Entrepreneurship | BizSieve.com

Factors to Consider When Thinking About Starting a Business

Starting up you own business is often seen as a way of achieving a very comfortable working environment and making a lot more money than if you stay working for someone else. All of this is very often true, and a lot of people do make a lot of money from their own businesses.

There are also a number of advantages, from being your own boss and setting your own working hours to longer holidays, picking the jobs and contracts or type of work that you want to do, (rather than being told), building relationships with your customers and your staff and the satisfaction of building something that contributes to your community and provides for your family. These are all great advantages and all possible for anyone who does start their own business. However, a lot of people start out with rose tinted glasses and don’t weigh up the other side of the coin – how risky it can be going out on your own and what a massive decision it is to leave a career and work for yourself. Being your own boss also means the buck stops with you and there is no safety net.

Entering startup
Image by dierken / Flickr

If you are thinking about making the leap, here are some of the questions you should ask yourself first:

1. Can You Afford the Risk You Will Be Taking?

Starting your own business is a lot easier when you are younger and don’t have so many dependents. If you’ve got kids and a mortgage, outstanding debts and not much leeway financially, then you should think long and hard about starting your own business. You must weigh up what would happen if the business was to fail and how such a failure would affect you financially. Then work out how it would affect your family if it failed. Additionally it is necessary to weigh up how long your family could cope with a smaller income (or none at all) that would inevitably come with the first few months of starting your business.

2. Have You Got A Financial Safety Net?

If you have a family and people that depend on you for your income then the only way to start a business safely is with a financial safety net in place just in case things don’t work out as well as you hope they will. A financial safety net could be anything from a large amount of untouchable savings to stocks and shares to a family home that is fully paid off. Make certain that your family home and savings are fully protected from any potential failure of your business (talk to an accountant about this) and that you have something set aside should everything go wrong.

3. Have You Budgeted Enough Money for Your New Start Up?

However much you have budgeted for your new venture, it probably wont be enough. There are always costs that people forget about or underestimate so it is essential to have a good business plan and then get a financial expert to look over that business plan and critique it. Think about the startup costs of everything from leasing an office to buying furniture and stationery, computer equipment and setting up utilities. Then there will be website hosting, website design, SEO, copywriting as well as the cost of creating business brochures and cards and other forms of advertising. Once you’ve thought about all that you need to consider how much to pay yourself (and other staff) as well as the cost of business rates and other expenses. Lastly, there will be the costs of your lawyer and your accountant, both necessary when starting a business.

4. Can You Commit the Time to a Business Start-Up?

Again, if you have a family or a busy social life, are you willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make your business work? Almost certainly in the first year or two you will have less time available to spend with your family or to socialize with friends. If you don’t feel you will be able to commit nearly all of your time to the business and will be able to drop everything when an emergency, or big client, comes along, then starting your own business might not be for you. Similarly, make sure your family is ok with your decision too, as this will affect them as much as it does you.

About the Author: Esther is a business blogger and writer. She blogs every week about business and finance issues covering everything from business loans to credit cards and from small business marketing to SEO. She also blogs about consumer finance and short term loans for a payday loans uk blog.

How to Handle Failure In Small Business

When a person starts their own small business, their biggest fear is usually that of failure. The fear of business failure isn’t totally unfounded, after all, there are a great many small businesses which fold within their first few years of starting up. By learning about the mistakes that most small businesses make, you can learn exactly how to avoid or deal with these issues before you find yourself faced with a failed business plan.

small business failure — *Image by Dagny Mol / Flickr*

Your Plan

Before you even start, you need to make a list of goals you’d like to achieve, as well as plans on how you’re going to achieve them. Short term goals are just as important as long term ones because it’s the short term goals that are going to get your where you need to go. If something doesn’t go according to your plans, or one of your goals starts looking like it may have to be chalked up as a failure, don’t freak out. Part of being successful is the ability to work with what you’ve got on the fly.

