Never Get A Real Job : How To Dump Your Boss, Build Your Business - Scott Gerber , Sean Pratt

Never Get A Real Job : How To Dump Your Boss, Build Your Business

Life is not what you think it to be

When you were born, your parents already dreamed up a future for you. They fantasized about big plans for you. Most likely, they wanted a better life for you — a life better than the one they experienced. During their lifetime, they were comfortable with 9-5 job and a paycheck, but now, they want you to be the next Einstein of the world. These dreams gave birth to the popular mantra: Work hard, go to college, get good grades, and get a job.

Your parents and family have placed their belief in you that you’re the next big thing. Therefore, they follow and help you with all your actions, spurring you on and eliminating your fear or mistakes with words and actions of encouragement. In so doing, they try to alienate you from experiencing the pain, agony, and frustration of failure. They pushed you to be weak and vulnerable in the real world.

When you get to college, where you’re allowed to stay alone and not under the constant watch of your family, you get to experience life for what it is. The odds are high that it is going to be very hard for you to cope. You see life for its reality, but you’re scared to do anything about it, so you go with the flow and accept what life gives you. You believe that if you study well and follow the patterns, you’ll get good grades and automatically get good jobs, but this is not true. After college, you’ll end up discovering that the competition is high for jobs that barely last a third of unemployed people. Reality hits you, and you’ll most likely end up with jobs that are not related to your field of study in any way. You’re stuck with what you think is a “real” job that eats your life away in various ways.

The problem with these “real” jobs is that they promise a false hope of a great life. These “real” jobs don’t offer you a lot of things, and they represent problems for the following reasons:
• Real jobs offer you a false sense of security. There’s no sense of security around jobs anymore. You can be laid off anytime, and your company can suffer a dip anytime. It is unlikely that a company that has crashed would pay you outstanding money.
• Real jobs render you powerless. Unlike entrepreneurs, you hardly have a say in the decision-making process of your real job.
• Real jobs overwork and underpay you. According to a recent study conducted by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, it was discovered that an average U.S employee receives two months less salary than someone who worked the same job in 1969 after inflation adjustments had been made. There are hardly any jobs that will pay you money in the value of the work you’ve done.
• Real jobs don’t reward you for excellence. Your boss is the one who pockets the big envelope while the scraps and crumbles are what get to you even though you do the majority of the work.
• Real jobs slowly kill your entrepreneurship ambitions.

The supply of graduates and unemployed people is far greater than the demand for jobs. The United States alone has more than 19 million students who are also eager to start their “real” jobs. You were promised a lot, but you've come to realize that there is barely enough for people to scramble for, so you feel greatly disappointed. The good thing is that you’ve realized this disappointment, but it’s not too late for you to change your fortune. All you need to do is figure out your dream job and strongly believe in it. With the right guidelines and roadmaps, you can achieve it.

There’s nothing special about you

One thing you should know and understand is that there’s nothing special about you. That feeling you always experience that makes you feel you’re going to be the next big thing is common among a lot of people. The fact that you’re hard-working or brilliant is not a guarantee that good things will happen to you. At a point during your childhood days, it's likely an ardent believer in the fact that you’ll be super rich within a year of finishing school, but guess what; it’s all a pipe dream.

Claiming and pretending to be a winner does not make you one, rather it prepares you for a major downfall you might never recover from.

The false impressions you give that make people believe you’re a winner won’t last forever. Sooner or later, your true life would exhibit these so-called traits regardless of your pretense or not. You’ll never achieve real success if you don’t set your goals and priorities straight right now. That feeling of appreciation that you get when you overplay your value is a recipe for failure. Your best bet is to underpromise and overdeliver in all aspects. The best form of surprise you should make is one that earns you applause and bonuses, not the other way round.

One thing successful entrepreneurs do is that they are smart about businesses. They use logic and strategy to execute business decisions, and they adjust their lifestyle accordingly to suit their plans pending the time they achieve their desired results.

