I know that starting a side business can be scary. You don’t know if it will succeed. But what’s really holding you back? I suppose for most people it’s fear. It’s the fear of the unknown. But if you really what to generate a side income, you have to just start. Because if you start out slow and steady, what’s the worst that can happen? You lose a little bit of time and money. What’s the best that can happen? You supplement your income with a business that you enjoy!
Excuses
Nothing happens without action. I know this statement is so obvious, but it needs to be drilled into your head. Most people that sort of want to start a side business, but not really, will be excellent at making excuses. I don’t have time. I don’t have enough money. I want everything to be perfect. It’s all just excuses and masks the bigger problem of not really wanting it bad enough. Think about anything in your life…the times you’ve wanted something really bad…was there anything that held you back? In most cases, no.
Time
Everyone has the same 24 hours in the day. The difference is how we use those hours and how efficient we are with our time. Not having time is a very common excuse, but I really think it’s just that starting a side business is not priority yet. I think about my schedule with a full-time career…3 kids…and a wife that is a nurse working the night shift 4 nights per week. If I can make daily progress on my side business, so can you.
When you’re truly ready to generate a side income, you’ll find the time. Will you need to make sacrifices? Absolutely. For example, I don’t watch a whole lot of TV except for Shark Tank, Walking Dead and The Profit. But even when I am, I have my laptop open.
My best advice is focus on daily progress even if it’s just 30 minutes per day. Do that daily and you’ve just funneled 15 hours into your business every month!
Money
If you don’t have a lot of capital to work with in the beginning, you just have to get creative. Don’t use money as an excuse, just think outside of the box. I don’t recommend you start out by borrowing money from the bank or friends. That’s just going to add to your pressure and anxiety. Just start slowly and invest your valuable time in low budget marketing. As your business builds, you’ll have more money to invest in building your business.
But honestly, I think money should always be an issue. Meaning, you should always be concerned about it. Doing so will make you extra cautious about the dollars you spend because cash flow is king and you need to have a good grasp on the money coming in and the money coming out.
Perfection
You don’t have to have every single aspect of your side business perfect before you launch. Your website promoting the business doesn’t need to be the final version because it will never be final…tweaking this and tweaking that is inevitable. Stop analyzing every little detail of what you have to do and just start and fine tune as you go.
Once you have a basic plan in place with regards to what service you’re going to offer and to who, just get going! Taking action will force you to tweak things as you move along…so you’ll start to build up momentum as you slowly improve your service.
“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” This is by Reid Hoffman, Co-founder of LinkedIn. So if you don’t believe me, believe this billionaire entrepreneur!
Wrapping Up
The most important thing is just to take action — figure out what you’re going to do and then start the engine. It’s amazing the paralysis that happens when you over think something or don’t take action. As you brew over the questions in your head…you ultimately end up doing nothing…it’s a vicious cycle that never seems to end and results in, well, nothing. The cure for this? Taking action!
So figure out what’s holding you back from starting your side business and then realize they are just excuses and start moving forward. Even if it’s baby steps…because if you make tiny bits of daily progress, every day you’ll be slightly further along in your business than the previous day.
