You have been planning on starting a business from home for a long time now, but something is holding you back.
Now you have conveniently convinced yourself that your excuses are reasonable, sensible and in-your-best interests. When in reality, you have only found an excuse that is socially expectable.
In reality you’re scared, nervous and you know there is a percentage that you might fail. So you begin to get overwhelmed and just never start. Is it better to stay safe and comfy rather than take the plunge and work towards your dream?
Let’s look at one of the big lies people tell themselves, which only holds them back from starting up a business from home.
The Lie You Tell Yourself That Stops You Starting a Business From Home
“The Competition is Just too Big For Someone Like me to Succeed”
Why do you think the market is saturated and competition is too big?
Have you been told this? Or have you just assumed it?
I agree, the level of your competition is an important factor. However, large competition should not be the reason why you don’t push forward with your business.
Do you get frightened when you look at online stores like Amazon and see the amazing level of competition and you just immediately tell yourself that you can’t compete?
You are just starting out and your business is very small? How can you possibly compete with these huge shops that have thousands of products and customer’s?
Starting a Business From Home? What You Need to Do!
I always recommend that you check out your competition and to think about the real reason why you are worried. You need to see the truth and stop creating unrealistic fear inside your head.
And even if you do find competition it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.
You have to find the right balance.
Too little competition means that nobody is interested and it will be very difficult for you to make sales from a non-profitable idea.
The key to finding the correct level of competition is to find the balance of just enough. You want a service/product that is broad enough to be profitable, but is also narrow enough too, so that you aren’t drowned by the competition.
You cannot just create a weight loss business or dog grooming business and believe that the customer’s and cash will just roll in.
For example…
The Broad Business Idea: Weight loss
The Narrowed Down Business Idea: Weight Loss for Woman over 50
The Broad Business Idea: Dog Groomers
The Narrowed Down Business Idea: Mobile Dog and Cat Groomers
Also, part of narrowing down your business idea means you can use the opportunity to market your business, really speak to your audience and create an emotional connection too.
For example…
The Narrowed Down Business Idea: Weight Loss for Woman 50+
The Marketing: “Making You Always Feel and Look Your Best”
The Narrowed Down Business Idea: Mobile Dog and Cat Groomers
The Marketing: “Keeping the Family Pet Always Looking Great on the Go”
But before you can start to broaden, narrow down or target anything, first you need to know what is too little and too much.
You need to know this so you can really pin point just the right level of competition.
Like I mentioned before it’s about getting that balance just right!
“What is Too Little Competition?”
To hardly have any competition means that there is little interest in your business idea and it’s certainly not profitable.
“What is Too Much Competition?”
To have an overload of competition means it will be harder for you to be noticed by customers and be recognised as an industry leader.
The best place to start checking your competition is Google. Go onto Google’s first page and type in the main keywords for what your business idea is.
#1 Starting a Business From Home: When a Business Idea is to Narrow
To start off with let’s look at an example of competition that is too narrow (small) to be profitable.
I’m using the keywords… “Spiritual Coach for Elderly People”
If you look through the results, you can see there is not much relevant information.
And considering the sole purpose of Google Search is to only produce relevant results, they rarely get it wrong!
FIRST ALARM!
The 1st factor that tells me this is not a profitable idea is the number of pages Google has returned, which is only 1,790,000. Google stated on their blog that back in 2018 that they indexed over a 1 Trillion website. So 1,790,000 really is a drop in the ocean and less than 1% of Google indexed content!
SECOND ALARM!
The second factor that concerns me is the lack of Adverts. Google generally explodes with adverts and businesses fiercely complete for the top spot on page 1. Only six adverts is a pretty pathetic number!
THIRD ALARM!
Lastly, and most importantly, none of the organic results are particularly relevant. Let’s look again at the results produced by Google.
The first 3 results are the main websites that majority of visitor’s will view before trying a different keyword. So we will stick with those.
Result 1 – As you can see this website is about spiritual coaching and is targeted at woman. By reading through the text I can see it has nothing to do with supporting an elderly person through their spiritual journey.
Results 2 – The next result is from WikiHow, which shows you “How to Coach Elderly Clients with Anxiety Holistically”. Not quite the spiritual coaching we were looking for, but closer than the last result.
In my experience WikiHow provides information that only scratches the surface. They give simple introductory steps that can never completely solve your problem, but only helps you towards finding a solid solution.
