I’ve asked Kurt Frankenberg to share details about his new book (free for Amazon Prime members) on how to start a REAL small business on a shoestring so you make money immediately – without incurring any debt or needing start-up money.
Why to read these 1,500 words:
They ‘ll make ya cool.
Oh, and profitable. Fast.
What they’re about: Sliding right past the dumb mistakes that first-time… heck, even LONG-time entrepreneurs STILL make… and either makin’ some bacon… or knowing when to move on. Invest six minutes with me and discover how to kick some booty right now.
In this economy, entrepreneurship has moved to front and center. More and more Americans and citizens abroad have turned to business ownership, either part-time or full-time. It’s the only way to break the “glass ceiling” and reach their income and lifestyle goals.
But doesn’t running a business have an (ahem) shall we say, EXPENSIVE learning curve?
Statistically, most businesses fail.
I believe it’s not for the reasons most folks have been led to think… but for the simple reason that small biz owners listen to the wrong messages and get sidetracked into doing things other than what makes actual, spendable cash.
In this post we’re going to look at what doesn’t work, what does, and what you should do about it as an aspiring, successful small business owner.
“Playing” Business: A Certain Path to Failure
What’s the first thing a wannabe entrepreneur does right after deciding to start up a biz?
Brainstorm for catchy names, right? Okay, I’ll give you this one… but only because it doesn’t cost any money and it kind of helps you solidify your startup idea.
But after this, the madness begins. Without expert wisdom and guidance, one might be prone to…
- Design a logo. Or have one designed for between $5 on Fiverr and hundreds or even thousands of dollars elsewhere. And we haven’t even made a sale yet. What are we thinkin’?
- Get business cards made. Big waste of time and money. Say you meet someone at a party that seems to be interested in your product or service, and they ask for your card. Tell ’em you’re fresh out. Even if you HAVE cards. There’s nothing more effective than asking for their card instead… and then, actually following up with them.
- Design a website, at great time and/or monetary expense. What the..? This is almost as bad as renting a space, stocking inventory, and buying a cash register before you know if your product will sell.
Tell ya what… start with the free alternatives first, like a Facebook page or a Craigslist posting.
Now, I’m not saying that you should never invest in these things. At some point it will be expected. But not one of them has anything to do with actually selling your product or service, just making you “look official”.
If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve seen dozens of entrepreneurs be more effective without these generally accepted “trappings” of being in business, I’d tell you to go ahead and invest in ’em. But WHY?
Why take on the expense without first proving your product?
7 Reasons to Start Your Small
Business on a Shoestring
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Learn While You Earn, Part One
First, see if you can make some money without spending a lot on advertising or anything else. In fact, making sales with a tiny budget is a great sign that you have a winner of an idea!
If you’re having difficulty selling your product or service it’s most likely NOT because you’re “not spending enough on marketing”… it’s because you either haven’t learned the skills to move your product, OR it’s just not a very good product to begin. It’s better to know now if your product is a dog… and better still if you pick up a little green while still on a Shoestring.
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Learn While You Earn, Part Two
Making mistakes as a small business owner and marketer can be expensive. The smaller of a scale we make those mistakes, the better. One of my first big marketing mistakes was to buy TV advertising time for my martial arts studio. Results stank. I don’t know if it was the offer, the time of day the ads were showing, or what… because I ran out of money before getting a single call. $6,000 into my TV ad campaign I had to call it quits.
BUT..! The day was saved when we discovered how to do joint marketing with the local Domino’s. I designed a flyer to go on pizza boxes. It promised any family that came for a $20 introductory class two free medium pizzas! I kicked the $20 back to Domino’s. They printed and put the flyers on every outgoing pizza box. I signed up a pile o’ Students and bought piles o’ pizza with their money. Win-win-win.
Even some large companies give very limited budgets to their marketing departments to force them to be creative. Think lean and you’ll make the best use of your advertising dollars, even when you grow large.
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Pre-Launch for your “Bigger” Biz
Before I had a 3,000 square foot studio with two training floors, a generous sitting area, retail space, hundreds of square feet of mirrors four full time employees and 38 classes running each week… I was teaching martial arts after school in an elementary school gym.
BEFORE renting a retail space and taking
on the enormous overhead, try starting small.
