My Top Tips For Starting A Business

In this episode I will share a bit of my journey to taking the plunge and starting a business and my top 5 tips, which are mostly things I wish I had done, or done more of when I first started out. So if you are considering starting your own business then this is for you.

I must have spent over 10 years thinking about starting a business until I finally took action and did it.  I always had a desire to start my own business, I just didn't know what in, and I was waiting for that light bulb moment, I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do.

Eventually I realised I just needed to take action myself and make some difficult decisions.

I reveal what my first business was and why I chose to start in a sector where I had absolutely no prior experience.

Listen to the podcast to hear my 5 tips for starting a business.

Follow me on social media, it's @jenlistercoaching on Instagram and LinkedIn.

My website is Jenlister.com

Click here to get my 7 mindset steps to starting or scaling your business

Music and production by the amazing Strike Productions

Podcast management by Dean at DBVirtual www.dbvirtual.co.uk

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to The Jen Lister Podcast. Here I'll be chatting about life, business growth strategies and sharing my personal journeys along the way. And we'll also be interviewing some incredible guests who are experts in their field. See, it's my little black book of business.
Hello, and welcome back to The Jen Lister Podcast, I'm really excited to be talking to you today and giving you advice. If you are thinking about starting a business. The reason this topic is so close to my heart is because I must have spent over 10 years thinking about starting a business until I actually did, I was in the corporate world for that time. And I always had this fire in my belly, I just knew I wanted to have my own business, I just didn't know what in and I was waiting for that light bulb moment, I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do. And eventually I realised I just needed to take action myself and make some difficult decisions. So I know how hard it can be to start a business like I really, really do. And I will share with you a little bit about my journey. Before I go on to giving you my five top tips, although they might end up being six if I if I keep talking. So I've just got other ideas come into my head all the time with this. So I started my first business because my coaching business is my second business. In 2017. I just moved back from Australia, where I lived in Sydney on Bondi Beach, and sound like I had the most perfect life, I can tell you, it was not perfect, I didn't really enjoy my job. And yeah, I much prefer living in England and running my business here. So I moved back to the UK, and left my corporate job in Australia, and started my first business which was in the care sector. And I started that with my cousin. But going through that process of deciding whether to start the business or not was so massive, it was such a big deal. It felt really overwhelming. And it felt really scary. It felt so scary, because it did involve investing significant amount of money. And doing that is scary at the best of times, let alone then starting a business in a sector you have no experience in because I had no experience in the care sector. I just knew I wanted to run a business, and that I loved old people. There you go, there's something random about me that you might not have known before. So I went around the houses and did lots of lots of research and took on board lots of people's opinions, and eventually did decide to start the business. I'm now sold that business and now I do my coaching business. But I really want to pass forward a bit about my story, but also my my top tips off the back of what I went through when it comes to starting your own business. And actually, this isn't going to be a top tip as such. But what I would say is if you've already got a job, doesn't matter what job you've got, I would highly recommend starting your business alongside that job. So that you've got that financial stability. I didn't do that. I left my job in Australia came back to the UK and started to look for jobs, but also started to look at business options. And I went for the business options. So I had no stable income alongside starting a business. And to be fair in some ways that worked well, because the business did require a lot of time and energy. And having a full time job at the same time or even a part time job at the same time might not have worked in the business that I decided to go ahead with. But if you can, if you can start your business as a side hustle as it were, I would highly recommend doing it that way. Because it just gives you more stability. It gives you a bit more time it buys you have the time to develop and come up with the ideas and trial and get some confidence in your business before you take that big leap and quit the corporate life or the job that you've got. So there you go. There's my first top tip before we've even got into the top tips. Number one, journal. My first top tip is all about writing things down. When you're thinking about a business, I would advise you go out and buy yourself a notepad, preferably one that's made on recycled paper. Get yourself a lovely notepad and dedicate that to your business ideas. And no idea is a bad idea. Journal everything from what you're passionate about what your skill sets are, come up with different brand name ideas. Oh my goodness. When I was coming up with a name for my podcast, you should have seen me trying to come up with ideas for it. I call it the journalist podcast in the end because I genuinely couldn't come up with anything but there you go. Get up Get a journal and write down all your crazy ideas. It doesn't matter what you end up with. If you love being creative and draw in, draw out what your website is going to look like. Create some Ideas for social media posts. And once you think you've done all your journaling, and all your ideas, just keep journaling throughout your journey, as more ideas come up as things change. And it's a really beautiful thing to have and look back on. Like, if you look