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ONE THING You Should NEVER Do When Starting a Business

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SUMMARY:

Starting a business is a large decision – what is the best way to embark on that journey?  Find out in this video how to take a measured approach to starting any new business. 

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There are some that say that if you want to start a successful business,you should quit your current job, burn your ships and go all in.  I want to tell you that that is bad advice in most scenarios.  I want to talk about why that is and how you should start a business on the side while you still have income coming in from your regular job. 

The number one reason why you should not quit your job in order to start a business because of the effect it has on your decision-making. What I mean by that is that starting a business is a series of never-ending decisions where the answers are not necessarily clear and there’s not necessarily a right and wrong answer. 

We can compare it to those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, where you wouldn’t see your consequences initially, but when you had made your third or fourth decision.  This could be something as simple as choosing a niche or whether or not to bring a property under management. They may seem fairly simple, but often there are later consequences that can be unpredictable.  What I’m saying is that starting a business is largely making a series of decisions. 

Now, imagine trying to make really great decisions when you are stressed out, overwhelmed and do not have any money coming in. That’s a recipe for disaster.  We tend to make the best decisions when we are looking at the long game.  If you make decisions that are going to mean quick cash for your business, those likely are not the same choices that will keep your business surviving in the long-term.

By way of example, imagine you’re meeting with a client who would allow you to manage their property, but you know you can’t actually deliver much value to them.  The quick decision would be yes, keep it on board as long as possible until they realize we are not providing value a few months down the road.  You are wasting your time on one property that will only generate income for a few months and missing opportunities that could generate income for years in the future.  You are probably also burning a bridge with this owner who could have otherwise potentially referred you to other clients.  

Often, decisions that help you in the short term are not the ones that will help you in the long term.  I know this from my own personal experience.  I have made a ton of bad decisions when starting and growing businesses when I was making decisions from a place of financial instability and from fear and uncertainty.  

On the other hand, if you have stability and security from a full-time income, then you will make decisions that will serve you in the long term and from a clear head.  You’re going to be relaxed, calm and cool and will likely make a much better decision. 

Another reason to keep your job while starting your business is that results are likely going to take some time.  It’s not unrealistic to expect to get your first paying client after 30, 60 or even 90 days.  It will certainly take time to earn enough to replace your full time income.  Results take time.  The number one key to being successful in anything is to stick with it, despite any challenges.  When you do not have financial stability, it is incredibly challenging to commit to the process of getting clients and getting your business off the ground. 

Some people make the argument that without any other options except to succeed then you guarantee your success.  You can also argue that you have more time to put into the business when you quit your full time job.  That is both true, those can be advantages.  However, they are heavily outweighed by the disadvantages.  

My experience has been that success relies heavily on your commitment and your decision making.  If you can do things to optimize those two things, then do that. Of course, once your business provides enough stability and security that it won’t impact your decision making or the amount of commitment you have to your business, you can quit your job. That will allow you to really rocket fuel your business and grow to that next level. 

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Hey everyone, its James here and in today's video, I want to talk about something a little bit different. This isn't going to be specific to Airbnb like our videos normally are. But this is very much specific to starting your own business and doing it successfully. I want to talk about why there is a popular opinion out there that's completely wrong around the fact that if you want to start a successful business, you should quit your job burn the ships go all in to do it.

Quite frankly, I found that to be exactly the wrong advice in most situations in most scenarios. And I want to take this video just kind of talk about why that is and why I think that if you really want to start a successful business, you shouldn't quit your job, you should actually commit to doing it on the side while you still have income coming in while you still have your regular job that you work and build it up alongside your full time or part time job until you get to a point where you can actually quit.

So to start off with and by the way, as with any video, just click the little like button if you do like this video, it really helps me out tremendously with YouTube's algorithm. And click subscribe if you're new to the channel here, and you want to get two new videos every single week about Airbnb and starting your own business. So, first of all, I think that the the number one reason why someone shouldn't quit their job in order to start a business is because of decision making.

What I mean by that is that when you're starting your own business, if you want to start your own business and have it actually be successful, your job for the most part is just to make a series of never ending a never ending series of really good decisions. There are so many different decision points, different inflection points when you're starting a business. And when you're growing and scaling a business where you have to make really complicated and sometimes complex decisions. And the answers to those questions that you have to answer are not necessarily clear. There's not necessarily just a binary right and wrong answer.

There are different paths if you can imagine it's kind of like going through one of those books, if you remember from your childhood where you go through the Choose your own path books. And you would see these third order and fourth order consequences of the decisions you make, but you wouldn't see them initially, you would just be choosing which option to go with. And this could be something as simple as you know which niche to choose in your business or whether or not you should bring this specific property on board under management, you know, whether you should work with this client or not.

And these decisions, they may look like relatively simple decisions at face value when you're first starting out. But oftentimes, there are second order, third order fourth order consequences to these decisions that are can be a little bit unpredictable. And so essentially, all I'm saying here is that when you're building a business and you're growing a business, your job is largely to make a series of really great decisions. Now, if you can imagine trying to make really, really great decisions when you're constantly stressed out, overwhelmed, you know, you don't have money coming in.

That's a recipe for disaster. We tend to make the best decisions as human beings. We're not focused on short term gain. Because with short term gain that often doesn't really correlate too well with long term gain. Meaning that if you make the decisions that are going to get you quick cash in your business, those likely aren't the same decisions that are going to keep your business surviving long term. I'll give you a really easy example. Let's say that you're meeting with a client who, you know, would say yes to you allowing that allowing you to manage their property, but you also know that you can't actually deliver that much value to them.

