How to Start a Business in 10 Days

 

You are ready to start a business now. Then don’t wait for months to start your business, you need to get started immediately so that you can start making money.

Luckily, it doesn’t take extremely long to start a business today. With the power of the internet, you can design a business concept and potentially be in front of a thousand customers within days of your business idea’s conception.

Of course, this will take a lot of hard work to achieve – having an operating business that is servicing customers within a week and a half is no easy feat.

To develop a business this quickly, you will need a well-defined plan that is supported by swift and effective actions. Every step you take has to be strategic in order for your business to succeed in such a short amount of time. Any misstep can make 10 days drag out to a couple of weeks. You don’t want this to occur if your objective is to make money asap.

Therefore, you must outline your plan of action that will make your 10 day process achievable.

The following information will provide you with a comprehensive guideline on how to start your business in 10 days.

Related Article : What I wish to know before starting my own business

Day 1: Create a Business Plan

Your business plan is your detailed piece of documentation that guides the actions of your business. Without your business plan, you will be wasting more time and money, than actually accomplishing real business progress. With 10 days from conception to operating business, you have no time to waste.

One key thing to know is that your business plan is supposed to be written to focus on your long-term business vision. Of-course you want to start making money immediately, but you will need to ensure that you develop a system that produces money consistently, and not just quick money that doesn’t last. Therefore, you must focus on satisfying your customers’ needs rather than your needs.

When creating your business plan, focus primarily on your marketing, sales, and financial projections. You will need to know how you will communicate to your target market, how you will convert them into customers and what are the numbers needed to make a profit. These 3 things will be the core of your business operations, helping you generate money quickly.

You should refer to your business plan everyday to ensure that you are working towards your defined goals. This will help you keep your short-term actions in line with your long-term goals, which is how consistent progress and growth are produced.

Day 2: Analyze the Marketplace

When analyzing the marketplace, determine who your competitors are, the products or services they provide, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. This provides you with the information that helps you differentiate your business from the competition. As your business is differentiated, it will stand out to consumers, increasing their interest in learning about what you have to offer.

Knowing exactly who defines your target market is a must for your business’s success. You must know what your customer’s problems are so that you can provide them with the perfect solutions. Many businesses supply answers to problems, which are nothing but band-aids that eventually lose their strength. Your goal is to provide solutions that produce real results.

It is best to gather this valuable information directly from your target market. Here are some of the best ways to do this:

Participate in online forums

People use online forums to gather information about whatever the particular subject matter they are interested in. People who respond on forums usually have deep knowledge about the particular subject being discussed – establishing themselves as experts. Therefore you must utilize forums to establish your expertise, working to develop people’s interest in what your business will offer.

Engage on social media

Social media is a breeding ground for learning the needs and wants of your target market in real time. People are always praising or criticizing a product or service they have used via social media. You will need to insert yourself in these conversations and explain why your business provides a better solution. Now you are doing two things at one time – developing your social media presence and following and creating warm leads that can be converted into customers.

Talk to your competition’s customers

Find out who uses your competition’s products or services and ask them questions about the experience they are having. Use this valuable information to develop a business that is very attractive to your target market due to your ability to accurately communicate their pain points, and by effectively communicating the relief your business provides for their pain.

Day 3: Define Your Brand

You can’t have a successful business if people don’t know it exist. Your business’s branding process is about communicating the value or experience it provides, and establishing your presence in the marketplace. People’s interest are stimulated by visual images and hearing audio messages. Therefore, your business will have to communicate its message in multiple ways in order for your brand to resonate in the marketplace.

Since you will be working primarily online to build a business quickly, you will have various online marketing tools at your disposal to use for effective communication. The key when doing this is to have multiple branding messages operating at the same time, on many different platforms, so that your business is reaching as many people as possible. Just focusing on one platform for communication severely limits your reach, which will negatively affect your ability to create sales opportunities.