For example, if you want to own a restaurant… start with catering, delivery, or on-site meal preparation first. Prove your product, build a loyal customer base. Make sure you are profitable. Grow your biz until you can’t possibly take care of the customers any more without the expense of a website, or retail space, or warehouse.
THEN, using money you have already made, take the plunge.
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Take Away the Biggest Obstacles
Most small businesses fail for lack of energy, not capital. Fear and worry rob you of much-needed motivation. Crippling overhead, by signing advertising contracts, hiring help, and renting space or equipment before ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY is an avoidable mistake.
Take away the fear of “not making rent” this month by not having a lease in the first place. Hmm. Makes sense.
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Enough, But Not Too Much Invested
When you put a lot of emotional energy into a project, it makes it hard to quit. And that’s a good thing, because often the best diamonds are forged in the hottest fires. Just make sure that you don’t burn up capital, yours or (GASP) someone else’s.
Build your business on a Shoestring and you will have something invested, that special something that you’ll need to make it successful. But you won’t have so much invested that you can’t quit or change directions… When the best course of action is retreat, you need to be able to take it.
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Flexible Hours – Dial it Up, Dial it Down
When you don’t have big expenses to meet month after month, it’s possible to slow down production for a period of time when appropriate. This is the first way to make sure that you own your business, it doesn’t own YOU. Later on when it makes sense to have employees you can keep the fires a-burnin’ all the time. But for now, keeping it small keeps you from taking on too much before you’re ready.
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Low Barrier to Entry – Easy to Start
On my blog at http://www.shoestring101.com I documented the journey my teenage son and I took to make a small service business from virtually nothing. We did a screen repair business… window screens and screen doors, fixed at your place while you wait. The total capital investment was $62.66 for six “bandit signs”.
That’s not a lot of start-up capital. If the idea had been a dog, we could walk away and still paint over those signs. Use ’em for something else. But before we had nailed the fifth one in the ground, calls started coming in. We paid for the signs and had a healthy profit by the end of the day. Hence the title of my newest book, “Get Paid TODAY!”
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Even Easier to Market
Lots of people are looking for a bargain, and/or would rather do business with a local person than a huge chain. This is in your advantage when you start on a shoestring. Because of your lower overhead, you can afford to be competitive with your prices or in other ways. Which makes it easier – not harder – to make sales.
Listen.. it’s EASY to be in business when you’re already making money! And you’re turning a profit the moment your sales exceed your expenses. So why not start out with the lower expenses, and be profitable sooner? Then you can scale afterwards.
I’ve had the privilege of interviewing number of millionaires in my quest to learn and share all the best ways to make a small business successful. EVERY SINGLE ONE of the millionaires I’ve interviewed grew a big business out of a side project, while something else.. their day job, or another biz that they owned… paid the bills while they grew it. From a Shoestring.
What’s the Quickest Way to
Get Started on a Shoestring?
Would love to tell ya… but I’m out of time and space on this here blog post.
BUT..! Not to despair. I DID have the time and space to write about how to get started in my Kindle Book, “Get Paid TODAY! Structure Your Small Business Startup to be Profitable From DAY ONE”.
You can borrow Get Paid Today! for free if you have Amazon Prime.
Whether you pick up the book or not, THIS is my “call to action”:
Start your Business on a Shoestring, rather than betting the farm.
Whether your biz ideas succeed or fail, you’ll be glad you started out small.
Comments? You’ve got ’em, I’ll take ’em! ‘Til then
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Latest posts by Kurt Frankenberg (see all)
- 7 Reasons to Start Your Business on a Shoestring - February 25, 2015
- Why It’s a BAD Idea to Order Business Cards #SmBiz #FAIL - January 15, 2014
Kinda Impressive Article 🙂
Thats what I needed till .Please provide more such stuffs to help us out
Kindly provide some more business idea in tech niche.
What excellent advice Frank!
I really like the way you’ve laid things out!
Your proven advice, is extremely straight forward and down to earth!
And it’s based on you real world experiences. And thank goodness,
you son is being taught entrepreneurship, at such a young age!
Mark would love you to read ..Email Marketing: Seven Potentially Profitable Reasons Aweber Might Be Right For You!Part Two
I would like to do business in my life and get financial freedom in my life and also one thing that we should keep doing some kind investment from our earnings so we will get money
Anjali Exim would love you to read ..Advance Waste Tyre Recycling Machine
Really appreciate with article. I want to start business so it is very helpful for me to point of starting business.Thanks buddy.
