Starting a new business can be a stressful part of life. In the beginning months of starting my business I felt all types of emotions. I was excited about this new adventure, but scared of the unknown. 

I had a lot of self-doubt in the beginning. Looking back now I realize it is normal to feel these things and all a part of the process.

In hopes of helping someone else during their journey of entrepreneurship, I’ve written down 3 things I learned in the first months of starting my business.

1. Main Tasks to Focus On

There are a MILLION things you can do when starting your business and I found it very hard to decide what’s truly important. Now knowing what I do, I realize you don’t need to focus on the aesthetics so much at the beginning.

Stop focusing on what fonts you want to use, or what colors your brand should be to represent you.  I found my first paying clients before I even had a website! I didn’t even have a logo, or my brand fonts picked out. I didn’t even have a mailing list.

What Should You Focus On?

01 Clarify Your Idea – Figure out your niche and validate it.

02 Do Your Research – Get out there and study what others are doing in your niche. Learn from their mistakes and follow their wins!

03 Brainstorm – Begin to map out how you would like your website layout to look. Grab ideas from others that you like. However, you don’t need a perfect website to get started!

04 Offer Value – Don’t just jump in and ask people to buy from you. Help others by figuring out what problem you can solve for them. Join Social groups (e.g. Facebook groups) then read and ask questions. What are the main factors everyone is having trouble with and how can you help? Once you know others needs, you know what you can offer.

05 Reach Out – Reach out to the people that are looking for the solutions that YOU have.  Answer people that ask questions in your area of expertise. Get out there and connect with people!

Extra Tip:

Your first or next client might be closer then you think. Look for potential clients within your circle of friends and family.

Ask around and see if anyone is looking for a web designer, a social media manager, a  copywriter or whatever it is that you are offering.

Even if they don’t need what you are offering, they might know someone that does.

2. Don’t Get Overwhelmed, Hire a Coach!

I have to confess: I was a freebie junkie!  I’ve signed up to 100 newsletters from other coaches, marketing specialists and social media strategists. I studied everything about opt-ins, sales funnels, social media management and signed up for every webinar on how to get started.

It was an overload of information.  I simply consumed everything and did NOTHING! I felt completely lost about how and where to start. There was still so much more to learn before starting my business.

There are endless resources out there for free, so you really don’t have any excuses to not get started on gathering information.

However, don’t get LOST out there. You can get freebies about anything and everything, but not everything will help you get started. Stay focused on the beginning processes, everything else will come over time.

I struggled to understand the big picture and was basically consuming, consuming, consuming – but not taking action.

CLARITY comes from taking action!

“The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.”

–Walt Disney, Co-Founder, Disney

If you want results fast, get a mentor! Hiring a Coach will help you stay focused on your present goal instead of scrambling all over the place like I did at first.

Work with people who have already achieved what you want to achieve (e.g. get your first client) and join Facebook groups around your business ideas. A coach will reduce your stress and help you with the RIGHT steps to take in starting your business.

Results I achieved during the 3 months of hiring my first Coach:

• Grew my Coaching business whilst still working in my 9-5
• Signed up my first 3 clients before I even had a website
• Formed a clear vision of my niche and my target audience (which is YOU! Explorer Archetypes that can’t imagine staying stuck in one job or location for the rest of their lives!)
• Packaged my services into fixed pricing packages instead of hourly rates
• Created a community on Facebook
• Had 2500 Followers on Instagram
• Built my website
• Grew a Facebook group of 400 like-minded women
• Created a Mailing List and a complete Sales Funnel to help things run automatically in my business. I now wake up to new booked free sessions and discovery calls every morning!
• Created my first eCourse, which gives me an extra passive income
• Quit my day job and left my apartment to travel the world again (for the second time)!

Yes, ALL this during the last 3 MONTHS!

Sure, I could have done this all by myself, by researching and reading, with a lot trial and error – failing, starting again then failing again and trying one more time!

However, this would have taken me at least a year and I wanted a freedom lifestyle NOW!

Coaching is an energy boost, knowledge boost, confidence boost, and a speed boost!

Yes, you can work it out all by yourself, but trust me – it is hard enough! Don’t make it any harder than it has to be!

Get help, get tools, get mentoring and support instead of trying to work it all out by yourself!

3. Believe in Yourself

“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”
– Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO

The last thing I learned after the beginning months of my business was to believe in myself.

I know it’s hard. You doubt yourself on more than one occasion, failure scares you(success might even scare you) and you are constantly double guessing yourself asking, “Am I good enough? I’m not even an expert”.

You are good enough though, you have set out this goal and you are as capable as the next person to succeed! We live in an era where the “world is your oyster”, the internet is there to help guide you with all of the answers.

If you fail, try again until you get it right! You will learn from each experience. Failure is a part of the process.

Stay True to You!

In the end, stay positive and true to who are you, everything else will come together!

Stay focused on the goal at hand and not the whole picture all at once (it can become very overwhelming). Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

You might not feel like you have the funds for hiring a coach, but in the end it can save you a lot of time, money and sanity!

If you want to find out what I can do to help ease the stress in your first few months’ of business, contact me and I will be happy to help!