So you carved out your niche from what you love and polished it to a marketable products or services. Now you have the basic idea of what kind of business you will be in. But how do you know if you are ready to leave your corporate job and become an entrepreneur?

There are things you can check to objectively evaluate your readiness. For this, I’ve already written the e-workbook 7 Check Points For Aspiring Entrepreneurs, so I’ll just do a quick review of that book in this post. Then there is the inner knowing, the critical sense of readiness.

Don’t sabotage your aspiration with perfectionism

There is one thing I want to emphasize before we move ahead, however. It’s about perfectionism. When you are caught up in perfectionism, you are likely to say one of the following two things (or both) to procrastinate:

1. “But I’m not ready yet. There are more I need to learn about this niche. If I’m starting my own business, I want to be the best, and I’m not there yet . . .”
2. “(Even though you have a clear plan or picture of your future business), but I don’t know if my plan is good enough. There may be things I have not considered . . .”

The truth is you don’t need to be the best to start a business. You need to be good at it, of course, to the point it makes sense people pay for your service or products, and it’s important you are committed for improvement, but you don’t need to be the best.

Starbucks don’t offer the best coffee. They may say so, but that is just their marketing. I know much better coffee. But I still go to Starbucks often because I like the atmosphere there. Did Microsoft perfect its technology before launching to sell their software? Did you buy their stuff anyway? Same with service industry. Is you doctor the best? Maybe not even in the small community you live in. How about your hairdresser?

Later, when we talk about marketing, we will be talking about what home-based business marketer Naomi Dunford calls USP (Unique Selling Proposition). No, I’m not going to repeat what she already taught you, so if you are not familiar about this concept of how to differentiate you from the crowd, please check out that post and maybe the rest of her Marketing School series. What I want to say here is “I’m the best.” is NOT an effective differentiater, so right here and now, you need to be heading to high quality and uniqueness, not the impossible conceited status of the best-ness.

And you can never foresee and prepare for all the challenges you will have in your business. You and your business are to grow through the challenges. You can’t have a perfect business plan and be done with it. Commitment for improvement is far more important.

How to check your readiness

I think the best way is to talk it out. Get a trusted partner who would give you honest feedbacks, not just nice compliments. You may want to hire a business coach – it’s a good investment compared to crashing a new business due to poor preparation. Again, be sure to get a coach who knows what it is like to start a new (probably home based) business and who is honest and has integrity.

Then, talk about your plan. If you find yourself hesitating to talk about certain aspects of your plan, that is a good indication that part needs further work.

My $2.95 mini e-workbook offers a lot of questions you can use in this dialogue in the following seven areas:

1. Motivation: The power of strong and sustainable motivation
2. Strengths and Weaknesses as Entrepreneur: How to realize the strengths that often go ignored
3. The Market: Understanding the market and its needs
4. Vision: The big picture of the business and its owner
5. Team Building: Strengthening the business by building a winning team
6. Risk Management: The biggest difference between an employee and entrepreneur
7. The Money Challenge: Testing the market and planning the cashflow

Be sure you are not “escaping”

In the first section “Motivation” of that workbook, I discuss the difference between moving toward your goals and dreams and moving away from what you loathe. This is important. If you want to escape, your goal is achieved the minute you step out the company building. It is not a sustainable motivation. If your motivation is all about escaping, you are not ready for a big adventure like starting a new business.

The inner knowing of readiness

I personally did this step really “wrong”, by the way. Sure, I studied and contemplated, but in the end, I basically just stepped out. No matter how much you prepare, there comes a moment you have to make a decision, and that comes as a quiet inner knowing. I knew I had to start a new life, so I did.

Please also read this article about money and abundance that supplements this post.
Or read on to Part 4 of this series.

If you like this article, you might enjoy my eBook on spiritual entrepreneurship. Click here for free, immediate download

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So how do you become an entrepreneur?

This is the first post of Inside Out Approach to Entrepreneurship series. It is going to be a very important and experimental series.

As I wrote in A Year Without Paychecks Part 2, I quit my corporate job last September. I now work for myself, and my business is profitable. So I guess my readers would be saying something like, “Oh, that’s great, Akemi, but how can I start my own business? I want to become an entrepreneur, too, but I have no clue where to start.”

I’m more than happy to help. In fact, that is the reason I started this Yes to Me blog – to help aspiring entrepreneurs to actually start a small business.