Great posts for people who want to start a business! It doesn’t take a lot of money to be successful. All you need is hard work, dedication, and persistence.
Hi Brittney,
That depends on what kind of business you want to start. For a small service business or freelance writing or social media management it doesn’t take money if you already have computer access.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Bloggers Hiring Bloggers: Kinds of Work You Outsource or Get Hired to Do
Right you are Gail. For that matter, almost ANY service business is instantly profitable.
I had a friend get laid off from WorldComm (yes, THAT WorldComm) and he had to INSTANTLY replace a pretty high-falutin’ income.
With my help he began a window cleaning service and started generating right away. Later he was able to hire assistants and focus more on getting work rather than doing work.
It’s amazing the country and even the world we live in, that allows someone with a little bit of ‘gumption’ to quickly set up an ongoing income, even in adverse circumstances.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..Get PAID per Lead: Reversing the Traditional Internet Marketing Model
I agree, Kurt. With jobs harder to find than ever in our lifetimes, people should focus on providing services others need and can still afford. Those who live in areas where there is less affluence should consider growing food – both for themselves and to sell.
Food can be grown anywhere in raised beds or containers. There are excellent videos on YouTube that explain how. One of the best is GrowingYourGreens.
As more people want to eat healthy and are willing to spend time on sourcing real food there are new opportunities. Someone who didn’t want to grow food could become a middle man, picking it up from growers large and small and delivering to homes and markets.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..50 Places to Repurpose Your Web Conferences as Video Content
there are many obstacles when starting a new business….but one need to know the right product and how to market it!
More important than the right product is the right MARKET. Find the market first, make a sale… then you may build a “buyer’s list” that will buy more and more and MORE products from you.
Thanks for your comment. I’m going to check out your Burger King post.
Keep Stepping!
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..7 Ways to Hack Local Search SEO for a Free Front Page Listing
Great post for business starters. Telling them you’re ‘fresh out’ business cards and asking for theirs is an awesome idea. Great relationship building tactic. Also, I think if you do decide to give out your business card, make sure beforehand that you card is designed in a way that gives people the RIGHT impression about your business. Making it attractive and witty won’t guarantee success.
Agreed. Witty says, “Look how cute and smart I am.” HELPFUL says, “Look what I can do for you.”
BIG diff.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..How to Game Starbucks for Free Drinks and Other Stuff
Great tips for starting out, but I agree that eventually you will need all of these things like a great website, etc. In the beginning just focus on getting your name out there and making some profit, then you can expand.
Actually, you can do VERY well without ever getting that website.
Guess what? True story: My local biz is listed on the FRONT page of Google results, without ever even getting a website.
Sounds goofy, but it’s true.
I have a free Facebook fan page that’s NAMED “Colorado Springs Screen Repair”. If you live in Colorado Springs and type in “window screen repair” you see my Facebook page and Google+ page first, with my phone number and business hours displayed prominently.
When it comes to marketing, you GOTTA love FREE.
Last week I grossed $1790 with that li’l biz… with about $350 expenses… and worked three days.
Don’t forget I paid nothing at all for advertising.
Check out my blog on how to hack front page Google results for free… and come back here for more local biz marketing tips.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..How to Game Starbucks for Free Drinks and Other Stuff
Learning with earning is a difficult tasks, but my friends who are completing their educations are also involved in the business of blogging in their free time. Hence the above mentioned tips are really helpful and motivating.
Zareen would love you to read ..COEGA Development Corporation Learnership Opportunities 2014
These principles do apply universally… I don\’t personally do affiliate marketing but did learn a lot by reading about how it works. Essentially you\’re right: you don\’t have to spend very much at all in terms of money and almost ZIP in terms of time.Test, test, test. Once you find out you have a winner, the sky\’s no limit!Thanks for your comment, hope to see you back again. I expect to contribute regularly as long as folks are reading ;-)Keep Stepping,Kurt
I am actually trying to make money with affiliate marketing, but a lot of your advice still applies and is very useful. It’s a really good approach to try and see if a certain product sells before a lot of money is invested trying to promote it, paying writers, designing websites, or trying to get better rankings.
