Anyone can become an entrepreneur. Did you know that people aged 55-64 are twice as likely to start a business as Millennials? It’s true.
There is no age limit for starting a business. If you are over 50 like me, you can also become a seniorpreneur. Sure, I started in my 40s, but I’ve been making my living online for so long that I’m pretty darn close to seniority!
And thanks to the Internet, there are hardly any financial hurdles. You don’t need a lot of money to start and grow an internet business.
In today’s blog post, I’m going to talk a little bit about why you might want to try, the commitment required, and what happens if you fail. (It’s not as bad as you think, I’ve failed a lot over the years!)
Table of Contents
First, think about “why” you want to become a seniorpreneur
When it comes to being a seniorpeneur, the first thing to consider is why you want to do it in the first place.
Once you have a why it can help you outline the tasks you need to get done. But it can also push you to strategize to achieve your goals. Having a why keeps you grounded and motivated.
It’s your compass that drives you to want what you want and underscores your motivation. Knowing you’re why gives you something to look to whenever you’re struggling so you can get through it.
Some people feel that their reason gives them a purpose. As you get older, your purpose in life changes. If you have children, they may already be grown – so the job you may have worked to support them no longer gives you the same level of motivation.
When you retire, you can lose your purpose too. Starting your own business as a marketer can give you a new direction or allow you to continue having a purpose in life.
It gives you a reason to strive again for something you want. If you’re working in your golden years, having a reason for doing so can be beneficial for your health and cognitive functioning.
Some entrepreneurs starting out later in life have a reason they want this they want to keep their minds sharp. Studies have shown that people in their early 50s benefit from taking up a new hobby or learning something because it keeps the brain’s processing skills fast and clear.
Keeping busy can help keep the mind sharp by boosting memory as well. While some people want to become an entrepreneur to have a purpose or to stay employed, for others it is a way to make money.
Many new entrepreneurs start a business because they want to supplement their income. Or they find that their standard of living is no longer the same after retirement because they want to be careful with their old-age provision.
You might want to do this because you want to travel. When you work online, you can take the office anywhere. You can work whenever and wherever you want as long as you have an internet connection.
There are many seniors who choose this business to leave a legacy. They want to build a business that they can pass on. Or they want to create a financial cushion for their loved ones for the time after their death.
Avoiding the isolation that can come with old age is another reason some seniors turn to entrepreneurial ventures. You will often be in contact with other people – even if your business is entirely online.
This includes colleagues with whom you network to form joint ventures, affiliates, clients, and customers. There is a lot of networking and many of these interactions lead to some offline meetups and events.
Be ready to commit to your dream
Becoming an entrepreneur is not something that will happen with minimal commitment or dedication. You will have to take the necessary steps to transform it into your reality.
You can start by asking yourself what your ideal online career would look like. This is something that keeps some people from even getting started. They didn’t take the time to imagine what an online career would be like or mean for them.
Help yourself picture it by making a list of all the things you want in life and how your online career can help you achieve those goals. Create a career map outlining all the steps it takes to start a business and make it run smoothly.
Break these steps down into goals you need to achieve on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Create a motivational board to help you stay committed. Use this chalkboard to display pictures of what your life will be like when you achieve your dream.
Use your experience and skills to get involved. You already have a lot of knowledge in many different areas of life – and maybe also in your current or previous job. Make that work for you.
Ask yourself what you enjoy or what you could spend hours doing — and it can be something that helps you stay engaged. Get it moving. If necessary, seek knowledge by studying books on economics or mindset, taking courses, or finding a mentor.
All of these can encourage you to get involved. You need to determine how much you are willing to invest in your online career. Many people don’t realize that running an online business takes time.
It’s not something you can just do when you feel like it. When you become an entrepreneur, it is true that you are the boss and you can choose your own schedule.
But the boss also has to show up constantly. This is one of the most important things in building an online career. You must be committed, which simply means dedicated to a cause, and you must be consistent in your dealings with the company.
You can’t work at it, then let it sit for weeks or months, doing nothing and still expecting success. If you’re not there, the audience you wanted to cultivate will leave.
They want answers and they want help. In order to engage a niche audience, you need to have a regular online presence. The same applies to the care of your customers. You can’t build a customer base and then not show up to serve them.
Go into it without excuses
A daredevil entrepreneur doesn’t find excuses to hold him or her back. They don’t let the excitement of being the boss override the truth that they have to get the job done. They set the hours they have to work and then they show up for duty.
