When launching a business, it is normal to have big dreams. It is also normal to have a small bank account.
Michael Shreeve, Founder and Head Trouble Maker of Peaceful Profits, had a super small bank account when he started his freelance writing business. In fact, he was broke. But he made $1 million in 15 months. It was hard work, but he learned a lot along the way.
Michael offers this advice for those who are looking to launch a big business on a small budget.
Connecting your passion to a purpose
Many entrepreneurs will tell you that success comes easier when you pursue your passion. While Michael agrees that passion is important, he warns that it is easy to get passion mixed up with some other common emotions.
“Sometimes people confuse passion with joy or happiness,” Michael explains. “People think that if the work they are doing makes them feel good, then it must be their passion.”
Michael Shreeve encourages anyone looking to start a business to look deeper when exploring their passions. He warns that starting a business because you are looking for excitement is not the best path to success.
“Passion needs to be more closely aligned with purpose,” he explains. “Pursuing a purpose allows you to remain more persistent than when pursuing a fleeting passion that comes and goes because of some external source. The entrepreneur who is driven by passion and purpose is someone who knows why they are doing what they are doing and when things get tough, they can persist. Entrepreneurship is 99 percent persisting.”
Hire a librarian
If you are starting with zero in your business account, you probably cannot afford a business consultant. But you can afford a librarian. And Michael found the public library to be a great resource.
“In terms of resources for budding businesses, I will tell you right now that public libraries are underrated,” Michael says. “I got my start in business by using the public library. It is free and there are plenty of books. You don’t need to be buying courses. You don’t need to be buying coaching. Just get a library card and a book.”
In addition to providing guidance on a wide range of businesses, Michael sees the library as a great resource for testing your commitment level.
“If you can’t finish reading the books that you got from the library, you probably shouldn’t start a business,” he explains. “With just a library card, you can test whether or not you actually have the passion and the purpose to persist and stay focused long enough to make a business work. If you can’t make it through that, then you may want to re-examine.”
Give people what they want
When starting from zero, focus is more important than ever. And, as Michael has learned, making money is not the right thing to focus on.
“There’s a temptation to get into business and say, ‘I don’t really know who I want to help or how I want to help them. So I’m just going to choose a bunch of people who I think I can make a bunch of money off of,’” Michael explains. “That is not the right mindset for a new entrepreneur.”
Instead of focusing on what you want to achieve, such as making your first million, Michael recommends focusing on understanding the market and what people need.
“The first thing to do is decide who you are going to help and how you are going to help them,” Michael explains. “This is the core of all business. Whether you are getting involved in financial markets, launching a service-based business, or selling widgets, you do not have a business unless you have a group of people who want something, and you, the business owner, are giving them the thing that they want.”
Grow first, scale later
A lot has been written about the importance of scaling a business, with some experts espousing the idea that scaling is critical for a startup. While Michael agrees with the importance of scaling, he encourages new businesses to focus first on growth.
“When starting a business, you grow by creating,” Michael Shreeve explains. “You create new products, new offers, new teams, new fulfillment methods, new marketing strategies, et cetera. In that phase, growth happens horizontally as you are adding new things to the business.”
Once growth gets going, scaling helps to make sure that the growth is healthy. It removes inefficiencies from a business.
“When you start scaling, you start tightening your focus,” Michael explains. “It might involve getting rid of products or getting rid of offers that aren’t as profitable as you thought they might be.”
Michael’s current business, Peaceful Profits, helps people like coaches, freelancers, agencies, and other experts scale their business to more than a million dollars a year. To do that, he helps them to figure out what aspects of their businesses are contributing to the majority of the wins, revenue, and enjoyment.
“When we help someone to grow, we’re helping them get their first sales,” Michael says. “When we’re helping someone to scale, we’re helping them to reduce chaos in their business.”
Make your business boring
Michael believes that finding a healthy work-life balance is not just a “nice-to-have” in today’s world; it is a competitive advantage. Living life on the verge of burnout does not allow you to do your best work. Micheal’s guidance for keeping yourself healthy is to keep your business boring.
“Most people who are starting a business are looking for ways to keep their business exciting,” Michael observes. “Really they should be trying to figure out how to make it dry and boring and mechanical and systemized and predictable and all of these really boring words.”
Once you figure out how to market, sell, and fulfill in a systematic and predictable way, you empower your business to grow and you provide yourself with the space and the resources to pursue your passion and your purpose.
“You have to have a boring business in order to practice your passion,” Michael says. “Otherwise you’ll be spending all of your time running a business instead of practicing your passion.”
Michael Shreeve is the founder of Peaceful Profits. As a career and business coach, he has over a decade of experience helping online entrepreneurs scale their businesses. His latest book, One Book Millions Method, reveals how entrepreneurs can use a book to grow their businesses through the power of publishing.
