Afraid to Start a Business After 50? Don't Be - You've Already Done It!

I was talking with my childhood friend Dickie recently and during our chat he asked if I remembered the time when we got up the courage to ring the doorbell of our neighborhood's "old lady" to ask her if we could cut her grass.

I sure do remember this - probably one of my first successful 'selling efforts" as a kid.

I was a somewhat shy kid but I also wanted things that required more money than my $1 per week allowance provided. My motivation to fill up my piggy bank helped me overcome my hesitancy to "sell myself". But, I did and chances are very good that you did too.

Your income source could have been babysitting, lawn mowing or weed pulling. Every kid on my block had some income-producing gig going.

In my case, my casual lawn mowing starting at age 9 burgeoned into a $2000 income the summer I turned 11 thanks to the aggressive referral of me and my Little League buddies by my grandmother to the other ladies in her bridge league.

If your life was like mine back in the 50's and early 60's, you too had experience as a "kid entrerpreneur" where you figured out a way to make some money, pursued "prospects" made a "sales pitch" and landed the work.

So, when you consider the idea of becoming an adult entrepreneur, you should draw confidence from the fact that you've "been there, done that" already.

Now, you may say to me: "But Jeff, the risk is so much more as an adult".

This is not really true. The majority of our business start-up clients at Bizstarters successfully open for business for a cost well under $10,000. And since we show the vast majority of them how to build a substantial business working from home, they are able to run their businesses for less than $500 per month.

Let me give you an example of modern day entrepreneurial economics.

I have written several books, which I distribute not as printed and bound pages, but as electronic files that can be copied by the customer from our website to their computer.

These documents are called "ebooks" and they offer a very attractive profit factor. Since there is no physical printing involved, my cost to produce an ebook is just my time investment, around 20 hours per book. I incur no shipping or printing cost because the final product is digital. Because of the highly useful information I include, I am able to charge $39-$49 per ebook, all of which becomes profit! Now, it does take some imagination to successfully promote an ebook, but just think about this - sell 500 at $49 each and  you earn almost $2500 in no time!

So, if you feel a strong pull from the idea of becoming your own boss in the next phase of life, don't be afraid to move ahead - Remember, you've already lead the entrepreneurial life at least once before!

Till we talk again...
Jeff Williams