While ambition is important, it is not always enough to move you forward. Maintaining your motivation and drive during your transition from employee to entrepreneur is crucial.

It’s easy to veer off course and get discouraged during this transitional phase. 

Here are 7 tips you can start taking immediately while you’re still at your day job that will help you start your business while working fulltime.

First off, ask how badly you want it.

Starting a business is no easy feat and starting a business while working full-time isn’t any easier.

It will be difficult, it will strain your relationships, and you'll continually be forced to make tough decisions. In fact, if starting a business while working a full-time job is ever easy, you're not trying hard enough.

Growing a side business will be an incredibly challenging experience. It should be.

You need a clear set of ground rules in order to get started with your side hustle.

Nothing worth having in life ever comes easy. Accept that and you are well on your way to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

You need to be ready to make meaningful sacrifices in order to turn your dream into a profitable business. Establishing a successful side business requires time, energy and devotion.

The more time you can free up, the quicker you'll be able to start seeing results.

Cut down on the easiest areas that have the least amount of friction first.

This will vary for everyone, but it's probably time spent watching TV, playing video games, or surfing Facebook and Instagram.

The number of hours you sleep each night is often the first thing to get chopped down a bit.

That's ok (and encouraged) only if you’re still getting enough sleep to maintain functionality.

Be selfish and give your passion project the best part of your day.

All of us have hobbies like cooking, gardening, yoga, reading, dancing, etc. But I can’t think of anyone who sets goals with their hobbies, targets deadlines and tries to rigorously adhere to them. 

To turn your idea into a thriving business, you need to set GOALS for your start-up and hold yourself accountable to them. 

Plan out your next steps, with dates and specifics as best you can. 

Although one’s natural instinct might be to save aggressively in preparation for the time when you are full-time on your start-up and you have a much lower income.

Certainly, many financial experts will tell you to do that. I think you should take any extra money you have and invest it in your side business but wisely.

Let me be very clear, I’m not saying you should go withdraw all your savings at throw it at your new side hustle and hope that it will generate success but certainly spending money on some key areas such as branding will certainly help in getting attention for your product or service which will reap rewards in the long run.

Use the fact that you still have a job as fuel to network like crazy. Having a job is great because you interact regularly with other employees, customers, vendors, even competitors.

Network inside the company as well as outside. Try to meet people who can be potential employees, potential customers, potential contractors, potential advisors and mentors, and potential investors.

These connections are all potentially valuable. Do not overlook the idea of finding mentors now, before you need them.

Those could be formal relationships, or they could simply be people you will call when you have a question that they can answer.

Focus. The point here is that you need to be doing what you do best.

While it would be great if you could code your own website to test out your digital service idea, if you don't already command a knowledge of developing, you're looking at a few months of dedicated learning time just to get to the point where you'll be able to understand the basics.

I'm a huge advocate of utilizing skilled freelancers to help speed up and streamline my business processes. Websites UpWork and Fiverr have become integral (and affordable) resources for me.

 

There will be competitors in any industry. And often you’ll find that there will always be someone willing to charge much less than you within that industry.

So how do you pull in those high ticket clients? Get over the idea of trying to compete on price, right now.

It’s not worth racing other people to the bottom.

By taking the time to find a profitable niche for your business, you're actively seeking out an industry and type of client that values quality.

When you're in a space that competes on quality, you'll completely change the ways in which you sell your services. You'll be competing on value, not price. Think quality, not quantity.

Once you've made yourself invaluable within your niche, you'll have a platform by which you can expand your business in any direction you'd like in the future.

Rather than stressing about how you're going to get from step 0 to 100, take freelancing one small step at a time. Progress begets more progress with your side business.

7. Identify Your Target Clients.

Just as important as finding a profitable niche, is attracting the right types of clients.

As you're just starting your business, it's fine to take a bit more of a shotgun approach to landing a few clients.

Make some initial assumptions about who you want to work with, target them first, and after working with a few of them, you'll develop a very clear sense of whether or not you want to continue pursuing similar clients, from there you can then start to build your reputation within your niche.

Refining your clients is always difficult at first as it means turning away a lot of business.

However, the process of narrowing in on your target clients that you work well with, will help you achieve much better results in the long run. Once you have a few clients who are willing to advocate for you, the momentum will really pick up.

Your goal is to build your authority and eventually be seen as the go-to resource for a specific type of client. By appealing to a well-selected niche, your target clients will have a very quick path to deciding that you're the best person to help them with their projects.

But what if all you want is to quietly sit behind your laptop, not meeting people in person, don't want to worry about buying inventory and having big overheads, not selling other people's product or creating a product of your own, what then?

All you need is your laptop an internet connection and you can literally get started today!