Money Matters

When it comes to money, it’s obviously an area that requires a lot of attention, care and planning. If money isn’t your strong suit, your first move should be to find an accountant who can help you with this aspect of owning a business. It’s important that you consider money as your first priority in business, as you’re not going to get far with a product that has limited demand or by setting your selling points too low. If you’re finding that you’re simply unable to turn a profit, you either have to change your supplies in order to lower expenses to your company or diversify and find something that will turn a profit. Small businesses often have a hard time securing loans because of their non-existent credit, which is exactly why business credit cards are becoming a popular choice for smaller businesses to establish their credit.

Assume Your Role As The Boss

Let’s face it, the guy in charge is very rarely liked by everyone. If you’re a people pleaser, you may want to reconsider your position as the head honcho. You’re going to come up against clients and employees, at least once in a while, and you’re going to have to be able to work through your differences with a clear head. In any industry, you’ll find it takes all kinds to make a business run, so be ready to handle all kinds of different personalities. Stick to your guns when you need to, bend when you can.

About the Author: This guest post is from Allison with BusinessCreditCards.com.

Unique Business Plans: Your First Line of Defense

While startups are making a splash in the business world, there is still no lack of criticism. Every business publication touts the small business failures and disheartening statistics. As a small business owner or budding entrepreneur, however, you can avoid being just another statistic.

Startup Genome found that 1 in 12 startups fail – another saddening statistic; the sources of this failure being customers, product, team, business model and funding. Unfortunately, not all of these are within your control.

In fact, many of them may spiral out of your hands before you even get a chance to steer it back on course. But, the one thing you can change is your business model. How do you do that? Write an effective business plan.

“Creating a business plan allows you to identify potential problems and opportunities your business might face, avoid penalties, fines or other legal problems, adapt to changes in the marketplace and let you expand or contract from a position of objectivity.” – Smallbusiness.chron.com

Deviate From the Traditional

When starting your first business plan, you’ll probably take to the internet. There you’ll find business plan templates, business plan suggestions, sample and more. While these are good sources to start with, I find it’s best to focus on what your business plan needs instead of focusing on someone else’s.

There are different kinds of business plans, and you should choose the one that best first your business model and intentions. Entrepreneur.com suggests these three types:

Mini plan: your miniplan should cover the most important aspects of your business, such as finances, cash flow, and overall concept. This is meant to be a quick introduction, and should be accompanied by a more in-depth write up.
Working plan: Use this to lay out the details of your business operations, which are often the root cause of business setbacks. Avoid hiring and product issues down the line by taking your time with this.
Presentation plan: This is a polished document, meant to impress and inform potential investors, lenders, or financial backers.

Use Mind Maps

The traditional business plan lays out basic information and has been integral to business owners for a long time. Yet, it may not be in depth enough to keep you from being another one of those miserable facts. So, it’s time for some mind mapping. This is effective in business planning as it allows you to assess every facet of the business, where it could go wrong, and how you’ll handle it, but in a visual fashion.

When you do this, you end up building your business model around potential pitfalls. With such a high failure rate, this will be key in identifying problems before they arise, and handling them correctly if they do. As Entrepreneurship.org said, “A well-written business plan doesn’t oversell the good, undersell the bad or ignore the ugly!”

Start with all your basic business sub-categories: Finances, product, staffing, etc.
From there, build your circles out with an arm for potential pitfalls, room for advancement, and your over-all vision for that sector.
Continue this until you can go no longer. This may take days or weeks, spending a little time here and there, and that is okay.

Set Goals

The greatest benefit of any business plan is goal setting. When you set goals, you have a framework to operate in and a vision of what’s to come. This is essential to any successful business plan. In an interview with Inc.com, founder of The Killer Pitch suggested, “You have to know what you’re going for, and do it with your eyes wide open.” To make your goal setting effective, be sure that you focus on making them:

Attainable: Set goals that are achievable. It’s easy to be discouraged when you aren’t meeting goals – so start small.
Far fetching: On that same note, do write some goals that may seem out of your reach right now. Having something to strive for will always benefit you in the end.
Time sensitive: Make goals for next week, next month, and next year. Having a due date holds you accountable.

Writing a business plan may seem like a daunting task, but it’s one worth taking on. To avoid being another statistic take time to write out your goals, obstacles, desires and vision. Not only will this keep you on track, but help you stay in focus when other problems start tearing you down.

About the Author: Jessica Sanders is an avid small business writer touching on topics that range from social media to business management. She is a professional blogger and web content writer for ResourceNation.com.