back on your journal in, say, one year or five years time, and remember those moments when you came up with the brand name. Or remember that moment where you came up with your first offer, and you put the price down, you wrote down like this is going to be the price is such a cool thing to capture your journey. And it will really help you just get your head straight and be really clear on what you want to be representing in your business and your values. I was talking to a client the other day who's really at the start of her journey. And she was sort of saying, Oh, I feel like I just don't know. And I'm all scatty. And I've got loads of ideas. And I'm a little bit kind of haphazard with it all. And I was saying, You know what, that's lovely. Like, that's such a beautiful time. And in some ways, I wish I could go back to that with my coaching business. Because at the very start is such a beautiful time, when you can be really true to yourself, you can think, Okay, what do I actually want to create? What do I actually want to represent. And now, and I'm very grateful for where I am now. But now I have got my business set up, like all of those decisions have been made. And I'm and I can't go back to that first part where it all felt really new, and exciting. And yeah, you're just you're being really raw and really true to yourself. So being really true to yourself is is so important when you're starting your business. Okay, so that was number one, journal, journal as much as you can. Number two, start simply, this was a bit of advice that I actually got from the amazing Kiki Kirby coaching. And I will put a link to her website, in the description in the description, she gave me this really amazing advice when I was at the start of my journey, and I really want to pass it on. So she said to me, don't go out there and create loads of different products or services in your business, obviously, mine was a service based business. So don't don't create lots of different service options for your clients just have one offer when you start. And that has been so so valuable to me. So just having one if you're a service based business, or even if you're a product based business, just having one product, or just one really clear service offering at the very start, it just keeps things simple, you can be really focused with your marketing, you don't need to get overwhelmed, you don't need to have multiple target customers, you just keep things really, really simple. So I really love that idea. And that advice. And to be honest, now in my business about 18 months, fast forward, I've still really got one core offer that I work with my clients on. And that is all my strategy development work. There are other services around that. But they kind of flow from that service. So you've got almost got one hero offering in my business. So Top Tip number two is to start simply, my top tip number three is do your research. When you start your business research is so so important. However, it's really important that that research is fact based. Obviously, as business owners as human beings, we have got intuition. And I really do believe that tapping into your intuition and following your gut is really, really important in business. However, he's kind of like there's art to it. And there's science to it, you need to have your numbers you need to know your numbers, you need to look at your numbers and make sure that you make decisions based on the facts. Just to share with you a little bit of a story from when I started my first business, I remember seeking advice from family and friends. And like my boyfriend at the Times mum, for example. And that was a really bad idea. So one of my biggest pieces of advice would be to make sure your your research is fact based. And you talk to either existing entrepreneurs in the market that you're looking to go into. Or you do research online and find market statistics about the market you're going into. And that you make sure that you ask really relevant questions when you talk to those existing entrepreneurs. So for example, you could ask them, What is the thing you love most about your business? And what is the most challenging thing about your business? Because by asking that question, you will find out all the bad things that you might have to face at some point. So something I want you to know is that seeking advice from friends and family who have got your best interests at heart might not be the best thing for you. As much as they love you and care for you. They might have different values to you different priorities to you and just different motives to what you've got in your life. We're all unique. And in this process of figuring out about starting a business you really do need to tell tap into your intuition and complement it with fact based research. So one of the things that I did, I create a spreadsheet love a spreadsheet. And I wrote down, I had lots of different businesses are looking at. So I wrote down the pros and the cons, I wrote down the financial forecasts for each business, I wrote down some my own gut feels about, about the industries and about the business options that I had. So I had like this really long table that I could look at, and read and understand what my options were. And when you've done that, if you if you love a spreadsheet like me, and you've created a spreadsheet, go away from it for a while and come back to it. Because I really do believe that making this decision about starting a business is about a mixture of your gut instinct, but also complementing it with those facts. So I love I love a bit of research, I think it's really, really important. But my most valuable piece of information would be making sure you do your research from facts based sources. Number four, consider a coach. So I say consider a coach, because I think consider is the key word here. Speaking myself, as a business strategy, Coach, I am a big fan of the coaching industry. However, it might not be the right thing for you. I say consider because I would do, I'd say do your research again and look for a coach that one has got experience in your particular industry. So they know what they're doing. Look for testimonials, and even ask if you can speak to their clients