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Starting a business is tough. Starting it without a strong support network in place? Even harder.

It’s natural to feel that friends and family are supposed to be our biggest supporters – the ones believing in us when nobody else will. That they should back us up on whatever we set our minds and hearts to, because they love and care for us. Unfortunately, with any major life change, this isn’t always the case.

It can be incredibly demoralizing when we reveal our entrepreneurial intentions to those closest to us, and they ultimately shut us down. For many aspiring entrepreneurs, it can cause them to withdrawal from their idea completely, shelving it off into the back of their minds forever.

For your sake and for your family’s sake, do not let that be the case.

This painful hardship can be overcome, and in fact, you may even be able to turn it into an advantage.

Let’s look at what to do when your friends or family do not support your business.

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The world has changed a lot in the last 10 years.

Technology has evolved, and so has the way that we spend our time. For the majority of people today, the way we spend our day-to-day lives (at least, outside of work) is quite a bit different than they were in the very recent past.

As our daily habits and actions change, so has the way we purchase products and services.

Companies who have been in business for decades or longer are falling left and right, primarily for one core reason:

They fail to adapt with the changing world.

10 years ago, it was possible to make a killing online with only a simple WordPress blog. If your content was good enough, people would take the time to stay updated and read each and every post you published, almost religiously.

If your goal is to achieve massive levels of success online, unfortunately this is no longer possible for most people.

If you want to really form a connection with people, you have to go beyond your own site – publishing content for many platforms, rather than just one.

Let’s look over this a little bit more deeply, and discuss some strategies you can utilize to build a larger, more engaged audience far more easily creating a strategy that will still be relevant throughout the 2020’s.

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It may not have seemed obvious at first, but entrepreneurship is not always as glamorous as it is made out to be.

It can be painfully challenging. More so than even a terrible job, with a terrible boss, and a terrible work environment.

Entrepreneurship can be cruel and heartless, and cripple even the most confident and ambitious people to a shell of what they once were.

One of the hardest things about it all? How lonely it can seem when you’re in this dark, uncomfortable place.

I know what this is like, because there have been times when I have felt this way myself. I know how it feels when you are no longer enjoying your business. In fact, I think most entrepreneurs – even those that achieve massive levels of success, despise their companies at one point or another.

And you know what? That’s okay.

What’s not okay however, is remaining in a state of misery forever.

You started your company for a reason, and it takes a certain type of person to make that sort of jump.  In this article, I want to give you permission to feel these negative emotions. Then, I want to help you lay out a road map to help you develop the best course of action heading forward.

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We live in a beautiful time for entrepreneurship.

The internet has leveled the playing field, and makes it easy for just about anyone to compete in a global marketplace, even without a very large budget. It is even possible to start an online business with no money whatsoever!

However, although it’s possible to start an online business for free, it certainly becomes much easier if you have a little bit of money to work with.

I was one of those people that started from nearly nothing – I remember having to beg my grandmother for $20 to buy web hosting and a domain name. I was only 14 at the time, and had no real income source to work with.

Today, my brands have sold hundreds of thousands of units, and I’ve worked with entrepreneurs around the globe to help them achieve a similar level of success.

Do not let your lack of money stop you from pursuing entrepreneurship – I promise you that it can be done without a large budget. However, if you do, there’s certainly opportunities to build success more quickly.

In this article, I will recommend my best purchases based on your starting budget. This article will be aimed towards people who want to start online businesses – either eCommerce shops (selling physical or digital goods to customers), affiliate marketers, or other content-based entrepreneurs (such as bloggers, YouTubers, and podcasters.)

Let’s get into it!

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Blogging may be the single most effective way to market a small business, yet a surprisingly large number of people fail to take it seriously.

It’s cheap to start, and cheap to scale. It works in almost every industry. It generates sales in the short-term, and is an incredible brand-building tool in the long-term.

When it’s pulled off correctly, it can not only completely transform entire companies, but it can make it incredibly difficult for anyone else to even compete.

The potential here can not be overstated. My first ever hire was a content writer. There’s a reason blogging is at the core of all my companies, (including my eCommerce brands which have gone on to do millions in sales.)

The importance of blogging cannot be understated. In this article, I am going to make the case why it’s time for you to start a blog, and showcase all of the incredible benefits that blogging can offer your small business. Some of these will not be obvious, and I urge you to continue reading with an open mind – taking examples and imagining how they will fit in with your own business, and your existing marketing strategy.

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Every so often, marketers are given access to an advertising platform that offers an incredibly good return.

Typically, these platforms are new, unproven, and businesses are weary about jumping on board. Because of this, they tend to offer an unusually high return for marketers that able to figure out how to utilize them, capitalizing on the inbalance of supply and demand.

Influencer marketing right now is one of these powerful, undervalued advertising channels that even now in 2019, is still underutilized and underappreciated.

Although it is not considered anything new (celebrity endorsements have been utilized in advertising for ages),  we’ve never been at a point where influencer marketing was so accessible to even the smallest of brands – it doesn’t have to cost a single dollar for you to start.

In this article, I intend to highlight some of the most compelling reasons you should begin your first influencer marketing campaign right now, or scale it up further if you’re already utilizing influencer marketing to grow your business. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling a tangible or intangible product – influencer marketing can benefit your company and help you grow in the coming months.

Let’s look at some of these reasons in detail.

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