Start a Business

Change is necessary.

In order to be successful in business, you are going to have to make some changes. The first thing you need to change is the way you think. You can no longer use self-doubt or "what if's" to dictate your decision making. If you want to be successful in business then go for it! There are other people who decided to go for it and they are now a success. So what's stopping you from becoming a success? Quite honestly it's you that's stopping you. But we are talking about change, so after reading this article you should be ready to take the first steps toward starting your business.

You can be just as successful as anyone else, but before you taste success you must understand that this is going to take some hard work. It might take up a lot of your time and energy. Are you willing to put in some early morning hours or even late nights? There are a lot of people that have some great ideas and start what appears to be a great business, but because they didn't research it, they end up failing. The greatest advice I ever heard regarding people that are known for not finishing what they start is to simply "not start yet" ( Dr. Ralph F. Wilson ). So in other words before you start something take the time to research what it takes to start and finish the job. Don't let this hinder you though; this is what it takes in order to be successful. This is part of the change process necessary in order for you to become a success. The research necessary might take you a couple of weeks or a couple of months to figure out your business path. Don't worry this is not race. Take your time because you are headed towards greatness

Another change necessary for you is to change who you socialize with. I'm not saying get rid of your friends, but for those individuals who feed you negative discouragement….they should be left talking to themselves. Some people will tell you "I tried it and I failed." Don't let this negative language influence your business decisions. Maybe they failed because they didn't put enough thought into their business venture. As I stated, you have to remove these types of people from your social arena. You need to surround yourself with people who will feed you positive business advice. People who will listen to your ideas and provide you good advice. These are people that think and speak business.

You want to find people that are successful in business and ask them questions about how they got started; what they experienced starting out as a business owner, etc. Go to some business seminars. Go and talk to some business owners who are actually running businesses, or send them a nice email asking for advice. Be sure to listen to their advice and ask them plenty of questions. Put these types of people in what I will name "your business network". You would be surprise that most successful people will be glad to help you and they are willing to offer business advice to you because they've been where you are.

The last thing you need to do is to change your diet and began feeding yourself business intellect. Find business articles in your local paper regarding success stories of new businesses. Search the internet and find articles regarding business start-ups. Go to the book store and find some books on starting a business. Find books written by successful business owners. Use all of this material to help encourage and inspire you to become a successful business owner.

You got skills

As we continue to change and shape your mind into more of a business minded person let me be one of the first to tell you that you definitely have what it takes to start a business. Running a business is one of the most fulfilling, and self-rewarding things you can do. Of course this all depends on the success of your business. But don't let fear and doubt prevent you from fulfilling your dreams.

So what type of business should you start? First, you have to ask yourself "What type of skills do I possess?" What do I mean by this? Do you know how to make pies, cookies or work on cars? No matter what your skill is, most of us have something that we are really good at doing. Since you are really good at what you do or have a special skill there are plenty of people that are in need of it. This is basically the purpose of a business; which is to provide a product or service that fulfills a need. If you can play guitar there are lots of people who want to learn how to play. This is a need and they will pay someone to teach them how to play. If you know how to repair computers, people will pay you to repair their computers because they need their computers.

The same would apply to your skills as they can be a valuable asset. Some people start out making delicious cookies at home and end up with a cookie empire (see Mrs. Field's ). Before a business is successful, it can only hope that the product or service it sells will be a success. You got to start somewhere. Examine yourself along with your skills and abilities, then figure out how you can provide it as a service.

Inspiration

There are hundreds, even thousands of people who started a business from a simple idea and over time, their business became very successful. The key here is that they put their thoughts into action. Chances are, you might not have an overnight success story, but a little hard work can go a long way. Here are some real live examples of ordinary people who used their own skills to come up with some pretty successful businesses.

Catherine Cook and her brother were flipping through a yearbook and came up with the idea to create an online interactive yearbook. She was 15 at the time when they came up with this idea. In 2005 they launched the website myyearbook.com . Their idea was a complete success! Cook has become a self-made millionaire and was named as one of thirty top young entrepreneurs. Alexa Von Tobel was a senior at Harvard when it dawned on her that most of her girlfriends didn't have any formal education about managing their money. She used her own financial expertise and created the company LearnVest . LearnVest is a company that provides lots of personal financial advice to women. Her company was featured on Inc.com and she was named as one of the most successful entrepreneurs of 2010. Jermaine Griggs took his passion of teaching piano and put it on video so that others can learn to play piano. His company, Hearandplay has been a complete success. He was featured on MSN as one of many young entrepreneur millionaires, and his company is one of the most successful music companies that offer video music lessons.

I hope those success stories were inspiring to get your business motor going. Now it's time to brainstorm. Did you think about what skills you have? Are you still ready to become a business owner? If so, create a list and narrow it down to at least one or two businesses you would like to start. Make sure these are things that you are passionate about doing. Why? Because if you are passionate about doing something, chances are, you won't lose interest in it. There are a lot of people who start businesses to only make money, or because they think they'll get rich quick. Don't get me wrong, every business has to make money in order to stay in business, but if you are only in it for the money this is the wrong approach and your business is sure to fail. So stick with your passions.

After you narrow down your list to one or two, pick the one that you want to do most of all and begin to research what it would take to start this business. Use Google or any other search engine to find out what it takes to start your business. Also check out the Small Business Administration (SBA). Their site is filled with plenty of information on starting a business. This is only the first step of many, but you owe it to yourself to do this if you want to be a successful business owner. Success is gained only through action. Do your research, get prepared and start the business of your dreams. I look forward to hearing about your success down the road.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/admin/about_us.htm - Dr. Ralph Wilson

http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/09/teen-millionaires-startups-ent-cook-cx-ml_0211cook.html - Catherine Cook

http://www.myyearbook.com/ - myyearbook

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alexa-von-tobel/10/844/709 - Alexa Von Tobel

http://www.learnvest.com/ - LearnVest

http://www.sba.gov/ - Small Business Administration

http://www.hearandplay.com/ - hear and play

http://www.inc.com/ss/30under30/2010/top-young-entrepreneurs - Top 30 Entreprenuers of 2010

http://www.mrsfields.com/about/ - Mrs. Fields