Imagine being given a blueprint of how to start your business today without worrying about wasting your time and making the same mistakes as every small business owner makes. In this blog, we will talk about how you can start your business from the ground up.

“No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn't trying.” - Tony Robbins

You're here because you want to learn how you can start your business from the ground up and if it's worth the risk. Let me tell you IT IS!! Being your boss and doing what you love is priceless. So, where do you start?

1: Find your ikigai

Your ikigai is a Japanese concept referring to someone’s reason behind life, sense of purpose, and reason for living. Whether it's helping people in the medical field, being a mindset coach, construction, or even architecture, you can make it a business. You can open up your malpractice, an LLC, or dba depending on how big your business gets.

How I found my ikigai was working in different industries, I pick and chose what I enjoyed doing on the daily basis. Although every business will have a role you don't enjoy as much, you can always outsource it or hire an employee. If there is a role you aren't the best at, hire an employee, and your time will be more valued doing what you excel at.

2: Create a business plan

What is a business plan exactly? A business plan is a document that provides information about your company’s objective and how it plans to reach its goal. In every business plan it is a must to have the following:

1. Demographic
2. Overhead fees
3. 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 1 year, goals
4. Purpose and message
5. Marketing plan/strategy
6. Sales plan
7. Legal notes
8. Product & service line

These 8 sections are critical to every business plan, without them you will be very messy and unorganized. If you need a template for a business plan, shoot us an email and we will share it with you!!

3: Focus on brand discovery

A brand is much more than a logo or color scheme, it is the reason why your customers will come back to your business or refer business to you. Amazon, Apple, and target are all known to have products you enjoy, and a brand you can trust. They become well known because of how well they take care of their customers.

A couple of questions to ask yourself are: What do I want to be known for? How do I plan to help my audience? What is one thing that makes me unique? What are my weaknesses and strengths? While in brand discovery it is important to have the following:

1. 3 words to describe your business
2. What do you want to be known for
3. Targeted audience (niche down as much as possible)
4. Unique identity (what makes you different from your competitors)
5. Visuals
6. Message and purpose
   

4: Hop onto social media

INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK, PINTEREST, TIK TOK, TWITTER, LINKEDIN, YOUTUBE, REDDIT, hop on at least 2 platforms at first then expand to more. Social media is crucial to every business going digital, it helps your brand reach a mass amount of people all around the world. There are about 4 billion users active on social media which averages around 2.5 hours a day. How do you use social media?

1. Educational
2. Showcase product or service
3. Testimonials
4. Building trust and audience

Why should you hop on social media? Social media not only helps your brand become known worldwide, but it generates passive leads over time if you maintain it well. Nowadays if you do not have social media, your audience will hesitate to work with you.

5: Conduct a market research

Market research helps you know if your business idea is in demand and what your family/friends think about you. Missing this step will make you unorganized and not committed to one idea. The reason why this is so crucial is that if there is no high demand for your product or service. It is going to be hard to market your product, and if you do not know your strength you can't show your value.  Conducting market research consist of creating a survey and sharing it with Facebook groups, family, friends, Instagram followers, etc.

6: Build an audience

Now that you know who is looking for your product or service, it is time to find where they are spending most of their time. For example, Instagram users are around the age of 17-35 years old, and Facebook users are in the "older" generation. It is crucial to know where they are spending their time so, you can be in front of their faces as much as possible.

Once you know where they are spending their time you can start creating content that THEY want. In your market research, you should've found what your audience wants from you. This is the best time to start collaborating with businesses similar to yours, network with potential clients, and create quality content.

7: Make an offer and show your value

If it's a product, you create videos, educate your audience, build urgency for your product, and showcase why they need it. For example, You're selling a pillowcase that is made for people who have a problem sleeping. What you would do is provide your audience information about how it can help reduce stress on the neck, or you can create a video describing how your pillow has helped your targeted audience.

If it’s a service, showcase, showcase, showcase, brag about your service, don't stop showing off how helpful, aesthetic, and loud your designs are. Create transitional reels from beginning to end or create a carousel of multiple designs you have done for one business.

8: Branding and scaling

After you execute your first marketing strategy, you now know what works and what doesn't work. This allows you to direct your focus on things that work and stop working on things that don't. In this process you also want to see how you can scale your business, meaning how can I make someone spend more money rather than using me as a one-time use?

If you struggle with any steps, CKN Consulting provides a free consultation for businesses that struggle to grow or start their business from the ground up. You can go to our website or contact us directly at chrisbryan@cknconsultinggroup.com

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