MBA1074 Can You Start a Business With No Experience?

Hey. Oh. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show, the podcast that's in the business of helping your business every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba, a complete business training and community online. In today's episode you will learn. Can you start a business with no experience? Well, let me cut to the chase and say yes. But there are things you can do to make that first business experience a whole lot easier. I'm going to share with you things I wish I knew. When I started my first business, I had zero experience. If there was such a thing as a negative experience, I had it. There are a few things you have to practically do to help your chances of succeeding in that first business. And there are certain things you have to change in your mindset so that first business experience doesn't get you down and doesn't make you quit being an entrepreneur. Too many people have a tough time in their first business that they just give up the idea of being a business owner in the first place. Experience is gold. But what do you do when you don't have it? How do you get that business off the ground? We get into all that in today's episode, so let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's episode of the $100 MBA show is supported by the Sideline app. With the Sideline app, it's easy to add a second number to your smartphone so you can separate work and personal numbers on one device. This is absolutely brilliant. Sideline comes with calling, texting, picture messaging and more, giving you the value of a second phone for a fraction of the price. Right now, 100 RMB listeners can download Sideline for iPhone or Android for a free seven day trial, just go to sideline.com trial again, that's sideline.com trial when you start that first business, you will have minimal experience. I say minimal because some of you may have some experience. Maybe your parents are business owners. You've worked for your parents business or a family member. You might have had maybe small gigs or businesses when you were younger, like a lemonade stand or you sold candy in school. I know they're small scale businesses, but it's some experience. You've made a buck up other than exchanging time for money. But if you have little or no experience in business, it can be very intimidating when you get started. The first thing I want to recommend is a book. There's A book that I read early on in my entrepreneurial journey that really has helped me have the right mindset when it comes to starting businesses. And that book is called Anyone Can Do It. And the authors are Sarah and Bobby Hashemy. They're our brother sister team that started a very successful coffee chain in London called Coffee Republic. Now, I know the title is kind of cheesy, Anyone Can do it. But I really loved this book when I read it, and it really gave me that perspective that I needed. These are two people that had no business experience and started one of the most successful coffee chain businesses ever. Now, what the book is is basically a biography. It's the story of how they started the business from scratch. And let me just say, 80% of the book. They're sharing their mistakes, their failures along the way, their insecurities. But more importantly, they share how they made up for that lack of experience through hard work, through hustle, through research, through putting in crazy amounts of hours, through self sacrifice. The truth is, the price of inexperience is expensive. You're gonna have to pay it in some fashion. Now, the second thing I recommend is look for somebody that you admire in business, somebody that you know. This could be a family member. This could be a business that you frequent often and you can meet the business owner. This could be somebody online that you admire. Reach out to this person and ask them, can I seek your mentorship? Ask them if you can have a conversation with them for one hour once a month. These are people that have been running a business or businesses for some time. They have experience they can share with you. Now, there's nothing like first hand experience, but this is the next best thing. I was fortunate enough to have a family member, my Uncle Ash. He was kind of my mentor. He was somebody who really encouraged me to consider becoming an entrepreneur from an early age. In my teens, he used to hand me books to read. And I probably didn't read them right away. I think I read them after like six months of just sitting on my desk. I was like, oh, let me just read this book. What is this all about? And that first book was Rich Dad, Poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki. And every time I saw him, he would kind of plant little seeds of his, hey, maybe try this, maybe do this. Consider building something that has residual income. And you didn't push it on me. But when I was ready to actually start a business, I had somebody to reach out to and say, hey, can I seek your advice from time to time? Can I have a Chat with you. The next thing I highly recommend you do when you're starting as an entrepreneur with no experience is to get some fast. Some people think the first business they build, the first business that they actually launch has to be the business, the legacy the businesses are going to be known for. No, no, no, it doesn't have to be. My first business was an ebay store. I had an ebay store and I basically bought things for cheap and sold them for a profit. It was called arbitrage. It wasn't a business I was in love with. I didn't love everything about it. The products didn't really make me feel excited. But sometimes when you're getting started, you just need a win. You need to have something, some experience. You got to know what it feels like to sell and to buy and to price products and to make a profit and to have customer service and all that kind of stuff. So if you want to start a small, small business, the easiest thing you can do, go ahead and do that. Even if it's a table at the flea market, go ahead and sell your products there. Open up a small website. One easy way to get started is with a business consultancy, some sort