I don’t know anything about shoestring before read your post. I very love your ideas. And sure that i will start write a plan to make money follow your ideas 🙂
Abel Thanks for taking the time to write. The ideas are simple, yes, but easy to lose track of once you start “playing business” instead of doing the fundamental things that actually sell your product. Once you quit over-analyzing and sit down to WORK your business, success follows.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..How NOT to Start a Business
Capital does matter but ability to manage the capital leads to success. In fact, having right knowledge about the product and presentation is the issue. This post contains lots valuable and unique information which really encourage me. Thanks a lot for a wonderful post.
Glad ya liked it, Hadi! Yes capital does matter but it’s not what you have; it’s the wisdom with which you use it. Glad to see you here, hope to hear from you again.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..How NOT to Start a Business
your ideas are brilient and i will try these all soon as possiblethanx for shring Mr Kurt Frankenberg
Thanks Harman! How did you happen to find this post, and what can I do to help?
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..28 Days Later… (Not Zombies, Dude. TRAFFIC.)
thanx dear..i have find this post from google…wana some tips about seo..if u can then tell me..?
My #1 seo tip is to write for the end customers, not for the computers. If you are truly trying to be helpful, it will get to the end user better than if you try and please Google in whatever update they come up with.
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..Effective Marketing on a Shoestring Budget: The “World Domination from Zero” Strategy
That’s great article with good business ideas , please keep more for us (beginners ) .Thanks
Ashraf Mansour would love you to read ..Fix Chips Bank CBM2091 VID0420 PID1307
Will do Ashraf! Thanks for the kind words, we are all beginners at something.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..How NOT to Start a Business
This seems to be amazing. I will check out some more reviews and then decide later 🙂
Check it out Gurwinder! There is a free sample available on Amazon.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..How NOT to Start a Business
Kurt,
Just wanted to take a quick minute to thank you for your insight. It is helping greatly. I went to Kindle and purchased your book “Get Paid Today”. It was worth every penny. I recommend it to everyone.
Thank you Steve! Be sure and use the offers inside for the free bonus materials. And if you get a chance, leaving a review on Amazon will helps others to find it as well.
Thank you again for the kind words and for your purchase. Let me know if I can answer any questions.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..How NOT to Start a Business
Thank you for your time and effort to summarize everything for the audience,. I am truly learning from your experience..
Thanks again for useful resource.
You’re welcome! Hope to make more soon.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..How NOT to Start a Business
Well, I have never heard about this product ever. But you made me convinced, and Ideas are unique and nice, So I would love to try it once. Hope it is going to work out.
Thanks.
Mohit Farswan would love you to read ..merry christmas wishes to family, merry christmas family wishes
If all goes well you’ll be hearing more! ROlling out a whole series of Shoestring101 books.
Thanks for your comment. Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..How NOT to Start a Business
Hello,
Shoestring seems pretty platform and to be honest I haven’t heard of it till now. The ideas you’ve mentioned are brilliant and surely help in earning lot of money. I’ll use this product soon enough.
Thanks
Jijin Mohan would love you to read ..Micromax A77 Canvas Juice Features And Specification
Thank you Jijin!
Well, I like to say “Profitable from DAY ONE” because that is possible if you keep expenses low enough. “profitable” doesn’t mean “making piles and piles of cash”, it means that your income exceeds expenses.
That said, you’ve got to turn at least a small profit before you can claim “earning lots of money”. So yes, profitable first, lots of money later.
Keep Stepping!
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..Just Because You Don’t Own Something Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Sell It
Kurt,
Love the ideas here. I started my business on a shoestring, because I barely had money to pay for even shoestrings at the time. I think I started the company on less than $50, which included the hosting and domain name for my WordPress blog (which I set up), plus three or four paid networking events that I went to after I could not find any more free ones.
However, within two weeks my first client paid me $100. Fortunately, I have raised my prices since then, but always proud of getting started with so little.
Thanks for the great advice!
Andy Nathan would love you to read ..Inaugural Start Up Gap Episode With Joel Comm
I will like to add one thing that we should keep doing some kind investment from our earnings so that we can make another way of earning money.
Can’t agree more. Too many folks blow through the money they earn from their biz, without a thought for the future. It makes sense to put away 10% of earnings as a minimum.
Keep Stepping!
Kurt
Kurt Frankenberg would love you to read ..My Take on the Sumo 24-Hour Challenge “Sumo Jerky”