Scott Gerber’s start-up business was an absolute disaster. This was a result of some of the key decisions he made while managing the business. Having dabbled into setting up a multimedia agency as a step up to his small entertainment company without rigorous research, Scott’s company folded up within a year due to some reasons:
• People had difficulty pronouncing the company’s name.
• No one could read the contact information on the poor quality business card.
• A big client refused to balance his debt.
• The company’s best advisor died of a heart attack a day before he was supposed to introduce the company to his investors and clients.

Even though Scott and his partners had perfect intentions, the company that shalt not be named failed woefully because of bad decisions.

Starting a business and getting it up and running is no easy task. The chances are that you’ll fail at some point or get frustrated at a number of things. Some of the things you should know are:
• It’s not going to be easy, and you have to deal with it. There are times when you’ll feel like giving up or feel you have failed woefully in your efforts. Don’t quit and look for the easy way out. Winners don’t quit, only losers do.
• There’s no magic formula for startup businesses. There’s no such thing as a perfect plan because you can’t predict future market and sales. Calculations may be made, but they can change any moment without prior warning.
• Your product won’t market itself. The survival of your product depends on marketing, and this doesn’t happen automatically. It’s like having a website without a URL. You have to be observant, make marketing moves, and sell your product idea to people before selling the product itself.
• The competition is tough. The fact that you’re the first to start doesn’t make you a pioneer for similar businesses. Another company might come up in three years and sideline yours with little difficulty. Nobody will stick with you because you were the first to start. There are millions of people sharing the same ideas as you, so the competition is always tough.
• You need to understand that things will not entirely go your way. The market changes, and so does your income, revenue, and the likes. There are times where failure may set in. Don’t panic; learn to accept your failure and build on it to boost your confidence again.

Here are some tips that will help you avoid the troubles associated with failure:
• Weigh the pros against the cons.
• Determine the potential fallout if your decision goes wrong.
• Determine the urgency of the decision.
• Consider alternatives and check with your decision to get the better route.

People will most likely not invest in your idea because to them it’s all about the huge percentage of returns they’ll collect. Sadly, your business may not appeal to them as one that will make huge returns. Don’t be deterred and put off. Successful businesses are the product of determination, focus, and grit. These are the qualities you should hold on to.

Startup a business now!

Don't waste your time gaining knowledge that won't be useful for your dream job. Forcing yourself into a world where you're unlikely to get accepted will only add more frustration to your life. The best job you can get is in entrepreneurship, and the time to start your business is now.

Starting a business means you have to get real with your financial capabilities. Take your time to examine your financial stance based on how much you have and how much you're willing to spend. You must learn to sacrifice whenever necessary and cut out unnecessary expenses from your life. The key to any business is capital, and if you're not prudent in the way you spend money, you won't have any capital to start your business. You can cut down on your expenses by evaluating your financial strength in three categories: Essentials, liabilities, and Expendables.

Before you start a business, you should understand that it's better to reinvent than to create something new. When you reinvent a product, you already know how it works. All you're doing is to make it much better. Know who you are, what you are, what you want, and what you're capable of. Be true to yourself without trying to impress anyone.

Simplifying a concept works magic. When you're unnecessarily extravagant with your concept, it might scare customers and investors off. Use simple names. Take a look at some of the world's biggest brands, like Apple, Samsung, KFC, Toyota, etc. They all have simple names that can be easily pronounced and identified.

Let your business lead you to success. Don't start a business without including how to generate revenue. Generating revenue should be part of your start-up plan and not something you'll do later. Great entrepreneurs generate money now, not later.

Your business requires some patterns that will help you remember to take the right step. Use this anagram: SWOT. It symbolizes Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Keep these four elements in your mind at all times. If your business can withstand these four elements, then it's time to apply the CPR( Copy, Paste, Repeat). If your business withstands these two, then there's a huge chance it will succeed massively.

Business plans might sound pleasing to the ear, but they are traditional and old-fashioned. When Scott and his partner wanted to start up a company that shalt not be named, they formatted a business plan that took them weeks of strenuous work to complete. They believed that a business plan would help them make better decisions and make their business proposals look presentable to investors — they were wrong.

