Starting a business can be daunting. There are so many things to do, and for a lot of business owners it means getting it all done by yourself. In this series, I want to help you eliminate the distractions so you can spend your time focusing on what is really important.
I have had a lot of conversations with a lot of business owners. I have extensive experience with starting my own businesses, as well as watching others do the same. What I see again and again is business owners focusing on busy work instead of real work. Things like getting an office, setting up a website, getting business cards- things that don’t make you any money.
I’m here to tell you to STOP. Those things might make you feel busy, but they aren’t important and they don’t make you a legitimate business. A legitimate business makes money. Until you start generating income, you don’t need to worry about most of the things on your to-do list. Trust me- I’ve been in business for 8 years and I just fixed my homepage. I made it work without one, and you can too.
Listen to part 2 of this series to hear some tough love. I want you to be successful, and I don’t want you to waste time on things that aren’t going to get you closer to your goals. Take a few minutes to listen to my advice on the things you need to stop worrying about.
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Do you need a logo to make money? No. Do you need a website to make money? No.
So this is part number two. Uh, if you listen to the podcast right before this, that was part number one on all of the crap you need to stop worrying about. Um, especially if you’re a beginner, you’re someone who’s still kind of climbing that ladder trying to get your business whether it’s online or offline off the ground. So you can get out of a job you hate or a situation that is driving you crazy. And reach that dream of actually owning your own business. And this one is sort of a collection of a bunch of legal/branding BS.
Uh, I get so many questions and emails and when we’re speaking in events, or people are coming to small events that we host or just talking to people, um, in our live webinars, there’s probably… Between me and somebody in your shoes, there’s probably 1000 conversations that happen every single month. Uh, so I’ve a lot of insight into this. And one of the things I see happen the most often are people that are worried about uh, the formation of their business. Should it be an LLC or an S corp or C Corp? Or should I get this idea or patent trademarked? Or should I get a mini office so I have a legal address? Should I have a business card? Should I go spend money on a logo or a professional website? And all of these things are, number one, probably fear on the entrepreneur’s part that I need to have these things because legally, I’m going to get in trouble.
Here’s what I found again and again. Again, I’m not a lawyer, so obviously, nothing I say here is gospel. But in the end, what my experience has been, is obviously you never want to do anything illegal, but when you’re small, the government is not really… they’re, they’re not that worried about you. So if you make an honest mistake, most likely you’re not going to get audited if you’re not making any money.
When you need to start worrying about these things about having, you know, the formation of your company really set up and spending, you know, a couple thousand dollars on getting it set up, or getting certain things trademarked, or having a business address, is when you’re, you actually have a real legitimate business. Six, seven, eight figures a year that is sustainable that you approve, and this is a good idea, so I should dump more money into it actually make this all more official.
I didn’t have a traditional LLC until I’d made I, I think over 100 grand last time I checked. Um, because I didn’t have time, I didn’t have money. I didn’t have 250 bucks to spend on that. I had $250 to spend on setting up my WordPress site and buying hosting and setting up a shopping cart, things that I had to have to make money. Do you need to have an LLC to make money or C corp to make money? No. Do you need to have something trademarked to make money? No.
Do you need an office to make money? No. Do you need a business card to make money? No. Do you need a logo to make money? No. Do you need a website to make money? No.
You don’t need any of that garbage, all of that garbage are number one, to make you feel better about being productive. And it’s so it’s an internal thing. It’s you saying, “Okay, cool. I can check off business card, trademark, office, logo, website, LLC. I can check all these things off my list.” But guess what still isn’t checked off the damn list? You making your first dollar, period. All you’ve done is wasted time and money on all of that garbage. And that’s what it all is. It’s all garbage. You don’t need any of it. You can be a sole proprietor if you just decide to be a sole proprietor today. You’re a business. You pay taxes, you’re obeying the law. You don’t have to have your LLC set up.
