Perhaps you’ve been thinking of starting your own business for years, but never really had the incentive to do so. Maybe you’re finally sick and tired of working a 9-5, or doing something you don’t love just for a paycheck.

Here, we’ll take a look at 10 ways you can finally get your dream business off the ground:

1. Research Your Competitors

Start by researching your competitors. Looking into your competitors can tell you a lot about what you’re up against, and whether there’s even a market for what you want to do in your area. If you already have a lot of similar businesses in the area, then you’ll need to ensure you’re either offering something unique enough that people will want to work with you, or you’ll need to come up with a new idea. Even if you don’t think you have any competition, chances are, you’re wrong. You’ll definitely have competition out there, whether it’s in the area or not. Start doing this now and you’ll have an even better idea of what you want to do to succeed!

2. Come Up With Your Branding Ideas

Coming up with branding ideas and your brand image can be one of the most exciting things about starting a business. This is something you really want to take your time with, as your brand can say a lot about you before people even browse your website. Your brand is all encompassing. It’s about the colors you use, the typography you choose, the way you speak to your audience, what platforms you can be found on, your brand story, your imagery, and so much more. Even how you handle customer service enquiries is largely down to how you are planning on branding your business.  You can always reach out to a marketing agency.

Having a strong brand is crucial, so ensure you can be consistent with everything. Come up with a brand name that is available in terms of social channels and domain names. Ensure it’s not too similar to anything else out there, that it’s memorable, and describes what you do while remaining catchy. It sounds tough, but once you think of it, you’ll know it’s the one!

Make sure you think of the reason behind everything you do. No business chooses their color scheme by accident. Red gives a sense of urgency, which is why it’s often used in bargain stores. Blue gives feelings of relaxation and calm, while orange is often perceived as friendly.

3. Build An Audience With Social Media Channels

You don’t necessarily need to have your business up and running to get your social channels going. In fact, having your social media channels up and running in advance can help you to build an audience and build some hype surrounding your product. Maybe you could run a competition to help build your audience right from the start. Running regular competitions on your social channels is a great way to not only build your audience and following, but your social proof, too. Social proof is an extremely powerful way to attract more customers, as it makes you look more credible!

4. Put Together A Business Plan

You shouldn’t get too deep into starting your business without putting together a well thought out business plan. A business plan can take a long time to do from scratch, so it might give you some relief to use a ready made template out there. This way, you can just fill it in with the relevant details and make sure you have everything you need noted down to proceed.

Your business plan needs to find the line between too detailed and not detailed enough. It should never be too vague, as this is something you may need to look back on one day to work out how to move forward. It might also be something that potential investors look at to decide whether they want to invest money into you and your business or not. Making it too detailed, however, can make it unreadable. Make sure your business plan makes sense for both you and anybody else reading it!

5. Outline Your Strong ‘Why’

Every amazing business has a strong ‘why’. They don’t keep that ‘why’ to themselves either – they shout about it! Including your ‘why’ in your brand story shows why you want to help and who you’re looking to help. It can give a much clearer picture of your business and help people better decide whether they should work with you.

6. Figure Out How You’ll Get Funding If You Need It

If you do need funding to get started, then start doing your research so you can decide how you’re going to do this. Make sure you do your due diligence to ensure you choose the right funding for you.

7. Find Some Early Adopters

Find some early adopters of your product or service – even if they are family and friends. You could do this at a reduced rate or for free, and ask them to leave you reviews. You don’t want this to look suspicious, so don’t tell them what to write. Let them be honest. It could give you a good idea of how you can improve, too.

8. Figure Out How You’ll Keep Your Expenses Low

The last thing you want to do is let your expenses rise too high. This can happen quickly if you’re not vigilant! Do your best to strike up great deals with vendors and suppliers and even consider second hand shopping for equipment.

9. Hire A Virtual Assistant

A virtual assistant can help you with the boring stuff so you have more time for the things only you can do. You don’t have to commit to hiring them forever, either!

10. Don’t Try To Be A Perfectionist

There’s no such thing as perfection. If you want to be a perfectionist in business, you won’t start. You need to be willing to learn as you go – just keep taking baby steps in the right direction!