Here are a few platforms you can utilize for your branding campaign:

YouTube

YouTube is the second most used site in the world. People are always on YouTube looking at videos related to their particular interest at the moment. Your business will need to produce interesting videos that showcase the ins and outs of its operations. Show people the behind the scenes process of your business, show your business in action, and show people the fun times in your business. You want to showcase the many facets of your business so that people will feel like they are a part of your business – forming a closer connection which helps to build your business’s community of loyal supporters.

Facebook

It is almost mandatory for a business to have a presence on Facebook if it plans to succeed online. When using Facebook, your business needs to appeal to people’s emotions, which means you have to be effective with your words and provide appealing images. Facebook is community-based, so you want to involve people as much as possible. Instead of just broadcasting your business, ask people about their opinions about your product or service, create polls for people to participate within, create contest and giveaways – your goal is to be as interactive as possible on Facebook. And definitely utilize Facebook advertising to attract people who fit your business’s target market.

LinkendIn

If you want to build your network of professional connections or have a business that is B2B focused, LinkendIn is a definite platform for your business to develop its brand on. LinkedIn Pulse is a tool that business owners use to showcase their expertise by writing about various business issues. The goal is to effectively demonstrate your knowledge, having people follow your post because they believe your information is beneficial to their own business.

Twitter

Smart businesses use Twitter to direct people to other platforms, such as their website, Facebook, landing pages. Your business should also use Twitter to start is on conversations, using it is own #hashtag to build its community of followers.

Day 4: Incorporation of Business

Incorporating your business validates that you operate a legitimate business. The incorporation of your business also establishes the tax guidelines you will follow and the legal liability you will face as a business owner in case you face a lawsuit.

Luckily the incorporation of a business in Singapore is a very simple and quick process. Once you reserve your business name, and no objections are brought up about your chosen name, you can file for your business incorporation. The incorporation process in Singapore can take 2 days or less.

The legal entities that you can choose for your business include:

Limited Liability Company

A Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a company limited by shares, which means its liabilities are limited to the amount of share capital. LLC is a business entity registered under the Singapore Companies Act and a separate legal entity from its members. In a LLC, the liabilities of the owners are limited to the assets in the company and their personal assets are protected from business liabilities.

Private Limited Company

A private limited company is a LLC in which the shares are held by less than 50 persons and are not available to general public. A private limited company is the most advanced, flexible, and scalable type of business incorporation in Singapore. It’s also the most preferred type of Singapore business entity for serious entrepreneurs.

See also: Private Limited Company Registration

Sole Proprietorship

A sole proprietorship is the simplest but the riskiest type of business form in Singapore. From a legal perspective, sole proprietorship is not a separately incorporated entity and therefore the owner and the business are one and the same. The owner personally owns all assets and liabilities of the business. There is no protection of personal assets from business risks and liabilities. As the sole proprietor of a business, you have unlimited liability, meaning that if your business can’t pay all its liabilities, the creditors to whom your business owes money can come after your personal assets.

Partnership

The partnership type of business structure attempts to address the limited-expansion constraint faced by a sole proprietorship by allowing two or more people to establish and co-own a business. A partnership firm has no legal existence separate from its partners. It comes to an end with death, insolvency, incapacity or the retirement of a partner. Further, any unsatisfied or discontent partner can also give notice at any time for the dissolution of the partnership.

Day 5: Operate Lean

Don’t try to operate a big business when first starting out. Your goal is to start quickly, keep your overheads low, and make money. You can’t make money if you have expenses that keep your finances in the red rather than the black. Unless you are developing a product that will be used by millions of people and backed by venture capital and public investments, you won’t be able to lose money and still remain in business.

You don’t need an expensive office space and a team of employees to get your business started. All you need is a computer, a distraction-free location to work, and the ability to conduct sales transaction. That’s all you need. There is no need to make the process complicated, detracting from the basic purpose of a business – the exchange of goods and services for money.

The are many people operating 6 figure businesses that were ran by themselves (besides back-end support) within their homes, their local coffee shop or co-working space, or from anywhere in the world. The development of the online business world has made the ability to reach customers all over the world very easy. Once again, keep your operating expenses low and your sales high and your business will produce profit rather than revenue.

