You are on your way home after a long day at work thinking how you would love to start your ownbusiness—the freedom it would give you, the satisfaction it would fill you with. You think about it more and more, and with each passing thought you increasingly realise all the reasons why you can't actually do it.
- You can't take the risk
- You aren’t good enough at anything you could actually start a business in
- You can’t raise the money
- You have no experience in starting a business
- You wouldn’t mind trying, but you would mind failing
- You are scared you will leave a good job for something that may amount to nil
If these are some of the things you are thinking—stop thinking those things, and never think them again.
And start re-thinking like this…
1. Do hard things
Some of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs are not the brightest people, or the most beautiful, or the most experienced at what they start a business in. But they all have one thing in common: the confidence to try. Some were born with it, but more often than not they earned the confidence by doing hard things and succeeding. They started a local car wash when they were 14, they punched the bully back and knocked him down, they wrote a software program that most thought was impossible… or like VTSL’s CEO Rob Walton, showed up in Hong Kong at age 21 with a one way ticket and £50 ready to start something. They all took a leap, did something difficult and built confidence. Doing something hard can be as simple as going to the networking event you've always been scared of attending, or going to Spain for the summer knowing no Spanish. These little successes will add up to help you get the confidence you need to start a business.
2. Worst case scenario: think about it
It is easy to rationalise why you shouldn’t start your business. You just got married and you are responsible for others. You could lose your whole savings. You could look like an idiot. But if you really think about the worst that could happen, you will find it isn’t that bad. When asked about the worst case scenario in setting up their VoIP telephone business, Rob and David Walton said, ‘”Worst case was we failed and started over again at something else. Nothing is so bad you can’t recover from it.”
3. Best case scenario: write it down
There are all sorts of visualisation techniques these days, ways you can ‘manifest your dreams’, create the life you want, etc, and they may indeed help you to start your business. But one tried and true method is as simple as it is effective: Write down exactly what you want to happen. And use the present tense. ‘I am so excited about my new VoIP telephone business, my new offices, my 100 perfect employees…’ You get the idea.
4. Believe you are different
One of the biggest hurdles most people have to starting their own business is that they think there are a dozen businesses out there already just like the one they could start. They search in Google and find companies with amazing websites that are clearly established and doing well. Surely it would be impossible to compete! The truth is this: no one has a business that is like the one you will create. It is an impossibility in the way the universe works. Remember: 1) Most markets are growing—there is new demand every day, 2) You are unique, totally different to anyone else, and what you create will be too, and 3) Your competitors haven’t done it all perfectly, study them and offer something better.
5. Find either a supporter or a partner
Rob and Dave Walton said that their biggest tip for those wanting to start their own business was to find a supporter or a partner. The support doesn’t need to be financial, it just needs to be relevant. Find someone willing to keep you motivated, push you when you are scared, and help you with the things you don’t know. Better yet, find a partner that is willing to do it with you, can add to your business in substantive ways and reduce the risk. A large number of the world’s most successful business were started by two people in partnership together. Coincidence?
VTSL was started by Robert and David Walton in 2007 and remains entirely family and employee owned. VTSL specialises in VoIP telephone systems and connectivity for small to medium sized businesses in the UK - providing all the features and benefits of a big corporate phone system, but at the fraction of the price. For more information check out VTSL’s website.
Author: Audra Oliver
