EP142 Wanna Start A Biz?

The idea of starting a business and being your own boss is hugely appealing. But before you decide to leave the security of your nine to five job, hear Ken Courtright’s words of wisdom. In this episode, Ken paints a realistic picture of what starting a business looks like. He shares sources that can help you determine if you’re cut out to be an entrepreneur and also provides alternate paths you can choose.

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Wanna Start A Biz?

This the show whereas I live life, I see things and hear things and if I realize I heard something that the audience of my show would enjoy or learn from, I make a quick note. I was in the middle of a setting. There was a group of people and somebody asked me the question and it went something like this, “Mr. Courtright, I have a 9 to 5. I know I want to do something else. I want to start a business, but I’m not sure what. What do you recommend I do?” I went through a few questions quick on the spot. I knew I couldn’t take a ton of time because I was in a group setting, but I remember throwing out something like this, “Number one, you’ve got to get some confirmation or some affirmation that you are sure that you want to leave the security of a 9 to 5 to go do your own thing. I would subscribe to Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine and I would read cover to cover both of those magazines because not only do they highlight what’s going on in business and a lot of case studies of successful businesses. They also write a lot of articles on the struggles of business, entrepreneurship, raising capital, dealing with employees, and vendors.”

They do a great job of showing the good and the bad and the ugly of business. These are not glory magazines where they’re highlighting the positives of business. It doesn’t work like that. After that I know I went into saying, “First thing’s first, depending on your level of confidence, meaning your self-confidence, you could either use my adage, ‘Don’t get good, get done,’ and go full tilt, boogie into a business that resembles or follows the path of one of your passions.” I said, “If you like doing hair, then you might jump right in and start a hair salon. If you like knitting or crocheting, you might jump right in and start something in that vein.” I said, “Most people aren’t built like that. Eighty percent of all small businesses fail in two years, and there is a number of reasons for that.”

I said, “Bottom line if you’re not 100% confident, you might want to look into something like a network marketing, something where your part of a team, coaching, and mentorship. There’s little sometimes no upfront cost to join one of those organizations. Whether it’s Mary Kay, Tupperware, if that’s still around, or any of the vitamin lines. Make no mistake, those are real businesses. I personally know dozens of people in network marketing that make six and seven figures a year residually passively. Many of them are doing well.

There’s no question. If you’re willing to put the time in for little upfront costs. You could jump in.” Based on this particular individual, I personally thought this was the path for her. Flippantly, I said, “You got to go to IncomeStore.com we’ve got a couple of things you can look at.” There’s some up-front money for the consulting performance contracts. If you’re looking for something steady and something that’s scalable, I dropped Income Store. I was in a group setting, so I was trying to answer the question because it looked like other people were interested in the answer. I said, “Let’s talk about the two options. There’s what we call the traditional or the storefront and then there’s of course online.” I said, “If you want to go storefront or traditional, my counsel splits into two things. Number one, franchising, where it’s similar to network marketing. You’re walking into an existing model.” These are for the folks that are lower risk-tolerant, where you can put in $20,000, $100,000, $ 1 million and get yourself anything from a cart that you can put in a mall up to a McDonald’s.

Either way, there’s a system behind you. That will support you. It’s your money, you’re still going to work behind the counter. You’re going to work it, but you are definitely going to get a system if you go into the franchise. I said, “If you want to do franchises, I will get every franchise magazine available, there are about 5 to 6 major ones. I would read them cover to cover for three months in a row and you’d get acclimated to the franchise model. The other thing is you can go business trade shows.” There’s Vegas, Atlanta, Orlando in Chicago that have traditional franchise forward/business opportunity trade shows.

One of them is called The Midwest Franchise and Business Opportunity Expo. I know of that one intimately because we used to participate in it, and that one gets hundreds, if not thousands of people a weekend that goes through looking at different business models. Everything from carpet, tile layers to wholesale distributors to Amazon sellers. That’s another one. Traditional storefront, I don’t know how to put a percentage on it. There is so much business done in the United States of America because somebody had an idea with absolutely no skillset, training, mentorship and virtually almost no money. They opened up a storefront and willed business to happen because they were willing to work. I’m a huge believer in that. I started a video store one time with no experience whatsoever and little capital and bought the inventory of a thing called Pic-a-flic video with absolutely zero experience.

We brought in a nineteen-year-old store manager who had worked at the place the year before. Lo and behold, a couple of years later, we had close to a half a dozen video stores up and running, making a tremendous amount of income. I’m a big believer in, “Don’t get good, get done.” Let’s flip over to online. When a lot of people think about doing a business today on top of a 9 to 5, a lot of them automatically go online almost as if the internet is magic. It’s like this magical shopping cart and all you’ve got to do is have the right idea and put some products online. The world’s going to find you and you’re going to make millions.

That is not the case. The reality is anybody can get a website built for close to free but nobody’s ever going to find it because there are 59 billion websites you’re competing with. When it comes to online, there are things like Amazon’s ASM Program and Traffic & Conversion Summit you can go to. You can go to the Affiliate Summit East and West that we go to once a month. There’s a lot of ShareASale. Look for ShareASale. They sponsor a lot of online media platforms like Affiliate Summit that you can go to. You can look at what products are available to be sold online, who will help you, are there any agents or brokers or managers of those product lines that’ll help you get a website up and running, help you figure out how to do the marketing and there are dozens of them. If it’s coming online, depending on risk tolerance, you could look at IncomeStore.com.

I push a lot of people to the Amazon model still to this day, even though they had an algorithm change. I’m a huge proponent of building a website, dumping your life’s wisdom, your intellectual property in a blog format and keep writing. Eventually years down the road, even with no marketing, if you don’t stop and you read a couple of posts a week, it might take you a few years to crack Google’s search index. The bottom line is you will build a library of content that the world needs and Google will respect that and then you can put ads on there and make some money. I’m going to finish with this, it doesn’t matter what model you want to go into. If you have a 9 to 5:00 that pays your bills and it keeps you secure, it’s criminal that you don’t start something from 5 to 9.

Remember you make a living from 9 to 5 but you achieve your dreams and leave a legacy with what you do from 5 to 9. I believe you don’t get good. You get done. Some books I would recommend you read if you’re considering this is E-Myth by Michael Gerber. The Upstarts its part of the Entrepreneur Magazine or Inc. Magazine family. It’s tremendous. Og Mandino’s University of Success I strongly recommend, no matter who’s reading this, I don’t care where you live or what your age is. If you do not have a college degree, meaning if you’re still in high school or you don’t have a college degree, but you own a business, please read the long book University of Success by Og Mandino.

He went to his library when he was in his 70s and he said, “What are the 50 to 52 business books that most impacted my life?” He took the best 8 to 10 pages of the best books in history that impacted him. He combined them in a methodology from start to finish. If you finish that book, you can run a business. You’ll have the self-confidence, the leadership skills, the negotiating skills, and have the chops to kick butt. If you haven’t read that book in the last few years, I urge you to read it again. My all-time favorite book related to anything that has to do with business is The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy. I love that man. I love what he stands for. I’ve never found a better book to help businesses grow than Psychology of Selling. For episode 142, “I’ve got a 9 to 5. How do you recommend I get started with a project on the side?” I hope this helps. Take care.

Important Links:

• IncomeStore.com
• The Midwest Franchise and Business Opportunity Expo
• Amazon’s ASM Program
• Traffic & Conversion Summit
• ShareASale
• E-Myth
• The Upstarts
• University of Success
• The Psychology of Selling

• Here’s How »

• kencourtright.com
• Today’s Growth Twitter
• Ken Courtright LinkedIn