Result 3 – The third result is a life coaching website and has directed us to a page about getting older. Here, the author discusses psychical health, sharpening the mind and attitude but there is nothing to do with spiritually.
Now it’s time to assess what we have found using the current narrow keyword…
- The number of Google Search results are very low
- There are very few paid-for adverts
- The organic results returned are not relevant
As you have now established your business idea is not profitable enough, you have 2 choices…
- To either drop this idea completely
Or
- Broaden it slightly and complete the research process again
So now, let’s see what it looks like when your business idea is too broad. Let’s see what it looks like when you broaden your idea so much and you become overflowed with competition.
#2 Starting a Business From Home: When a Business Idea is to Broad
Instead of “Spiritual Coach for Elderly People” I have now dropped the ‘For Elderly People’ in the keywords and I’m only using the keywords ‘Spiritual Coach’.
The number of search results has more than doubled and is just under 30 million. The paid-for adverts have increased and almost double and the first page has produced a lot more relevant organic results too.
But here is the give-away that this business idea is to broad. If we check out the Google organic results we can see that it has produced better results, but not specific results.
But why not?…
Because the keywords are so vague, so are the results.
Let’s look at the first three organic results again.
All the results lead you onto pages that talk about spiritual coaches in general and provide some advice and community support.
The keyword is so broad that it has produced flaky results about anything to do with ‘Spiritual Coaches’.
Now it’s time to assess what we have found using the current broad keyword…
- The number of Google Search results is too high
- There are more paid-for adverts
- The organic results returned are still not specific enough
As you have now established your business idea is dominated by competition, you have 2 choices…
– To either drop this idea completely
Or
– To slightly narrow your keywords and complete the research process again
Now we have seen what too broad and too narrow business ideas look like, let’s look at what is just right. A great way to do this is, to head back to Google and see what Google is suggesting through their predicted text.
Google’s predicted text are keywords that have already been searched for often by it’s users. So you know they are already popular niches.
#3 Starting a Business From Home: When a Business Idea is Just Right!
Begin by entering the broader keyword again, which was “Spiritual Coach For” and see what the popular predicted text shows up.
As I am unable to take a screen shot whist the predicated text is showing. I have used my phone’s camera instead, which explains the image quality!
Unfortunately there is one result for the “Spiritual Coach” which is “Spiritual Formation Coach”. This is not what we want and another conformation that this niche is not profitable.
As I start to click back and press backspace, I can see the predicated text is starting to grow. I can see the keywords “Spiritual Healing”, so I click here to see what’s popular and also add the word ‘For’ to. So our keyword is now “Spiritual Healing For”.
There is a healthy list for different niches, who all want spiritual healing. To my surprise the first result is “Spiritual Healing for Animals”.
I’ve gone back to the Google Search to see the results of this keyword. It displays a spot-on 10,900,000 results, 9 adverts and the first 2 organic results are website that are specifically for spiritual healing of animals.
The organic results are perfectly targeted for your business idea.
Now, you have found 4 specific websites, the next task is to go ahead and check them out.
- See what they offer
- See what you could do better
- See what type of prices they charge
- See what services they offering
- Check out their social media accounts and see what the customer’s are talking about
Start to get a general idea of what the competition is all about and what is making them so successful.
Something to also remember, is when using the predicted text, the results for the keywords “Spiritual Healing Forum” also came up.
If you were thinking right now…
“I want to start a business in spiritual healing, but not with animals, Naomi.”
Then your next action would be to enter and join forums and see what people want answers too.
What type of spiritual healing do they need? What have they tried? Why do they need spiritual healing?
Forums are a amazing resource and to find out exactly how you can really gain maximum results.
Just to Recap!
When you are checking the level of competition, it’s important to always remember to check…
– That your business idea is not to broad or narrow
– The number of search results Google returns
– The number of paid for adverts
– How relevant the organic search results are
“If you don’t find what you want, then tweak your business keywords until you find the results you need. Use Google’s predicted text to see what is already popular”
Conclusion
I know that starting a business from home can be frightening. There seems to be so much to learn, everybody else is so confident and the other businesses are all doing so well. How can you possibly complete with that!?
But when you start thinking like this, the fear sets in, the self-doubts creeps in and you just drown in overwhelment.
All of these feelings are normal and natural, but what will separate you from success and failure is how much you allow these thoughts to take over.
Don’t just visualize your success inside your head, but ensure your actions are mimicking this to.
Start acting on your thoughts and building the foundations needed for success.
To start with… check out the real level of competition first!