Tomasz Gorecki, fellow blogger and long time contributor to this site sent me a link today that I wanted to share with everyone. If this video does not stir your passion it will hopefully give a not so gentle kick in the ass we all need.
The video is from the Web 2.0 Expo in New York this past September with a presentation from Gary Vaynerchuk. So let’s start hustling!
Oh I almost forgot to mention take a look at Tomasz’s Blog on his journey to get debt free. It’s a great story and is packed with lots of good tips. Debt In Your 20’s Is The Kiss of Death
Sit back and enjoy.
Doing what you love seems deceptively simple. We should know what we love, but we often confuse this with what others expect us to love, what we do to fill our time, and what we merely like.
Our friends, family and society have expectations of us which vary greatly. If you look at practically any program on television, you will see what society currently expects us to want and love. These images influence our behavior, even if we do not completely understand it.
Sometimes we are pressured to make our hobbies into more than they are. My friend Jen is a crafter in her spare time. She has a flair for making adorable dolls, but once she started taking commissions, her hobby became a chore. In this case, Jen didn’t really love what she was doing. Making dolls was a pleasant time filler, but it was little more than that.
When you truly love what you do, you get a sense of joy the moment you begin. Something you love will energize you and make you feel better about yourself, what you’re doing and life in general. Loving your business will bring harmony into your life; in and out of your workplace.
If you know you love what you do and are still working at making it a business success check out the article titled “From Passion to Profits”.
Ever forget to close the door behind you and have someone ask if you were born in a barn? Well here’s a situation where it’s finally a good thing to leave the door open, your marketing. Always make sure your marketing is creating an open door to your business. Have an amazing product or service? Well it doesn’t mean diddly squat if your marketing doors are closed and your just not getting through to your prospects. Here’s a marketing tip or two for the bootstrapped budget and holy-overhead-Batman budget alike.
First, we call your attention to word of mouth marketing (WOM). Sure, you’ve heard of WOM before, getting new business through referrals and people talking about your business. But what most people don’t think about is actively encouraging WOM business, thinking that it’s more like a mythical beast that you simply come upon deep within the forest. Although WOM marketing’s effects can lay dormant for a long time and then rear its mysterious, budget-beautifying head months or even years after someone referred your business much like a mythical creature awakened from its slumber, it’s a very real approach that should be continuously infused in your marketing.
How do you start lucratively gabbing about your business? With an elevator pitch. We’re not suggesting that you grow your hair out, perm it and carry a soprano saxophone around with you at all times, but more like developing a business pitch that you can deliver within the length of an elevator ride (30 seconds to a minute)-short and sweet. You may know the ins and outs of your business better than anyone, but if you can’t convey exactly what you do with concise confidence on demand, then your prospect is going to wonder how the hell your business has survived thus far.
Start out by getting a laser beam on your unique selling point (USP), that which separates your business from your competitors, and then dress it up with a few accompanying sentences that support that USP. Here’s an example:
“I own a business resource called BootStrappingBlog.com devoted to empowering the bootstrapped businessperson to their full potential. We’re dedicated to providing ongoing contributions of the latest in business news, resources, tips and advice-anything and everything necessary to help bootstrapped businesspeople not only survive, but surpass their goals and enjoy themselves while doing it!”
Caveat: Fight the urge to sell every point of your business-if your pitch is longer than a Kenny G song, then you’re going to lose your prospect as fast as a teenager runs away from one of his melodies. The whole point of your elevator pitch is to chum the waters and cause your prospect to come to you. Tempt them with just a quick business pitch and then wait for them to feed on their own curiosity, letting them come to you when their interest is piqued and they desire more information about your business.
Another aritcle of interest: People buy benefits, not features
Sometimes, when business problems have you completely stumped, in the words of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, you need to use a lifeline and phone a friend. While we often think that the road to success is traveled alone, our friends can give us the strength we need to take the chances that will lead to larger goals.
If you work alone, you can only rely on the skills you possess. You have no one to buoy your spirits when you are discouraged or to share your successes. Our friends often know our abilities better than we do. Where we see ourselves through a lens of self-criticism and doubt, our friends see a strong, smart, able-bodied compatriot. Don’t keep your business life a secret when you are having trouble; talk out your troubles with a friend and brainstorm solutions. You never know when creativity will strike. Every situation has its power teams, and with some experimentation, you and your group will find your way to the top.
Setting your own rules, self employment, sleeping as late as you want, lack of inhibitions; all reasons to leave the cubicle lifestyle and become your own boss. But what happens from your initial thoughts about self employment to the point of actually getting there can be tricky if you’re not well prepared. That’s where this article comes in. Being your own boss can be done in as easy as five steps and I want to show you how. I’ve done it on a slightly different path then what I’m going to explain to you, but if I were starting over again, this would be my definite list of 5 steps to leaving the cubicle.
