Top Excuses Why You Haven't Started Your Business
Posted On Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at by Sun JunEveryone dreams of owning and starting their own business. Who doesn't?! Over gatherings of colleagues, friends, and even families, you've probably already discussed thousands of business ideas. Ideas that you knew for sure would click and make it big. However, a lot of time has passed since then and you still haven't started any.
Here are some of the most common excuses we tell ourselves and how we can overcome them.
1. Fear
Throughout evolution, the human brain has been programmed to fear change. Every time something new comes along, our first reaction is to resist it. The same goes for starting a business. The moment we think of starting one, our brain thinks of things on why the business would fail or why it isn't a good idea. Among these are the fear of not being good enough, fear of losing ones income, and fear of failing, just to name a few.
- Fear of not being good enough
We fear that our experience and knowledge is not enough. We fear that nobody will avail of our services because we are young. We fear that people will laugh at our idea. We fear that we'll encounter something that we don't know how to handle. We fear that we'll fail.
There are a lot of things we can do to prepare ourselves for the challenges ahead. We can attend seminars, read informative blogs (like my site ^^), attend classes, read books, consult successful businessmen and so on. And we should always remember that experience is still the best teacher. There is no perfect way to prepare ourselves for something that we haven't done before. Like any other life challenges, starting a business and making it grow takes time, and it is during the process of doing things that we learn and master how to do things.
- Fear of losing ones income
Before you decide to resign from your work and jump right into starting your own business, you might want to check first if there's a market for your product. Try to find ways on how you can test run your business in small chunks. If you offer a service, try taking side jobs at first and see if their is enough demand for your service. If you offer a product, try marketing and selling a few batches first before mass producing. This way, by the time you decide to resign from work, there will already be another source of income flowing in.
As a last note about fear, remember that fear is not necessarily bad. If you can use your fear to motivate yourself to be better then it will bring you a lot of good. Fear is not good only when it leads to inaction.
2. Lack of Family Support
Coming from a family-oriented society, we normally consult our family and relatives before doing something major like starting a business. More often than not, if you come from a family who has no experience in running a business, they will not only not support you but discourage you to enter into such a venture as well. This can really take a toll at your confidence. Without their support, you hesitate and postpone your plans.
In order to prevent this, before consulting your family and relatives, do your research. Come prepared for battle. (^o^)/ Be prepared to be able to explain the nature of your business in simple terms. This goes especially for technology-oriented businesses. Explain them in terms that your family will understand. The key here is to make them understand. Once they understand, they will be more likely to give you their support. Who knows? They might even help you raise the capital that you need to start the business.
If you feel that your parents see you as a failure, the worst thing that you can do is argue your point. You will never win. The best way to prove them wrong is through action. Show them that you have changed through your actions. Success will be your best argument.
Have articles sent to your Email for FREE. Subscribe to The Pinoy Entrepreneur by Email
nice article sir, however, concerning online marketing which i haven't seen any articles in your blogs but anyway. concerning online marketing the very reason why many don't try this because of security in the sense there is a "scam" though there are many options for payment, there are still many scam cases. honestly got curious on this new method of online payment scheme called Gcash Click. maybe you could write up some articles concerning online selling/ buying in which you could enlighten us especially on the side to achieve security. there goes my 2 cents!
Hi Joshua!
Thank you for your comment. Yup, I have no articles on online trading yet. I'm not into online trading myself so I try not to write about it. I'll try to look for other reference materials for you. ^^
As for security, Paypal has been very secure in receiving credit card online payments. Others give out their bank account numbers and ask the buyers to deposit their payments to that account. I don't see any real danger of someone knowing your bank account number not unless he also knows your signature. As a precautionary measure, you can open a bank account solely for this purpose with a maintaining balance of zero. And then once you receive the payment already, just transfer it to your regular accounts.
If you're asking about the credibility of the sellers, what you can do is try and reach other individuals who have bought from the same seller. But there's really no foolproof way to know if the seller is trustworthy or not. It may be good to befriend the seller and ask for other credentials that you can double check and verify offline.
Personally, I only buy from sellers who my friends have dealt with before already.