7 Ways To Boost Your Confidence When Starting A Small Business
Starting your own small business taps into many skills but what it relies on in abundance is confidence. In the early days of founding and launching your small business you’ll be busier than you’ve ever known, they’ll be hurdles, challenges, and the best of times. With all of that going on your confidence might go up and down. In this blog I share my top 7 ways to boost your confidence when starting a small business.
1. Listen to motivational podcasts or talks
There’s a vast wealth of knowledge and tried and tested small business journeys already out there. Listening to other peoples experiences not only provides you with many useful tips and suggestions but it will also help build your confidence. Understanding that even the most successful small businesses faced challenges, experienced failures and came through stronger will lift your spirits on those tough days. If you need a starting point I’ll boldly recommend my own podcast – the one I wish I’d been able to listen when starting out on my own The Resilient Game Plan. This blog post might be a helpful starter ‘7 Inspiring Podcasts For Anyone Starting A Business’.
2. Be you
You may be a parent, carer, wife/husband but you are first and foremost you. Those other elements are important in your story (I’ll come to that later) but in all those initial business meetings ensure you are the focal point in discussions and negotiations. Everyone wants to know more about you and your business – when you’re authentic people respond well and that in turn will definitely boost your confidence.
3. Know your audience
Really know your market, do the work, the research – know who you are serving and what solution you are providing for them. Learn what makes your customers excited, joyful, frustrated – what makes them tick and never stop that learning. Become the most customer orientated business owner in your product area and you will feel like anything is possible.
4. Know your competitors
It’s much harder to feel threatened or loose confidence because of your competitors if you know who they are, what their niche is and how you complement or compete with them. That knowledge will build your confidence in understanding the whole market you are working within. And there are likely lots of collaboration opportunities amongst your competitors – so don’t shy away from them – get to know them!
5. Know your Story
You’ll be so busy and consumed with all the tasks you need to complete on the road to starting your own business that you might not take enough time to know your story. You know your story right? Have you practiced saying it out loud? Can you tell your story passionately and succinctly to a range of audiences? from customers to bank managers to suppliers to competitors. Does it convey your vision, your passion and your determination to succeed? Know this and you’ll be bouncing with confidence. My podcast episode’ ‘Sharing your journey with Manmeet Sokhi’ is helpful for this.
6. Set yourself realistic goals
The list will be a long one. There will be times you’re spinning lots of plates. So set yourself realistic goals – there will be ‘non negotiables’ that have to be completed before you launch but there will be many ‘nice to haves’. Separate those out and set realistic goals and timeframes. If you have a plan, with goals and a timeline you’ll feel much more in control than if you just try to complete ‘everything’ – control means productivity which means confidence! I talk about more about this in my podcast episode ‘Six Steps To Being More Productive’.
7. Celebrate your successes
All of them! When you’re starting out on your own you will have lots of successes that may go unnoticed without someone else to say ‘well done’, you have to take on this role. Each win is worthy of a celebration so make sure that you do! Good Luck!
If you enjoyed this blog take a look at an article I wrote for Forbes ‘4 Minutes Or Less – What Do Customers Expect During Online Check-Out?’.
