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| Me enjoying a free day out in Central London - British Museum |
I can't afford it!
Something I hear time and time again as an excuse for not starting a business is "I can't afford it" and for some things this may be true, but for others such as to start a business, getting fit, enjoying the countryside, visiting interesting places etc etc it's simply not true. In many cases if we could afford it we wouldn't need to start a business in the first place, one of the key aims for most businesses is to make money for it's owners! An attitude of "I will do these wonderful things when I can afford it" is something that seems to have become ingrained into our thinking.
You may think this has nothing to do with you but in reality all of us from time to time make excuses like this, me included. I guess it's just less painful that saying to ourselves "I couldn't be bothered" or "I don't have the skills" or "I'm afraid to try".
Get Yours Started Free
Many of our most famous business people started with next to nothing and by hook or by crook devised a model which created positive cash flow which then bypassed the need for anything but loose change. But times have changed I hear you say - yes they have! For the better! With the online world offering many opportunities to start up on the cheap!
In my own business, Green Toys And Games (which started trading by buying second hand retro board games from charity shops and then selling online for two or three times the cost) we are facing challenging times and as a result I have decided to test some specific approaches to online selling.
The first 'experiment' took just a few hours to set up and already has it's first sale! Click the link below to view the site:
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| Simple logo for free website |
This completely Free Website offered by Free Webstore is so easy to use even I could get something set up in just a few hours, which means you will be able to also! Note: I have no connection to Free Webstore other than being one of their users.
Act Now!
If you have always wanted a website based business perhaps this article has provided you with just enough to get going, although I am in no way endorsing any particular provider, just pointing out some of the wonderful free resources we now have access to in order to help get our businesses going. Please note that this blog which has now received several hundred hits with the first two articles is another good example of a free website! I will leave you with my top five tips for getting started:
Five Tips For Your Free Business
1) By offering Paypal as your main payment option you will only incur selling costs once you successfully sell something. In addition Paypal offers your customer security and safety as they don't need to share card details with you in order to place an order. In addition Paypal have a robust claims procedure for customers who don't receive what they ordered, which is sure to add confidence to new customers!
2) If you are selling goods then try selling first and buying later - this means you can sell things you haven't yet bought, this has the advantage of creating a positive cash flow and is the basis upon which billionaire Richard Branson's mail order record company first started trading using. You will need to spend time researching your products well to be sure your suppliers are reliable if you try this option, it goes without saying that you can't afford to let your customers down at this stage. GreenToysAndGames.co.uk own policy is to keep everything in stock in our warehouse that is offered for sale, which means the service customers receive will be excellent.
3) If you are offering something similar to existing companies, be sure to offer something a little different which enhances the offer. I have used a Three Month Money Back Offer for Puppet Zone which will give confidence to potential customers who are unsure about the product.
4) Don't be tempted to spend money on things like expensive logos or custom designs, (unless design is an important element in your chosen business field) as it is unlikely to make much difference to your sales, you can look at websites such as Ebay and Amazon which prove that less is sometimes more when it comes to selling. Once you have created some profit and have proved that your business idea is viable then you can spend some money upgrading things!
5) In most cases, fresh and clean with at least 30% of the webpage being made up of a white background is the best way to make your website look good on a budget. Heavy colour and crowded content and your website may quickly look a bit cheap and nasty.
Just because it's free it doesn't have to look cheap!
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