Thinking of starting your own business?

Just do it—jump right into the business you’ve always wanted to start. Don’t wait. Don’t give yourself the chance to feel the regret later. And don’t worry about ‘perfect’ preparation before you start! Things WILL change as you move forward. It’s pretty unlikely that things will go as you expect. It’s pretty likely that you’ll need to learn new things; and they may inspire you to make changes in those too-detailed plans, if that’s how you started.

I began that way—thinking that I had to have everything in order before I ‘opened my doors.’ I attempted to get everything in order. I didn’t want to appear unprepared and unknowing. How could I know that once I actually became a consultant, there would be so many supportive people who’d work with me to gain the needed information? And the order of using those need-to-know facts cannot be predicted.

I’m in my eighth year of consulting. It’s fun and hard. Fun because I love what I do and there’s so much more I want to! Hard because there are all those things that need to be done on a routine basis to stay in business—like bookkeeping, taxes, marketing, and more.

My advice? Hire specialized support functions. Do that sooner rather than later. You don’t necessarily need to hire employees. You can hire consultants and contractors. Do only what you want to do in your business. Leave the rest of the work to someone who enjoys and specializes in those activities. It generally takes us longer to do those things that we’d rather not, anyway. It takes the stress off right away. I know; I waited. Many of us do.