Advice for a new entrepreneur from Mark Manson

In 2007, Mark Manson became an entrepreneur. Like many other aspiring businessmen, he just wanted to make easy money and didn't think he needed to devote much time to the work.

For aspiring businessmen, Manson has prepared a list that will be useful on the difficult path of an entrepreneur

1. Take care of your money

My first entrepreneurial experience was a success - I used the money I earned to travel to Buenos Aires with my friends, where I spent almost all the money I had earned in six months. Soon I was broke and miraculously didn't end up on the street, asking my ex to live with me. Be careful with your spending.

2. Devote your free time to earning money

Many people complain about the lack of free time. Work, home, hobbies - all of this consumes all your time, and you only have an hour a day to come up with new ideas for your business. Working a second job in your free time promises you failure before you even start. Try making money from your hobby, whether it's analyzing sports broadcasts or gardening.

3. Communication with entrepreneurs

Create an environment of people you want to look up to. You will feel uncomfortable if your friends are ordinary office workers without ambition, they will envy you and resent you. You need motivation from other people.

4. If possible, refuse to work

5. Say no to shyness!

If you want to do something special, unlike anything else, you will need to believe in yourself, and you must be ready to be the butt of jokes, call and advertise your product to people who have never even heard of it, and guarantee the provision of your product or service without even knowing how to do it, but figure it out in the future. Forget about shame!

6. A business idea is not the most important thing

Mark Cuban used to say that a great business idea needs to be presented as if a hundred people were already working on it. Don't care about the idea, the main thing is execution! Many people are proud to have come up with something unique, but history shows that the winner is the one who implements the ideas they have already come up with better. Examples include Microsoft, Google, and Facebook.

7. Read less - do more

Read only what you need to solve the problem. You shouldn't read about marketing if you think you should understand it. Read only when you need a marketing strategy. Most people read about what they want to implement, but they don't implement it...

8. Check, check and check again

Every idea needs testing. Every seminar and every marketing book says you need to raise the price. But my test of selling cheap books on the site says the opposite: I didn't lose money, I got new customers, a lot of good reviews and visits to my site.

9. Become eccentric

It's hard to stand out from the crowd when you're no different. Let your eccentricities be useful to you.

10. Think about your brand

The modern economy is such that any product or service is already available in many variants. It is almost impossible to enter a new market based on price and quality. In the market, the brand is primarily important - it determines further relations with customers.

11. Sell emotions, not products

The most striking example here is Steve Jobs and his brainchild Apple, who gave the consumer a feeling, not just the functionality of the product.

12. Belief in what you do

Even if your business turns out to be successful, sooner or later it will become a routine that you created.

13. Allow the business to grow

Not everything comes at once, sometimes there can be a lot of attempts. The market is volatile, and what worked last year may fail this year. You can't stay on top if you stop developing.

14. Don't listen to Tim Ferriss

Working 4 hours a week will put you 10 years behind. You will most likely miss many opportunities, and you and your life will become boring.

15. A blog is not a business plan

Don't start a blog to make money, but write only because you enjoy it. No blogger has ever managed to make millions if they were only thinking about money. He was just passionate about what he likes, what he wants to share, and it took him years to do it.

16. You need a lot of time or a lot of money

17. Business is not just about making money

If you manage to make money doing something that is valuable to you, your passion for your work will not be exhausted.

18. Make the most of your luck

Sometimes luck will be with you, and sometimes it won't. It happens to everyone. Don't complain and don't take all the credit for your victories. Take advantage of both moments.

19. Choose your employees carefully when hiring and fire them quickly

20. Be resistant to stress

Normal work implies stress at the time of deadlines, meetings, presentations, and leads to short-term bursts of external irritation. When working for yourself, external manifestations are replaced by internal experiences, and everything can fall apart at once.

21. You are moving in the wrong direction if you do not annoy anyone

Dan Kennedy used to say that if you haven't pissed anyone off by lunchtime, you're not making any money. My personal experience confirms this.

22. Remember the 20/80 rule, it works in all areas

23. borrowing a thousand loyal fans

Not so long ago, Kevin Kelly said that writers just need to get 1,000 fans who are willing to donate a hundred dollars and you will become rich. That way, you'll have enough time to see and not just think about making money. As a result, the rule of one hundred real customers will work if you provide any services.

24. Cognition of oneself

Figure out what time to work is best for you. For example, I prefer to work at night.

25. The thousand-day rule, which implies that success in the first 1000 days in your business will be worse than in a regular job

26. The same feelings as at your regular job? Something is wrong here

Here you need to choose either earnings to do your favorite things or your favorite thing to earn money.

27. You do not need to become rich quickly

All available opportunities to extract quick benefits are detrimental to the development of your brand and customer loyalty, they can lead you to a position where your eyes will not burn while working on something, and you will not have faith in what you are doing. If you have love for the work, and you are constantly investing in the business, then wasted expenses and a lot of money should not be a priority. Try to find other levers to boost your self-esteem.

28. Leave aside the talk, check it out empirically

29. You are headed in the wrong direction if complete collapse is not comparable to death

I've noticed that the more scared I am, the faster I work.

30. Respect your customers as if they were members of your family

They are the main reason why you are in business. Respect them. Respond to incoming calls or emails as soon as possible. Answer their questions. Make inexpensive but pleasant gifts.

31. Business is a part of you, so make your choice responsibly

Going into business for the sake of money and then doing what you love is not effective, it's a myth. I entered the business this way and I see dozens of people doing the same.
I had to accept that my career was going to be tied to internet marketing, regardless of my desires. I decided to turn my assets into what I consider to be my favorite thing.
While creating the initial versions of my website, I pushed all my other business ideas aside. My monthly earnings were cut in half. But I decided that if this is what I want to do for a long time, it is necessary.
And so it was.