Bootstrapping Guerrilla Marketing Blog

This is a series I am going to be putting on here for the next couple days, regarding bootstrapping your business. The main focus of this series is going to be strategies for the bootstrapper and how to do it successfully. For those who do not know, Bootstrapping is the act of starting a business with little to no external funding. Many people have gone through the process of bootstrapping and now run multi-million dollar companies like:

1. Printingforless.com
2. iClick
3. Aromasys
4. eBags.com

There are many more to list; too many to name her actually. So, with all of that out of the way, here is part 1 of 2 in my Bootstrapping Your Business course. The second part will be posted soon, so make sure you subscribe to the feed to be informed instantly when it’s posted.

Find the Right Product or Service

Before any bootstrapper starts his journey to success, he has to ask himself/herself a question:

How are you going to make the BIG money thats out there?

The internet and world alike are full of small time money making endeavors but a real bootstrapper will know how to pick his way through those and find the gem that will put himself/herself over the top in business. Can you come up with a million ideas for different business models, but can never decide which one you want to do? Well, its a harsh truth, but you will probably never become successful if the hardest thing for you to do is decide what to do.

A bootstrapper will only find out what business is successful by doing this: Talking to customers to discover what the industry REALLY NEEDS, and not what you WANT TO GIVE. Understanding this will put you at a huge advantage in generating a successful business.

Think about it like this, if you are selling a product that NOONE WANTS, what is the probability that your company will succeed? Very low. Now, think about KNOWING what the customers want, before you even step foot into the business. You will have one leg up on everyone competing against you because you will know the exact needs of the customers.

Once you come up with your business idea, you will want to contact as many potential clients as possible. Even before you have your product or service ready. What? That sounds crazy? NO! Its not crazy, its SMART! There is a difference. If you contact 50 people, and no one wants your product, the most you wasted was a little time, and some phone bills. Compare that to the 1,000+ you might have spent in creating everything needed for your company to start, and you will have saved yourself a big headache.

Immerse Yourself

This strategy is pretty simple and straight forward for anyone who knows anything about getting a business off the ground. In the beginning of your business, doing the many phone calls and emails might seem too time consuming, but they are all worth it. They might cost a little on the time side as well as a small phone bill, but they are all well worth doing.

You will also want to take the time to figure out what companies in your field are currently doing right and also doing wrong. Knowing what companies are doing right is self explanatory; you can follow in their footsteps. The process of finding out what they are doing wrong is where the real key is. By figuring out what their current clients do not like about their services, customer service, website look and user interaction, you can then capitalize on this and create your business model to become better then the competitors.

Trial and error is a big part of immersing yourself in your business. You need to learn how to run a successful business in order to make money, and in order to learn what will work and what will not, you need to work. If you want to know how well your meals are that you are preparing for the local hospital staff after their cafeteria closes, then you need to sell some of those meals to get the customers reactions. Hell, offer them their first meal for free. (Who knows, they might like it and since you already have given them a meal for free, they will be more willing to buy a second meal) If they do not like the first meal, well, you wasted 10-20 bucks on the meal.

Become the Expert Yourself

The title means what it says; become the expert yourself. In too many cases, people will fall victim to someone claiming to be the smartest person in business and life in general. You’ve seen all of the e-books floating around claiming to make you rich while sitting on your couch and so on. These are a reason why becoming the expert yourself is key in bootstrapping your business.

There are many people who will claim to be experts in their business field, but the majority of the time, these guys/girls are fresh out of high school or college and only follow google trends, or other trends that makes them believe they know what is hot. The beauty of being a bootstrapper is that you can look past what is hot now, and look forward to what WILL BE hot in the future and capitalize on it now before the competition gets too large.

Even with a marketing expert or business expert and all of the knowledge they claim they can sell you, or sell their time to give you, you can find online or locally for free. Doing research is what will put you ahead of the game and make you the expert in your field. I would never pay someone to give me a consultation unless I knew for sure they were millionaires, and even then I would be skeptical because what works for them might not work for you.

Perfect example of an expert who blows smoke up your ass: THE RICH JERK! We all know about his e-book and his asshole attitude, but what you might not know is that he is currently being sued by a lot of people. Not the people who bought his e-book though. Remember the cars and planes and mansions on his main page? The rightful owners of those images are suing him. He owns none of what he portrays. He just made people believe he was an expert and so many people bought it.

I am not saying to become and expert in the field of business you are going into and then blow smoke up other peoples asses about what you can do for them, but just learn it for yourself. You might spend more time on it, but never more money. Bootstrappers know why saving money and not spending it unless you have to is key.

Think in Black and White

When I say this, I do not mean to think racially so get that out of the way right now. Thinking in black in white is the basic idea that the world can be filled with a lot of hazy lines and gray areas, but thinking in black in white is a huge time saver. In the past strategies, I have mentioned some things that require some time and effort, so anything you can do to save time, is good.

Think in black and white and you will weed out a lot of the dumb ideas that get tossed at you from people who know nothing about what you are doing, or want to do. It will also help you realize the great ideas in the midst of those that are not as great. Myself, I get caught up in a lot of things when I am working, and I know I shouldn’t. I watch videos, I listen to music, read message boards, and so on, but as of right now, I am taking a Think Black and White Stance on everything.

If it doesn’t make money, then it probably isn’t worth it. Remember that when you are surfing myspace, or looking at dumb kids on youtube when you should be creating another website for your portfolio, or writing up your business plan. You will thank me later.

Distractions will come up in any part of your life, but learning how to balance your time and not be distracted by the middle area of the color spectrum will help you profit a lot sooner then you would if you were playing with your playstation 3 and drinking beer all day. Theres a time and place for those things, and if you cannot figure out the time, then time might just come back to haunt you. Its not really that complicated:

Do what you need to, when you need to. Do what you want to, when you have time.

The bootstrapper should know how to judge what is good for business and bad for business really quick. Its something you are either born with, or you work really hard to obtain. If you do not want it or do not think it is important, then do not worry about being a millionaire like the rest of us are doing!

* Please remember to stick around and subscribe to our feed to keep up to date on the sites articles and to make sure you don’t miss part two to this series which will touch on 4 more major points of Bootstrapping Your Business