something that people are willing to pay you for.
All right, once we've got that covered,
let's move on to number two, which is choosing your niche.
Now when trying to choose a niche and how far down
to kind of like burrow down the rabbit hole
in deciding what kind of market you're gonna serve,
well there's a couple of factors that come into play.
First of all, the larger and broader your audience,
well the more specialized you're gonna need to be.
But if you've got a really small market area
or a small local area, well then you can afford
to go a little bit broader on your services
or on your offering.
A really rough rule of thumb though is that
the more specialized you are, the higher you can charge
and the more in demand you're gonna be.
If you have no idea where to start, my advice is
to start small, start really niche down
and you can always broaden out later
once you've capitalized and maximized
that part of the population.
All right, so we've got our business, we've got our niche,
it's time to pick our ideal target market.
Just like we covered before,
here you're gonna wanna start small
and get bigger later but really hone in
on exactly who it is you're trying to serve
by uncovering their demographic, geographic
and psychographic variables.
Now, demographic details are gonna be the obvious things,
like age or gender or occupation or anything like that.
Geographic is obviously if you wanna target
a small local area, like a neighborhood,
maybe a larger city, maybe an entire state
or province or maybe an entire country
or maybe you wanna go international.
Again, start small, get big later.
And then lastly, you've got those psychographic variables
which are really important to hone in on
and what's really gonna enable you to create marketing
that matters and messages that resonate
with your ideal target market.
Psychographic variables are like what are their attitudes,
what are their interests, what behaviors do they have,
and when you really get clear about who it is you're trying
to serve and their pains and their problems
and all the things you're gonna be able to help them solve,
well the better you're gonna be able to target in on them
using some of the advanced targeting options
we now have available through all sorts
of social media advertising.
All right, so now that we've got all that covered,
it's time to pick a name for your business.
Now, when it comes to naming your business,
here's the reality, it really doesn't matter
as much as you think.
I know, I know, when I first started my business,
I went over this again and again.
I spent many sleepless nights trying to decide,
should I name it after my own name,
should I come up with a catchy name,
should I be really direct and literal,
I was all over the map and I read everything
I could get my hands on on which way to go
and, like most advice, every time
that I was swayed one direction,
I'd come across another equally convincing
piece of content that said, welp, no, go this way instead.
So after years and years of doing this,
the reality is I've uncovered it really doesn't matter
as much as you think.
Sure, there's benefits to going after your own name
and there's benefits to going after a corporate name
or anything like that but at the end of the day,
it's really gonna come down to you
and your personal preference, as well as
where you wanna take the business.
A couple real quick tips are that using your personal name
will make it easier to market and to get your name
out there initially because people like doing business
with people more than businesses
but if your plan is on global domination
and you wanna expand and grow the business,
well then you're gonna wanna go with a corporate name
rather than your personal name because it's gonna allow
for greater scalability and greater growth.
All right, so now that we've got all that covered,
it's time to design between one and three packages.
Now the reason that you wanna design one to three packages
is it's gonna make it really clear what your business does
and for what price point, which is going to make
the decision process a lot easier for your customers
and it's gonna make it easier on you to communicate this.
Now, without knowing what market or industry or business
you're in, it's hard for me to just pick a number
out of thin air but, of course, you're gonna wanna have
that low, that medium and that high price point.
The high price point is effective because you will get
about 20% of the market that wants it
but it'll also price anchor the lower priced products,
making them look like a better value.
So typically what you wanna do is make your best value,
or the one that you want people to go to the most,
right in the middle and then, of course, you can offer
that budget option and that premium option.
But if you're just starting, three tends to be
the magic number to go for.
All right, so now that we've got all that covered,
it's time to get your business online
and this means building a super basic website.
Now at this stage, your website does not need
to be fancy and you don't need to spend
20 or 30 grand having it built custom
right from the ground up.
In fact, you can get by probably with a few hundred
or maybe even a few thousand dollars depending
on how customized you want it to be.
The point is to remember to keep it clean,
professional and mobile responsive, which means
that it'll look good across any different screen size.
Now when it comes to building your website,
my advice is to probably go with something
like Wordpress, get it professionally hosted,
either build it yourself or have a designer
do a really basic theme for you
but if that's not up your alley, there's a number
of really quick and really easy commercial options
available too.
So now that you've got that central hub,
that one main area that you can send people to,
it's time to build out the social media marketing
around that and when it comes to social media marketing,
most people get way overwhelmed and they start doing
way too much when they really don't need to
so my advice here is to pick one or maybe two channels
that best resonate with your audience.