to find out what it's like to work with that coach and have a call with them. Most coaches will do a intro call with you to see if you're a good fit for them. But also you should be seeing if you feel aligned to them in terms of your values. And if you actually genuinely feel like your work really well together. So I worked with a coach when I started my coaching business. And I really highly recommend doing that. I think for me, it was amazing. It helped me loads with confidence, it helped me craft my offer, in a really clear way. Kind of links to that point number two about starting simply. And yes, I invested money. And that was very scary. Like for me, it was a lot more money than I could have ever imagined investing in a business that is a service based business, it feels really scary as well, because it's not like I was investing that money to have a physical product at the end of it, it was investing to turn my human capital into a product if you like into that service. So it is scary, but consider it. And there's also plenty of council in the UK at least there are councils that do sort of funding programmes, and they can support you with business startup support. So if that's something that you can have a look into as well, that might be an option for you just to have have a mentor. So that's number four, consider working with a coach or a mentor. My final top tip,
if you're thinking about starting a business, number five, keep it quiet. This is a really random one, it kind of links to number three, which was about doing your research and making sure your research was very much fact based, I'd really recommend keeping your business idea to yourself at the start. The reason I say this is because your business needs to really truly represent you and what you believe in and what you're passionate about in life and in in the world. And when you start to tell other people about it, and you might be really excited and want to tell your best friend and want to tell your mom want to tell your cousin's whoever it may be, but they're all going to have opinions, they're all going to provide you with their two cents. And that might influence you. And he won't necessarily influence you negatively, they might say I've got a really good idea you could do this, or you could do that. Or, Oh, I could put you in touch with this person who might be able to help you with that. These connections and recommendations are fantastic. However, they can dilute your messaging, they can dilute what you stand for at the start. So when I started my coaching business, I didn't tell anybody, because I just kept things to myself, I spent a lot of time journaling, spent a lot of time thinking, I didn't make a big song and dance of it with people because I just wanted to spend that time really being true to myself and thinking about what I represent. And I was going through loads of transition at that point in my life in terms of being a mum in terms of my career in terms of just relationships, all of those things. So we're all going through so much change all the time. And starting a business is such a big change. Like it's such a big change, especially if you're working a job at the moment going from the employee mindset to the entrepreneur mindset. I mean, that's a whole nother podcast episode, right? So maybe I can do that in the future. But that is tough. And just keeping it yourself so that you can represent something create something that represents you truly is really, really magical. Yes, if you want to tell other people you can I'm not But this is not a strict rule for you. And there will be a point where you might want to tell your partner or you might want to tell your friend, and that's absolutely fine. But make sure that you're really clear on what you want to represent what you're truly standing for and what your business is about before you start putting it out into the world. Because there is so much out there in terms of the media, our family, friends opinions, that is going to influence you ultimately. So they are my top tips for you. If you're thinking of starting your own business, you might already have a job, you might be working in corporate, and you might have that fire in your belly like I did. And these are my five top tips. So number one was journaling. Number two was starting really simply, number three was make sure you do your research. Number four was consider working with a coach. And number five was keep it to yourself, keep it quiet. Now, at the end of my episodes, now I have introduced something called my podcast question. So today, I want to share with you my latest podcast question and this is going to be going up on my social media. And I would absolutely love you'd have a look at my Instagram on my LinkedIn. So it's at journalists to coaching and comment, send me a private message, comment on my stories comment on the post. That is my podcast question this this time. So my podcast question for this episode is what was your biggest fear when it comes to starting a business? So this might be you've already got a business and you're sharing your biggest fear that you had before you started. Or you might be in that position. I was in 2017 and thinking I really want to start a business. But I'm really scared because of x y z. So fill in the blank. Tell me what your fears are what comes up for you. When you hear me talking about starting a business? What are those fears? What are those limiting beliefs? Because we all have them? I absolutely had them. I was so scared financially about it. I was scared that I wouldn't survive. I wouldn't be able to do it. I can't even it's yeah, it's crazy. It is very scary time. So I completely feel feel those scared feelings. We will be sharing the results and the answer to the question on the next podcast episode. So thank you so much for listening today. All about if you're thinking of starting a business, what my five top tips would be and I really hope you found them useful. Thank you so much for listening to The Jen Lister Podcast. I truly appreciate every single one of you. If you'd like to leave me a review on your podcast app, I would love that. And if you'd like to follow me on social media, it's @jenlistercoaching on Instagram and LinkedIn