Day 6: Sell Immediately

People won’t just find your business and start buying. You will need to get out and hustle up customers. Even if your business isn’t officially open for business, you will still need to focus all your efforts on selling. Without sales taking place, your business makes no money and you don’t eat. You didn’t create a business for such a circumstance to occur.

Look for any networking events that are taking place near you, create online advertising, go door-to-door to businesses or homes – do whatever it takes to place yourself in front of actual people. Sales is a numbers game. You will receive more no’s than yes’s, but a yes could turn into a big sales transaction. Therefore you never give up when turned down, because there is always an opportunity to turn the next person into a customer.

The key to selling is knowing your customer’s pain points and effectively communicating your business’s solutions. This develops the perceived value related to your products or services, which can either be beneficial or a deterrent in regards to the prices you can set. High value means you can charge high prices. Low values means you have to charge low prices.

Another important factor to have in mind when selling is having tiered pricing. Tiered pricing allows your business to capture many people within that marketplace, at various price points. This allows you to make more money because your customer base is not too narrow, and it also provides you with the opportunity to upsell to lower tiered priced customers.

Read More » 10 Proven Ways to Make Money Online

Day 7: Communicate with Media

If you want your business to become known to the public quickly, you will need to make media connections. The media is always looking for new stories to report on, and if your company is interesting enough, it can gain favorable media coverage.

Reach out to your local news stations, local newspapers, and even national media outlets. It doesn’t matter if it is a big media outlet or a small media outlet, any type of coverage will help boost your business’s profile.The key to doing this is explaining the value of your business – the problem you are solving and in what manner. If your story is compelling it can potentially be broadcast to millions of people.

Such an opportunity would produce a surge in your website traffic, get your phones ringing all day long, and increase your ability to convert hot leads into customers. So you must be prepared for the surge of interest. If you can’t meet the demand brought on from the exposure, then your business could be faced with serious consequences – possibly failure.

Day 8: Look Big

Just because you are a small business, it doesn’t mean that you have to appear like a small business. This doesn’t mean rent a big office to appear like you are making a lot of money. It means that your presence communicates that you operate a professional business.

You can invest in a 1-800 number, which indicates that you have an international presence. Also, instead of using @gmail.com for your emails, your business should use company email accounts. Company email accounts legitimize your business to a customer, establishing your professionalism and ability to conduct good business.

A great website also impacts your business tremendously, so it is essential that you invest in the design and performance of your business’s website. Outdated websites or those that are confusing get bypassed by people, never to be returned to again. Your website should be filled with nothing but easy to read information, it should be simple to navigate, and it should be easy for people to make a purchase. This helps turn your website into a cash generating machine for your business.

Day 9: Build and Grow Your Business

When you are first starting your business, you will have to work both in and on your business. This means you have to handle various business processes, while still working to bring in more customers. It can be a grueling process but it is a necessary if you want to develop a successful business.

Operating an online business might seem like an easy endeavor but it involves a lot of activities to make your business function properly. You will need to develop your products or services, write effective content, sell your products or services, market your products or services, handle customer support and much, much more. Unless you have a nice budget starting out so that you can outsource some of these duties, you will have to handle all these responsibilities on your own.

As your business grows and cash flow is consistent, you can hire in-house help to run your daily activities while you focus on growth activities. At least try to generate a 6 figure business on your own before seeking to hire employees or independent contractors.

Related Article : Signs it’s time for you to become an entrepreneur

Day 10: Celebrate Your Opening

After a lot of hard work, lack of sleep and bouts of anxiety, it is time to celebrate the opening of your business to the public. But even when you are celebrating, your focus is on achieving a business initiative – generating awareness about your business.

When celebrating your incorporated business invite your network of contacts, vendors, friends, family, customers and prospects. This will help you generate buzz and goodwill within your local community. This act enhances your image, communicating to people that you’re open for business.

Creating a business in such a short amount of time can be an exhausting process but well worth the effort when the money starts coming in. During your 10 day marathon, you are developing your foundation, creating your systems of operation, and establishing your business’s presence within the marketplace.