I’ve had just one hesitation, however, about tackling this topic head on. I’m a new entrepreneur myself. It’s been a fun ride for me, but does my advice have any weight for the aspiring entrepreneurs?

My solution: What if I offer myself as a target of criticism while I ramble on my advice?

I think I’m on the right path, but heck, I’m open to hear any criticism. So I will be talking about the following steps to entrepreneurship and sharing my experiences. And I’m sending out open invitation to the following business experts online so that they can say whatever they please in the comments or in their own blogs.

Inside Out Steps to Entrepreneurship

1. Find the niche.
2. Polish your niche.
3. Check your readiness.
4. Learn marketing.
5. Build your system.

Everyone is welcome to participate. Here are some people who are pros on this topic that I’m hereby inviting:

Cath Lawson The bold business advisor

Tom Volkar Great life coach who specializes in career improvement

Tim Brownson Another great and controversial life coach

Tom Stine Yet another life coach, a spiritual one

Jen (MMND) Young millionaire retiree who is now offering coaching

I feel a bit of masochistic pleasure about including these successful life coaches because in this series I will have to discuss the failure of my own life coaching business.

Readers, if you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you might want to write your pending questions in the comments – as you know, I respond to all comments, and some of these experts may be kind enough to respond, too.

Step 1, Find the Niche

So, the first step is to decide what you want to do. And this is the biggest question. Most aspiring entrepreneurs seem to be stuck here.

I think you are stuck because you are looking outside of yourself. No, you first need to go within and know what you love to do. Then you figure out how you can develop it to products and services that people would love to pay for, which will be Step 2, Polish your niche.

Now I’ve already figured out what I love to do, but in order to show you how you might want to do this step, I’ll pretend I’m clueless. If you already know who you are and what you love to do, go ahead and skip this one. Just be sure it’s something you love, not just something you can do.

If you go into business with what you can do but you hardly care about it, even if you can do it well, you are setting yourself up for misery. You could be buried in money and feeling lonely and unfulfilled. Why would you want to do that? Is it any better than your current job?

How to find what you love to do

If you have been doing what everyone else wants you to do, you may have forgotten what you love to do. Very sad. So to remember who you are and what you love, pull out a sheet of paper and do a bit of inventory work.

Questions you may consider:

• Which books do I love reading? And why? (Check your bookshelf.)
• Which movies do I love watching?
• Which music do I love?
• What activity do I love to do?
• Which aspects of my current job do I love?
• More things that come to your mind regarding what you love to do

My list looks like this.

Books:

The Autobiography of Malcolm X – great life story.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie – I remember reading this when I was in high school (yes, in Japanese), long before the term “personal development” was in fashion.

Various books on personal and spiritual development including those by Alan Cohen, Deepak Copra, Tao Te Ching.

Greek mythology and various other mythologies

Movies:

Lost in Translation – sophisticated sense of humor and great story

Beautiful Mind – great life story

Amadeus – great life story with great music

Music:

Baroque, Mozart, some airs in opera (I’m not very specific)

Lois Armstrong and Billy Holiday – great voices. I like the human warmth and power.

Activities:

Reading and learning – I just never get tired of reading and learning new things.

Writing – I like sharing and communicating.

Quiet time, like walking in the park early morning

Aspects of my last job (assisting president of mid-size company, along with general admin responsibilities):

Variety – I like doing a lot of things rather than doing the same thing all day long.

People – I like dealing with many people and building long-term trusting relationships.

Creativity – I was allowed to do a lot of things my way because I was the only person who could do them.

Also, I used to be a teacher. I liked teaching (languages) to adults and young adults because it was a lot about communication and relationship building.

When I was in school, I liked history a lot. All those fascinating stories and movements! When I went to college, I thought of studying psychology, but was discouraged when I figured that it’s about treating “dysfunctions.”

Do you see a common thread?

“Great life story”came up a couple of times, and the factor of people. So are the aspects of communication and dealing with people. And the long time interest in personal development.

So . . . when I learned about a profession called “life coach”, I thought that must be something meant for me . . . (continued to Part 2)

Further resource: If you can shed out some cash, Naomi Dunford offers one-on-one phone brainstorming session on this. I have worked with her – not to find my niche but to market my niche – and can say she is a very smart and sweet pro.

How does your list look like? Do you know your love and passion now?

If you like this article, you might enjoy my eBook on spiritual entrepreneurship. Click here for free, immediate download

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