How to Get Started with an Online Business – the Mindset

Buddha says that you become what you think. It is all about the mindset. Getting started with anything that you want to do, has got a lot to do with your mindset. How do you think? What do you think? And that will actually define how easily you will get started. In fact, in more than one instances, I have seen myself that the whole journey of an online businessman will actually be guided by this first step – creating a valuable mindset.

Today I am going to share with you all a message that I sent to one of my clients. After a few interactions with him on what he wants and what not, I realized that he was still not very clear about what he wants from the business. Also, he was a little reluctant to invest. I was happy that he already thought of doing a business, but I needed to put clarity in his mind about what he wants. That is very important for him for obvious reasons; but it is equally important for me as a freelance consultant to have clarity, because without that I will not be able to form a solid plan of action.

So, in my message to him, I tried to invoke that urge in him to get things clarified in his mind first. And then, probably we could start working together. It wanted to tell him that you become what you think, though in a way of my own.

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I am sharing this message with you all so that you can understand the importance of this conversation. Also, I wanted to show with live examples of how you can talk to or interact with your clients and win their trust and confidence. Both parties need to trust each other and have confidence in each other to make it a favorable long-term professional relationship in business.

Money is a factor too. And both the buyer and the seller should understand that. A buyer only gets the value-added service from the seller when he adds the value to the seller’s wallet himself. It is a two-way process and both parties need to be happy in the transaction as well.

Well then, without any further ado, let me take you straight to my message that I sent. I have changed the original name of the client and a few things here and there to make you understand the context and also provide sufficient security for my client’s personal information. The context does not change at all, and you can easily get exactly what I meant to tell him. Here you go…

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Dear David,

I guess you are still in the very nascent stage of setting up your business and you are also not very clear about how to go about it. I have worked closely with many startups and I know how things work, how to plan the start and initiate things and then, how to produce a sustainable online business.

I can help if you are really willing to put in your time and efforts in doing so.

A decent professional logo that is going to stay with you for a long time and will be the face of your business on the internet would be much more than $$ as you have thought of.

In my gig (Click here for the Fiverr gig), I have mentioned that I can ADD your LOGO on the Social Media images for $$, not design a logo. Logo design is not a one-hour job, unless you are OK with whatever I make, without any proper market research, branding, positioning and targeting (You must do all of these before you can even think of creating a logo for your new business, as a rule of thumb).

David, there is a lot of things involved in starting a business. However, you need to be utterly sure of what you are looking to build – both in magnitude and in depth. I mean, you should be able to tell how big your business will become and for that, how much work do you have to put in while laying out the foundation. I can help you, but you need to have a (clarity of what you need and a) decent budget to invest in getting things done.

If you are ready, I can put in my time, effort and brain into your business. Else, just creating something without any proper research and brainstorming will only waste your time and mine.

I seriously want to help you out and this is why I am writing so much, trying to make you understand how to go about it.

PS: If you want me to research and suggest you a name for your business, let me know. I will send you custom offer for that too (Yes, I do that too. Let me know if YOU need this service).

Dear David, there are different things that we are talking about right now. The costliest of all these is "time" and that is what is on my mind ‘all the time’.

If you already have a plan on how you would want to proceed with your business, then just tell me what are the pieces of the puzzle that you want to hire me for. e.g. the Name of your Business, Logo Design, Social Media Image Designs etc. I can give you specific and ad-hoc budget for each of these.

Like, I can create you an awesome Logo in about N Days for about $$. [Deleted sentence here] You will have to tell me the name of your business and how exactly you want the logo to be if you have any preferences. Colors, branding etc. I already know that it is for [Deleted] website.

Similarly, if you want me to brainstorm, research and come up with the name of the business that you want to start, it would cost about $$ and I should be able to get back within N days.

Remember, these are ONE TIME INVESTMENT for years to come - forever, almost! You are not going to change your business name or logo every month, right?

Then, if you want me to design social media content, then I can create your custom images for $$ each or N template images for $$ like it is written on my blog.

I am happy that you are taking my words in a constructive way. As I tell you, I have worked with a lot of startups - online and local - and I know how different people approach (at the services of a freelance seller) and more so on Fiverr, thinking everything is $5 here :) I have helped people with everything for their online businesses - from planning, to logo design, website design, social media design and formulating a sustainable growth strategy that can be implemented constructively. But all these come for a price, right? Not for $5!

You get what you pay for, I am sure you will agree...

Anyways, I have said a lot. And all for FREE :) (Just joking)

It all depends on you. How you want things to be done for your business. Please let me know what I can do for you. I will be happy if we can start working together - asap!

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Well, this is what I sent him. The results were awesome. The client was intelligent enough to understand that he needs to get clarity first and then can hire me to brainstorm and polish his ideas. And also, in every stage, there is money involved. In whatever you start, even if it is a sweetmeat shop in the neighborhood, you will need to invest to set up your business. David got the message and acted accordingly. And since then, we still have a wonderful friendly but professional relationship. I am happy to see his business taking shape under my close supervision.

If you have any such story to share, please feel free to do so. If you want to write on my blog as a guest writer, do not hesitate to get in touch with me. You can contact me here or on social media, or even write in your comments. We can surely get something done together.

Hope to write to you soon again. And yes, please do not forget to visit the Digital Lama Creations shop on Etsy, which has wonderful printable posters available. The best ones are those of the Buddha Quotes on Life series. You can instantly download them, take a print, frame it if you wish to and hang it on any of your walls – just like the ones in the image in this post. I simply love these creations!

Cheers! 

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Thanks a lot,
The Indian Freelancer
Let's Learn and Grow Together!