Have you been dreaming of starting your own business? Maybe it's an idea you've had since a young age. Perhaps you want to break free from the 9-to-5 grind. Or you just want to make some extra money. Or you may be feeling that you haven't lived life to your full potential.
Whatever your reason for wanting to start a business, you've come to the right place.
This blog post series will help you brainstorm ideas to turn your knowledge and expertise into a full-time profitable business that can offer the lifestyle and freedom you desire.
What are you good at?
Using your expertise - the knowledge you have already - to generate business ideas is the fastest way to get started.
If you're thinking, "But I don't know anything!" or "I'm not an expert at anything!", let me stop you right there.
You don't have to know EVERYTHING about a topic. So don't let the words knowledge and expertise scare you.
This is not about being a world-renowned expert. As long as you are a few levels above what your audience knows, you'll be able to create a thriving business.
It won't be a walk in the park, of course. If it was that easy, everyone would be running their own successful businesses. But if you're prepared to put in the work and rise up to the challenges, there's nothing you can't achieve.
In this blog post series, you'll learn how to figure out your expertise, find your audience, and create products and services that will resonate with your target audience.
This first post will focus on how to identify your areas of expertise. So, let's get started!
Identify your superpowers
(1) Make a big list
Get a pen and some paper, and start writing down your skills. What have you done in the past at work, as a volunteer, and so forth in your life that you really enjoyed doing and are good at doing that other people might want to know how to do? What professional qualifications do you have? What challenges have you overcome in your personal or work life?
Don't overthink things. And don't censor anything. Just jot down everything that comes to mind. You'll be crossing things out later.
Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. This is not the time to be modest. It's okay to be good at something and own it. If you don't, nobody will do it for you.
(2) Ask friends and family
The thing about your superpowers is that when a skill comes so naturally to you that you've reached a stage called unconscious competence. This is when you do not recognise your own competence because a skill has become second nature to you. You just do it. Easy. Job done.
So if your mind is totally blank about what you're good at, ask your friends and family. Make sure you ask supportive friends and family members, and not your arch enemies, even if that happens to be your mum. You want someone who can provide you with unbiased positive feedback.
(3) Take a personality test
While personality tests may not give a 100% accurate picture, they can still help give you ideas about what you might like to do. MindTools has many personality tests on their site that might provide you with some helpful insights.
(4) Get professional help
Another way to get clear about your expertise is to find a professional coach who specialises in helping someone figure out what they want to do. This is likely a more expensive way to figure things out, but it can be one of the quickest ways.
(5) Narrow down your list
Once you have a working list, start crossing out things you don't like or don't want to do. Don't worry about how you're going to make money out of your skills yet at this stage. That comes later. If you feel unsure about something in your list, just leave it there for now and give it time to percolate. You can always cross it out later.
(6) Ask yourself the right questions
Just because you're good at something, it doesn't mean you actually enjoy doing it. So, as you go through your list, ask yourself if you really want to do that thing as a business. For example, if you are currently working as an accountant in a firm and you're really great at it, but you absolutely hate the job, then it makes no sense to set up your own accountancy business.
Instead, you might want to make use of you knowledge and expertise in the industry to help others do their accounts or help them find the perfect accountant.
You are your greatest asset
You have now identified a list of your skills. I call them your superpowers.
When you understand the truth about yourself, what you're good at, what you don't want to do, and what you need help with, you'll do a much better job at serving your audience with honesty and transparency.
You'll realise that you don't have to know everything; just enough for your audience to learn something from you and for you to help them solve their problems.
Keep your list of skills handy. You'll need it as you work through this blog post series. In the meantime, I'd love to hear some of your superpowers. So feel free to share them in the comments.
