7 Fears Of Starting A Business & How To Deal (You Are Not Alone!)

Whether you’re starting a new business or expanding your existing one, fear comes with the territory. Unless you’re like, a sociopath who is unable to feel emotion, anxiousness and nervousness are to be expected. What can you do to combat it? Face it head on and realize you’re not alone! Here’s a roundup of some common fears of starting a business and how to deal:

1. Not Knowing Where To Start

Starting a new biz is major and can be overwhelming. It is definitely challenging sometimes to know where to begin. You’ve got to have an even balance between planning and action. I recently saw a graphic that described the difference between “entrepreneur” and “wantrepreneur.” Entrepreneurs take action while wantrepreneurs just think about taking action. If you fall into the “wantrepreneur” category, I want you to take a step forward to becoming an entrepreneur!

2. Not Having Enough Expertise

Guess what? If you’ve never done it before, there’s no way you can be an expert at running your own business. Even if you’re well seasoned in business ownership, there are always things to learn. When I first started Dinosaur Stew, I was nervous because it had been a while since I’d done any coding, not to mention I knew absolutely nothing about doing business taxes, advertising, and so on.

The beauty of it is that you don’t have to be an expert in everything right off the bat. There are always resources to help you fill in the gaps, and of course you’re going to learn as you go! So don’t stress.

3. Running Out Of Money

I know a lot of us are working on pretty tight budgets, and to even get the wheels rolling on a new business or project, we’ve got to save up for a while. My biggest tip is to plan, plan, plan. Make a budget for your start-up costs as well as your expected monthly revenue and expenses, and make it realistic. Don’t be overly optimistic or overly pessimistic. Realistic. This will definitely help you from encountering any surprises 6 months after you launch your biz and your bank account is like, “Umm….what’s going on here?”

Also, if you’re trying to take out a loan to start your biz, you’re definitely going to need to show ’em a well thought-out plan with financial projections. Even friends or family will appreciate that you’ve planned out a budget if they’re loaning you da moolah.

4. Not Attracting Clients

This is a toughie. If you don’t have clients, you don’t have any business, and if you don’t have any business, you don’t have any money. Unless you’re already super established, you might not have people beating down your figurative door ready to buy what you’re selling. This is why we have marketing.

If you’re like me, the very idea of marketing makes you a little nervous. You don’t want to be one of those annoying people on Facebook who is constantly self promoting their stuff. Don’t worry: you won’t be. A smart marketing plan will help with this.

5. Not Having Anything Anyone Wants To Buy

Creating value for your clients or customers is key. To do that, you need to know who your ideal client is, their pain points, and their triggers, and most importantly, what type of product or service will appeal to them and will be something they actually wanna spend their hard earned dollars on. If you put some time and effort into developing your offering, you’ll be in a much better place!

6. Not Being Able To Handle Everything

On the flip side, what if you attract so many clients and are doing so well that you can’t keep up with everything? It probably sounds like a dream to most of you, but it can be a valid concern. However, there are always solutions!

The key is to keep growing your business in a strategic way and make sure you focus on doing tasks that will make you money. You can hire a virtual assistant or outsource other tasks that get in your way from being awesome. It can definitely be scary to hand over control of part of your business to someone else, so my best advice is this: whether you’re ready to bring in someone to help you next week or three years from now, start setting up easy-to-follow processes & workflows today.

7. Taking The Leap, Failing, & Feeling Like A Fool

I mean, is there anything worse than putting all the time & effort into starting your own business, telling all your friends and family members about it, and then….nothing. It and you run out of steam, and you’re embarrassed for even trying. A whopping 80% of new businesses fail within their first year (“OMG, don’t tell me that now!” you’re probably thinking). But, a lot of those 80% business owners didn’t plan well: they didn’t offer value to their customers, they don’t know what the heck they’re doing with their money, they priced their product in an unprofitable way. Don’t be like them!

All of the aforementioned fears of starting a business are very real. I get it! But they’re also totally normal. And trust me, some kind of anxiety will always be floating around somewhere in the back your brain…even if you’ve hit success and are doing well. But let go of your fear as best as you can, because you got this! Remember, you can’t succeed if you don’t try. If you never chase your dreams, you’ll never catch them.