Your Guide To Becoming Your Own Boss

smiling lady at laptop with mug starting her own business

Is this the year to become your own boss?  

The Covid pandemic led to over 114 million people losing their jobs worldwide. This means that the current job market is volatile, so now’s the best time to become an entrepreneur.  After all, you can’t get fired when you don’t have a boss. There are also a lot of new opportunities for innovation.   

There’s a lot you need to consider before you can succeed as your own boss.  

But before we talk about the steps you need to take to succeed, let’s talk about the advantages and disadvantages of entrepreneurship.  

Advantages of Being An Entrepreneur  

Your Profits Are Yours  

There is no limit on how much you can earn when you’re the person in charge of your business. Imagine not needing to rely on anyone for a promotion or beg a boss for a raise. When you succeed as your own boss, you get paid first, and your profits belong to you.   

Doesn’t that sound good?   

You own your schedule   

If you’re someone who hates working 9-5, then becoming an entrepreneur could change your life. When you’re an entrepreneur, you choose your schedule, so you can pick the hours where you work the most efficiently. Are you a night owl? Start your own business, and you’ll be able to sleep as late as you want.   

You are the creator   

When you work for someone else, you follow their lead. You execute your job the way they want you to instead of how you feel best. For a lot of people, this suffocates their creativity. When you succeed as your own boss, you get to bring your vision to life.   

So, you get to control your profits, build your schedule, and escape the soul-sucking repetitiveness of a 9-5. 

What’s the downside?  Well, there’re a few.  

Disadvantages of Being An Entrepreneur  

You Lose The Security Of A Scheduled Paycheck   

The most significant disadvantage of being an entrepreneur is losing your steady paycheck.  You have to be a risk-taker to succeed. Entrepreneurship is a risky business, and you won’t have a safety net. If you aren’t willing to give up the guarantee that you’ll receive money at a specific time monthly, then being a full-time entrepreneur isn’t for you.  

Resilience is Key  

Succeeding as your own boss requires a lot of dedication. You’ll have to do a lot yourself, even the grunt work. Getting your business off the ground can be a struggle when you’re just starting out. You’ll have to: 

  • Establish Your Business 
  • Build A Loyal Customer Network 
  • Design A Website 
  • Build A Portfolio 
  • And More

You have to be willing to tough it out if you want your business to succeed.   

Everything Is Dependent On You  

Entrepreneurship is a thrilling experience, especially when everything is going well. 

The success of your business is entirely dependent on you. Work begins and ends when you want it to. Taking a sick day or going on a vacation means bringing everything to a halt. Hold yourself accountable to get your business off the ground. Procrastination can have devastating effects on your company’s productivity.   

Steps To Succeed As Your Own Boss  

Having weighed the pros and cons, is entrepreneurship for you? 

If you’re ready to boss up, here are some steps you need to take to succeed as your own boss.  

Develop Your Business Idea and Connect it to your Passion  

What type of business do you want to start? It is always easier to do what you love. 

If you already have a solid idea, great. If you don’t, no problem. You just need to do some research to help you develop the perfect idea to take the world by storm. This will require some soul searching.  

Idea And Market Evaluation   

Validating your business is the process of assessing if there’s a place for your business in the current market. You must analyze if your concept is viable and research the market you wish to join. So basically, ask yourself, can I do it? And if I did it, who would want it, who’s my customer?  

If it doesn’t currently exist on the market, you need to figure out why that is. It’s not uncommon for a fantastic-sounding idea to be implausible.   

Is your idea realistic, in-demand, and profitable? 

If yes, then you may just have the next big thing.   

Market Research  

Market research is the process of learning about your potential customers and competitors.   It helps: 

  • Define your customer personas, 
  • Define your target market, 
  • Understand the feasibility of your business. 

When you know your customer’s challenges, needs, and current solutions, you’ll know the best way to serve them. That enables you to optimize your product or service.  

Keep the Momentum Going  

Inspiration is easy in the beginning and keeping it going long-term is necessary in order to succeed. This is why it is so important to understand “why” you chose the business and how you anchored it into your vision. Make a vision board and place it where you can easily see and visualize your success!  

