Use what you've got

Getting your business off the ground can be brutal. How do I know? because I've been doing it for 7 years.

This is me cutting up rockwool to make acoustic panels. The other one is me painting my studio. I didn't have the money to hire someone to do it for me, but I had some time and two hands.

In the very beginning you don’t have enough clients (heck, you might not have ANY clients), your product or service might not be very good yet and sometimes you don’t have a lot of cash to invest to acquire equipment or hire people to help you out. And the stress of not being able to make enough money WILL spill over to your personal life. You will have days where you feel anxious, you will have days where you skip meals and come home late to get into an argument with your significant other, But you can’t let any of that stop you. When you are starting in entrepreneurship, you'll have limitations, but you’ve got to use what you’ve got.

Everybody has time.

And if time is all you have, well, use it.

Put in the extra hours to learn how to get better at selling, working on your business model, on your marketing funnel, on a new skill.

I painted a chalk board wall in my apartment so I can work on my business model canvas whenever I feel like working on my business model:

Try new things that might improve your business. Many might not work and if they don’t, it won’t put you back at where you started because you’ll have that experience under your belt. After you try different things and a bunch of them don’t work, you’ll have a dozen experiences under your belt and when that happens, almost by magic, you’ll start leveling up.

Put in the time to learn about your craft.

Get good at the thing.

Is it recording podcasts? Get good at it.

Is it mixing music? Get good at it.

Is it providing a particular product or service? Get good at it.

If you get good at something, and show proof that you’re good at doing that thing, people will come to you and ask you for help. In exchange for that help, they will give you money and BOTH parties will walk away saying a big thank you to each other because you BOTH felt like you received value in return.

Focus on this.

I learned an acronym that goes like this V+C=P. It stands for visibility plus credibility equals profitability.

First, try to be seen. Let people know you exist and know who you are. Then, you MUST be able to deliver on your promise. That skill we talked about getting good at... you MUST deliver. That will earn you credibility and hopefully some referrals from happy customers. When people know who you are and know you're amazing at what you do they will buy from you and that's where the last P (profitability) in the formula comes in. Do that, rinse and repeat.

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