Starting Your First Home Business
When I first wanted to start my business back in 1997 I saw a commercial on television that was selling compact discs online and thought I could do the same thing. However I had little to no money versus this company had millions of dollars of capital and money for its startup.
Trying to mimic what they were doing was something I thought I had to do however going through the process I realized that it would never work because we’re at two different spectrums of our business.
Starting your first home business should be built around something that you’re passionate about. The fastest way to success is to find a coach or mentor that has already achieved the results that you’re looking for.
While there are many types of businesses you can start I’m going to go over a few that doesn’t require too much Capital to begin with and also could earn you a good living with study and passive income for years to come.
What kind of business can you start.
The business you can start should stem around what you’re passionate about. I agree with this to some point now I want to be blunt with you and not to tear your dreams down totally but when I heard this from my mentor it sunk in and made total sense and I hope it does for you too.
Step back and think for a second I’m going to ask you a question: ask anyone that you know right now that is a business owner if whatever they’re doing at this time was their very first business idea.
Chances are this is not and it could be multiple failures prior before they even got to this business. I bring this up so that you understand that even though your first business should be something you’re passionate about I want you to know that it may not work out.
However this is the beauty of it you’re going to learn and something’s going to come out from it which will drive you to taking what you’ve learned from the first business and applying it to the next.
This is not a bad thing in fact I first started off with one of the teach people how to do YouTube and the next thing I know I’m selling crochet hooks and notions. Not even close to what I wanted to do however I learned the steps and action that was needed to build a business from my first endeavor.
Once I had that working I then know how to repeat the process. which is why you see me doing this blog and YouTube channel for James Delong now because I understood how to make it work for my crocheted niche.
So even though I tell you that your first business adventure will fail doesn’t mean that you can’t go back to it later on after you learned what it takes to build a successful business and start that first one over again with the newfound knowledge.
Coming Up with Ideas
Is this section I want you to come up with at least 20 to 30 ideas of businesses that you could do that you’re passionate about that you have some type of knowledge. Now there is an exception to the rule you don’t have to have expert knowledge in a certain field in order to be a business owner.
You can hire the right people that have the expertise so you don’t have know it all and then you can just do what you do well and work on your strengths and become a business owner and delegate the rest.
Choosing Top 3 Ideas
From that list of 20 to 30 ideas now you should choose the top three and from this point I want you to think of how could you grow this business how much money does it take to start and will this be something you could do for at least two to three years without being bored.
From your list do a little research and find companies that are in this niche and see if you like what they are doing and their business model. Make note of what products and services they sell.
How much time or investment do you need to create something similar. Do these companies have blogs, a social media presence. What platform are they using Tik-Tok, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube.?
Decision Time
Now pick one from the three. It doesn’t matter which one because like I mentioned earlier your very first business will fail but it’s not a bad thing you will learn from it and you will evolve and have a better business the next time around and you could always come back to this later once you figure it out.
What to Do Now
You’re at the point now where you picked a specific Niche you want to do your business in and at this point let’s knock out a few tasks.
- Choose a name for your business
- Register your domain name
- Register that name with your favorite social media accounts
- Set up a Blog
- Register for stripe or PayPal so you can accept payments
- Set up a buy me a coffee or patreon account so you can accept tips and donations
- Begin writing articles on your blog
That’s all the steps you need to begin with at some point you will definitely want to Branch out if you’re comfortable with being on camera then you definitely should do a YouTube channel and if you would like to even go further a podcast as well.
I know this is a little different when we talked about starting a business but by having a Blog a YouTube channel and even a podcast this can drive traffic to your site for many years to come which is going to help your business grow organically and also build more Trust in Authority for your business.
If you have lots of money to begin with you can start off by purchasing ads and just driving traffic to your Sales Pages or your products and services.
The only downside I see to that is once you run out of cash if you’re not constantly running ads then the traffic stops going to your site and you won’t make any more money.
following the principles of setting up a Blog writing articles and creating content such as a YouTube video or podcast this will continually Drive traffic to your site for years to come.
If at the beginning you don’t have a product or service to sell you can still start this process and with the mentioning of buy me a coffee or patreon you can have your readers, viewers, and/or followers donate for your time and help support what you’re doing at this moment.
Reverse Engineer Your Competitors
I say competitors but in actuality they’re really your collaborative networking business partners if you do things correctly.
Just because someone is in the same field as you doesn’t necessarily mean they’re your competitors they will have a different audience than you and vice versa depending on your business’ mission statements and values so even if you both sell the same product you will have different beliefs and that attracts different customers.
This is where I like to reverse-engineer and find out what platform works best for them because chances are if they’re doing something really well on YouTube then you can piggyback off of that and start doing something similar because that means their audiences hanging out on YouTube and that’s what you should create your content as well.
Not all social media are the same so if you’re in a niche where photos are really heavy then a podcast may not be the thing to do however using Instagram or Pinterest may be the most effective way to drive traffic to your site.
Making A Sale
We’re so close to launching your business now I had no part in earlier that I mentioned what you should be selling. There’s a specific reason why I did that and if your intention was to sell a specific product and that’s why you wanted to do this business that’s fine.
However, the reason why I recommended that you start off with a Blog and begin creating traffic to your site and starting off with a buy me a coffee or patreon is because now you can have a list of people you can talk to and what makes the best product is selling something that they want.
Many business owners want to sell something they think their customers need however you don’t know that but by building a following you can simply ask them what it is they want example.
In a post or email, you can say to your audience I’m thinking of creating a new product call X. Would this be something you’re interested in? if there’s something you’d like that I didn’t mention please reply or comment so that I know.
Following this method will help you out tremendously because you won’t waste your time creating something that your audience doesn’t want. I’ve learned that mistake and it cost me months creating a course and as soon as I released it only had a few buyers and wasn’t worth continuing.
Create or produce this product or service and you’ll be sure to have buyers on day 1!
Finding a Mentor
Read plenty of marketing books listen to podcast and find yourself a mentor. Once I’ve done this myself I was able to find a mentor that help me change things around completely.
I was able to restart the course that I didn’t sell because I framed it in a way that made sense example if you were trying to sell a course for somebody to lose weight and you told him to eat salads that wouldn’t sell too well but if you said eat all the steak and cheese you want and lose 20 lbs a week will that might be more enticing.
So even though you’re giving them something that they need it may not be something they want. They don’t want salads, they want steaks.
Final Thoughts
To wrap this up what you need to do is brainstorm 22-30 ideas and narrow it down to just one start a site a Blog a YouTube channel whatever social media that works with it however the website is the most important thing and then began trading articles and learn how to blog properly and create traffic generating post.
Any content you create on other platforms should drive them back to your main website which is your blog. That is where you can get them to join your email list or see your offers and become part of your community.
Create articles and driving traffic to your site then you’ll be able to sell anything you want anytime you want and that is the greatest way of starting and growing your business.