Yes, it might be better for tax reasons. But you don’t need to worry about taxes because you don’t make any money yet. Make sense? So stop worrying about all that stuff. I, we now, if I look back since 2010 when we made our first sale, it’s been over eight years now, probably generate over, I don’t know, 25, 30-plus million dollars. My own homepage is still not done. I spent the, I think last month, I finally went back and installed a new WordPress install on BrianMoran.com, my own personal brand, which has a little blog on there, has a couple links. But I didn’t even have my own legitimate website for eight years. You know why? Because it’s your main homepage, your website, is not really what drives your business.
Most websites do not drive their business through their homepage. I had small landing pages where I drove most of my traffic. I had other domains that were the name of my product, like samcart.com, or get10000fans.com, other sites that we have owned. So your, your main brand, your umbrella company, like let’s say your, your name is Jim Smith and you have this iPhone case business, but the LLC is called Jim Smith, you know, Services. And, and you think you need to have a JimSmithServices.com, which has all the products that you own and your iPhone case website. Just focus on selling for God’s sakes. Focus on selling, stop worrying about all this other stuff that doesn’t make money.
You should have a chart. It has two sides on it. Does it make money? Does it not make money? If you’re starting out before you make your first 10 grand or 50 grand or 100 grand, if, if your item on your to-do list is not under make money on that side, on that category, do not even do it. Take that to do list, take that post-it, rip it up, throw it in the fire place and never look at it again. You can fix all those things later, and mostly, you can hire people to do all that stuff later. If I need an LLC created or a trademark or a new office space or business card or logo, I have people on my team that can now do it. Why? Because the business actually makes money now, because I didn’t waste time in the beginning getting all that stuff set up.
You don’t need an LLC to make money, you don’t need a trademark, an office, a business card, a logo, or a homepage or a blog or an about us section or contact us section or a phone number for someone to call. Yes, all those things in a perfect world, they matter to customers. Customers want to know you’re real. Logos help with that, LLCs help with that, phone numbers help with that. But not every customer on the Internet is walking around saying, “If they don’t have a phone number, if they don’t have a logo, if they don’t have an LLC, if I look them up and they’re not ranked A-plus on Better Business Bureau, I’m not buying from them.”
People don’t think like that. People are going to look at your product, and if you master sales and marketing, which is what 2019 should be all about for you, which is once we’re done this three-part series on stuff, you should stop worrying about, that’s what we’re going to cover and things you should start worrying about in 2019. If you master that, and you position your product as the top of its class and show how it’s going to benefit people, no one’s going to give a rat’s ass whether you have an LLC or not. They’re going to look at your product and they’re going to say, “Damn, I’m glad this person didn’t waste time formate, forming an LLC or a C Corp or getting business cards or logos or websites, or any of this other stuff. I’m going to be glad that person focused on his product, got a product out there, learned how to actually communicate what that freaking product actually does for me.” And they’re going to be happy and they’re going to buy from you.
People that are, you’re going to, someone’s going to write into you, here’s the nice part. Someone’s always going to write in and say, “You know, I looked you up, I don’t even see you on Better Business Bureau. You don’t have a phone, you don’t have a phone number, you don’t have a business card, you don’t have a logo.” And they’re going to plant that seed, and it’s going to make you doubt and make you think you have to do all those things. Don’t even reply to that person. Take that email, take that tweet or that Facebook message, however you got that message and delete it. Delete it. That person has too much time on their hands. When you’re selling, when you’re doing what you’re trying to do right now, selling things to the masses out there, not one on one, door to door sales. And this even happens in door to door sales, or a one on one sales environment.
When you’re selling on the Internet, everybody has a voice, and everyone feels like they have to use it. Everyone feels like they have a right to voice it. Doesn’t mean you have to listen to them. Stop listening to those people, they’re not your best customer, they never will be, they never have been, so ignore them. Do things that make money.
If you’re looking for an easy way to launch your business online and start making sales, or a simple way to get fast cash out of your already established business, then check out how I’m making $1729 per day with a simple one-page website. I break it all down over at 1pagefunnel.com. That’s the number one page funnel dot com. [/expand]
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