If you do everything right, you will learn that making money isn’t the hard part – keeping up with the demand for your products and services is what’s hard to handle. Develop a business that operates lean and is quick to deliver, attractive to your consumers, and stays ahead of the competition. If you do these things well, your business receives the benefit of having loyal customers and it will experience consistent growth.

So what is stopping you from getting your business started within the next 10 days? If you really want to be a business owner, then you will have no problem stepping up to the 10-day business start challenge. There are entrepreneurs who build products within 10 days and make 5 figure sums as soon as their product is launched. This is because they understand the process of marketing and selling prior to product release. Your business should follow the same format – making money as soon as it opens for business.

Related Reading » Setting up a Retailing Business in Singapore

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How to Sell Effectively and Become a Leader

 

What is the one thing an entrepreneur should never say that they hate doing? And this is something you should really hate because it is so vital to success as an entrepreneur.

It should irk your nerves to hear entrepreneurs say they hate dealing with anything related to selling. That does not even make sense. It is actually quite absurd when you think about it. There is absolutely no way an entrepreneur should hate anything that has to do with selling. Selling is what gives your business the capital to operate your business. Selling is what enables you to eat, clothe, and house yourself. Selling is how you produce the growth that moves your business to another level. Sell effectively and become a leader.

Making a statement that is so irrational as an entrepreneur is mind-boggling. You might not like the idea of selling because it feels sleazy and you believe that it seems forced, but this is only an excuse to not sell.

Why Selling is so Important

You are sold to everyday and have no problem with it – it’s just business as usual. So why can’t you think the same way when it comes to your business? Thinking so little of your business produces little results and you are left wondering why your business isn’t thriving.

You know the answer why, you just don’t want to face the truth of reality. Your business is failing because you refuse to sell!

You don’t need to have a background in sales in order to be effective at selling. This belief is one reason why so many people are apprehensive when it comes to selling – they think that they don’t have the ability to sell. This belief is something that many small businesses hold – which is why they remain small businesses.

Selling is all about expanding your business by growing your customer base. Therefore, you cannot gain more customers if you are unwilling to tell them why they need your business. It’s ironic to even have to say this because most people go into business in order to run a successful business that they built themselves. But building a business cannot possibly happen without designating selling as the main objective to accomplish.

Ask any successful entrepreneur how they built a successful business and they will tell you it was all due to selling. Sure, they will mention great branding, providing value, creating an innovative product or service, but all of those things are centered around being able to produce sales.

Every entrepreneur or business owner should place a strong emphasis on selling. This emphasis should be on knowing how to sell very well. The distinction between the two is very significant. It is the difference between having an average business and a business that is thriving.

But knowing what selling can do for your business isn’t pushing you towards making sales a focal point of your business activities. There is still some fear or objection about selling that is holding you back from aggressively pursuing sales.

Why People Fear Selling

You are one of those entrepreneurs who just does not like selling. You would rather handle managing the operations of your business – it is easier to let those with more confidence deal with the selling process. You aren’t that confident and you hate the feeling of rejection. Dealing with people is something that you would rather not do.

You come up with multiple excuses to validate not selling, including:

Who would actually purchase my products or services?

How do I actually talk people into making a purchase?

I am just going to end up looking stupid?

They will probably think I am full of nonsense.

I’m wasting both my time and their time.

You defeat the sale in your head before even making your sales presentation. You sabotage yourself by believing the absolute worst will happen. And this negative thinking usually affects your sales presentation. You stumble over your words, forget what to say, rush through your presentation and make everyone in the room feel uncomfortable.

That’s a feeling no one wants to experience.

Get Your Mindset Ready for Selling

You must become committed to being a great seller. You should aim to produce a certain number of sales. You should be creating a minimum of 5 leads a day. But to produce significant growth, you should have a goal of contacting 20-50 leads per day – this goal is for those who are seriously motivated to make money.

This doesn’t mean being a stereotypical sales guy who tries to pressure people into doing something they are uncomfortable with. I am sure you have came in contact with this type of guys. These are the type of people who try to force you into buying from them, even when you politely decline their offer numerous times.

Never make the mistake of trying to sell like this. All you are doing is turning people off – further fueling the negative stereotypes about selling.