The Positive Change Group commits to helping business leaders and entrepreneurs like you to maximize their potential by teaching them to take a ‘wholistic’ approach. Our goal is to help you succeed on your own. For additional details on how to succeed in a new biz, and keeping the momentum going, check out our online course so you can learn more about how we can help you today! 

3 Must Do’s Before Starting Your Own Biz to Propel Your Success!

starting your own business

I have been an entrepreneur for most of my life. I have had the opportunity over the years to start and scale many businesses myself and coach hundreds of my clients on how to do the same. Over the years I have learnt so much on what it takes to be successful in business and how you can fast track your success by understanding how powerful of a creator you are. Looking back when I first started in business, I wish I had a better understanding of why these 3 strategies are so important before even starting. I am going to share with you the 3 things I wish I knew when I was starting my first business.

  1. Crystalize your Dream

Before starting your own business crystalize your idea, crystalize your intent. Like a foundation when you are building a house, it’s what keeps it solid and keeps you on track. The clearer you get the easier it gets. Clarity allows us to speed up how we manifest and create every day. For most people this is the hardest part because they don’t know what they want. You are worth spending time to get really clear on what you want. The following exercise will help you crystalize your dream.

Exercise:

  • Have a journal – call it your dream book or idea book. This is your safe place to do brain dumps on all your ideas. Get creative and dream big. Ask yourself and write down your answers to the following:
  • What I really want is . . . (Allow this to be something that you love to do and that does not feel like work because it makes you happy.)
  • My dream business is . . .
  • What does your dream business look like? (Size, number of employees, location, online or in person.)
  1. Define your ‘Why’

Part of the cement that is going to hold your business true and strong for the long run is understanding why you have decided to open a business. It’s an important step that you must go through mentally and emotionally to identify “Why I want this”, because when things get challenging, you want to have a solid footing reminding you why you are starting your own business

Exercise:

  • Dig deep, finding the emotional component gets you closer to your true why. Physically write down your reason. It’s also useful to know what this business will do for you. Be specific and describe how owning this business will make you feel once successful.
  • Take a look at what motivates you to start your own business. In fact, think about what you would be doing in a year from now, if you weren’t starting your business. What career would you be doing otherwise? Fast forward 10 years, and if you didn’t open your business for whatever reason, think about how your life looks like and how it feels?
  1. Align your mind and your heart for success

Now that you have identified your ‘why’ and understand your passion, you must get your mind onboard. Our minds and our beliefs can be our biggest passageway or obstacle to success. The key is to have your mind believe in your success as if it has already happened.

Exercise:

  • To get started, let yourself envision your future self as you manage a successful dream business. Envision that you have clients and that you are making money. Practice this imagery.
  • As you imagine your successful future self, write a paragraph from that place, describing your business. It will become the foundation for what you can tell a client “this is what I do”. The paragraph you write, must be written in the present tense. Do not use phrases such as “I hope to” or “I want to”. It is an affirmation in the present tense. This is part of the process in building and growing and creating the foundations for your business to come into fruition.
  • Have fun with it, be concise, clear, specific and be in the present tense.

In summary it is worth spending some time in the beginning to really crystalize your dream – get clear on what you want, identify your ‘why’ to keep you on track and motivated, and work on your mindset to align with your heart and believe in your success. This is where the true magic will happen!

Want to make the process of starting a business easy? Want to learn all the business fundamentals plus how to achieve a successful mindset to really propel your success?

We have made it simple and accessible for you to start. Join our on line program ‘Leap to Freedom’. It gives you 6 weeks of instructional videos, workbook exercises and downloads to help you navigate from conception to successful launch. It even includes meditations on how to remove money blocks and generate abundance. As a bonus your will get 2, 90-minute business strategy sessions with me to help you fast track success in your new business.

Julie Cass, founder of The Positive Change Group, shares valuable information across media platforms. She has appeared on Global TV, CHCH, and CP24 speaking on issues of physical and emotional health, relationship building, and women’s empowerment.

Julie is awaiting the release of her newly written book and is published in several magazines including Canadian Living and Canadian Business Journal covering topics of leadership and personal fulfillment. She has also made appearances on a variety of podcasts and engaged with audiences at numerous public speaking events.