Many of us wish to start our own business. Some of use have even started business for ourselves. Some of them worked, while some of them didn’t. I’ve had a couple of my businesses running since a few years, some of which generate good amount of money every year, while some have grown into a substantial online businesses after a lot of hard work. Some of these run till today and I’m in the process of selling one of my businesses in future with a great profit.
Usually people take more than a week or a month to start a business, that too a profitable one. People have ideas to start a business, but the whole planning stage takes longer time eventually. But honestly, it shouldn’t be like this. If taken care, many businesses can take up just a few days of planning and execution together. Many a times, people are overwhelmed by the whole ‘starting a business process‘ that they end up taking more and more time to start the same.
Thus, today I’m going to #BreakItDown the process of starting a business in as simple as a week! This is my hack to start a business in just 7 days, which is not too overwhelming and doesn’t take that much of your time to initiate. It’s about taking the idea and transforming it into a business. Also, little FYI – the plan that I’m sharing with you all works perfectly fine for an online service-based business. Although you can implement it to see if it works for your business ideas too. Yes, that’s right. So, let’s go!
- Research a.k.a Homework: On the first day, start your research for various business ideas. This actually takes more time than you think, because you might think a business idea interesting, but for a long-run, it might not be profitable. So, research all types of successful business ideas or simply do market research and decide which business idea are you going to use to start your own business. But, how do you identify which one is better than the other if you find 2 or more business ideas? Well, you can either list out benefits or advantages and disadvantages for each one. And then, analyze which one least or no (even better) disadvantages. Also, when deciding on a business model, check the losses, liabilities and ease of execution. If it’s easy for you to implement or execute, then go ahead and start your business. This way, you’ll not only get your one final business idea or a business model from the homework, but you’ll also cancel out the unnecessary ideas or options to make you more clear. Begin your research with your skills and experiences that you have, which will show you various ideas for a business in that expertise only. Otherwise, you’ll be too overwhelmed by the huge number of business ideas on the internet. And thus, you’ll lose more time in research! Make sure the business idea you choose to work on, should be something that is in-line with your skills and something that complements your taste or your interests. Because a business will be successful if you’re interested in or feel passionate about.
- Simplify Your Business Plan: On Day 2, dedicate your time in simplifying the business idea and check how it can be profitable for you. A business plan can vary from a page to 50 pages long or even more than that. I understand, sometimes it’s just too much of a load specially when you have the business plan. But, I’d recommend you to have a business plan and make it as simple as possible. The business plan should have all the information about your business, what does it do, what services do you offer, what products do you want to sell in your business. Basically, the business plan should explain what actually your business is going to do or provide to the customers or people in general. You should also include the benefits and key features of your business or your brand in the business model. Who will be interested in your services and your business? And what services or products the customers will be willing to buy from you? These all come under the business plan which should be to the point and very simple and clear, so that’s easy for you to understand and go forward with it. It is crucial to include things like the rate you’ll charge for your services or your products and the way you’ll deliver the same to the client or customer. And once you’ve the business plan ready, it’s time to talk about it. You won’t get buyers or customers overnight. Everything takes time, and so does the business. Thus, you should start talking about it to your family or friends. It will not only help you market your business slowly and steadily, but it will spread faster than you think. Another way to market your services or your business, is to share it on social media or on websites. This step is damn important as it will let you create some hype and interest in people. And so by the end of the week, you may get a customer or a prospect.
- Business Branding: Today, start with the branding of your business. check out other brand online, how they do and what they do for branding their businesses. You can look for branding boards on Pinterest. Get your inspiration from other brands and businesses – what kind of a website are they running, what kind of logo do they have, etc. One of the best tools for graphic designing is Canva, using which you can create tonnes of amazing stuff like banners, posters, flyers, custom graphs, and so much more. The best part about it is that its totally free. Yo can make creative and beautiful visualizations for your business using this free tool. After you have created a logo or a banner for your business, then you should share it on Facebook or any of your social media accounts.
- Design a Website: This is the task for Day 4 and it usually takes of days or months. But, if you’re clear with the kind of business you want and what your business is going to do, then you’ll be able to do it in just one day. Hire someone who can design a website for your business in a day. Professional developers and designers on Fiverr, deliver the website within a few hours. Or if you know website designing and are confident about it, you can design a website for yourself from your computer. To begin with, it’s okay to have a simple-looking website. You can always add stuff or edit and make some changes to your website later whenever you want. There are various platforms available for website development like Wix, WordPress and SquareSpace. WordPress is one of the best platforms I’ve used so far for website hosting, since it makes it so damn easy to register a new domain, work on your registered domains if you already have one and connect the G-suite for your email services. WordPress lets you upload and embed media to your blog/website, has an auto-save that saves your work every now and then, so you don’t fear losing your quality content, as the platform does it for you.
- Get Accounting System: On Day 5, you need to pull up your socks and put the engine into high gear! Get an accounting system for your business to keep your brand’s finances organized. Keep it as simple as possible as this is going to help you figure out how customers or buyers are going to pay you for your services or products that you offer. You can find many such options online as per your budget. Personally, I use QuickBooks for my business literally every single day now. I’d invested lot of my savings on tracking all the relevant data. But after exploring, I’m satisfied with this tool, as it organizes all my data in one place in the cloud. So, I can keep a track of everything from anywhere, even from my phone. I create and send invoices, keep a track of sales and revenue, get timely detailed information on Tax, Reports, Expenses and Online Banking. I’d recommend this one to everyone who’s looking for similar kind of tool for their business. So, I’d recommend it to you as well. Or you can get any other tool for your business, based on the features you want and what you’re looking for. You can even setup your PayPal account and integrate it with your website in order to receive payments for your business.
- Marketing Day: On the 6th Day, think of all the people you can tell about your business. Start making a list of your contacts or network, with whom you can share and explain more about your business. These people need not be your buyers or your customers who will be interested in buying your services or products from you. This will not only help you with the marketing, but it will also help you gain confidence speaking about your business and thus, marketing your business. Plus, this step will even help in spreading the word faster. Join groups on Facebook related to your niche and start building your network. Start connecting with people who are already running businesses in the same niche. This is work both ways actually. Not only will you get to know them and what they do, but they’ll also learn about your services and your business. These random people on Facebook won’t be your customers necessary, but chances are high that they’ll refer clients for you. You may get leads from networking and possibly your first customer.
- Launch Marketing Campaign: You’ve made it to Day 7. You’ve just started to build your network. So, keep networking on Day 7 too. But majorly, you should focus on some marketing plan. Think of a creative marketing plan or a marketing campaign for your business. The whole objective of a marketing campaign is to advertise your business and market about your services, getting clients interested in your business and how you’re going to do business with them. You can start doing it, by marketing your business on social media networks, YouTube Ads, Google Ads, and much more, depending upon your budget. Although networking will boost your business a little, but it won’t help you in getting clients for your business as quickly as possible. On the basis of the services you offer, you can decide how you’d want to contact them for business (phone or email), or maybe send them your business plan and your services in detail over email and so on. That’s it, you guys.
I hope you’ll find this blog useful if you’re interested in starting your own business, specifically a service-based online business in just 7 days. If you haven’t already subscribed to the blog, I’d request you to do so, as we publish great content on SAP, Online Marketing and Business every single day. So, make sure you never miss an update from us.
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