Building the Courage to Launch an Online Business - Even if you have no experience
“Be clear on your insights, metrics, and data - We have grand ideas when starting a business and often launch and build on assumptions, hunches, and concepts. This is great however as you launch your business, it helps to review your insights and metrics. ”
Title: Thinking of Launching an online business?
Congratulations, you have a business idea that you wish to launch into the world!
In my experience and as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. Along the way of supporting Global Companies to launch, assisting clients as well as launching my own brands, I have accumulated a growing little black book of lessons learned and best practices.
Here I share tips for building your confidence to launch your new online business.
Remember confidence is a muscle and grows with the repetition of building your experience from doing. One of the things that have saved me a lot of time is creating and completing a simple business canvas that allows me to:
Validate my business MVP (minimum viable product idea)
Mitigate risk by conducting due diligence, desk research, and compliance/risk/opportunity assessments
Work to a framework of your budget and launch plan
Create a templated simple Launch Plan - You are likely to require a proved and tested process and launch your business and will be launching mini-campaigns. A template is super helpful as you are not beginning from scratch each time.
Systems, systems, systems - In my experience from working with Organisations, Corporations, and Small Business owners are the earlier that you build and document your business systems, processes the more likely you are to be successful and build solid foundations for scaling. Systems allow you to create a framework that you can use as a template and for myself has allowed me to build and train a team. Business systems include CRM’s, client management systems, project management, email marketing system, and accounting systems.
Understand your tools - If you are using platforms or software it is important to test them out prior to launch. Testing is an essential part of the launch process.
Testing, refine, tweak, and test again - When launching your online business you need to have a clear understanding of the technology and platforms that you are using.
Create an SOP library (standard operating procedures) - This has been pivotal to outsourcing enabling you to train team members and support staff. Standard operating procedures are brief and simple steps and summaries of a task or action.
Hire your weakness - Many try to do all of the things and a sure way to fail is to attempt to do everything yourself. Warranted when you are starting out, you most certainly save costs, however, one of my biggest lessons is to outsource to experts.
Build with the end in mind - Many create an Online business without having a clear end goal, often this leads to creating a business that is very reactive and essentially becomes a job.
Focus on the end result - We often get so caught up in the euphoria of our ‘new’ business that we can be visited by the cloud of self-doubt and become overwhelmed with the tasks at hand to build our new business. But remaining focused on each step ahead, you allow yourself to take one step at a time!
Assess your personality profile - For many being online adds an additional nuance of having to be visible. This does not always suit all personalities, things which can be useful include:
Setting core office hours
Using Online ticketing for customer support
Hiring Online business managers and virtual assistants to manage inboxes and mailboxes
Ensure that you have taken the time to mitigate risks and quality assurance - there are so many aspects to launching a business. It is pertinent that you check the essentials such as legal, risk, governance, and compliance will set you up for success.
Get experience - If possible volunteer or work as an affiliate. I had the pleasure of working as an affiliate for a very successful online business owner
Blindspot notebook - Research is essential when launching and so I research blogs and the stories of others who had had successful online launches
Perseverance - Launching a business takes a lot of self-motivation, sacrifices and it is important to develop your self-motivation and perseverance muscle.
Do not be disillusioned by what others are doing or sidelined by distractions - It is very tempting to review the success of others, but launching your online business is personal to you. You have no idea of another’s team, capabilities, budget, etc, so remain focused on your milestones and goals.
Get support - Set yourself up for success by utilising the knowledge and skills of those who have successfully launched in your area of enterprise and seek a mentor, coach, or consultant
Do not be discouraged if you suffer from failure along the way. From my experience, I approach the notion of failure as being deemed as a detrimental impediment to success, rather than working critically against myself with negative self-talk. I value all experiences as feedback, often our first attempts at campaigns, business or launches do not go according to plan, understand that feedback is pertinent to your success.
Refine your processes, explore your creativity, brainstorm your objectives and you are sure to achieve your launch goals. The perfect way to build your confidence is from doing, focus on those whose lives you will enrich and impact. As long as you are leading with value, enjoy the process of your launch success!
“This will help to build your marketing and social media plan, one of the keys to your success is the ability to advertise, promote and ultimately make sales in your business.
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