It’s one of the most overwhelming and daunting decisions you can make in life. Choosing to become self employed is not for the faint hearted but it can absolutely be the best decision you’ve ever made. Knowing when to finally bite the bullet is not easy, particularly if you’re the main breadwinner and have children and a family to support. But knowing what to do and how to get it right can help ensure you keep desperation at bay and instead reap steady growth and eventually solid success. Here are our simple first steps to help you find your feet and ensure you are building a solid foundation to your new life as your own boss.
Finding your Niche
With every industry sector so full of competition, it’s crucial to think about how you’re going to position yourself. What is going to make you stand out from your competition, how are you going to be different? So the best place to start is researching your area of business, find your competitors and see what they are doing. Then think about how you are different to them and how you can position your company to make sure you stand out. Finding a niche within an existing sector is one of the most important things you can do. So really think about your USP’s (unique selling propositions) and start brainstorming what your niche and POD (point of difference) can be.
Setting Up a Website
Every business these days needs an online presence. Regardless of your industry, service or product you are going to need to build a website to let people know you are there and show that you are a reputable business. With many incredible DIY tools such as wordpress and wix, this no longer has to be such a daunting task. You no longer need to be an IT wizard to create a smart, simple and attractive website, so looking into doing it yourself has never been so easy. However if your needs are more specific or if you simply don’t have the time you will need to look for a strong web development expert to take charge of this project for you. A good web development team will listen to your objectives and business needs and will help you move your company easily into the digital world.
Marketing Yourself
Once your website is up and running you’re going to have to let people know that you are there and help the search engines recognise your authority and expertise in your market in order to rank you healthily on the likes of google and bing.This stage of developing your own business is an ongoing process and takes time to understand and get right. A good place to start is to make sure your business is classified on business listing sites such as yellowpages.com and yelp.co.uk. Look into the directories that are specific to your industry and promote your business wherever you can. To keep the search engines happy, make sure the content of your website is relevant and the language you are using is focused on the people you are looking to target. Using keyword search systems to discover the keywords people are typing into search engines is important as you should be mirroring that language on your website in order to attract those potential customers. Be careful however to make sure your use of keywords and phrases is done in a natural and organic way however as google will discredit you if it feels that you are overdoing it and just stuffing keywords solely for this purpose.
There has never been a better time to become self-employed. With all the endless information and advice available online, coaching you on how to nurture and develop your business, means you can feel supported and can easily educate yourself on the path to self-employed success.
