6 Business Essentials

For brothers who are absolutely fed up with corporate America and looking to start their own business, I want to congratulate you.

It’s a great idea, but it’s not easy to start your own business and run it successfully.

You imagine waking up whenever you want, going to the gym, playing a few games of online chess while drinking your Oaxacan coffee and reading The Economist in print.

Well, the truth is, that’s actually possible.

Depending on the business and your level of involvement in it, you can absolutely take Mondays and Fridays off for business development and chilling, while servicing contracts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

But that's usually for a well-oiled machine that has been built up and improved over many years.

Starting out is usually a grind.

30-hour days, 12 days a week, is not uncommon when you are getting your business off the ground.

Why?

Because you are on a learning and growth curve, it often requires you to establish the six elements of your business.

Those elements include:

1. Capital

2. Product

3. Niche

4. Marketing

5. Sales

6. Delivery

1. Starting with capital. You’ll need some money to get started. Whether it comes from your paycheck, a Black VC fund, or a huge traditional institutional investor, you will need some startup capital to begin your journey.

2. The next thing is your product or service. You will need to define and refine what your product or service is. This could take you days to years to finalize before you’re ready to hit the market.

3. Third, is your niche. You can’t sell to everyone. Even McDonald's focuses on people that want burgers vs. people that want tacos. You have to find out who your ideal customers are and focus on them.

4. The fourth is marketing. You’ll have to discover what channels you wish to use to reach your customers and determine what messaging you will use to raise their eyebrows toward your offer and entice them into taking action toward buying it.

5. Fifth is sales. This may seem obvious, but it’s not. Selling is an action that you must do or have systems in place to transfer money into your bank account in exchange for your product or service. Just because they love it and love you doesn’t mean they will buy it. The product or service must be actively sold in a way that leads to customers buying it.

6. Lastly, there is delivery. Whether it’s $500 king-sized mattresses or $500,000 construction contracts, you have to deliver the goods, ideally in a high-quality way.

Although this is a simple business blueprint, it’s all you need to get started.

However, the key to business success deals not so much with a business blueprint as with mindsets

This actually reminds me of a client I have in the insurance industry.

When we started, he was scared to make calls, and his energy was stagnant. He had anxiety about getting rejected and was questioning if insurance was really for him.

That’s when I laid the 100% formula on him and said, "What would you do in the next seven days in your business if you gave it 100%?"

He said he would call seventy people and knock on doors.

And that’s exactly what he did.

He surprised himself and realized making calls was something he could do.

We used the 100% formula again and again and again, week after week after week, and that man is now on fire.

He’s doing so well that he’s quitting his day job in four months! He will easily be earning multiples of what he’s earning now while having total control of his schedule and more time to spend with his family.

It’s not simply that the majority of businesses fail in the first five years, but that the majority of business owners quit in the first five years.

Not knowing exactly what steps to take and doing so without a coach to guide you through the mental hurdles and inner transformation required to become a successful business owner is a recipe for disaster. It’s wishful thinking at best.

If you want to start and grow your own successful business, then you need a coach, business incubator programs, guides, and real-life mentors, not YouTube gurus and a few books to get started. If it were that easy, we’d all be rich.

With that being said, if you want to start a business and believe it will be the path to your freedom, full potential, and living without regrets, then you should get the support you need and go for it 100%.

It’s the path I took; I live without regrets professionally, and it’s one of the most rewarding parts of my life.

-Jewel

Schedule your free consultation for executive coaching today at: www.blackexecutivemen.com

Jewel Edward Love, Jr. is a world-class executive coach for Black men in senior leadership (C-suite, EVP, SVP, VP, senior director, director) who are ready to step into greatness. The investment starts at only $10,000.