A lot of things went wrong with the business plan, such as:
• Their plan was 70% focused on what they would eventually do, 20% focused on their industry partner and bios, and 10% focused on what they could currently do.
• They focused too closely on the plan's grammar and formatting, and not enough on the actual business' sale and production efforts.
• They revised their plans from people's advice regardless of whether they were qualified to give advice or not.
• They wasted money and time on the business plan, trying to make it look “pretty.”
• They failed to do real-world tests of their plans.
• The financials were grossly exaggerated.

Avoid business plan books and be careful enough to pay attention to the important stuff like being fair in your financials and taking advice from experienced people.

You can't start up your business using a one-plan paragraph strategy. Instead, you are expected to use the brainstorm-write-execute-revise-execute policy. This approach tests your ideas through daily experimentation. When you're creating your first draft, ask, and answer these eight questions yourself:
• What is the service your business performs or the product it provides today? How does your business produce or provide the product or service right now?
• How will consumers use your products or services as it exists right now?
• How will your business generate immediate revenue?
• How will you market your start-up to prospective clients with the resources you have at your direct disposal?
• How are you different from your competitors right now?
• What are the secondary and tertiary client bases you will target once you've attained success with your primary base?

Break up your plans and execute them one by one. Always strive to do better and achiever better results. Continuous efforts are the only thing that will keep pushing you toward greatness.

Know when to partner and who to partner with

Partnerships are essential and important, which is why you must know who to partner with and when to partner with them. Like in the case of Mr. CEO, his partnership with ruined the business because it was not an ideal partnership. He was incompetent and had poor decision-making skills. A partnership should be taken very seriously, and only when you're sure. It's not something you gamble with.

If you surround yourself with the wrong people, then you'll most likely end up with the wrong partners. Some of the people you should avoid partnering with are:
• Procrastinators;
• Employees;
• College buddies;
• Inventors;
• The ones who think they are always right;
• Dreamers;
• Spenders;
• People who are hardly around;
• People with personal issues.

Avoid people who have problems with dependability, character, loyalty, work ethics, finances, personal and trust issues. Don't partner with these kind of people. They are bound to bring doom upon your business no matter how much you try to avoid it.

As much as you need to know who to partner with, you also need to know when to get a partner.

Ask yourself these five questions:
• Do you need a partner at all?
• Are there other mutually beneficial options besides a standard partnership?
• Do you need this partner?
• Are you certain that the partnership works for both parties in theory and execution?
• Do you have the agreement locked down?

Never enter into a partnership unless you're sure because a partnership can make or break your business.

Remember why you started and keep your determination high at all costs. It's never easy, and it's not rosy most times, especially during the startup stage, but you're the one who can get it done. Be ready to make a lot of sacrifices and believe in yourself at all times. Take your plans step-by-step and begin as a startup instead of focusing on being a guru. Take each step as it comes and don't rush yourself into something you have little idea about.

Organize your life by making and creating time for yourself. Create backup plans, and spend your time efficiently. Successful entrepreneurs are always planning for now as well as planning for later.

As a startup, your effort is never enough — you must keep pushing. Take your time to do one thing perfectly instead of doing ten things poorly. Don't take "no" answers, and let "I can't" be far away from your final decisions. Seek the right knowledge and pay attention to your environment at all times. When you have a team, exchange ideas and innovations, listen attentively, pick out the good suggestions and discard the not so good ones. Successful businesses require cooperation, and that's what you must have.

Creating the perfect appearance for your business will push you towards success

There's a big chance you don't have enough capital to look like a big company, but you have to look like a big company regardless of it. There are competitions and competitors all around who are big and have enough money to throw around, so you can't afford to look small.

Here are some tips for you on how to effectively look big without spending much.