They do the hard things, and when they succeed, it’s because they deserve every part of that success. Through their own efforts, they have managed to make their dreams come true.
But some people are not like that. They don’t set hours and stick to them. They work when they feel like it. When they emerge, they are easily distracted by whatever is on the horizon.
They won’t try hard, but they expect success. When their business fails, they have a list of reasons why. None of those reasons are pointing fingers back at them.
It points to all the other things or people that “cause” them to fail. These people have an excuse for everything. When they don’t complete a task, they say the time just wasn’t available.
They won’t look at their own actions and acknowledge that the time was there, but they just didn’t handle it right. If they pay for a course but don’t complete it, even if it could benefit their business, they will come up with a long list of excuses.
The teaching method was wrong for them – the course was too hard or the teacher wasn’t good enough. Their laptop stopped working and they couldn’t log into the course. They will say they wanted to work in the shop, but then something came up at home.
The dog wanted to go for a walk. They had to clean the house. The lawn had to be mowed and they had to take care of it instead of working. You can tell yourself you’re working and not let all the little things nagging you talk you into quitting.
You have to learn to set limits for the sake of your business – including for yourself. But these people, these failed daredevils, will have dozens of reasons why they didn’t work at their business that day.
They will tell themselves that it was because they were too busy offline. They complain about being tired or not being able to concentrate, so they even put off trying. If you want water from a faucet, you have to turn it on to get the water flowing.
It’s the same with every business. You must come if you want to see results. You gotta turn on that faucet. These people weren’t trying to find the answer or to find someone who could help them with their questions.
They just stopped trying and then followed their failure with an excuse. The definition of apology is “an attempt to mitigate guilt.” If you don’t work, it’s your fault.
If you don’t try, it’s your fault. Stop apologizing. Excuses temporarily make you feel good — but in the end, you still have to deal with the consequences of not doing what you should have done, not correcting a mistake and not showing up and working on your business.
You need to examine your excuses. Only you know if that excuse is real or something you fabricated. True entrepreneurs not only celebrate their successes, they also own up to their shortcomings.
Be okay with a temporary outage and long-term flexibility
You must realize that every person on the planet has experienced failures and setbacks. No one has ever built a business that was trouble-free or error-free.
Still, people assume that problems, mistakes, and everything in between that led to setbacks or failure are permanent problems. It doesn’t. It is only permanent if you allow it to be.
Use your temporary failures to propel you to success and stop being afraid of something that happens to everyone. You could be so excited about your online business.
They have prepared everything and simply know that this start will be a complete success. You can visualize the fame – the success, the money, the praise from family and friends – all of it.
Then the unexpected happens. That start, which you may have invested so much time and effort in, flops. Maybe it’s a minor flop. Or maybe it’s the flop you’re afraid the world will hear.
It makes you cringe just thinking about it. You want to crawl away and start beating yourself up. Maybe your great idea didn’t turn out so great after all. That can be discouraging.
But before you give up in your mind forever, take a deep breath. Don’t let temporary downtime be the final moment that defines you or your business. Study this error instead.
You now know what didn’t work. This will save you time in the future. Maybe you set the price too high. Maybe you were trying to sell the wrong thing and there just wasn’t a market for it. Whatever the reason, the temporary outage shows you a new way of NOT doing things. Let this learning moment catapult you forward. One of the most important things you can do to be successful is learning to adapt by leveraging long-term flexibility for your business.
Be flexible with your schedule. So what if you can’t work in the morning? work nights. So what happens when something happens outside of your control and throws your schedule off balance? Adapt and be on your way again!
Have the same acceptance of flexibility in your niche choices as well. So what if a niche doesn’t work? Jump into another. branch out Have multiple niches if you like.
Close one and start over if you don’t like it. If your business model hasn’t delivered the success you hoped for, change it. To adjust. That kind of flexibility is a benefit of an online marketing career.
It’s not something to get overwhelmed about. As an online marketing entrepreneur, you have more freedom and the ability to push your own boundaries whenever you want.
When I first started online, I sold short reports in the form of a .txt file. Then I went into printed books. Next, I tried the software, then ebooks, membership sites, affiliate marketing, and even blog design and management. The point is that each niche offers multiple ways to win. You just have to try them to know what works best for you.
brings wins, keep them in your repertoire, and add another one. After a few years, you’ll likely have a handful of steady earners that you enjoy. You will become a successful seniorpreneur!
To Your Success!