Now the key here is to clearly identify
the demographic that you're going after
and then identify the channels
that best associate with that.
Typically, you really can't go too wrong with Facebook
but after that, you might wanna look at Instagram
or YouTube or Twitter or maybe even LinkedIn
if you've got a really professional market.
Again, pick one, maybe two and then move on.
So now that that's covered, it's time to get some results
and to showcase the work that you've done.
Now if you've never worked in this business before,
you have no clients and no customers and no case studies
and no testimonials or anything like that, don't be afraid
to work for free because at this point of the game,
your goal is to amass massive success
and massive results for your clients and customers
and this means you've gotta get some results
under your belt.
So don't be afraid to work for free
or work for really cheap to get those few
initial case studies and those few initial testimonials,
which are gonna provide the social proof necessary
to grow your business.
So now that you've got your business kind of set up,
you've got some testimonials and some case studies
under your belt, well it's time to further expand
your marketing and this means beginning
some initial outreach.
My advice here isn't to sink a lot of money
into paid advertising but rather to leverage
the free and organic options available to you.
Primarily, through your personal Facebook page.
Yes, I said personal, not business
and the reason you want to do this is multifold
but, again, we like doing business with people
more than businesses and you're gonna have
no greater opportunity for referrals
in that initial business than through your friends
and family and their network as well.
So don't be shy, get out there and make a post
about what you do, about your new business
and who you might be well positioned to help.
Your goal here isn't sleazy sales tactics
but rather serving and offering value and, again,
remember, you're in the early stages
so your prices might be a bit lower
and this is a great opportunity for someone
to get to work with you.
So now that you've got that done,
it's time to go a little bit further with your marketing
and I really can't stress just how important
and just how crucial marketing is for the success
of your business.
I mean, have you ever seen a business
that is absolutely terrible and yet they're booked out
for months in advance?
Or seen a great business or heard the story
of someone who's really good at what they do
but they just can't seem to get enough clients
or leads or sales?
Well the reason that happens is all because of marketing
and it shows the true power of marketing
and what it can do for your business
so now that you've got those initial clients and customers,
those initial sales and some revenue coming in the door,
it's time to reinvest and double down
on really mastering marketing for your business.
The options here are nearly endless
and it's a truly exciting time to grow your business
so rather than list them all out,
make sure to take a look around the channel
as there's a ton of other videos here that could help you.
So at this stage, you've got your business,
you've got your name, your website,
you've done some marketing, things are running smoothly,
well I wanna cover just a few really advanced tips
for if you decide that you really wanna
expedite your results.
Now be warned, this isn't for everyone
and you definitely do not need to do this
to build your business up right away
but at some point, and probably sooner than later,
you'll at least want to consider what I'm about to tell ya.
So let's dive into the advanced tips now.
Tip number one is you may wanna consider
starting a podcast or a YouTube channel
and inviting some of your ideal clients
as guests on the show.
Now the benefit of this is multifold,
in fact, first of all, you're gonna be creating
valuable content whether in audio or visual form
but also by inviting potential clients as guests,
it'll allow you to learn their story,
to provide them some value and then to leverage that
as a valuable marketing asset.
Next, you're really gonna wanna double down
on content marketing and this means creating
as much valuable content as you possibly can,
showcasing your expertise and helping the market.
This is gonna position you as the expert
and that you actually know what you're talking about
as well as bring in new leads and new sales
almost on auto pilot.
After that, you'll wanna commit to learning
about the paid traffic options available,
like Facebook ads.
Facebook ads are fantastic and they're like gas on the fire
but they won't get that fire started
so you wanna make sure that your offer
and your sales funnel and all of that is in place
before you throw money at it.
Next, if you happen to be working in a local area,
well don't be afraid of putting on a live event,
doing a question and answer period or doing some sort
of tutorial or how to thing.
Getting face to face is incredibly powerful
and it'll allow you to overcome so many objections
so much quicker.
Next, look for others in non-competitive markets
who have a similar target audience to you.
There may be collaborative opportunities here
and you may be able to help each other
grow each other's businesses.
And lastly, and maybe most importantly,
keep improving and keep getting better every single day.
Starting a business from scratch is no easy task
but the rewards are well worth the effort,
as I'm sure you know or you wouldn't be here
watching this now.
So tell me in the comments section below,
what kind of business are you thinkin' about starting?
And, if there were no obstacles at all,
what business would you love to start?
Lastly, if you enjoyed the video, make sure to give it
a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel.
If you have any questions, comments
or suggestions for a future video,
make sure to leave them in the comments section below.
Thanks so much for watching and I'll catch ya next time
on the Modern Marketing Show.