The Four Greatest Fears of Starting Your Own Business - Leonard Clements
... and how network marketing blows them all away with the force of a 20-megaton thermal nuclear explosion! I dare you to honestly and openly look at network marketing and not be impressed and intrigued!
Way back in the last century (1991), a survey was conducted by my research firm, MarketWave, Inc., of almost 7,000 people who were not, nor had ever been, business owners of any kind. The question was a simple one:
If all obstacles were removed, would you like to own your own business?
In other words, if whatever was stopping you from starting a business didn’t exist, would you at least attempt it? Would you prefer to be an entrepreneur, or an employee?
Eighty five percent said Yes, they’d prefer to work for themselves. Which means that 15 percent misunderstood the question on the survey. After all, if whatever concerned you enough to not attempt a business venture didn’t exist, then you’d have no fear of doing so.
I mean, who wouldn’t want to be in control of their own life? To have the freedom to make their own decisions, work their own hours, and write their own paycheck? Even using the conservative 85 percent figure, that meant about
200 million Americans wanted to start their own business but have never even attempted it! We thought there must be some pretty compelling reasons why, so we set out to find out what they were.
To no one’s surprise, it was never about preferring to work for someone else’s business, but rather the incapacitating fear of starting your own.
And it was the same four fears, every single time.
It takes too much money.
People didn’t have tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in a business (and they didn’t know anyone else who did).
It takes too much time.
People didn’t want to work eighty hours a week for the first year or two to get their business going.
There’s too much risk.
Over 56 percent of all businesses fail in the first two years, and they’d have to quit their job, so there was no safety net.
They didn’t know how.
Most people had never taken any business courses. They had no business experience. They didn’t know anything about taxes, accounting, marketing, and the myriad of other skills a good entrepreneur must possess.
Not all responded with all four objections, although most responded with more than one. Surprisingly, “I don’t know how” was the single most common response. A lot of folks said they wished they had taken the plunge earlier in their lives, but they just weren’t the mavericks they once were. They had a mortgage to pay and a family to feed. They felt it was “too late.”
Now comes the fun part.
Would you ever consider going into business for yourself if: The total start up costs were under $500... the total time investment could be as little as 5-15 hours a week... you could continue to work in your present job until the income from your business was sufficient to earn you at least an equal income, so there would be little risk... and best of all, there were numerous consultants available to you who are experts at running this business, who would train and advise you personally for an unlimited number of hours, for the entire life of your business, absolutely free!
Not only that, but there is another company that will take care of all your research and development, labeling, inventory, shipping, payroll, various taxes, most legal questions, and so on.
And this company will do this for you every month, for the life of your business, for around, oh, $35.00 a year.
Right now, you’re probably remembering the old adage, “If it sounds too good to be true... ” Fine.
But, just hypothetically, would you consider going into business for yourself IF all this were true?
“Well, sure...” you’re probably thinking, “... but there’s got to be a catch.”
