0

Advice On How To Start a Business

Some further advice on how to start a business: there is no "one right way". You have to make your own choices. Are there client fields that are likely to give you a better chance for success? Sure. But nothing is guaranteed.

Every business, and I mean every single one, does have a few specific things.

The person asking for advice who prompted this post said they had a budget of $500 for starting their business. Your budget does not matter. Put that money away, use it to pay for living expenses so your business can "stay alive". Don't get distracted by that money.

First you need to choose who you are helping, and what problems you are helping them solve.

These are also called your niche and your offers or services.

No one can pick these for you. There are no magic bullets on how to start a business. If you pick a popular niche, you get a lot of competition. If you pick a niche that not many other people are in, there's probably a reason--like the people in it don't understand why they need marketing help.

entrepreneur, startup, how to start a business

How To Start a Business: Picking a Niche

I look for niches with good cash reserves, a quick payment cycle from their customers, a high offer price, and a topic I understand and like. That will make me automatically enthusiastic. It keeps me away from realtors (estate agents), engineering firms and pie sellers and moves me towards trades like electricians and roofers. Can you see why?

Realtors = long payment cycle, they get their money a month from now. Not good. Pie sellers = low offer price, which doesn't support my service cost. Trades = good service price, and they get paid today or close to it.

Now what services can you offer that you're confident in delivering?

A popular agency growth program I represent teaches you how to hire competent subcontractors, so you can find the customers and manage the projects, but these subcontractors actually do the work. And they do it at a lower price than you're charging, if you follow the directions, so you make money.

In the beginning I would not try to offer many services. Do not try to be all things to all people, or take money because it is waved in your direction. Choose one or two things you can get good at.

The Importance of Competencies In How To Start a Business

You need to develop COMPETENCIES in a number of areas to be successful in business. Delivery of services is one of these areas. Others are:

  • Lead generation
  • Qualification (sorting leads for the good ones)
  • Closing (turning some of the qualified leads into buyers)

and as I said above, Fulfillment or delivery of services, so you can give clients what they paid for.

What I said may sound dull but you might be astonished by how few people understand what they're getting into with a business, including an agency business...and how even fewer can explain how they're doing these four things in plain language.

Can you write down in plain language how you are doing each of these four things?

How are you generating leads?

If you can't explain this, I guarantee you do not have a business.

And continue doing this for the other three areas.

Getting Clarity When Starting a Business Is Critical

These are exactly the same things I'd ask you to explain, or or with you to develop, in a paid consultation so you get clarity.

Choose a method, and write it down. Email? LinkedIn messaging? Facebook ads? Phone calls? How are you going about generating leads?

If you can't explain it, you don't know what you're doing or how you're doing it. And if you don't know those things, you sure can't delegate it to someone else.

The agency business is a series of choices. We will work with these people, but not those. We will offer these services, ie. solve these problems, but not others. We will charge prices at this level, thereby solving the problems at this particular magnitude, but not others.

Where I see people struggling with their agency business is in their trouble making these choices. They sit there hoping someone else will give them the "one right way", the magic bullets. No. You have to choose. You must develop those competencies. There aren't many of them, really...less than a half-dozen. And the faster you choose and get to work, the faster you'll develop them.

If you pick a leadgen method, as an example, and after a few weeks determine it isn't working for you, you can erase what you wrote and pick a new approach. If cold email didn't work, you can change it to phone outreach.

How People Lose In Starting a Business

But what I've seen is people giving up on methods without having really tried them. They made four phone calls and say, "Cold calling doesn't work for me". Of course it doesn't! You didn't do it! You didn't develop any competency at it. Or they send 100 emails and give up, saying "Cold emails don't work for me". You can't truthfully say that: you didn't do the work. It takes far more than 100 emails to get anywhere, unless you're lucky.

So understanding the scale of what is required is necessary for success here.

One final thing: I see people get into programs for agency founders and give up. They say they're "overwhelmed" and when I ask them, "Why didn't you talk to a coach?" they tell me: "I didn't know I could do that".

I don't believe you if you say that. You gave up.

And I have to tell you the harsh truth: Giving Up is not the sign of an entrepreneur. If you give up so easily, you're probably not cut out to be a business owner. Sorry if that hurts, but it's the truth. Not everyone should be a business owner.

I have talked to people who didn't do much in a program, but didn't give up and when they spoke to me they decided to keep fighting. That's the sign of a true entrepreneur. Finding things out for themselves. Not taking No for an answer. Not getting "overwhelmed" and saying to themselves, "This is too hard. I'm stopping".

If you will learn, and keep going when the going gets tough, you might be a real business owner.

>> Jason Kanigan is a conversion expert and sales coach. Book a consultation with him here. <<

0

Advice for a New Agency Founder

"Any advice for a new agency founder?" This was a real question posted in a large agency group yesterday.

My Answer: Focus on REVENUE GENERATING ACTIVITIES.

Playing around with your website is not a revenue generating activity.

Fiddling with your offer is not a revenue generating activity.

Similarly, writing copy is not a revenue generating activity.

Cleaning the company bathroom is unquestionably not revenue generating activity. Yes, I have seen founders try to hide from their business by doing this.

However, getting conversations with qualified prospective clients is revenue generating activity.

new agency, open door, unlock new business, unlock new agency, open new business

Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay

Focused Advice for a New Agency Founder

Know and apply the difference between Pay Time and No Pay Time. As a result, do non-revenue generating activities in No Pay Time.