Do not be like the stereotypical used car salesman, who cannot be trusted for anything that they say. When you sell, you should be motivated to hit your goals and accomplish your initiatives so that you can produce the income that you desire. But do not go about doing this by lying or manipulating people into making a purchase they do not need. Trying to generate sales by relying on these tactics will only harm you in the long-run. Remember that you are selling to develop a business that has longevity, and not to make short-term money.

There is a significant difference between long-term growth and short-term revenue. Just because you have profits from bad selling practices does not mean it will last. People only do long-term business with people they like and trust. If any of the two criterions are missing, you can forget about securing customers who will remain loyal to you. And why should they if you are not even loyal to them?

You should sell your services and products only to those whom you can give a definite solution to their problems. You must listen to completely understand the problems that persist in their business – thoroughly analyzing what they must implement into their business to produce positive results. So your goal is to provide them with the solution to their troubles, not just an answer. Don’t immediately look to sell just any product or service that is not a real solution for their business needs. Remember you are selling to earn life-long customers.

Having consistent customers is worth more than many one-time buyers.

When trying to sell to an individual or organization, you will be required to know what solutions they have implemented in the past to solve their problems, what their current solution is for dealing with their problems and the ideal results they would like to achieve in the foreseeable future.

You have to look at this as more than being a seller. You are a strategist. You are a psychologist. When selling, you not only have to understand their business, you also have to seek to understand the thoughts and motivations of the individual.

Emotions are What Control People’s Actions

A great seller understands people are made up of emotions and thoughts, meaning that what they do is most likely a direct result of their emotions. Logical and rational thinking are supposed to be employed when operating a business, but emotions usually succeed in influencing a person’s final decision.

Here are three examples of actions that are made based upon emotions rather than logic:

The owner of a business chooses to keep employees on his or her payroll, even though they don’t have the ability to make their payroll – emotional thinking is the cause of their decision, rather than logical thinking.

A woman chooses to buy expensive clothes knowing that she has immediate bills due – emotional thinking is the cause of her decision, rather than logical thinking.

Two men get into a fight because their feelings are hurt, rather than discussing their issues with one another – this is due to emotional thinking ruling their decision, not logical thinking

The fundamental key to producing successful sales results is developing your emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to correctly understand a person’s emotions, so that you can be effective in steering them towards the action you desire.

This may seem like a manipulative tactic but it’s not. Emotional intelligence isn’t about using psychology to manipulate people into purchasing the products or services you are selling. Instead, you are focused on identifying the reasons for what impedes their ability to achieve their desired results, and understanding their motivations for success. Having this understanding helps you to provide strong information regarding the value of the solution that your products or services provides to the potential customer.

The following is an example of how this works:

An e-commerce owner is having a very difficult time producing sales for his clothing business. He has content and invests into Facebook ads, but neither of these components is producing the amount of traffic desired. Since he is having a hard time, he seeks an advice of two companies. Company A barely ask’s him any questions regarding his business. All they do is mention their services, giving a brief explanation of why their services would benefit his business, and state their prices. Company B on the other hand chooses to ask insightful questions – this helps them better understand what the owner is currently doing to generate leads, and to be better aware of the problems that he can’t get past. After analyzing their conversation  the company informs the owner that his content is too generic. The company also informs him that his ads are not made to target a specific group of people – a specific demographic more inclined to purchase the products on his website.

Which company do you think the e-commerce owner chose to spend his money with?

It is a no-brainer. He chose to invest with Company B. They made a real effort to listen to his problems in order to determine the best solution for his business.

Related Article : Words of wisdom from 15 successful entrepreneurs

Listening is the First Step to Selling

Simply close your mouth when selling and do not give in to the temptation to start explaining the benefits of your products or services. Choose, instead, to open your ears to understand. This will help you develop the ability to communicate better with people.

The claimed benefits of your product or service are not what entices people into making a purchase.

Customers actually want to be given real value when making a purchase!

It does not require rocket science to understand how to provide value to your customers. Listening to understand the frustrating issues and desired solutions of the person or organization you are seeking to make a customer is your immediate goal.

