You’ve crunched the numbers. You’ve fine tuned your product. Every i has been dotted, every t crossed. Every conceivable thing you can think of has been taken care of. You’ve planned, you’ve budgeted, you’ve built your team, your marketing is ready to go. It’s time for you to put your business out there in the world for all to see.
Nervous? Don’t be. This is probably the hardest part of starting a business, but it doesn’t have to be a nerve-wracking experience. Especially if you’ve been following my advice. There are just some things you should keep in mind as you launch. And, as seems to be becoming custom around here, there are some old sayings to keep in the back of your head.
“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” – Captain Edward Murphy
While it’s an overly pessimistic view to take, it’s also very true. There are a million and one things that can go wrong at launch, and many of them are completely out of your control. A website outage, a supply shortage, a key co-worker suddenly coming down with a severe case of the flu, the apocalypse, anything can happen, no matter how prepared you are. All you can do is try and deal with these problems as they arise, though sometimes that may not be possible. Things might just be completely out of your hands. Don’t get discouraged. You did all you could, right?
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” – Various Military Leaders
While it’s generally not a good idea to think of your client base as the enemy (they are, after all, about to start giving you money), the core tenant of this statement holds true. You’ve tested your product or service rigorously. You are 100% convinced that it is flawless. And then as soon as there are real life people in real life environments making use of your services, problems start arising. For those with a physical product, it could be an undiscovered flaw in the design. For a software product, it could be a critical bug that was missed in beta testing. For a service, perhaps there was a skill you needed that you didn’t know about. Or a program, or any number of things. Don’t panic. This was bound to happen. Anything that can go wrong, right? No amount of pre-launch testing will ever be enough to identify every single potential flaw, and these will absolutely creep up in the real world. The good news is, once a flaw has been identified, you can then fix it, improving your product or service. Unfortunately this does involve your present clients potentially having to deal with it, but good customer service skills will see you through.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” – Han Solo
Anxiety is a perfectly natural human emotion, and it’s perfectly normal for you to be feeling it, especially on this extremely important day. The trick is to not let it run away on you. It’s so easy to fall into a trap of second guessing, worry, and full blown panic. Don’t. Stop. Breathe. Relax. You’ve worked hard for this moment, and now it’s finally upon you. If you’ve done everything you believe you should have, there should be nothing to worry about. Just take things as they come, one step at a time. You’re no good to anyone if you’re a crying mess in the corner. Be strong, stay the course, use your head, and you’ll get through, no matter what that little voice in the back of your head is telling you.
This is the day you’ve been working towards all this time. This is the day your journey on the path to maximum Personal Independent Earnings truly begins. While there are any number of things that can crop up and potentially spoil the fun, this is a day for celebration. Congratulations, you did it. Job well done.
