Elsa Mitchell Consulting

I was rattling off the usual a to-do list to a friend who was starting a business for the very first time;

1. Come up with your business name
2. Register the name
3. Get an ABN
4. Buy the domain name
5. etc etc

and it wasn’t until she looked at me sheepishly and said “but how do it do these things?” that I realised, whilst dishing out all this advice in recent months, I had forgotten some of the most important subjects of all .

First I felt a little embarrassed that I had managed to over look such an important topic and then I felt excited that I had the solution to a common problem. If you’ve never started a business before, how do you know where to start? Which information to trust?  After all, we are living in an age of information overload. Now more than ever, ironically, we are at a loss as to where to find the right information. Ironic because never has it been so easy to find the answer to a question, but are there so many answers we don’t know which to trust?

So given I have personally succeeded in this process multiple times I decided there is no one more qualified than me to provide this information than me. So…..

10 Easy Steps to Start Your Own Business

1. Ask yourself why – Before you do ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING, ask yourself why??? Why are you doing this? Why do you want to start your own business? What are you hoping to get out of it? Im not entirely sure money as an answer is going to cut it, but thats just me. What you are about to do is huge and sometimes its tough so you need to know your why every step of the way.

2. Choose a name – Sounds simple right? But its not always. In my experience the worst thing you can do is run your business name ideas past all your friends. There will always be ONE person who doesn’t like your fav and it will mess with your head. Choose a mentor to bounce ideas off and if you can narrow it down to two, then end it out for public vote. Facebook groups are a great way to do this.

3. Register the name – There are a few different websites you can do this on. I used www.bizify.com and the cost is approx $57/ year. Super easy.

4.Get an ABN – GOOD NEWS, you can get your ABN the same time you register your business name at www.bizify.com

5. Buy the domain name – Sounds scary right? So easy, I promise. I find its a good idea to search that your domain name is available before you register your business name. Nothing sucks more than finding out you won’t be able to create a website using your actual business name. Average price of a domain name is around $15/year and i use https://www.netregistry.com.au.

6. Create a mission statement – Im not going to lie, this is hard and may take time. It is the one thing we went round and round in circles on when we started B Directory. To be honest, we had to go forward with many other steps and re visit this one countless times. Your mission statement is what I like to call your “catch phrase”. A few choice words that tell the world what you stand for and what makes you different from the rest. We settled on B Directory; “connecting businesses, bloggers and influencers to supercharge growth”.

7. Create a dream customer profile – SO IMPORTANT!! Just saying. identifying exactly who your target clientele is going to be is crucial. The easiest way to do this is to pick 1 – 3 imaginary people and create an actual profile of them separately. E.g – their age, relationship status, where they live, what they eat, blah blah blah. If you’re a BD member we actually have a template for this on our resources page.

8. Make a 5 year business plan – Don’t over think this. It sounds like a huge task but it doesn’t have to be. Just writing down a short story of how you vision your business and your life to be in 5 years time constitutes as a biz plan. If you feel like getting right into it you can segment your goals and strategies on how you plan to achieve your long term goal. You should def include all the information you have collated in the previous 7 steps into your plan.

9. Create your social media profiles – This really is a whole other blog post on its own but to narrow it down just start with choosing one or two platforms that seem best suited to your business. For us its Facebook and Instagram. Trying to take on more than this at once can lead to overwhelm which in turn usually means total freak out and abandonment. Social media is totally something that can be out sourced or you can easily enlist the services of some one (like us) to help you get started.

10. Get a website – Getting the set up of your website correct right from the beginning will not only save you huge dollars and heartache later down the track, it will be a massive advantage when launching your business. We can’t stress enough the importance of having your SEO set up correctly. The price of your website depends largely on the intricacies required. We highly recommend shopping around or giving us a shout.

Each one of these 10 steps is an entire subject on their own, but consider this a checklist of sorts. A post to point you in the right direction.

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