I had a conversation with a person I just met recently who specializes on email marketing. His stories were so funny! He said that every time he would tell people that his job was to write emails, people would give him that weird look. With the advent of the ‘internet’ age, a lot of weird sounding jobs and new positions were created. Also, a lot of online businesses were created, thus creating cyberpreneurs here and there.
What I like about being a cyberpreneur is the fact that I get to spend most of my day at home. Let’s face it. Traffic here in the Philippines is horrendous. The 1-2 hours spent in traffic could have been spent in creating emails that could have raked in revenue or could have been spent in uploading new stocks for your online store.
Now starting an online business seems like a good idea, but most of the people I meet ask me, what are the concrete steps that they could take to start their own business. In this post, I will share with you some of the things that I did to prepare for that online businesses that I have.
Proper mindset
Seeing another person earn a 6 figure income from his or her online business is not the right reason for one to go into business. In fact, even if I encourage people to take the leap into entrepreneurship, I think it takes a certain mindset and proper timing before you go into business.
I received a text from my friend recently asking if I was scared before I took the leap. I said, “yes, of course”. I was super frightened. What I believe in is that if you’re not, you may not have thought about it that much. Going into business entails risk and the greater the risk, the higher the reward. And it’s not all about risk actually when it comes to becoming a Cyberpreneur. I have seen that the things that I spend a lot on are time and effort. The risk is more about having less time for yourself in the beginning, especially when you’re building your online business.
To help people try to assess their situation if they are ready, I came up with a checklist which you can get here:
Here’s a video, too!
If the check list is not enough, I would love for you to join us at the Entrepreneur in Me page on facebook and we can talk there!
Right Reason
It was just recently that my friend got it. He messaged me and said that he finally realized something about why he was doing his business. He said that he loved working on his business because he wanted to make people happy. He said he realized that it wasn’t just for himself. He keeps on doing it because he loves seeing the smile on people’s faces when they avail of his product/service. He said that it wasn’t about himself anymore.
He finally got to that point. I had that realization also after implementing 3 workshops under Manila Workshops. Also, I had that feeling when I started meeting people who sincerely love reading my blog and they thought that my articles helped them. I think every cyberpreneur or startup founder or online business owner or any business owner for that matter gets to the point that they realize that it’s about satisfying a need that people have or giving people a solution that they will ‘truly’ appreciate. It isn’t about you anymore. IF you want to go into business, start with that. What do people REALLY NEED?
Plan Ahead
With the thousand of things that we need to do, it’s so easy to get caught up with the daily grind of things that we just go straight to implementing whatever it is that’s in our heads. We don’t have time to write it down (not to mention the fact that we hate typing long documents or what we write needs heavy editing.. hihi!). But, believe me, having them on a one page, three page or 15 page document is important. It becomes the map (adjustable map.. hihi!) for everything that we need to do.
For those who have a hard time coming up with a business plan, I can guide you with this 120 minute coaching individual session that I’m offering, where we will come up with your own business canvas. You can just book a coaching session with me at: http://manilaworkshops.com/product/business-plan-coaching-session-with-ginger-arboleda
These are the different things that I thought of and did before I became a cyberpreneur. But hey, don’t just hear it from me. There is this book called Cyberpreneur Philippines. This book was written by different Cyberpreneurs, each one contributing a chapter. I contributed a chapter on Scaling up your Business.
You can purchase the book for Php 395.00 here at this link:
http://manilaworkshops.com/product/cyberpreneur-philippines-online-business-startup-guide
It’s the perfect gift for your loved one and friends who are thinking of becoming a cyberpreneur or those who want to start their own business.
Feel free to contact me and email me at ginger(at)manilaworkshops(dot)com if you want to chat about starting your own business, or feel free to leave a comment below and i’ll get back to you!
Good luck!
