Nothing ever gets done in clumps. You must work on starting a business one step at a time, one day at a time.
I just read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. She says you can write a book of 50,000 words if you write 1,667 words a day for a month. See what I mean?
When I started my PhD, I knew it would take almost 3 years. During that time, I got into the discipline of doing something every day. No matter how busy I was, I could look something up on the web, or read a little in a book. Some days I did more, some days I did less. But I kept going, day after day. And I finished.
You know that saying, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” But it’s only partly true. If you want to start a business, you must continue to take steps, every day, every single day.
Want to start a business in a month? It can be done. Just get a plan and work on it, and in a month, you’ll be on your way.
Here are the steps I would take if I wanted to start an online business in a month, assuming I already knew what kind of business I wanted to start:
- Find a business name and make sure no one else has that name. Then get a domain name for that business. You don’t need to set up a formal business structure yet; just be a sole proprietor. You can always change to a more formal structure later.
- Get a business bank account and put some of your own money in it. You can also use personal credit cards until you have money coming in.
- Get someone to help you set up your website and your shopping cart (if you want to sell something).
- Use social media (twitter, facebook, etc.) to publicize your business. Find out where the people who might buy your products or services are hiding on the Internet and put ads on web pages that they read. As an example, I just bought a gardening magazine because they advertised on a gardening blog. Don’t tell me people don’t buy from web ads!
- Get out there and make contacts on the web. If you are a writer, work with other writers. Find out who is doing the same thing you’re doing; ask for their help. Ask them to guest post on your blog, if you have one.
In other words, do something to promote your business every day. Maybe you want to write an e-book; maybe you want to sell products. Whatever it is, you can’t just do it occasionally and expect to get done. You must work on it every day, every single day.
So, what is it that you want to do? Will you commit to doing something every single day to see that it gets going? They say it take 21 days to start or break a habit. I believe it. A long time ago, I committed to flossing my teeth. I did it faithfully for 21 days; now I never forget (well, almost never).
My goal: To put up 100 posts in 100 days, to get back into “the groove” of talking about starting a business. How I will do it: post every day for 100 days, at least 500 words a day!
Write and tell me what you want to do and that you will commit to doing it every day for at least 21 days.
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