It's perfectly normal to have big dreams when starting a business of your own. Having this long term vision provides both direction and ambition along the way. To really achieve though, you've got to start somewhere and make steady progress-it would just be way too easy to skip from startup right to industry leader, right?

The surest way to ensuring profitable growth is to target and earn the trust of your niche. Start small, grow later.

Define your niche.

With any entrepreneurial venture, one of the first things you must do is to define your niche. Granted, you'll probably have a handful of ideas that you're working with already-the key is to take the best one and narrow it down as far as possible while still allowing yourself a big enough audience to meet your financial targets. Start small, grow later.

Recognize the pitfalls associated with operating a huge business.

Big businesses go after very large segments of the consumer market. After all, this is part of why they've had to become so big in the first place-in order to run the maximum possible number of customers through their profit funnel. And really, when it's all said and done, think about how difficult it is to gain market share and continue to grow when you've already tapped out so many possible markets. There's nothing wrong with the way this works, but as an entrepreneur, you've also got to remember that you're working with limited resources. Start small, grow later.

Embrace being the little guy-it has a major advantage.

Fortunately, even as a small business, you can be incredibly successful within a very small segment of your market. It doesn't take millions of customers to create millions in profit. Instead, the old adage of quality over quantity reigns true. Entrepreneurs starting small have the major advantage of really being able to be in touch with their customer base. At your niche level, it's much easier to build patronage. Start small, grow later.

It's your niche...you own it!

By targeting a niche, you're defining more than just your "audience." You're also defining the range of your expertise, which is actually major relief. Many would choose to think of this as being a very restrictive and limiting mindset to have. But by saying you're only going to specialize in one specific area, you'll be able to truly own that niche instead of running in circles trying to be everything to everyone. Once you've mastered your base niche, then it's time to conquer the next niche. Start small, grow later.

Define, target, appreciate, and master your niche before reaching out to the next phase in business. Starting small will allow you to grow beyond your wildest dreams later!