One of the things that make online based businesses one of the easiest businesses to start, conversely makes them one of the hardest businesses to start.
If you’re not willing or able to throw a few grand at a web developer to get things up and running then perhaps you’re more of a DIY entrepreneur with limited time and/or money to spare. For us, online businesses are attractive because they can have a low barrier to entry, with great potential for growth and you can work around your day job. By online based businesses, I’m talking about anything you can do online to generate income that doesn’t involve buying and storing a truck load of stock. I’m talking about businesses that deliver digital products, referral or affiliate type businesses, service or content based businesses, coaching, consulting, online courses, that kind of stuff. These businesses tend to have a low barrier to entry in terms of cost so in theory almost anyone can do it, and the risk is almost zero. As a DIY’er we can set up a website in a few hours and with hosting, domains, and the various widgets you need to automate stuff and make it all work, your monthly outgoings are going to be less than a takeout for two. So the biggest investment and sacrifice we’re making is often just time, and that’s a huge problem.
By comparison traditional brick and mortar businesses usually need a sizable up front investment, and/or ongoing financial commitment. Leasing premises, fit out costs and all the rest could set you back tens of thousands upfront, creating a financial burden that forces us into action every day. Its like a fight or flight response, and the bigger the burden the bigger the response. Its that response that gets so many businesses off the ground because in the beginning failure just isn’t an option, and for some, its a rush, and it creates a relentless drive directed by a purpose dedicated to an end result.
Back in 2009 just after the economy took a tumble, I started a burger van for just less than five grand. A random conversation with a guy I worked with led me to the idea and a few google searches and a few weeks later when we all got made redundant, I thought what the heck, why not? A few weeks after that I’m parked in a layby on an arterial road somewhere in North Devon and my first few customers started to come inside the first hour, then a steady stream throughout the day. It soon dawned on me that I had created a business from nothing. What seemed like a crazy idea only a few weeks before was now a real business with actual paying customers! Six months later an old dude came by, a former army general, and one of the local landed gentry pitched the idea of me putting my van on his campsite for the following summer. Again, I thought what the heck! Things were going well so I figured why not just get another van? So I did that.
It all seemed fairly straight forward at the time, I googled stuff, wrote lists, bought all the gear I needed, got all the paperwork I needed, figured out where I was going to buy stock and that was it, all ready to go in a few weeks. It was a lot of work, but it wasn’t work that that was hard or difficult. After being made redundant and paying for all this on borrowed money, the idea of this hairbrained scheme not working barely crossed my mind and when it did, I didn’t dwell on it. I was consumed by the tasks involved in setting everything up so I could start trading, I kind of ignored failure as a potential outcome. I’d shelled out a bunch of money, so one way or another I had to make it work so the burden of that initial outlay got me off my arse and kept it going for two years. Then the second summer it rained that lumpy rain, a lot, and I started to question my motives. I also became a father that year and decided flippin burgers wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing, I wasn’t sure why, I just knew flipping burgers wasn’t it. Over the winter that followed I decided to sell up, re-enter the matrix, and get a real job, like an ass…
A few years before all that I tried to set up online content based businesses, and its a different kind of work, and if you want to build a sustainable online business there needs to be a foundation of content to build on, and creating content takes time, thought and iteration. As a DIY’er there’s often new skills to learn, especially if we’re trying to automate things because there’s a lot of moving parts and we’ve got to figure out how to get them all working together. Its not easy, but its not rocket surgery either. All that isn’t what makes it so hard though. What makes it hard is not having that financial burden kicking you in the ass every day. That “almost zero” risk factor is the thing that makes online businesses both the hardest and the easiest businesses to start. Starting an online based business, you’re working for free, towards and end result that’s perhaps a bit uncertain, so dedicating the time is not just hard, its really bloody hard. For me I was vulnerable to every email that landed in my inbox with another opportunity, another sales page claiming to have the quick and easy solution. I bounced from one thing to another, constantly searching, consuming content rather than creating it, and I’d sacrificed nothing but a bunch of time, there was no risk. And when I did spend money on a course or product to learn or work from, the more time passed after spending the money, the easier it was to say goodbye to.
These businesses take time to set up and build, and its often not weeks but months, before you can start selling something. There’s plenty of options to speed things up in affiliate marketing and the like but I’m yet to learn if you can build a long term asset around that business model. Its buying something for a dollar and selling it for 2, and there’s a place for that. We’re talking about online businesses where you’re building long term assets, of content or presence, or both, that you can use to deliver value to your customers well into the future, over and over again.
For this kind of business, we need to tap into something more elusive to maintain consistent action, stay motivated and keep focussed.
