There is little more exhilarating than going through the process of getting ready to open your own business. For most people, becoming a self-employed entrepreneur is the culmination of months, or maybe even years, of dreaming and planning.

Of course, once your business is up and running, your focus switches from getting ready to start to actually being in business. As a business owner, your mindset has to switch from what you want to do at some point in the future to what you are doing right now. New business owners typically experience a wide range of emotions, with fear being the most common of emotions during the early days of being in business.

Giving Birth to a Bouncing Baby … Business?
An excellent analogy for what new business owners go through is the process of having a child. The nine months leading up to the birth of a baby are filled with many different types of emotions — from fear, to excitement, to joy, to panic, to wanting to change your mind but realizing that is too late, and much more.

Once the baby arrives, all of the pre-childbirth emotions are still present, and are compounded with the overwhelming sense of responsibility that comes with being a parent. Along with these feelings that new parents deal with, they also have to figure out and perform all of the tasks that need to be completed in order to nurture the baby so that it will thrive and grow.

Most new parents describe their experience as being a combination of unbridled joy and euphoria, compounded with complete and total exhaustion. This bears remarkable similarity to what new business owners go through during the startup phase of business operations.

The process of getting ready to open a business is a process of preparation that by nature is going to be characterized by conflicting emotions. New business owners tend to be excited, happy, joyful, nervous, and fearful. No matter how much time you spend planning for your business to get ready, the day you open the proverbial doors, you are likely to be awestruck by the sheer responsibility of the task that you have chosen to undertake.

As a new business owner, if you don’t feel overwhelmed, you really don’t know what it is that you have gotten yourself into. The act of figuring out how to get a handle on all of the different hats that you wear as a new business owner is a necessary part of getting your feet under you so that you can move on and begin growing a successful business.

Getting Past Feeling Overwhelmed
While it is normal for new business owners to feel emotions of joy and fear, as well as having a sense of simply being overwhelmed during the month, or even longer in some cases, it is also normal to get such feelings under control and begin moving forward to start building a successful business.

New business owners tend to realize that they do have the skills, ability, desire, and drive to nurture their brand new business toward becoming a healthy and successful business. However, this realization usually comes only after a little bit of panic and self-doubt. The realization that you have the power to be successful usually only comes after you give serious thought to wondering what you have gotten yourself into!

The best proactive step that you can take to get past the feeling of being overwhelmed is to slow down long enough to take stock of what needs to be done, and set specific goals and timelines for accomplishing the tasks that are necessary to get your business off on the right track. As a new business owner, your human and financial resources are probably very limited, and so it is necessary for you to step back and figure out the most efficient way to get from being a startup operation to being a fully functioning business on the path to success.

If you left a fairly large organization to start your own business, you probably had co-workers and employees to take care of many of the tasks that you now find yourself responsible for. Many new business owners find themselves spending time doing the types of things that they have always done, or the types of things that they enjoy doing, but end up neglecting some of the task that are a necessary part of the foundation for a successful business operation.

Start by making a list of the tasks that are necessary and build a plan of attack for how you are going to take care of everything you need to do. The time that you spend prioritizing tasks and setting goals and objectives toward their timely and efficient completion is time well spent. Once you have a plan of attack, you’ll be ready to start making forward progress past being overwhelmed to being on a path for success.

Marketing Your Business Becomes a Lifestyle
Many small business owners who don’t come from sales backgrounds are shocked to find out how much time they actually spend on selling and marketing activities when they become entrepreneurs. Each new business is unique, and the best marketing methods vary greatly by location, type of business, and target audience.

However, one thing that is true for every new business is that marketing is a necessity. People have to know that you are in business before they can choose to do business with you. As a new business owner, you need to continually look for opportunities to promote your business to the right people. The key to successful marketing is to get information about your business in the hands of the right people, in the right form, at the right time.

Some types of marketing are very expensive, some are inexpensive, and some are practically free. When looking for ways to market your business successfully, you need to look at return on investment and efficiency. It might be free to stand in front of your store and hand out flyers all day, but if you spend your time engaged in such an activity instead of actually running your business, the return on the investment of your time might not be worth it.

Keep in mind that the marketing materials that you use to market your business send a very important message about your business. Having business cards, brochures, a website, and any other such materials professionally designed is generally a very good investment. If your marketing materials look amateurish, potential customers are not going to look on your business in a favorable light. You don’t necessarily need the most expensive promotional materials; you just need ones that are going to send a positive message about your business.

Personal selling is an important part of marketing your business. Depending on the business, in-person or telephone cold calls might be effective. For other businesses, active participation in business networking groups is the best way to go about cultivating relationships with prospective customers and referral sources.

Listen to Your Customers
The only way you will ever find out what your customers think about your business is to ask them. No matter what business you are in, you are in the business of customer service. It is your customers who determine the future success or failure of your business. As a new business owner, one of the best things that you can do is to really listen to your customers.

By seeking feedback from your first group of customers you will benefit in two specific ways. First, you will benefit in terms of cultivating long-term relationships with the very first people who chose to do business with you. People like to do businesses with organizations who really listen to them. By asking customers for their input from the very beginning, you are likely to build strong, long-lasting relationships with them.

Additionally, being responsive to the feedback that your customers give you is an excellent means to identify areas of your business plan that might need to be changed early on. No matter how comprehensive your business plan is at the outset of your business, it is entirely likely that the plan will need to change once your business is up and running. The sooner you make changes that need to be made, the better chances of you have of achieving early success in your business.

Moving Ahead
There is nothing more wonderful or inspiring than the entrepreneurial spirit. Getting your new business up and running is a wonderful, stressful, exhilarating, and exhausting time. By taking positive and proactive steps toward solidifying your business plans, developing an efficient action plan, and marketing to the right people from the beginning, you will be well on your way to the rewarding, long-term success of being the owner of a thriving, established business.

Even when you are feeling overwhelmed in the beginning stages of your business, you are in an enviable position. Many people go through their entire lives without pursuing their life’s ambitions. Now, that you have opened your new business, you have a truly unique opportunity to leave your mark on the world. The fact that you have gotten this far is a tribute to your dedication and success. Enjoy the journey. Don’t hyper-focus so much on the destination that you forget to enjoy the ride.

Mary Gormandy White is co-founder of Mobile Technical Institute (http://www.mobiletechwebsite.com), where she teaches seminars, classes, and makes conference presentations on public relations, marketing and a number of additional management, customer service, and communication topics. Visit http://www.dailybizsolutions.com for small business marketing, PR, and operations advice. See (http://www.dailycareerconnection.com) for professional development tips and career advice.