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Building a business is a daunting but exciting task. It promises an amount of financial freedom, influence, and passion most of us have never experienced before.
And living in our on demand-society, we naturally can’t wait for our business to start producing income finally.
Of course, there are all those success stories out there of people who claim that they started earning 5.000 € a month within 3 months of starting their business. Or 1.000 € within their first month.
That gives us hope, and our goals shoot high up. On the other hand, however, if it were that easy, wouldn’t everyone had started to try it by now? And why are there still a lot of people who do try it but give up along the way?
What does that mean for us? How long will it take until the first few hundred dollars start to roll in?
As I am getting closer and closer to the first anniversary of having started my business, I believe I’ve figured out some of the main factors that determine how long we will have to wait.
Read also: 9 Reasons Why You Should Start Your Own Business
This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I only ever recommend products that I have personally used and loved. Thank you for your support!
1. Your experience and skills
Now, this might be obvious, but I only recently realized how true it actually is. I am sure that if I would start a different blog now, it would take me at most half the time it took me for this blog to become profitable.
You get that feeling for success and can then repeat it easily.
I am not talking about pure knowledge accumulation. You can have all the strategies written out on paper in front of you. It will still take you longer as if when you actually already practiced them.
There is just something about doing stuff vs. studying it. We learn better by doing than by mindless memorizing. That’s what all those “how-to-study-effectively” – gurus tell you.
It is a different thing if you’ve memorized the best textbook on selling or if you’ve gone out and sold a few dozen products.
The latter will benefit you so much more.
And the younger you are, the less of those practical experiences you will have. I, for example, had none. Simple as that.
I’ve never written a blog post, designed a website, created pins or posts, tried to market or sell something.
I was a complete newbie. And looking back, I am incredibly proud of how much experience and skills I’ve gained in under a year!
2. How much you are willing to/capable of investing in courses and tools
Although you do not need to have tons of money to start a business, there are specific tools and courses you probably will have to invest in if you want to get the results as fast and effortless as possible.
In fact, those courses are very likely going to save you money in the long term. Because the longer it takes you to make your business profitable, the more money it
In my Free Resource Library, I’ve also listed every tool, product, or course I’ve purchased and loved, so if you are interested in a broader overview of my investments, you should check it out.
But to give you a few examples, these have been the most important investments I’ve made for my business:
Bluehost
Again, domain name
Affiliate Marketing Mastery
An admittedly costly course (I had to do a very painful leap out of my comfort zone in purchasing it), which has helped me immensely.
Other than the general information about how to start a Blog/YouTube Channel and earn affiliate commissions you get inside this very in-depth course, it also improves your mindset. And as you will see in the next point, that’s a big part of success.
But what I loved most about it is that they set up my website, installed the most necessary plugins, told me how to build an e-mail list, and what you need to look out for legally when earning affiliate commissions.
But I have to say, for it to be worth the price you should really be a beginner because it does focus a lot on the basics.
Grammarly
A fantastic spelling and grammar tool that, in my opinion, is necessary for every blogger, English speaking or not. In fact, I am still looking for the German equivalent of Grammarly, because Microsoft Word has really been letting me down recently -_-
Tailwind
I keep it simple. If you take Pinterest marketing serious – and in my opinion, it might be the easiest and most straight forward traffic source that will benefit you in the long run – you need to use Tailwind.
It’s most important function is that it schedules and auto posts your pins at the strategically best time so that you can reach the biggest audience possible.
But it also offers many more functions, and most importantly, Tailwind is approved by Pinterest. So it’s not going to get banned tomorrow, and it is prepared for updates of the Pinterest system.
Pinfinite Growth
Now, I’ve waited quite a few months between purchasing Tailwind (aka taking my Pinterest traffic game seriously) and finally reinvesting (even though I’ve already spent a lot for a student without income by then) in a course that can truly make me succeed.
The thing was, I did notice my traffic improve through Tailwind, but it was going slowly. And I knew, I could be succeeding so much faster with significantly less experimenting and worrying if I just followed the advice of an expert that even works together with Pinterest! So, yeah, don’t wait as long as I did with this one ^^’
3. Your mindset
Yes, I know you’ve heard and read it a million times before, but I am going to repeat it.
Only 20 % of success is the strategy, but striking 80 % is your mindset!!!
An excellent example of that is those staggering statistics of how many lottery winners go broke. Why is that? Because they received all that money while they still were living with a poor mindset. So unsurprisingly, they lost the money and, within a few years, we’re back to living the life suitable for their mindset.
Read also: 9 Mindsets That Are Keeping You Poor
Now, if you start a business, you most likely won’t have the entrepreneurial mindset of say Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk.
And that’s ok. But because of that, you also don’t have to expect to build the next Amazon within a year.
Developing an empowering and abundant mindset and overcoming limiting beliefs takes time. And doing it without a coach will probably take a bit longer than with professional help.
However, it is very much possible to create that success mindset by journaling, using affirmations, being aware of your mindset, and consuming a ton of content catering towards a better mindset.
In fact, because the mindset is such an essential component of success, and I’ve overcome my own fair share of limiting beliefs. I wanted to create an E-Mail course where I can share with you common limiting beliefs and my thoughts and experiences on overcoming them.
It’s a 30-Day free course that will prepare you for your first successful business. Go ahead and try it out!
4. Your passion
Now, this has been a big thing that had been holding me back. You most likely heard that you should build your business around a passion of yours.
And that’s great to hear and all, but can you name a passion of yours around which you’d like to build a business?
I couldn’t. I knew I wanted to start a blog, but I didn’t really know what niche I should be in. Without any unique talents or strong passions, I settled for the next best thing: interest and joy.
And that was fine and all. I got started, which is the most essential part. And with time, I discovered what niche I really wanted to be in, developed my business, and now I am getting more and more passionate about it.
But now, I also have a much better view of how different it is to be passionate while building a business compared to “kinda enjoying it.”
Read also: 4 Things You Need To Know About Finding Your Passion
Back in the beginning, I struggled with creating content. Not only did I have issues finding topics to write about, but the writing process took me quite long and wasn’t much fun.
And today?
Even though I am not yet at the “passion level,” I am aiming for, writing posts like these are actually fun and happen
It’s a striking difference that I’ve only noticed recently. And I think that makes it very clear on how much energy, time, and effort you will put in if you have that passion. And as a result, your business will grow faster.
But don’t be discouraged if you haven’t found that passion yet. After all, I hadn’t either.
In the end, the most crucial part is to get started. The time will pass anyway, so you might as well not care how long it will take until you earn that first 100 €.
If you’d had started last week, you would already have a week’s worth of experience and skills by now and be a week closer to that profitable business of your dreams.
So what are you waiting for?
Start now!
