How to deal with fears when starting a gifting business?

Some women may find it hard to consider starting a gift and packaging business, especially if they are new to business or are leaving a steady career or job. This fear, though, can be a fantastic motivator when it comes to accomplishing it alone.

You must develop the ability to embrace fear and discomfort if you want to run a successful gifting business. Finding personnel with good experience in this industry is crucial for the customers. Therefore, you must learn the gifting business from an expert before getting into it.

Also, prepare yourself to become comfortable taking chances and experimenting with new things. There will be times when you need to break the norm to follow your gut.

It’s important to monitor everything because, when you do, you’ll feel motivated and dedicated to your dream life. You can quickly make your fear a friend by concentrating on just a few things.

 

If the above lines scare you, then you must read the blog till the end to start your gifting business at peace.

Common Fears Before Starting Gifting Business

Managing Funds

When starting a new business, managing finances is the first concern that enters our minds. Since we consistently spend more than we estimate in every business, we begin to worry about the costs. But you do not need to panic about the costs if you want to start a gifting business, as entering this business does not require a lot of investment. You can launch your business with a modest investment right away. Your capacity to produce more can be increased in future as your company expands, and at that point, you will be able to invest more.

Space Occupancy

It frequently occurs that women are reluctant to start gifting businesses. They believe they require a large space for this work, so they’ll need huge funds and separate office space, which is false. When it comes to gifting and packaging, you don’t need a lot of space. It can be started right in your home, in a smaller space.

Dealing with Customers

“Customers have the unstoppable ability to build or break your company.” This is one of the biggest fears in creating a statement. Initially, you might feel conscious talking to clients, unable to understand their requirements and negotiations won’t be easy resulting in less sales or less profits.

To start with, you must skillfully create value for your products. If you show the customers how the product can be valuable to them, they will buy it at any cost. Then, you can respond to their questions and explain to them how your product is superior to competitors in terms of price, quality, etc. However, the more you will involve yourself, you will get an idea of how to deal with customers in the gifting business.

Also, you must have someone as a mentor from the industry who can help with the insights you would need to kick-start your earnings from the gift and packaging business.

 

Performing Marketing Activities

As new to the business, it is natural to not have a team or even personnel for marketing and promotions. Therefore, the fear of not reaching to right customers is natural.

Well, there are some cashless applied marketing activities which you can perform from Day 1 like, 

- Promote on social media

- Collaborate with other businesses (like wedding planners, bakeries, 

- Connect with people in your locality

- Give offers or discounts

- Promoting on WhatsApp or Telegram

Once you get a hold of your business, you can set up a website, hire a marketing team and expand your business even more.

Lack of family support

Unfortunately, there are still people who do not feel comfortable allowing their girls to work. Women entrepreneurs who lack a strong support system find it more difficult to start their businesses. We understand that sometimes it becomes difficult even to tell them about the business idea.

 

However, several aspirant women entirely dropped their ideas as a result of this. But you shouldn’t let that stop you from launching your own gifting business. It’s quite acceptable that your family and friends do not share your perspective on certain issues. As a result, you should not waste time attempting to persuade people that you are correct. Instead, help them understand the reasons behind your decisions. Give some time to yourself and the business to explain to your family why you chose to start a gifting business. 

Or, if you want to tell them about the benefits you can mention a few like, 

- Gifting is a home-based business idea

- Less investment is required

- Women-dominated industry

- High return on investments

- Non-replaceable by AI

- Encourages your creative side 

 

If you want to feel affected by not getting a family response, use it as motivation to work even harder. 

For instance, you can take the example of Shalini Beriwal. She started her career without the support of her family, and now her business, Mapp India, is reaching significant heights.

Make connections and follow online users who can provide you with the support and inspiration you require. Recreate your network of people who support you and your gifting business.

Market Competition

Instead of being afraid of your competitors, make them your partners. If you know that someone can be a threat to your business in the coming future, you must look for ways to have a partnership with them. You will be able to take advantage of their goodwill to sell your products to the customers. 

Otherwise, just stay alert and have a sharp watch on competitors around you.

The best way to deal with the competition is to be innovative in the industry. Take time to research your competitors and their work. Focus on what they all do which is similar and find innovative ways to offer more value for the client.

When you’re doing research into your competitors, take a look at the quality of materials that they use. If you want to stand out, you need to think not about how you can produce cheaper packaging, but rather about how you can produce better packaging. Quality is quite imperative in this industry as nobody would want to gift anything of low quality. Select high-quality materials, and look for ways you can improve upon the design to attract more customers.

Less or no network

Making your company accessible on all social media platforms will help you overcome the fear associated with starting a business with zero connections. Again, applied marketing activities can help you improve your network.

Collaborate with relevant people in the industry and keep sharing about your business (online and offline). Most importantly, start gifting your relative with your business label to have a brand impression for a longer time.

About:

Shalini Beriwal is the founder of Mapp India. Through her academy, she trains individuals to launch their own businesses in the gift-packaging sector. She is a professional coach and teaches various packaging skills that people can use to advance their careers in the gift packaging sector. In addition to this, Shalini Beriwal is a business consultant who mentors female entrepreneurs so they can succeed in their respective fields.