suitable for you.
So, this book is a process of discovery. I walk you through the steps of identifying and evaluating business opportunities.
First, we’ll find out about you:
Step One: Identify your own E-Type™—or Entrepreneur Type—so you can figure out what types of businesses best suit you. Take this exclusive E-Type test to uncover your true entrepreneurial personality and reveal which of the nine E-Types best describes your entrepreneurial style.
Step Two: Clarify your financial goals and business aspirations. What do you want to achieve? How much money do you want to make? What’s your definition of success?
Step Three: Examine your interests and abilities. Naturally, you want a business you find stimulating—and you can get a real leg up on the competition if you already have experience and expertise in your chosen field. We help you evaluate—and remember—your talents and passions to see how they relate to potential businesses.
Next, we’ll learn about businesses:
Step Four: Find out where others have found success—what works in the real world. Learn which business types are growing; you may be surprised! Learn which businesses are best for solo entrepreneurs.
Step Five: Explore the different business sectors, industries, and specific businesses. Take a close up look at some of the best businesses for startup entrepreneurs—finding out how much time and money they take, what their outlook for success is, and what kind of lifestyle they afford you. Get hundreds of ideas for other businesses.
Next, choose a path for your own success:
Step Six: Choose a niche. Increase your chance of success by zeroing in on a specific target. Find out how you can segment your customer base so that you can immediately get a jump on the competition.
Step Seven: Rate your business opportunities. By the end of this book, you may have identified a number of realistic concepts for your business. We help you choose among them—and focus in on your top choice—through a rating process.
Finally . . . as an added bonus, once you’ve identified your business concept, this book helps you get going. I’ll provide you direction on the first steps to take to launch your business and give you strategies for increasing your chance of success. Then I’ll hand you off to my companion book, Six-Week Start-Up: A step-by-step program for starting your business, making money, and achieving your goals, where you’ll go through the process of getting your business up and running.
By following the process created in this book, you’ll discover things you didn’t know before—about yourself, your interests, and your capabilities—and about businesses: the multitude of choices out there and how to start evaluating them on your own.
So if you’ve been saying “Someday, I’d like to have my own business,” this book is for you. I hope I can help you make “someday” come much sooner, as you discover the right business—the successful business—for you!
step 1
Discover your E-Type™
discover your E-Type
Most business books and experts assert that there’s just one kind of person who can be a successful entrepreneur. To be an entrepreneur, they’ll tell you, you have to be:
It’s a great list, but it’s just not true.
Look around: You may know someone who’s self-employed, making lots of money, yet hates risk so much he won’t climb a ladder, or is painfully shy, or sleeps ’til noon.
Clearly, that person violates at least one of the supposedly necessary requirements to be a successful entrepreneur, yet he’s doing well. Why? Because he’s found a type of business that suits him, that’s a good fit for his personality and work habits.
Can you, too, be a successful entrepreneur even if you don’t fit the “normal” criteria? Absolutely!
The key is finding the right business for you—particularly the right kind of business for your “entrepreneurial type,” or E-Type.™
What’s your E-Type?
People have different personalities and preferences, attitudes and abilities. These shape the way each one of us works best.
When it comes to finding a job, we understand this. We know that different careers suit different people. And if we haven’t succeeded in one career, we often know it’s because we haven’t found the right “fit” yet.
So, when we’re trying to figure out which job to apply for, or which career path to pursue, we do some self-examination. There are a variety of personality or career-aptitude tests we can take in school, career counseling centers, or on our jobs. Yet, when it comes to starting a business, we somehow think that only one kind of person can succeed.
But there are thousands of different kinds of businesses. These various businesses require different skill sets, different interests, different personality types, different working styles.
Defining your E-Type is the first step in helping you find the right business opportunity for you. By understanding what type of entrepreneur you are—not what traits should be possessed by some hypothetical entrepreneur—you have a much better grasp of the types of businesses in which you can succeed. As importantly, you have a better sense of which kinds of businesses to avoid.
The good news? With so many different businesses to choose from, and businesses suited to all different E-Types, you’re certain to find a business that’s right for you.
How does knowing your E-Type help?
When someone first considers going into business for themselves, they typically start by considering their interests. Of course, you want to have a business that interests you, but your interests are just a starting point.
The question is not only what you like to do, but how you like to—and how you’re suited to—do it. Your E-Type helps define the
