Create Your Extraordinary Life - Rebel Finance School

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in finance but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Alan Donegan, Co-Founder of Rebel Finance School, located in Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

I started Rebel Business School 10 years ago to change the way entrepreneurship is taught. I have since started Rebel Finance School to do the same for finances! We help people trying to sort out their finances or start a business.

Tell us about yourself

My dad went bankrupt for £3.6M and gambled away the family home. I spent a decade arguing in court to keep a roof over my Mum's head. This experience showed me that entrepreneurship can be an amazing tool but can also cause huge damage to people's finances and lives. I never wanted anyone else to go through this experience, so I started to teach about what happened and discover ways to start businesses without debt.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

We have been on a journey over the last decade, but the highlights have been winning a Queen's Award for Enterprise, seeing the business expand to 7 countries, helping victims of the conflict in Colombia to start a business, and then having 2500 people on our last finance course! All of that said, the thing I am most proud of is that no one has ever paid to come to one of our courses ever before.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

Sales was the biggest thing I had to learn and overcome starting my business. It took me a long time to overcome my fear of cold calling and my shyness and to find the desire and energy to sell my business and find customers to pay for the courses so we could give them away.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

1. Start with sales, not debt. Most people borrow money to get the cash to be able to make something and then sell it. I believe the opposite is the most successful way to start a business. Figure out the product or service and before you have built it, sell it. That then creates the cash to launch.
2. Focus on sales. Most people avoid sales by building a website or building Instagram followers and put off the real income generation work of finding and serving customers.
3. The extraordinary belongs to those that create it. If you want to build something extraordinary, have extraordinary finances or create the life of your dreams, it is down to you. No one will hand it to you; you have to get out there and build it!

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.alandonegan.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088059816426
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedonegans/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlanDonegan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alandonegan/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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