Analyzing your passions
If you’re leaving the cubicle lifestyle because you hate it, jumping into your own business should be fun and exciting. It should be something you’ve got a deep passion about. If not, then why leave your cubicle, right? The first thing you need to do when you’re deciding to leave the cubicle and be your own boss is sitting down and really thinking about what it is you love to do. Maybe you’re an adventure junkie who loves skydiving and mountain climbing, or maybe you love a much calmer lifestyle and spend your spare time helping out at the elderly center. What is your passion? When you can answer this question, you’re well on your way to becoming your own boss.
When you have a definitive list of your passions, no matter how many there are, you are ready to start analyzing them. What I suggest doing is putting in big letters at the top of a piece of paper each passion (one piece of paper per passion). Under the title, list as many positive emotions you can associate with that particular passion. Anything from “I love the rush” to “It is a great way to spend time with my family”; no answers are wrong here.
Plan your path to profits
Without a road, or a solid ground to walk on, you can never take those first critical steps to making it to the finish line. Can we walk on air? Water? Highly unlikely. The same holds true in business. Without some form of plan, you’re aimlessly running with no goal in sight. I don’t want this misinterpreted as a statement telling you that you need a 200 page business plan with 10 year projected profits and tons of other useless information. That is not what I mean at all. Your plan to profits will come from the following; taking your passion list and brainstorming ideas on how each of these passions could be profitable.
For instance, if you’re love is cars, you could have the following list as a plan to profit.
- Mechanic
- Car photography
- Nascar racer
- Monster truck driver
- Drivers school instructor
- Car painter/customizer
The ideas here are limitless and should not be held back by negative thinking. The goal here is to come up with every possible way imaginable that you could make money with your passion. Again, no answers here are wrong (you’ll come to notice that this is a reoccurring theme – positive thinking).
Build a solid contact list
Networking is crucial to building start ups for all small business owners. Networking is also one of the best ways to get 10 steps ahead of your competition. Regardless of these two facts, building a contact list before starting your business is often overlooked. In any position you’re currently in, you can build a contact list. If you’re current job is in the IT field, you can make sure any contacts you have with your current employers sources is intact, or if you’re just starting fresh out of high school and you’re not sure about anything you’re doing, you’ve got friends and teachers that can be placed in your contact list.
Your contact list does not need to be for potential clients and customers only. Granted, you should set one of these up as well, but you need a list of people who can give it to you straight; the honest answers you’re looking for to make sure that by the time you’re launching your company, you’ve got all of the right pieces to the puzzle in place. Friends, colleagues, current company contacts; they all hold very valuable information to your business. Always remember that and you’ll be on a contact list building rampage.
*note, this is one step I never took when I first started my blog design company and I deeply regret it as it took me much longer to get into the green and a lot of changes were required along the way which would have been sidestepped totally if I just had a contact list.
Create a sure fire marketing strategy
Once you’ve got your building blocks in place, it’s time to put it all into effect. During this stage of planning, you’re going to want to focus hard on building something that will be effective and give you the greatest ROI. If you’re throwing a fishing line into a big river and hoping for a bite, you’ll be a lot worse off then if you went to a small pond that you knew was full of fish that liked your bait. Below are seven sentences you need to answer in order to create a solid foundation for your marketing strategy.
- The purpose of the marketing – The physical action you want your prospect to take.
- How you’ll achieve this purpose – your competitive advantage and benefits.
- Your target market – who are you aiming to benefit?
- The marketing weapon you’ll use – online, offline, magazine print, ect.
- The niche and your position and what you stand for.
- The identity of your business – Not who owns it, but what you stand for.
- Your budget – This should be expressed as a percentage of your projected revenue.
From here, you can build a more in depth plan of action, but without these seven sentences answered, your marketing plans will not fall into proper place. This is one area in your five step plan to leaving the cubicle that you should spend a bit of time on and make sure you’ve got everything down solid. To read more about the seven sentences listed above, you can check out Building an Effective Guerrilla Marketing Strategy.
Stop complaining and do it already
So now you have a great plan of action set together right? If not, re-read this article and then come back to this paragraph. I will keep this section short, because there’s not much left to say except to just do it; get out there and get yourself on your own road that doesn’t involve that damn cubicle. If you never try, you never fail. But on the same token, if you never try, you never win either.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there and make yourself proud of what you can do on your own. It’s not as scary as you might think!
If you’ve got questions for me or any of the other readers here, please feel free to leave a comment and lets get a discussion going about this subject. I’d love to hear your input.