• Create an affordable and easy to navigate website. Your site gives you a huge impression of the class of your company. You can get affordable websites online that will make your business look classy.
• Choose your domain name wisely. Your domain name shouldn't be too long or complex.
• Choose simple ones that contain enough information about your company's name. Also, avoid complex email addresses that will be difficult for your customers to remember.
• Buy a vanity phone number. Vanity phone numbers are cheap and affordable. They help to increase the rate at which people call you because the numbers are easy to remember.
• Use virtual phones. Virtual phones give your business the feel of a huge company. Automated replies and messages will make your customers feel relaxed about dealing with you because they believe you're professional with your business.
• Use a virtual workspace. Let customers feel and believe that you're talking with them from your classy office even though you might be in your room. It also saves you the cost of a costly office.
• Create a unique business card. Make sure you use business cards that ooze class with simplicity and uniqueness.
• Hire a virtual team. Work with a team of people who are available to work from anywhere. It saves you the cost of space and furniture, and they don't require as much payment as full-time employees.
• Be open-minded to your employees and treat them well at all times. Encourage them so that they can try to impress you with better output.

Remember that cash flow is important to your business. Make sure you make more than you spend. Don't spend unnecessarily on things you don't need. Before you spend, ask yourself these questions:
• Do I need it?
• Can I get it for free?
• Can I borrow it from someone else?
• Can I trade for it?
• Can I partner with someone to share?
• How can I get it for the best price possible?

You need to learn how to attract prospects and get across to prospective customers. The company that shalt not be named failed due to more reasons related to bad planning.

• They relied on their “uniqueness” to attract clients.
• They didn't establish a selling system or tactics.
• Their methods where highly untargeted and unspecific.
• Their infrastructure was not geared towards sales, and nobody paid attention to it.

Persistence, passion, and pain are essential to your marketing skills and strategies. It is important that you market your product rigorously for the targeted audience. Failure to do this will render your business dead on arrival.

Determine your audience and push your market toward them

Online blogs, forums, and ads can help you achieve this. Make your business a priority, and make sure it's visible to people who are interested. Insert keywords into your business so that it pops up when people search for it. Look for client reviews and testimonials from rival websites. Check out their complaints and feedback and act on it. Spread your business across social media with handlers who will generate traffic and direct them to your company.

Don't be fooled into believing that social media accounts alone can sell your market. First, you must create a brand language that involves unique keywords. For Apple, words like Siri, Mac, IOS are keywords that people can relate to. For a company like Dominos, it's Pizza.

These keywords must encompass everything about your business so that people can relate to your company by merely seeing those words. Incorporate them in every marketing outlet you have and make them unique and accessible to your customers.

Stay true to your words and deliver based on the value you're offering to put out. You must deliver your message with relevancy and uniformity by creating a simple brand message. Do this by detailing a one-liner message that uniquely advertises your product. Avoid being too witty or intellectual — make your point in a way that it would be easy to grasp by almost everyone.

Diversify the creativity of your message across the various platforms you use. Avoid using the same brand message everywhere because your target audience is different across all platforms. Tweak your message a little without losing the relevance of the message.

Get the right tool for the job by doing things that will attract your target audience. If your target audience is mothers walking down the street, hiring a clown to give balloons to kids might cause them to pick interest in your business.

Do whatever it takes to get noticed. This involves getting creative with catchy messages and ads that will make your customers interested in your products. It is important to note, though, that attention doesn't generate revenue if you don't gain the prospective customer's interest. Let your marketing skills bring people to do business with you instead of just making them admire your business from afar.

To be a successful start-up marketer, here are some tips for you:
• Don't rely on expensive ads.
• Consult yourself for advice.
• Pay off referrers.
• Don't be overconfident. Seek an opinion from others.
• Know how to react to situations.
• Support the locals.
• Help other people start-up.
• Join groups that will make people know and refer your products.

You are your business, and your business determines how your life will pan out. If you don't treat your business well, it will fail, and you'll also fail. Market your business well, and you're on your way to fulfilling success.

Conclusion

Since most of the expectations you've had about “real” jobs growing up have turned out to be disappointments, you can't stay down wallowing in self-pity. Entrepreneurship is your best bet to bouncing back and finding fulfillment in life, which is why you should take it with all seriousness.

Try this:
Accept the disappointment of the “real” job, find a good business idea, evaluate your financial position, adjust your financial stance accordingly, and follow the guidelines to achieving your ultimate success.