of service, coaching or freelancing. Get your foot in the door. That first business experience doesn't have to be the end all, be all your masterpiece. In fact, it's actually good to start off with something small, something that you can actually do, get some experience, make some mistakes, learn through those mistakes. So when you do build that legacy business, your chances are bigger and better and you're more likely to succeed. We talked about Anyone Can Do It, a book I recommend. We talked about getting a mentor. We talked about starting off with a small business just to earn your business chops. But this is another huge recommendation and this has helped me tremendously in ways I can't even describe. And that's reading biographies. There are so many great biographies out there. I share a lot of them here on the show on our must read episodes on entrepreneurs that have done incredible things. Their journey to becoming successful is basically a masterclass in business. And reading biographies really, really emphasize the fact that this is going to be hard, this is going to be a struggle. This is the path that success looks like. It's filled with potholes. It's filled with things that are going to challenge you. It's filled with self doubt. And you're not alone. Everybody who goes through this journey experiences this. When I read Steve Jobs biography, same thing when I read Elon Musk's biography. Same thing. Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world. Same thing. And what this does is it highlights the fact that mistakes, tribulations, challenges are par for the course. You have to. You have to. You have to go through them. You can't avoid them. So stop being scared of them. Failure is a rite of passage to becoming successful. It also awakens you to the fact that this is what it takes. You gotta get mentally prepared. This is the kind of person you have to become to get these types of results. And biographies really emphasize that. That's why I love to read a biography at least once every couple months. It gives me this sense of relief and a sense of reassurance. It also realigns my expectations. And of course, in the biography, they're sharing their experiences, experiences that you don't have yet. Now, having said all that, I highly recommend that when you're starting a business to leverage your strengths. What are some areas, what are some skills that you have up to this point in your life that you can use to start a business? If you're a good teacher, teach in your business. If you're a good communicator, use that. Use that in your videos, use that on stage. If you're creative, use your creativity, examine yourself, reflect on yourself. See what you can add to your business. That how your skills, your current skills and your experiences can give you a little bit of a head start. I'm the first person to say the reason why this podcast has any success is because I leverage my strengths as a teacher. I'm a trained teacher. I've taught for 13 years. So teaching on the podcast is my strength. Interviewing is not a strength. So if I chose interviewing over teaching for my podcast format, I would not be giving myself an advantage. I wouldn't be leveraging my experiences. Guys, I got more on today's topic. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor. Support for today's show comes from Microsoft Surface. I'm a big believer in making sure you're as productive as possible when working on your business. One productivity hack that really has worked for me is creating an environment of focus. Sometimes when you work in the same place day in and day out, like your home office, you slip into bad habits that derail you from your to do list. A good way to shake it up is to change your location. If you feel like you're getting distracted, get up and go to a cafe, go to a co working space, change your environment so you can get refocused. That's why I'm So pumped to share with you the all new Surface Go, the smallest Microsoft Surface ever. At just over a pound and with a 10 inch touch screen, the Surface Go gives you laptop performance and tablet portability. From running office to taking care of your everyday tasks, the Surface Go easily adapts to all your needs, no matter where you are. And with prices Starting at just $399, it also adjusts to your budget. So what are you waiting for? It's time to go to wrap up today's lesson. Experience is not necessary to start a business. You can do it. But there are things, like I mentioned today, that can help you tremendously. When you're starting that first experience, are you starting that first business? Give yourself everything you can to prepare you for success. To make the experience a little bit easier. There's never a great time. There's never a great moment. You can't avoid mistakes. You can't avoid failure. Get started, get experiencing and get closer to the entrepreneur you want to become. Thank you so much for listening to the Hunter Ombie Show. Really, really love delivering today's lesson. And if you loved what you heard. If you love our show, leave us an ITUNES rating and review. We'd love to read what you think of the show and everybody who leaves us a review enters our weekly random draw we call Free Ride. Friday we give away a free membership away to one of our programs. All you gotta do is leave us an ITUNES rating and review to enter that weekly random draw. Thank you so much for listening. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. When you're starting out in business, you often are doing more thinking than doing. Thinking is good. But often when you think too much, you start doubting yourself. You start thinking about what ifs. You start thinking, what if I fail? What if I mess up? Get busy doing so you don't let the doubts and that voice nagging you bother you. When you're too busy doing, you don't have time to doubt yourself and to really worry about what ifs. Get your game plan together, get your to do list together and implement. Make it happen. Understand that if things don't go right, it's okay. It's not the end of the world. You pick up the pieces and you try again. All right. I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.