Well, the quick cash decision would be yes, let's bring that property on board under management. And then we'll keep it on board for as long as we possibly can until they realize that we're not actually providing that much value and we'll get paid in the meantime, and then we'll lose that client couple months down the road. Now, yes, that decision will make you some quick cash, but long term that's gonna lose you a client, it's going to create a whole bunch of headache, it's gonna have you wasting your time on one property that's only going to generate income for a few months, when you couldn't be spending that time working on finding another property that would generate income for 12 months, 24 months, 36 months in the future.

Not only that, but you're probably burning a bridge with this property owner who could potentially refer you to other clients, and who might also create bad will if they end up really unhappy with your service. So oftentimes, those decisions that are going to help you in the short term aren't necessarily the ones that are going to help you in the long term. Now, I know this from my own personal experience, I've made a ton of really bad decisions when starting and growing businesses when I was doing it from a place of not having income coming in having quit my job, and making all these decisions out of really, really just fear and uncertainty.

On the other hand, if you have stability and you have security from a full time income coming into your bank account, then you can make the decisions that are going to best serve you long term and you can make your decisions from a clear head you're not stressed out, you're not overwhelmed, really coming at these decisions from a relaxed, calm, cool and collected perspective. And so you're liable to make a much better decision. And in my experience in those scenarios Now, another reason why I feel that it's a really good idea to have a full time job, and in addition to starting your business is that results are likely going to take some time.

It's not unrealistic to think that to get your first paying client might take you 30 days, it might take you 60 days, 90 days, if you don't have a clear system, you're not working with a coach, you're going this on your own, it can take a while to get results. Certainly in order to get enough income coming in to replace your full time income, it's likely going to take at least a couple of months to do that. Now another reason why I've seen that it's very advantageous to have a full time job and have that security and stability while you're starting up your business is that results take time, results aren't going to happen overnight in your business.

Now, the number one key to being successful in anything is to stick with it is to just commit to the process and be willing to stick through all the challenges that come your way well You do when you quit your job to go and start a business is you make it a lot more challenging for yourself to stick with something. If you're sticking with it, it might mean that you have to move out of your house at that point, because you can't afford to pay the rent or pay the mortgage, it might mean that you have to go and do something else on the side or whatever else, because you just can't afford to live and get by.

It makes it incredibly challenging to actually commit to the process of getting clients and getting your business off the ground successfully. And that process can take anywhere from 30 to 90 to 180 days, even depending on the business you're starting, depending on how if you're working with a coach, if you have a proven system, all those things are going to impact the timeline. Now Sure, you might be able to get your first client under management in the first 30 days if you're working with a clear system, but even then you're putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on yourself if you quit your job ahead of time, and some people do thrive under that pressure.

So that can be an advantage but for the most part, it tends to be a disadvantage. If you don't get the results that you're after quickly enough, you're more liable to quit early on before you actually get those results. Then if you have stability, you have security, and you have the wherewithal, the ability to easily keep on trying different things iterating the process and improving until you strike gold, and he really get the business to take off. And so those main reasons, you know, the ability to make better decisions and the ability to more easily stick with your business.

That's why I feel that it's a lot more advantageous for you to keep your full time job or a part time job, keep some level of income coming in while you start your business rather than quitting cold turkey. Now, yes, people can make the argument for burning the ships, you know, if you give yourself no other option, but to succeed, then you will guarantee your success. And you can also make the argument around having more time to put into the business because you quit your full time job.

What I'm saying is not that those things don't hold true, they certainly can be an advantage, but if you weigh them against the disadvantages, I think that they're heavily outweighed by Those disadvantages, because if you have a ton of time to make really bad decisions, you're still just making a whole bunch of really bad decisions. And if you have no other option, but to succeed, but you're stuck making all these bad decisions, and you end up just quitting on that, and then going and getting your job back then it really didn't serve you to do that at all. From my experience starting businesses, it relies very, very heavily on your commitment and your decision making.

And if you can do things to optimize your environment, for those two things are really great decision making and a really high level of commitment, then you really ought to do that. Now, like I said before, in this video, if you have a full time job, if you have a part time job, you've got some income coming in, it gives you a lot more of those two things, you can make decisions a lot more effectively a lot more clearly. And it's a lot easier to stay very committed to the business. Now that being said, you will need to be disciplined you can't rely on Hey, I have no other options.

So I need to go and actually focus on this business. You have to get done. disciplined about taking that additional time in the evenings in the mornings on the weekends to put effort and energy into your business. And by all means, once you get the business to the point where it can provide you enough stability and security that you it's not going to impact your decision making, and it's not going to impact the amount of commitment you have to your business, then you can quit your job and that will allow you to really rocket fuel your business and grow to that next level.

So I hope this video has been really valuable to you. I know a lot of different. There are a lot of different opinions out there on this topic. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments down below if you started a business a different way or the same way if you found this to be true. Just let me know in the comments or if you've thought about this and you have questions, you have concerns, anything like that, just let me know in the comments down below. I'd love to hear that sort of thing. Just let me know down in the comments below. Really love to hear that sort of thing.

So without further ado, this is the end. Just let me know down below, I really love to hear that sort of thing. So as always, if you've liked this video, please give it a quick thumbs up. It really helps you out a lot with the YouTube algorithm. I'm just giving a quick video a quick thumbs up there, click that little like button down in the corner. And then if you're new to the channel here, just click subscribe or if you haven't subscribed already, if you've been watching these videos, you've been following them for a while but you haven't yet subscribed to the channel, I highly recommend just clicking that SUBSCRIBE button Subscribe to the channel.

That way you'll know when we post new videos twice every single week about all things starting your own business and about Airbnb, and everything else in that space. So thank you so much for watching. I really enjoyed speaking about this and sharing this video with you and I'll see you next video.

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