Creating Your Perfect Business

Nowadays many people try to make a go at running a home-based business rather than working eight+ hours each day in an office making someone else money. You probably know from some of my prior posts that I’m not a big proponent of working for a set amount of hours every day. I don’t think it’s the best way to incentivize people. I think that people working under these conditions pace themselves with the clock rather than doing the best job they can in the most efficient manner possible.

Some people like doing the 9 to 5 thing, they like the “security” of that paycheck coming every week or two. (It may have seemed secure until you have a market meltdown like we saw in 2008-2009). Imagine working for 15-20 years for someone and then the economy tanks and you find yourself collected a couple bucks a month of unemployment benefits. Even if having a job sound good; you work for someone else! Their rules, their hours you are a cog in the system and you can be let go at will.

I’m not saying it’s always a bad thing but if you’re reading this you probably are considering other business ideas that you can venture into.

OK, if this internal conversation sounds at all familiar you’re in the right place.
“I really would like to start a business online, probably part-time at first but one day I’d like to do this full-time. Now what can I possibly do that I can turn into a business?”

Today I want to offer you some help to answer that question.

What exactly are you going to focus on?

Lucky for us research can be carried out with ease these days, thanks to the power of the internet (and search engines in particular). But the thing that only you know is exactly what interests you. That’s the plain truth. So what niche is going to make you excited to get up in the morning? Only you know this.

So the real question is, how can I find something that will make me jump out of bed in the morning excited to get to work?

Let me give you a little advice. If I were trying to come up with a new idea for a business topic I’d always start with a good Braindump.
Learn more about Braindumping here

I set myself up with a good cup of coffee on a nice table or desk in a nice quiet nook somewhere in my house. Get out a pad and literally write down everything I love on paper. Everything I can think of no matter how ridiculous it seems. Every hobby and interest I’m either currently doing or would love to do in the future. It doesn’t matter; the only thing that does matter is that you absolutely love the topics that you write down.

If you feel excited and wired when you think about the subject, like you just drank a large coffee with 4 shots of espresso, you’re on the right path.

Next I look at what I just wrote and try to categorize it into potential groups. Maybe circles several items in one big circle (a group) or use different color highlighters to group things together.

For example, say a few of the things you wrote down were karate, kung fu and jiu-jitsu. Maybe those would make a great “Martial Arts” niche, where you can further sub-niche it into the various styles of martial arts. You can even sub-niche it further into Japanese and Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Hung Ga and wing chun kung fu.

Hopefully you have a few groups of ideas to choose from after you finish Braindumping and grouping your ideas.

I’m guessing that starting a site (probably a blog) is a great first step you can use to promote your business. The next step I would do is performing another Braindump about potential post subjects to write about. I’d try and come up with at least 10-20 headlines that you can use to pull out and write a great post whenever you feel inspired. Repeat this step at least once a week (I do this each weekend) to keep plenty of ideas on tap.

Just like when you Braindumped the ideas to find a business niche use this headline approach for inspiration for blog posts, e-books, videos or a complete novel. The sky is the limit.

Next you need get to work, start writing what you know and researching what you don’t. Here is where I use “The Outline Method” to gather points I plan on writing about. (I will discuss the outline method in another post but for now just think listing bullet points down a page for each item I plan on writing, put them all together and you have a complete article, post, book or whatever you’re creating.)

Any point I that needs to be included in a post and I don’t know 100% of the details requires some research. This is where Google searching and/or a visit to the bookstore factors in.

Think of yourself as a top notch reporter, reporting a big story, it’s your job to make sure you check the facts before publishing.

So by this point you should have plenty to write about. (With your list of 10-20+ headlines) Now your mission is to write great, relevant content consistently. Make a game plan, say Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. (Or whatever works for you). Just remember, when you do get a lot of readers they will get used to you publishing on a schedule, so make sure you can keep up the pace you start with.

Not everyone who wants to have an internet business will be cut out to run one. This is one great reason to start part-time, work each day and night and even on weekend and see how things go. Then if you decide in the future that running a business is not for you then you’ll still have a job to fall back on.

Now if you’ve done the exercises listed above you should be prepared to take the next step, publishing your original content on your own blog on the internet.

(To be continued…)
Let me know your thoughts

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Tagged as: blogging, productivity