Top Fears of Entrepreneurs: How to Overcome Yours Today

Owning your own business; it's exciting to break out on your own, but it can also be scary. But, how stable is having an employer? Is it a sure thing?

Common Fears of Entrepreneur: Strategies for Success

Number One: Fear of Failure.

Failure only comes when you stop trying. Ask yourself, what's the worst thing that can happen? Even if ____ happens, how can you minimize or prepare for a bad result?

PLANNING!

Where do you see yourself in a year? In five years?

Create your plans in the right order:
1st, Your Life Plan!
(For more information visit StartupNation's Life Planning Tutorials.)
Then, a business, marketing, financial, and finally, a disaster recovery plan.

With your plans in place, YOU are in control of your life, and your future. (Note: These are working documents and need revised on a regular basis.)

Number Two: What will I have to give up?

This depends on your priorities. At what level are you willing to play?

If you have a life plan, this will be easy. If you don't, you'll have to make tough decisions over and over.

How serious are you to making your plan work? What will you do when something gets in your way?

Whether it's daily distractions, family or friends that try to discourage you, or giving up things today, for success tomorrow, you will have decisions to make along the way, and may even burn bridges, so decide what's most important to you.

Number Three: Missing out by not implementing all your ideas.

If you're a true entrepreneur, you have many ideas for a business, or things you want to accomplish. But, spreading yourself too thin, trying to do to much, you may end up not being able to do any of them very well.

Here's how to prioritize your ideas.

Determine the following, rate on scale of 1-5 (5 being most,or highest):
a.)How much time it will take to implement the idea?
b.)To what degree is your idea related to your passion?
c.)Will you have a sense of fulfillment or accomplishment from your idea?
d.)will the financial return be worth the effort necessary?
e.)Is your idea time-sensitive?

Rate each area, total each idea's score to get a better look at the value of each idea.

Then stay focused on THAT idea through to completion.

Number Four: Stepping out of your comfort zone.

If something isn't working, or when you're afraid of taking the next step, focus on the benefits. Think of how you'll feel when it's done and remember, it's usually easier than you think.

So get in your car, pick up the phone, write that email, contact that new lead, make that apology, do whatever you have to do to complete that next step, or fix whatever isn't working,.

Now?

Yes, NOW!

You'll be so glad you did!

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"Your List" is a golden opportunity.

If you're not building a contact list from your website visitors, and using it correctly, you're leaving money on the table.

Here's how to generate business and increase profitability by using your list.

Offer something free on the front page (better yet, every page) of your website. By providing their name and email address, they get something of value. It can be an informative article, a free gift, your company newsletter, or a discount on your product or services.

Although I've signed up for a ton of newsletters, I continue to get only 4-5. These (about 5% overall) give solid, valuable tips, and information on topics of interest to me.

If your customer opens an email/newsletter and it's an advertisement, or continually has content with little or no value, they will opt-out and be lost.
(Be sure to conform to anti-spam laws by using an opt-in/opt-out system.)

How do you keep them wanting more?

Give them more! Information is valuable.

A good example is a newsletter I enjoy from Joe Garcia at givetogetmarketing.com. Sure, they have a few ads now and then, but it's well worth it to scan over a few ads to get to the information I want. I haven't been disappointed and will continue to open every email he sends.

If you apply these same "Give to Get Marketing" techniques to the customers on your list, you'll see results.

- Stay in contact with your customers,
- Establish a relationship with potential customers,
- Be easily reached, and
- Respond quickly when contacted.

When they are ready to buy, they'll think of you.

So, stop leaving money on the table! Generate "Your Golden List" of contacts, send valuable information, build trust, and you'll have loyal, long term customers that keep coming back for more.

Don't forget your privacy policy

If you're collecting information from or about visitors to your site, then you’ll need a good privacy to explain why and how you intend to use that information.

Provide an explanation about the information gathered:

• What information is needed
• Why you need that information
• What you will do with the information
• Who has access to it under what circumstance, and
• Any control they may have over the process i.e. updating or contact person regarding deleting information.

Make it short enough to easily read through, about a half of a page, and be understood by your average visitor.

Be specific enough that you are able to defend yourself in court if a dispute arises, yet be general enough that you don’t create a liability if you miss something.

Use a friendly tone, not sounding too legal or like your intending to use it for monetary gain or sales opportunities later.

Your visitors will often look for and read your policy before giving out personal information when online - I do.

It’s always a good idea to have your attorney look it over.

Why Blog? Creating an Online Presence

People do research on the internet before deciding where to spend their hard earned dollars. Having a professional website gives your potential customers a chance see what you have to offer.
If you have a brick and mortar business, but don't have a website, then it's time to make that happen.

But, if you're not in the position to get a website right away, an easy alternative is to create a blog.

I started this one from Google's Blogger, it's free and comes with templates that are easy to setup, you can make changes to format and colors if you'd like. Plus, there's many tools for promoting it too.

Having a blog comes with tons of benefits.
Here's a few:
- It gets you started in establishing an online presence,
- gives you a way to communicate with your customers,
- builds your creditability with others in your industry,
- you'll be helping people by providing information they need (because you really are an expert), and
- potential customers have an opportunity to build trust in you, and in your business.

Go ahead, get your feet wet in the new "social media"/ "web 2.0" era.
Start a blog today!