It is crucial that you understand communication isn’t about being the one who dominates the entire conversation. Communication is all about having an actual conversation, a beneficial exchange of information. This type of communication allows you to actually understand someone else’s point of view

You may realize that having understanding is constantly being acknowledged.

There is a reason why achieving understanding is so important for anybody who is selling. It is because most people who are attempting to sell don’t even take the time to know what their target customers actually need or want.

Therefore, they try to sell a product or service that is rejected because their intended customer never expressed any desire in wanting it.

The typical conversation of a seller:

When in front of or on the phone with a potential buyer, the seller chooses to dominate the conversation – speaking about nothing of interest to the potential buyer. The potential buyer briefly gets the chance to talk, but the seller doesn’t listen to understand what they are saying, their goal is to have a prepared response – communicating a sales script that was already written before the potential buyer even began to talk about the problem they were having.

This type of selling wastes the time of everybody involved – both your time and the potential buyer’s time. No win-lose or win-win situation occurs; it is just a complete loss.

When you listen to gain understanding, you position yourself to convert interested buyers into customers

Knowledge can be turned into gold

The key to selling is listening to understand the potential buyer. You will need to ask insightful questions so that people provide you with the information that you need to develop a perfect solution to their problems. Now you must apply the information gathered. This process will enable you to gain vast knowledge, allowing you to provide absolute solutions.

Do you want to know a secret? Actually it isn’t a big secret. Content is the gold that illustrates understanding, expertise, and value.

Showing You Understand

Show your target market that you understand the problems they are experiencing, doing so helps develop a connection.

Entrepreneurs feel like they have no one to turn to who understands the process of building a business. Family and friends have no understanding of the challenges they encounter on a daily a basis. Support and encouraging words provide no real relief – real solutions are required.

As a provider of a product or service, you have to illustrate the problems your target market is dealing with. You must show that you have experience in dealing with their field of work. This will provide them with more confidence about your ability to assist in their efforts.

Your target market should feel as if you are speaking directly to them. Now you are establishing the connection that develops a loyal follower.

Illustrate to your target market that you can help them produce better results due to the Value of your experience. You want to be recognized as an expert based off of the information you share on a consistent basis.

Showing that you are an Expert

The problem has been outlined, now a solution must be given. This doesn’t mean a cookie cutter answer. Instead, this is a modified solution for the consumer that actually resolves their problems.

The key when doing this is to be very detailed. Doing so will pay off as more and more of your target customers take notice of what you are saying.

Neil Patel’s website, Quicksprout is a perfect example of how this works. He chooses a problem and then proceeds to give an in-depth breakdown on how to solve the problem. This is done on his free blog!

Neil’s payoff for providing valuable advice that is free is earning lucrative consulting gigs. Top brands use his knowledge to help them create powerful content, and to help improve the performance of their web presence.

Neil is able to secure these lucrative opportunities because he demonstrates his expertise on a consistent basis. He publishes 1-3 blog posts every week, demonstrating his vast knowledge of seo content, website performance, and etc.

Your goal must be to do the same in order to be recognized as an expert.

Show the Value You Provide

How does your product or service make you target customers life easier?

Value is the worth people associate with your business based off of the satisfaction you provide them with.

While you can communicate your value, it will have no effect without market validation.

It will be in your benefit to ask the potential buyer to give you the opportunity to validate your value.

Show them that you are committed to earning their trust, this helps you gain a customer.

When you have a reputation for providing value, customer testimonials and their word of mouth marketing will be effective selling tools for you.

Why You Need to be an Effective Seller

Being an effective seller gives you a better chance to develop your business into a 6-8 figure empire.

10X your selling process to produce a lifestyle of wealth and opportunities. The valuable knowledge present given by Grant Cardone, the master of selling, can help you achieve this lifestyle.

Your intention when you became an entrepreneur was to make a lot of money, so you shouldn’t have any issue with selling. If your products or services are providing people with value, then you should be compensated for your hard work.

Planning to start a company?

Singapore Company Incorporation team can assist you with setting up your company in Singapore.