Also, do not believe that "being busy" is "being productive".

Set a specific money target and go for it. "Trying to make as much money as possible" is no target at all and dumb. Your subconscious needs a target. To survive, you need a money target. Those who don't set a specific money target (which you can achieve and then raise) tend to lose a little or a lot of money month after month until they have to go back to a j-o-b.

Therefore, set your money target for at least 2X of what you thought. You are responsible for EVERYTHING now. You can't go down to the company storeroom and pick up a pack of pens and a notebook. You have to pay for all that stuff now. You need more money than you think.

If you're not talking to at least two qualified prospects a day, you're bound for failure.

The Four Systems Every Agency Founder Needs To Be Concentrating On

Every business needs four systems:

  1. Lead Generation
  2. Qualification
  3. Closing
  4. Fulfillment.

Hardly anyone I've known over the past dozen years in the agency game thinks that way. They make things up as they go along. Then they end up with a sloppy set of processes and outcomes, and in fact are not even thinking of processes to make up systems at all. At that point they wonder why the business is slushy.

Be thinking every day about how you are accomplishing these four systems. How are you executing them, written in plain language first and then applying technology last? How can you improve them?

Advice for a New Agency Founder—What They Won't Tell You

Your business needs eyeballs (Traffic) and a way to turn some of those eyeballs into buyers (Conversion). Don't buy anything unless you understand EXACTLY where it fits in, in either generating Traffic or helping you with Conversion. Is there a hole in Traffic or a hole in Conversion that this thing can help you fill?

So many people buy a tech solution or other offer because the sales copy made it sound cool. They get things off Appsumo because "it's a deal". They have no idea where it fits into Traffic or Conversion, and therefore they never use it. I have watched people make this mistake again and again over 10+ years. Markedly, I have watched some specific people stay in the wrong mindset and remain broke for 10+ years. Don't be one of them.

Your job is to get at least two conversations with qualified prospects a day. "Qualified" means they admit they have a problem you can fix and want help fixing it; the size of the problem warrants your involvement; and they have a personality you can get along with. If you do this, you'll get 10 conversations a week. That's over 40 a month. Even if you suck as a salesperson, over a month you should land at least one client by accident. That's called a "laydown", someone who was waiting for someone like you to come along and wants to give you the money.

What New Agency Founders Need To Understand About Sales

A final mindset thing: There are without a doubt people out there who WANT to Give You The Money. They have money and they are desperately seeking Talent. "Please," they are praying, "send me someone COMPETENT who I can give this money to in exchange for them taking this Serious Problem off my hands." Understand, therefore, that they want this problem taken care of more than they want the money. Broke strugglers have an impossible time understanding this. Imprint it on your soul. Someone out there is desperate to give you money right now. You don't have to convince, force, or fool them into hiring you.

Print this out and tape it up in front of you in your work area. In addition, read it at the start of your day, the middle of your day, and the end of your day. Do not expect your mind and your memory to remember a darn thing on its own. For that reason you have to keep the instructions, the vision, the outcome you want right in front of you.

When I have not kept these principles in front of me over the past dozen plus years, I have forgotten them. That has led to trouble.

>> Jason Kanigan is a strategist who works with agency owners to increase the profitabilty and effectiveness of their organizations. Book a consultation with Jason here <<

0

How Do I Start A Business?

How Do I Start A Business? Here is my answer to a "Can you give me a 10 minute call on How do I start a business" question, from a large group of coaches (and would-like-to-be-coaches). Maybe it'll help someone out here in the wild. Let me explain the process in six straightforward questions you must answer:

Starting a Business: The Positioning Element

1. Who will you help? Identify a target market.

2. What will you help them with? Financials? Strategy? Operations? What's your offer?

I think of this as "taking the client on a bus trip". You pick them up at Stop A. Where is that? And then you take them on a journey and drop them off at Stop B. Where is that located? How is that location/situation better than where you picked them up?

target market, start a business, startup, target customer, offer, how do i start a business, how am i on target starting a business

Hit Your Target Audience by Making Specific Choices and Doing Your Research First.

3. What size of problem are you solving for them?

You can have a number, but it's best to have the client do the math and figure out how big the problem is. You can easily charge 5% of the size of the problem. Maybe 10%. Maybe more, if you have good reason to charge more. This is more formally known as “budget” (which is not “is the prospect breathing and has a dollar in their jeans?”). I have made videos and content on this concept, called “Monetizing The Problem”, for a decade.

Looking around and seeing "market rate" to figure out your pricing is a common and foolish idea that keeps people poor.

The Traffic and Conversion Element

4. How will you find your target client? Where are they?

5. How will you begin a conversation with them, and eventually sell your service? Map this out.

How Do I Start a Business: The Fulfillment Element

6. How will you deliver your service? How will you and the client know when you are done (dropped them off at Stop B)?

These are the basics. You get to choose. You get to choose your customers. You get to choose the problem you solve. You get to choose the size of problem you solve. You get to choose how much you charge. I believe you should choose a target market and a service that you enjoy talking about all day. That way you will be automatically enthusiastic. There must be an overlap between that and what people will pay for, or you will have a hobby and not a business. Many people make this mistake.

Many of your limiting beliefs will impact these choices. Since they are limiting beliefs, you are likely to be unconscious of them.

Final insight: you can outsource anything on the list.

>> Jason Kanigan is an agency growth expert. Book a consultation with him here <<