If you’re considering starting a new business, there are five laws you need to take into consideration before diving in. Notice my wording here. These are LAWS, not suggestions, not recommendations, but absolute MUSTs.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you won’t succeed if you ignore these laws, but the uphill climb to success or the length of time it takes for you to get there might be greatly impacted otherwise.
So let’s get started…
1. The Law of TIME
Time is by far our most PRECIOUS ASSET yet we squander it more than almost any other resource. When it comes to starting a business, it’s shocking how few of us take into account the value of our time.
Many entrepreneurs forget that your time has value. If you aren’t properly valuing your time than you are already failing.
Every hour you spend doing work has a dollar value that you need to take into account. You only have 24 hours in a day and you certainly don’t want to spend all of it working on your business.
So keeping this in mind, as you start to assess your business, you must factor in the amount of time that will be required of you. If you happen to trade your time for dollars (e.g., you’re a life coach, an attorney, a doctor, etc.), you are limited on how much money you can make as there’s only so much time you have in a day.
Life is a constant unknown. We have no idea how long or how little we have left. We are completely at the mercy of the universe when it comes to this particular resource. So be sure you are valuing it appropriately.
The wrong business idea can eat up all of your time in ways that go against the other laws provided below (I’ll go into more detail on this front shortly).
Who Controls Your Time?
Do you control your time? Or will your business control your time?
If you have all the money in the world, but no time to enjoy it, what good is it? Your time is more valuable than you can imagine so you need to protect it.
Your business can easily turn into a Time Vampire literally draining you of life. You ultimately can decide how your time is spent. So be sure that as you consider the type of business you want to start, ask yourself: how will my time be spent? Will this business take away my time or eventually provide me with all the time I could ever want?
Time to do the Things You Love
When considering your new business, you want to find opportunities that will eventually provide you with the freedom to apply your time to the things you love.
In the short term, you might have to sacrifice or “spend” your time building out the business that will eventually provide you with such freedom. But you need to be able to look past the first few years of your business to see that such an investment will have a payoff.
Your time spent on building your business is ultimately an investment in you and your future.
2. The Law of ENTRY
The law of ENTRY is a little more obscure. But it’s also one of the laws that I think a number of entrepreneurs tend to ignore as they’re not as interested in building a business of value as they are in building their bank account.
The law of ENTRY refers to the ease or difficulty level that one might experience when starting out a new business opportunity.
Let’s give an example here. Think of a typical multi-level marketing company. Like Herbalife, Mary Kay or Amway.
While each of these companies has a fine line of products and services, to “start a business” with them is as simple as just buying a distributor kit, following a few instructions and making some cold calls.
There’s not a lot of skill involved here and frankly, not a huge barrier to ENTRY.
It’s this barrier to entry that is key because this will weed out those who are looking to make a quick buck versus those who are truly invest in building a meaningful business.
I have nothing against anyone who wants to join a multi-level marketing firm. They offer an opportunity for those who may not know (or want to discover) how to set up their own business from scratch.
You simply buy their starter kit, reach out to a few friends and family, get a few folks selling products on your behalf and bang! You’re in business.
But, if anyone can do it, than a LOT of people will try. Meaning, your competition will likely be fierce.
Additionally, you will lack the next LAW of starting your own business, and that’s…
3. The Law of CONTROL
When you work within the system of an existing business, you are under their control. They own the brand, the marketing, the structure, and most importantly, the money.
Think about it for a second. A franchise on its surface, might seem to be something you own or control. But what if the company changes its product line or its franchise terms or its profit margin?
Or, what if there’s something more subjective, like a public relations disaster?
Think about the case of Papa Johns as an example. All of those who owned a Papa Johns franchise were devastated with its founder John Schnatter was accused of a number of inappropriate comments.
Their businesses were almost destroyed, not through any fault of their own. There was nothing they could have done to prevent what he said from affecting their slice of the business because his actions impacted the ENTIRE business.
Thankfully, Shaquielle O’neil stepped in to salvage its outer image. But what happens if something goes awry with Shaq’s image? It’s unlikely, but again, this is just an example of how such a “business” gives you the illusion of control, when you really don’t have any.
Don’t Make Your Business Dependent on Third Party Companies
When you start your own business, you want to identify ways to have that control. You want to control your brand, your message, your time, your profit and ultimately, your success.
Take another example. What if you run an Ebay business? Do you control the success or potential outcome of your business? What happens if Ebay raises their listing fees or what if they decide no longer to offer what you have for sale? Or worse, what if they shut down altogether?
A business that RELIES upon another business to be able to exist makes the element of control significantly harder to manage. Not impossible, but harder.
You just want to ensure that you retain as much control over your future success as possible. This doesn’t mean you can’t work within an existing structure to help jumpstart your business, but understand the risks versus the rewards. A business you control allows you to invent, adapt, pivot, scale, reinvent, or expand as only YOU see fit!
