The Restart is based upon creating opportunity, since most often you\u2019ll find yourself stuck in a situation where there\u2019s no obvious way out. Restarters find their own ways and create opportunities where there was no opportunity before.<\/p>\n
You have to find your own way through the struggles by empowering your individual strengths.<\/p>\n
Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself: \"What do I want to do for the rest of my life?\" Do that! I promise you can monetize that shit! If you love Alf, do an Alf blog. You collect smurfs? Smurf it up! - Gary Vaynerchuk<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It took me a few months to uncover what I\u2019m really passionate about: enriching peoples lives by using technology.<\/p>\n
In my job I was just using technology, what made me somewhat happy. But only since I started my online business I\u2019m feeling energized when I\u2019m getting out of bed. In fact, I\u2019m writing this at 5am in the morning after 5 hours of sleep, because this is work I can\u2019t not do.<\/p>\n
Over time I understood that being employed is the fastest way to blur the awareness of your strengths.<\/p>\n
Most often you\u2019re working on projects you\u2019re not passionate about and thus you\u2019re not aware of your passions in everyday life. You subconsciously loose track of your true passions.<\/p>\n
For your Restart you\u2019re going to build an online business. It\u2019s a challenging process that won\u2019t be easy. You\u2019ll encounter situations in which you\u2019ll question this whole process and in which your comfort zone tries to pull you back into a job.<\/p>\n
Maybe you\u2019ll follow the Restart 101 on the side while being employed, maybe besides studying for a degree, maybe while you\u2019re unemployed.<\/p>\n
In any case you need to bring your personal passions into play, because you\u2019ll want to build an online business that supports you in the long term.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why you need to be absolutely clear about your strengths, passions and interests. Focusing on these will bring drastic changes to your life:<\/p>\n
\n
- Working on a business built around your passion won\u2019t feel like working.<\/li>\n
- Building your business will make you feel energized, even though you\u2019re spending your free time on it (until you can replace your paycheck).<\/li>\n
- You will be enthusiastic all day, because you know that you\u2019re building a new opportunity based upon your passion.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
As you\u2019re building a business on the side, you need to love what you sacrifice your free time for. Passion is the key to consistent action. And if you do one small step towards your goals everyday, you\u2019ll get there.<\/p>\n
Analyzing Your Expertise and Skills<\/h2>\n
To successfully do the Restart, you need to become known as expert in your field. People don\u2019t buy from people who aren\u2019t accepted as experts, that\u2019s why you\u2019re going to become one.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s not that hard when you\u2019re passionate. Experts are defined to be one single step ahead of the target audience. Just one step. Normally you already are an expert in the fields you\u2019re passionate about.<\/p>\n
Over time I understood how to uncover people\u2019s individual passions and interests. The upcoming exercise will help you to find your passion quickly, much faster than the months it took myself.<\/p>\n
These questions give you a first insight on your strengths.<\/p>\n
\n
- What can you do better than most other persons in your environment?<\/li>\n
- What activity makes the time fly by and makes you truly enthusiastic?<\/li>\n
- What do you love to do?<\/li>\n
- What do you want to become good at?<\/li>\n
- What would you do, even without getting paid?<\/li>\n
- What would you do if you weren\u2019t afraid?<\/li>\n
- What goals do you want to achieve in life?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Take your time to answer the questions. There is no need to answer all questions at once if you\u2019re not able to. It might take you a few minutes, but it can also take hours.<\/p>\n
After you answered the questions, take a look at your answers on the next day. Are those answers still correct or did you get new insights over night?<\/p>\n
The first time I did this exercise took me a few hours, because I just didn\u2019t understand what made me happy, the job made all my passions blurry and I had to uncover them one by one.<\/p>\n
Imagine a situation where you are in your element, doing things that you love, surrounded with people who make you happy. What are you doing in this situation?<\/p>\n
This exercise is important because it\u2019ll serve as foundation for your online business. Passion is what drives the successful entrepreneurs and what differentiates them from mediocre business people.<\/p>\n
Your Restart will be based around your passion, so make sure to be totally honest with yourself.<\/p>\n
Finding a Business Opportunity<\/h2>\n
Knowing your passion and fields of personal interest is important, but it\u2019s not enough to successfully build an online business that supports your Restart.<\/p>\n
You need to find a business opportunity, to serve existing needs that aren\u2019t served yet or that you could serve better than existing businesses.<\/p>\n
This took me another few weeks and it can be a real pain not to know whether you\u2019re climbing a ladder that\u2019s reared against the right wall. The uncertainty of building an online business without knowing that the opportunity exists can be devastating.<\/p>\n
Over the timeframe of a few weeks I learned this exercise to get a first insight whether my skills fit an existing market and whether it\u2019s a good idea to put more effort into building a business around my passion.<\/p>\n
Competition<\/h3>\n
Competition shows that businesses are existing successfully in a market, it\u2019s validating a market. So competition isn\u2019t bad, but a sign that you can earn money.<\/p>\n
\n
- Do businesses exist in the field you want to target?<\/li>\n
- What type of products are sold successfully?<\/li>\n
- How do buyers benefit from the products sold?<\/li>\n
- Could you differentiate your business from existing ones?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
I don\u2019t recommend entering a market with no competition, because it\u2019s likely that you\u2019re not the first human on Earth having that skill you want to build your business around. Most likely somebody else already tried and failed because there was no opportunity in the market.<\/p>\n
Serving a Need<\/h3>\n
After you see competition in your market, it\u2019s time to analyze the customers needs. There\u2019s only one common denominator for profitable businesses: they solve people\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n
The more people you can serve, the more money you can earn. Sounds easier than it is, so let\u2019s have a look on customers needs.<\/p>\n
\n
- What problems are existing products solving?<\/li>\n
- What advice are people asking for in forums or on social media?<\/li>\n
- What kind of problems are publicly aware in your market?<\/li>\n
- Do you have the confidence that you could create a product solving existing problems and needs?<\/li>\n
- Can you create products that are better and\/or different than existing products?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Everyday Life in Business<\/h3>\n
Building an online business is only one side of the medal. The other is the daily business.<\/p>\n
How would you feel running your business day by day? You need to be comfortable in the daily business, otherwise you\u2019re just switching from one treadmill to another.<\/p>\n
\n
- What would your daily routines look like?<\/li>\n
- What kind of clients will you have and are you happy to deal with them?<\/li>\n
- What tasks are related to your business that you\u2019re not passionate about?<\/li>\n
- Will you need investors and will you be able to keep them satisfied by delivering promised results?<\/li>\n
- Will you enjoy running your business for the next 5 - 10 years?<\/li>\n
- Can you leverage other people\u2019s strengths to grow your business?<\/li>\n
- Is your business scalable or are you limited by the time you can work?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The Next Steps<\/h2>\n
This post should give you an insight on your personal strengths and the market that you can serve.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll explore the market in more detail in the next post, for now it\u2019s important to focus on your passion and skills.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t bother if you\u2019re not sure how to monetize your strengths, we\u2019ll cover that later. Just ensure that you at least know your strengths and that you\u2019ve found a topic to build your online business around.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re struggling with defining your skills, shoot me an email and I\u2019ll do my best to get you unstuck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Restart is based upon creating opportunity, since most often you\u2019ll find yourself stuck in a situation where there\u2019s no obvious way out. Restarters find their own ways and create opportunities where there was no opportunity before. You have to find your own way through the struggles by empowering your individual strengths. Look yourself in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[140,141,142,143],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}