Hi there! This is Luis again trying to help you with your business. So maybe you’d like to know how we managed to create an online business from scratch in only 40 days? If you want to start your business from zero too, this is the first big and important step you should make.
FIND AN AMAZING IDEA TO START YOUR BUSINESS.
If you’re going to invest a lot of time, effort and energy. If you want this project to be an important milestone in your life. If you want to overcome bad times and keep the stamina all the way until the end, you have to choose the right business idea. I’m going to tell you right now exactly what we did to find the perfect idea for this project, and for us to be involved in it.
IT’S GOOD TO USE A METHODOLOGY. WE WERE LUCKY TO HAVE ONE.
This is probably the first time when we could benefit from our offline expertise. Maybe you already know that I’m a business mentor for offline businesses. Perhaps in a few months with all the experience and knowledge that I’m gaining here, I could become an online business mentor too, but that’s another story. The important thing now is that I could use the same methodology I usually suggest to my clients for our project.
YOU SHOULD START YOUR BUSINESS IDEA BY ASKING “WHY?” TO YOURSELF
Yes, many people I work with start asking themselves “what?” (the product, the service, the business). That’s not the right first question. As Simon Sinek explains on his great book “Start with why”, you have to dive deep into your values, your believes, to find the reason and the topic or your business. That’s going to help you to inspire others (customers for example) but mainly, it’s going to help you to keep your spirit up along the path. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation when you purchase the book through this link. Thanks!]
Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. By WHY I mean your purpose, cause or belief – WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?
—–Simon Sinek—–
There’s another awesome book, Next generation Leaders, by Robert Dilts (by the way, one of my greatest mentors), that explains the two sides this “Why question” can be answered from [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase the book through this link.]:
- From the Ego side… that’s the ambition. It reflects what I’m going to obtain when the business is getting income (not only money… it can be fame.. or whatever desire that your ego has).
- From the Soul side… that’s the visión. It shows what I’d like to see in others, in the society (or in my group of customers), when the business is giving service out.
As you can see I bolded two words, and that’s because the Ego is related to what we get, and the Soul is related to what we give. As Robert Dilts says, you should start thinking about your business idea from the Soul part.
Characterized by people like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and Elon Musk, this new generation of entrepreneurs is also deeply committed to living their dreams and making a better world through their projects or ventures. Robert Dilts Tell your Friends
Has it been too complicated? I think that with the following methodology it’s going to be crystal clear.
STEP BY STEP TO CREATE YOUR BUSINESS IDEA FROM SCRATCH
- MIND MAPPING: As you can see in the picture above, I always start with a mind map. I love them!! I recommend MindMeister as the best online tool for creating them. If you still don’t know much about Mind Mapping, you should learn from the person who made Mind Maps a universally known tool, Tony Buzan. His book will help you as much as it helped me in the past. The best book that I know about Mind Mapping. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you make a purchase through those links.]. In this particular case, I did the mind map for this blog post as an example, but you should use it to find your “WHY?” answer.
TIP: I use mind mapping this way: First, I define a central theme, and from there I start to develop key ideas (trying to use just a single word or two words to define them). Then, I develop new “smaller branches” from there, in order to be more expecific about the idea. And finally, I try to conect some of the ideas between them (with colored arrows). With this method to start I can “throw up” all my ideas, organize them a little, and have all the content in sight. Easily.
- 3 QUESTIONS: It could be a great help if you could answer these three questions to find your “why”. You can think about them and the answers could be words for your mind map. I use these questions (and many others too) in my mentorship to entrepreneurs when they are in this particular phase:
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What would you like to create for the world that is going beyond yourself?
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What are the special gifts that you are going to deliver in order to create that vision of the world from question one?
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What is the kind of life you are going to create for yourself when you give your special gift from question two in order to create that vision of the world from question one?
After these two steps, you could probably have a bunch of thoughts, ideas, …. and of course that you’ll need to narrow down to the two or three ideas you like the best. Think that these are long-term projects, so it’s better that you choose wisely your business idea because you’re going to stick to it for a long time. But this is just the beginning. The next chapter of your quest after this “first thing to do”, it’s to find ways to discover which of those initial ideas (if any) could be a success case for the next generation of entrepreneurs… and discover it before you go broke. Maybe you already know how to choose one from here. If you don’t, this article is going to help you with a method I use to do that: Mastering Divergent Thinking: The BEE technique.
By the way: ¿DID YOU FIND YOUR BUSINESS IDEA FROM OTHER MEANS? let’s discuss in the comments, or using our contact page!
Remember: Why not to have all this useful information coming to you instead of you having to look for it? If you want to be one of the “freenancers” who are totally determined to achieve their financial freedom, subscribe to our mailing list and be always the first to know everything we are testing to get passive income. Luis (The “freenancer”)
Credits: <a href=”https://www.freepik.es/fotos-vectores-gratis/tecnologia”>Foto de tecnología creado por onlyyouqj – www.freepik.es</a>, <a href=”https://www.freepik.es/fotos-vectores-gratis/fondo”>Foto de fondo creado por freepik – www.freepik.es</a>