No one to answer to except your customers.
4. The Law of NEED
I’ve seen way too many businesses start from a place of PASSION but not NEED.
It’s wonderful if you have a passion and decide to turn that passion into a business. But unless there’s a NEED for what you’re offering, you have no business getting into business.
Now, I know that statement probably ruffles a few feathers, so let me clarify. First off, what I’m NOT saying:
I am NOT telling you not to turn your passion into a business (ignore my double negative), or that YOUR passion can’t develop into SOMEONE ELSE’s need.
But what I AM saying — it’s a lot harder. So just know this as you proceed.
If the demand for your product or service isn’t already evident in the marketplace, you’re going to need to find a way to convince people that what you have to offer is worth paying for.
But, perhaps the easiest way to find success with a new business is to first discover a need that you can fulfill and then FULFILL IT!
This is harder than it seems at first because it might seem like there are a lot of businesses who might already be serving the need you’re trying to fulfill. But, if you understand what your customer wants and provide it, your chances for success will skyrocket.
Understand Your Competitors Weaknesses and Capitalize!
If you are in fact entering a crowded marketplace, you need to differentiate yourself a bit from your competition.
Perhaps the quality of service is lacking, or they have poor marketing efforts, or bad customer reviews and retention. The fact is, every competitor has some weakness that you can identify and exploit.
To help set you apart, you need to study your marketplace and either offer the best version of what’s out there, or identify where your competitors aren’t fulfilling and deliver upon that promise.
You Can Also Give Someone What They WANT
Wants, desires and needs should drive your business. While NEEDS are a product or service that satisfies a need, there are plenty of opportunities to go after a customer’s WANTS and DESIRES.
Like it or not, we live in a consumer heavy society. It’s what drives capitalism across the board. Marketers know this which is why they advertise everything from food to cars to sex and more by tapping into the wants and desires that live inside each one of us.
How can your business satisfy these desires of the consumer? Again, make sure your business isn’t just serving YOUR passion, but it’s serving the DESIRES of your customer.
Understand the wants, needs and desires of your customer and you can build a very profitable business.
5. The Law of SCALE
Admittedly, this law may not apply to everyone as some of you reading this might just want to keep your business small.
But the idea here is to create a business that has the power to scale. To expand. To reach consumers well outside where you live any time of day or night.
Let’s imagine for a moment that you’ve decided to open up a local taco shop. You love tacos, your customers love tacos and you’ve identified a place that will service this DESIRE/NEED. You’ve hired your crew, bought your raw materials, set up shop and you’re now open for business.
Perhaps you’ve had great success out of the gate with lines around the block. First off, congrats. Secondly, but you can only make so many tacos. You only have so much crew and kitchen space to conduct your business. You will soon hit a limit on just how many tacos you can make.
So, what now? Do you just continue to operate or do you look to EXPAND or SCALE your business to the next level?
Some people are happy to stop here and enjoy the one successful shop.
While others may consider opening up a second, third or more locations, or even further develop their concept into a franchise that others can buy into! The potential could be huge and turn your
Impact Millions
To be able to scale to levels that go way beyond the local mom and pop store, you want to find a way to impact millions of people with your offerings.
Often businesses of this magnitude have a unique selling proposition which sets them apart from everyone else in their field. This might be a new invention, or new approach to an existing service. It’s often a business that’s the first of its kind in the marketplace – think what NETFLIX brought to the world for renting movies.
They might be the first to satisfy a need (think what NETSCAPE did for internet search) or they might have found a better way to satisfy the need (think what GOOGLE did based off Netscape’s earlier success).
The key here is to THINK BIG and think about ways to satisfy a need on a massive scale. This will be a huge challenge to pull off, but if you do, the rewards are immeasurable. Not just financially, but your business could very well have a global impact that is felt for decades to come. (Think Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and others.)
Successfully Jumpstarting Your New Business
Starting a business is hard no matter what so you need to find ways to maximize your chances for success. These laws won’t guarantee your success, but they are intended to be a few guideposts along the way.
You want to make sure you’re taking the time to think each of these elements through as you dive into whatever enterprise you put out into the world. Considering the laws of Time, Entry, Control, Need and Scale (I wish those made a fun sounding acronym, but TECNS just sounds like a foot cream) will help you to avoid some more obvious pitfalls and hopefully help identify opportunities you might have otherwise missed.
Either way, I wish you the very best in whatever type of business you start and make sure you keep coming back to Wurkplace.com for more insights like this to help you on your journey.
And Some Credit Goes To…
I like to give credit where credit is due, and while some of these are taken out of context and molded more into the way I use them, these “laws” were initially taken from the book THE MILLIONAIRE FASTLANE by MJ DEMARCO. It’s a book I highly recommend.
