Ditching the Job - Is It for You?

Before we take that drastic step of quitting our job and venturing out on our own, we need to take a long hard look at what that entails.

1.  Do we have sufficient financial resources to sustain us while building our business?  It could be a while before we generate a profit.

2.  Just like with a brick and mortar business there is lag time between when the business started to when it turns a profit.

3.  Do we have the mindset of an entrepreneur or the mindset of an employee?  If we have spent many years in a career as an employee the transition to a business owner can be difficult.

4.  Do we realize that starting a business on our own, whether brick and mortar or internet, is essentially a career change?  Are we willing to put in the same amount of effort and discipline into this new career that we did with the old one?

5.  Can we function without the social interaction we had with our colleagues in the workplace?

6.  Is our family on board with the level of sacrifices that are required?

If the answers to those questions are in the affirmative, we are then ready to move on to the next step.

As humans, we are always looking for a way to improve our position in life. However, where do we look to determine what is better?  In this article, I will be looking at some of the options that go through our minds when we are looking to make a change as it relates to our working environment.

Before ditching our jobs, we need to try to discover why the grass always seems to look greener on the other side of the fence.

Reasons the grass could look greener on the other side of the fence:

1.  There has been more quality time spent in tending to the grass on the other side.

2.  We have been so enmeshed in our own grass we do not really see its color anymore.

3.  We see the fence and think we can see what is beyond and desire our independence.

4.  We are tired working our own grass and are looking for a different experience.

5.  We missed seeing the amount of effort and work that went into ensuring the grass on the other side of the fence was the lush manicured green we desire.

For most of us, Internet Marketing and blogging will be a brand new career.  Just like the career we left, or will be leaving, there is a learning curve.  With our first career, we may have gone to an institution of higher learning or a trade school for our initial education and training.  On-the-job training and additional training courses gave us the supplemental knowledge and education to be successful.

Now it is our responsibility to focus and discipline ourselves to do the same thing for this next career.  There will be many distractions and if we let them take over we will not be able to take this new business to the level we desire.

The freedom of being able to come and go as we please and be our own boss sounds great, but it comes with a price.  Now we run the whole show and need to be available to our business as the needs arise.

Just like taking on a business with a physical location, an internet business follows many of the same rules:

• Determine the nature of our business.  This can be selling our own product or selling someone else's product.  We can provide personal services.  We can be an advertising platform for other businesses.

• Find a location for our business.   On the internet, we can be our own stand-alone business with our own domain name.  This domain name is a name that uniquely identifies the website that represents our business.  We can also team our website with another website.  By doing this, we may not have to pay for a domain name or for fees associated with hosting our site on the web.  The trade off for this is the lack of complete control over our site.

• Once we have decided on our location, we need to secure the name we want our website to have so it appropriately identifies that particular segment of our business.  There are several domain registrars such as Namecheap.com, Godaddy.com, and Hostgator.com.  In our research, we will find numerous recommendations on how to select a domain name.  In addition, many Internet Marketers also recommend having our domain name registered with one company and having our website hosted with another company.  Just a bit of safety in the event one or the other company happens to have some difficulties.

• With our domain name in hand, the next step is to find a place to house our internet business.  Our website will not be located, or hosted, on our computer for everyone to access.  Instead, we will need to find a company that will put our website on their computers.  The computers these companies are using allow strangers and customers to wander around and have the necessary security protocols to protect our site.  Hostgator.com is a popular hosting company for those new to the business.  

• It is now time to start designing our website and adding content.  For those new to blogging and Internet Marketing, Wordpress.org is the blogging platform of choice.  This is due to its ease in adding content and the fact it is free helps too.  There are many themes or design styles available as well as several plug-ins that aid in functionality.

At this point, we are open for business.  The next step is to get traffic to our site and to get those visitors to take whatever action we want them to in order for us to make money.

Conceptually, being in business for ourselves seems to be quite easy.

1. Decide on the type of business
2. Determine the name of the business
3. Find a location
4. Stock with inventory
5. Promote the business
6. Convert shoppers to buyers
7. Reap the rewards of owning a business

These principles are the same whether we are going to open a physical store or put up a website.  However, there are a lot of steps and information associated with each of those principles that we must learn.

In actuality, we may find ourselves working longer hours than we were before ditching our job.