How to Create a Business Even if You Have No Idea What to Offer

Hi, I'm Don from RV Business coach.

I wanted to make a quick video today to talk about how you can create a business from scratch even if you don't know what that business could do.

I see this a fair amount when I work with clients. Maybe you already have a feeling about a little bit of a bent towards entrepreneurism. You're excited about the opportunity to start a business. You like the idea of having your own business that will replace your current income.

But you're a little bit stumped about what could that business be, how can you make money?

The key to that is really to kind of change your mindset. And there's lots of ways you can do this. But this is one of my favorite techniques, and one that I use with clients a fair amount. It's a little mindset shift to go from "What can I do to make money?" to "What value can I bring to my clients?" "How can I help my clients?"

So it really becomes a value proposition and that's a whole lot easier to sell. A lot of times people are afraid of entrepreneurism because if I'm a small business owner, I've got to be a salesman, right? And maybe I've had some bad experiences with sales in the past.I mean, I still remember knocking on doors, trying to sell candy when I was in high school band.

But it's a lot easier when you're bringing value to the clients and it's not so much trying to sell them as it is offering them a solution to their problems. And then they happily trade their money for your solution.

So let's look at how can we create that kind of value. And really, it happens in three easy steps.

The first step is to take a look at who do you already know? What networks do you already have?

Sit down, make a list. I like to do this on index cards and write down one name per card. Just kind of brainstorm what people do I know? People I know from past jobs, people I know from work, people I know from activities I've been in, clubs I've been in, people I go to church with, just make this list of all the people that you know.

And then we can go back and we can categorize those people by by groups.

It's very easy to group these people into careers. Maybe there's doctors, there's lawyers, there's engineers. Maybe we do it by industries. .You know, people in telecom, people in pharmaceuticals.

But we can also look at other ways to to group them, Maybe common hobbies, maybe they're all soccer players or maybe they're ham radio operators or model railroaders or whatever.

And we can play with these different groups and see what kind of groups do we resonate with.

Now, the advantage of doing it this way: first, starting with those groups, is that we're tapping into the existing networks.

A lot of times what people do when they're trying to create a new business is they look at transferable skills. And so we do go through this skills assessment process, and we say, “What skills do you have in your current job that you could apply to the new job?"

And it's actually a great process. But the problem is sometimes it leads to some funny results. For example, maybe a pharmaceutical salesman does this and concludes that he needs to become a life coach to retired professional football players.

OK, great. Do you know anything about being a life coach? No, I'm going to have to go learn how to do that. OK, that can be done.

Do you know when you retired professional football players?No, I don't know any of those. I’m going to have to go out and meet those. OK, that can be done, but that's making it hard.

You've probably seen these graphs where you have like new markets on one axis and new products on the other. And so it's pretty easy if you're in a market to go up to new markets. You know, say you currently help doctors schedule patients. Well, OK, it's easy to say, well, I'm going to go into new markets. I'm going to help dentists schedule patients. I'm going to help chiropractors schedule patients.

It's also easy to stay in the same market and move into new products. So I help doctors schedule new patients. Maybe I also help doctors file insurance or do other things to solve some other problems.

It's pretty easy to go straight line either way.

But when you're a pharmaceutical salesman and you're going to become a life coach to retired professional football players, you're on this angle. You're going new markets and new products at the same time. And that's a very difficult thing to do.

It can be done. It's just a lot slower.

And so that's why I like to start with #1, "Who your networks?" Building your network is usually the hardest part of getting a new business started. And so we start with your existing networks, places where you've already built trust, you've already built credibility, people already like you. It's just a great place to start. So we're going to start with those networks.

And then the second step, after we've looked at various networks that we know, the second step is to say, "What problems do people in these networks have?"

So sit down and brainstorm what are the problems people in this network have? Go out and talk to people in the network and ask them what kinds of problems do you have?

What kinds of problems do you have?

What would you pay money for to have your problem solved? And make note of this.

OK, so now we have the networks that you know and we know what problems people on these networks have.

And so the third step is to say, "Which of those problems, what I like to solve?"

Find one of those problems that you want to solve. Ideally, it's a problem you already know how to solve. That makes it really, really easy. But it may not be. But that's OK, because you've already got trust and credibility in this market. So you can create a new product. You can go out and learn how to solve this problem for them and solve the problem.

So there you have it in three easy steps:

 #1. Who do you know? What networks do you have?

#2 What problems do they have?

And then #3, which of those problems do I want to solve?

Once you have that, you have the basis for your business.

It's now very easy to create a value statement that says I help X do Y, I help customers in this market solve this problem. It makes it very easy to clearly articulate what you do, makes it very easy to attract your clients, and it makes the sales very easy because you're solving their problems in exchange for their money.

Make sense? I hope you found that useful.

As I said, there's other ways to do it. But this is this is one of my favorite ways.

The key is sometimes it helps to have someone help you through it. It's sometimes difficult to see the things that we know really well because we know them too well. So having someone work with you and help draw those things out can be very, very helpful.

So get together with some friends, hire a coach, hire me, do something to help you draw those things out.

All right. I hope you found this useful. If you want more information on how to create your own business and run it successfully, you can go to my website. RVBusinessCoach.com/Blueprint

There's a free guide there that shows you the six figure blueprint for how to create a business that will pay you six figures and help you live the lifestyle that you want to live.

All right. Until next time. Take care. Bye.