One problem we need to deal with is that we’re accustomed to instant gratification, like shopping, hanging out on social media and watching tv, and in terms of work, we go to work, we get paid, and we’re not used to having to wait too long for our reward. All that suits us nicely because our brains are wired to get a return on investment as soon as possible. As humans we’re not really predisposed to being productive, or preparing for the future, instead we’re wired for laziness to save energy. At some point we figured out how to store food (energy) and we had more time and started to find ways to fill it, overcoming our natural inclination to do nothing. We’re wired to fail in all our endeavours except pro-creation. Everything else is prioritised based on energy vs need or reward. If it doesn’t serve us now, like picking mushrooms and hunting animals for food so we don’t starve, we’ll put it off til tomorrow or next week, or next month, or never!.
Secondly we tend to make decisions based on how desirable or undesirable an outcome is, but our brains are tricky little fuckers so its not that simple. No matter how desirable or undesirable an outcome is, our brains prioritise our actions based on how far into the future the outcome is. Its why we eat junk food and don’t exercise as much as we should. We know an unhealthy lifestyle will likely hasten our demise, but its not an immediate danger. For the same reason, its hard to maintain healthy habits, because it takes time to see the result of our positive actions, so our brain says “Dude, its gonna be fine, just chill and pass the cheese”. So we pass the cheese. On the flipside when the outcome we’re aiming for is everything we ever wanted, and we have to commit a few hours a week for a year or more before we see the real benefit, our brains says “Dude, really,?… you wanna do work stuff for an hour? We did that yesterday man, how about we go find something we can binge watch for the next six weeks?”.
Finally we need to deal with self doubt. That voice in our head that says we’re crazy to even try, that’s our brains trying to talk us out of it. What if we fail, or can’t keep up the work, what if we can’t figure things out, what if our friends make fun of us, seriously its like a comedy ghost whispering in our ears. Half a billion years of evolution and our brains will do overtime to make sure we do as little as humanly possible. Diligently keeping us from being eaten by bears, and falling off cliffs, or being productive.
We need to overcome all that, and we can with a little brain trickery.
First we need to believe what we’re trying to achieve is possible not just for anyone, for us specifically.
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You probably got the overriding point so far that this is not easy, it is hard. Those who succeed almost always do so because they put in the work, and just committed to figuring it out one way or another, so if you’re prepared to do that and commit to your vision then you’re unlikely to fail. The reality is most people just won’t do the work, or they’ll give up, but you won’t, if you have a good enough reason.
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If it all feels too overwhelming and you think you can’t figure it out, think of the last time you started a new job and how much you absorbed from the first day you walked in the door to the end of the seventh week. All the stuff you had to learn, new computer applications, a company website or portal, CRMs and all that jazz, you figured it out right? An hour a day 5 days a week is 260 hours which is 7 working weeks. Whatever you need to figure out to start your business, you can figure it out in 260 hours. Commit to figuring it out, and you will if you have a good enough reason.
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If you think you’re not good enough, or don’t know enough, know that one way or another we’re being paid to help people, to deliver value with whatever product, service or whatever you want to offer. We don’t have to be an expert or have truck loads of cash or fancy cars or be some kind of guru to add value. We only need to be one step ahead to add value to someone who’s one step behind. And if you’re reading this and stuff like it, and actually taking action, you’re plenty far enough ahead to help someone else.
Then we need to substitute that financial burden with a reason to act that’s meaningful and important to us.
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You know all that mumbo jumbo about setting goals, creating a vision and meditating and stuff. Well its not mumbo jumbo. Its the real deal, and there’s a reason we’ve heard it all a million times before. Its because that part of our brain that wants us to sit on our arse all day, can be fooled into to doing stuff it thinks we don’t want to do, by getting super clear on what we really want, making a plan and understanding what steps we need to take.
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The first part of that plan needs to be a plan to make a plan, to set goals as steps towards a vision of what we want our lives to look like. That planning and goal setting needs to be an ongoing process, course correcting rather than giving up because something went wrong, and knowing that’s part of the process. When you do that you keep your vision real and at the front of your mind so rather than our brains seeing the benefit of our actions way off in the distance, we can bring it right up close in our minds eye and fool our brains into thinking the reward is closer than it thinks.
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We need to use all the above as the driver to maintain consistent action every day ideally to get through those 260 hours.
We have to accept all this as the reality, that’s it. We just have to get clear, on what we want, and commit to working through each and every challenge that comes our way, and persist until we get what we want. If you’re not there yet that’s okay, it took me the best part of fifteen years to accept all that and stop arsing around. I still procrastinated, and I still went months sometimes without lifting a finger towards my vision, but I had to live with that feeling you get when you know what you’ve got to do, and you know you’re not doing it. I realised that if I let those thoughts linger and build into frustration and then stoked that fire with conscious thought, I could make that internal monologue we’ve got going on so loud that I couldn’t avoid it, and the only way to stop it was to take a step forward towards that vision, and this bits really important; if the next step is to figure out what the next step is, then do that. Just keep taking the next step.
Check out The Solopreneur Series – Everyone’s journey to building their online business will be different, but if you can see all the steps before you start, you’re far less likely to get any surprises that can bring you to a grinding halt.
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