Always dreamed of owning your own business? Have you read the stories of Facebook, Google, Uber, Air BnB and are daunted by the prospect and complexity of capital raisings, private investors, business plans, and financial modelling.
The reality for entrepreneurs and potential business owners in Australia is that it’s never been easier or cheaper to start your own business. The only person holding you back from chasing your entrepreneurial dream is you.
Over the coming weeks I’m going to share the tools and strategies gained from my journey of employee to growing my own business. And it will all be broken down into 20Minute tasks, so simple, that you will have no excuse not to chase your dream.
Step 1 Personal Finances
If you can’t manage your personal and family finances, it’s fair to say that the added complexity of starting and owning a business will be overwhelming.
In the coming weeks we will step you through a simple process and provide you with a simple 20Minute tool that will provide you with a financial snapshot of your current personal / family finances, your net worth, how much free cash-flow you have to invest in your business, and how much cash you need to maintain your current lifestyle.
We will also provide you with 3 key 20Minute conversations to have with both yourself and family so that you can develop your financial principles, and a long and short term strategy to manage your money.
Step 2 The 20Minute Mind Map Business Plan
Regardless of whether you have a product/service ready to go or your scanning for opportunities to take to a market, the 20Minute Mind Map will help you work through the key questions you need to resolve to establish if you have a viable business. Their is no need for MBA’S and 30 page business plans.
Are you a Freelancer selling time or entrepreneur selling Products and Services? Who and where are potential customers, how can we reach these customers and get them to purchase. How will we manufacture and deliver our product or service? What do the basic numbers look like?
Once we have established 20Minute Business PlanMind Map, we can step this out into actionable tasks and refine the plan as we gather new information.
Step 3 – Automation
No matter what type of business, product or service you are taking to market, the ultimate key to success is being able to automate as many systems and processes as possible.
Automation drives down costs, reduces errors, and most importantly frees you up to focus on strategy, sales, and growing your business.
With a Virtual Assistant, and the use of the ever increasing range of cloud services (which are are nearly all free for small business and entrepreneurs), you will be amazed at how much of your business can be automated.
I’ll step you through the Apps, Cloud Services and how you can use a Virtual Assistant to automate your e-mail, regulatory requirements, accounting, social media posts, calendar management, quoting, task management, supply chain, e-commerce etc.
~Business Game Changer Special Promotion~
Step 4 – Building a Virtual Team
Freelancer, Odesk (now UpWork), Fiver etc. have all opened up a global word of workers, a new economic structure that enable entrepreneurs and small business to build a team of highly skilled low cost staff. From $5 per hour, you can build a virtual team with a Virtual Assistant, Web Designer/Developer, Graphic Designer, E-Mail Marketer, Content Writer and pretty much every other task you can think of.
Even with a small budget of $50 per week, you will be amazed at what can be achieved.
But beware, it’s pretty addictive. It’s the most efficient and effective method I have ever used to build, manage and recruit a team.
I’ll step you though how in 20Minutes I hired Suzy, my Virtual Assistant, and how we work together on a weekly basis.
Once you have nailed these 4 20Minute Steps, you will have a strategy, identified the resources required, built a team to deliver and be ready to launch your business.
I look forward to exploring these concepts with you in the coming weeks.
