BellaOnline Forums Career Small Office/Home Office Are you Making it Too Hard to Start your Business?

Have you ever let fear stand in your way? Fear can make everything seem so very hard, when in reality it's simple. Kind of like almost any skill--remember how hard it seemed to ride a bike the first time you tried?

This article simplifies the business process so that you can get over thinking it's just too hard, too much to start a business:

Four Simple Steps to Owning your Own Business.

It truly is that simple, too. And, it can be as complex as Oprah's empire, but even Oprah didn't start there!

Starting/owning business is not hard. It is the getting customers that is the hardest:-) In my opinion, most people start business without really knowing how/where to get the customers (the ones that will actually pay you the money). I recommend the book Duct Type Marketing. It says that all business is "marketing", which I totally agree. Make sure that you know how to really market your services/products before starting any business.

I've been a fan of Duct Tape Marketing and others like Guerilla Marketing for years. Reading those and tons more marketing books are a big part of what enabled me to start my marketing company. I love helping business owners learn to market more effectively and creatively. It's so much fun!

It is definitely fear that is keeping me from going in the direction I'm contemplating.

Starting the makeup consultation stuff is just so different from anything I have ever imagined before. Plus I'm just having trouble figuring out where to start.

It's a scary step taking that big leap into the unknown!

You can make it lots less scary, Michelle, by breaking it down into tiny, doable steps. And, that scary thing is probably as much excitement as fear, you know! Use it to motivate you!

Here are some ideas for you:

1--Find some other makeup consultants and go talk to them. You could do a google search to find them. Email them or call them on the phone and ask them some questions you are most wondering about.

2--Pick your "market niche". Do you want to do wedding or pageant makeup? Makeovers at a salon? Sell products and do demos in a department store at a makeup counter? Sell products at home like with a BeautiControl or other company? Work independently, maybe partnering with an image consultant? Do stage makup for theatre?

3--Take good digital before/after pics to show your stuff. Practice on yourself & your daughter & your friends to build a portfolio.

4--Do a couple of jobs for free or reduced prices to get the referrals and the experience.

Hey, talk to the people you liked at GlamourShots--they employ makeup artists, don't they? They should have some you can talk to! And, you might be able to get some practice/apprentice time there.

I'm trying to help my friend get started with running a graphic design business from home. She's had a couple of small projects but it's not bringing in enough income. She has the major distraction of two small children - 2.5 years and 18 months. Unfortunately the youngest is jealous of her laptop and screams if she turns her attention to that instead of him. The oldest used to want to play with the keyboard while she was working, but seems to have grown out of that, but between the two of them it has been utterly impossible for her to work. She's lucky if she gets an hour in while the baby is sleeping.

Her other problem is a lack of confidence. She wanted to approach a small one-man design firm with the hope of an apprenticeship, even if she had to work for free for a while. She put it off, and then discovered that he'd actually been looking for an assistant and had hired someone who enquired off the street, just as she'd been intending!

She can't afford to pay for a website. But additionally she would never have the time to actually set it up. I'm going to put up part of her portfolio on my website, so that's a start (but she lost a huge amount of the work she had done when a laptop was stolen, so her new portfolio is still a bit thin.)

I just don't know how she's going to do this until the kids are both at school, but she needs the income now! She wants to be able to stay home with the children, and if she went out to work part time, what she would earn would be swallowed by day care. If she goes back to work full time, the idea of being with the kids as they grow up is thrown out, but it also sets her back another five years in her goals to become a graphic designer.

If anyone has any other ideas, I'm sure she'd be grateful.

Elle, how nice of you to help her!

I think she first has to address the time issue. It is often very difficult when one is also taking care of young kids, especially as it seems she gets no "off time". So, she might want to first barter with someone to watch the kids for a few hours so she can work. And, she needs to figure out how many hours she could conceivably "work" at home and how much she can make during that time--is it worth it?

She can do a blog for free, too--many of the sites are free. And, for content, she could write articles on how she does the designs, what makes a good design, color theory, or whatever & show her work there. Then, link to other sites--article markets, free ezine article sites, social sites, etc. to build traffic.

One way to build up her design portfolio is what I recommend to many newbies in many different areas--pay for your "education" by doing free work to build up your references, testimonials and examples. So, she designs a logo for you or a website design scheme for someone else, and so on. I recommend this strategy to wedding planners and personal chefs and anyone needing that initial credibility but not able to go to "school."

And, I'd recommend she pick one niche if possible--preferably one she has some contacts in to get started. Just makes it easier when you can narrow down your market. For instance, her husband's industry or one she worked in before or just one she really likes.

Another thing (remember I know nothing about her talents!) is that she could do some illustrating or other "work for hire", which might be easier to land jobs than building up a business and a clientele with her time limitations.

Thanks Deb, I'll run those ideas past her. Unfortunately she's not a writer, so I think she might balk at writing ezine articles, etc. But at least with a blog she could make it mainly a photo diary.

Any advice as to the best/easiest free blogging site to use?

Well, I did use Blogger once --it's very easy and it's free.

Also, Squidoo is a possibility. I haven't really thought about it much, but they say you can make a lens on anything. I don't do lots of photos on my lenses, so can't speak to graphics storage there, but there's always the free graphics space like at Facebook if she needs it.

And, I do think Facebook would be good for her to explore. It could help her marketing to have friends of friends see her work there. Plus, you can store photos for free. And, if you can stay away from a lot of the "fun" stuff, it can be quite professional. Maybe even MySpace, too.

All she'd need to do is post photos of her work with her copyright across the front of them (so people can't just steal them), and maybe talk about their design some.

Again, she's going to have to find some way to market that she's comfortable with. I usually suggest writing because that's my comfort zone, but remember the teenager who sold her company for millions and her business was making MySpace backgrounds and stuff? There are tons of possibilities there in the free social media world and someone graphic could certainly capitalize on that.

How about she play around with early childhood graphics for other Moms? That way, she can work with her kids! :-)

Thanks so much Deb. You've given her plenty of ideas to mull over and play around with.

I did show her Squidoo but she was a bit daunted by it. I think we'll take it in baby steps. She's on Facebook already, so that could be the best way to start.