Doing business like a pro!

We all have some dreams we would like to come true. Some dream big, others small; but what truly matters is how you plan on achieving what you want. So you dream of owning your own business? Running it successfully? Believe in yourself, after all big corporate giants like Google, Apple, Sony also started somewhere. Well here are some small business tips for all the budding entrepreneurs to keep in mind.

5 tips of the wise:

You don’t necessarily have to start your business from scratch. If you find a small business that you believe you can benefit from, buy it. You can either grow it or sell it for an even bigger return.
Do you have a lot of dough to start with? Good! Hold on to it. There is no need for a young business to have a very lavish office and setup. Buy and spend very wisely. Old office furniture can be just as useful and serve the purpose. You can save all your extra cash for a rainy day. Just because you have it doesn’t mean you should blow it
Who are you? And what can you offer? A good business always has a sense of direction. Make a game plan, set goals and go about how you are going to achieve them. Keep in mind who you are exactly targeting
What makes you so different? Think about what makes you standout in the crowd. Always go the extra mile for customer satisfaction. This will never fail you. After all happy customers are loyal customers
Most importantly, exercise gratitude. Towards your employees, your customers, and your own self. Research in the field of human resource management shows that appreciation goes a long way to ensure success. It is a tool not frequently used by employers.

The toughest is the battle within:

As much as capital and resources are needed to start your own venture, some things come easily and without any cost. A bit of planning and smart thinking can make your journey of success a whole lot smoother. Though the road leading you towards your goals may not always be easy to tread upon, a positive outlook and determination can always ease your burden.

No matter what line of business you pursue, always believe that you have something unique to give to the world. It is only when you find out everything good has already been done, you push yourself to create something even better.

And one more thing:

As quoted by Steve Jobs, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower”. Knowledge is truly Power and today’s world is the most volatile it has ever been. Always keep educating yourself, learn, explore. There is no limit to the knowledge one can attain. There is always innovation in the world around us. New marketing techniques, management studies, growth opportunity factors; if one stays aloof to changing times he will be left behind. So always nurture your talents and keep polishing them in order to shine.

About the Author: The author is currently pursuing a degree in business administration and has a penchant for writing about modern day management techniques w.r.t. your credit card and organizational behavior.

An Independent Local Bookstore Beats the Odds

Few industries have been overturned as violently by the information revolution as the book trade. Amazon.com has proven such an efficient, convenient, and comprehensive retailer of the printed word, that for years now observers have questioned whether it might mean the demise of the brick-and-mortar bookstore.

However, this does not tell the whole story. The bookstore business had already been decimated on a local level by the rise, first, of national chains within the once-thriving mall ecosystem (B. Dalton, Waldenbooks) and then of big-box stores (Barnes & Noble, Borders). The latter could offer a selection of inventory that most independents could not, but in turn they were roundly beaten at this game by the big yellow e-tailer, whose ability to retrieve what customers want to buy is slowly approaching infinity.

So when Borders went bankrupt last year, it might at first have seemed like the end of the physical bookstore. But away from the malls and main drags, all across America, a dwindling number of small, independent bookstores had long been hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

A case in point is Houston’s Brazos Bookstore. Founded in 1974 by local literary scenester Karl Killian, over the decades Brazos developed a reputation as one of the city’s artistic hotspots. Always first and foremost a labor of love, the store buckled under 21st -century financial pressures and nearly closed its doors before being rescued by a consortium of patrons of the arts in 2006.

brazos bookstore
Image by Liz and Gianna’s Adventure Bookland

Despite new ownership and management, the store continued to lose money and faced another crisis in 2011. The end looked nigh once more, but in a bold vote of confidence (nearly simultaneously with the Borders collapse!) the ownership elected to keep the store open and bring in new management again. Today’s manager, Jeremy Ellis, has overhauled both the image and the infrastructure of Brazos, bringing not only a palpable new vitality but a steady profit. I asked Mr. Ellis the keys to his success in this extremely challenging niche. Here are his answers:

1. A hyperlocal emphasis

One advantage Brazos has over competitors like Amazon and even Barnes & Noble is that it’s a genuine, unique part of the community. The store’s bulging Texana section and close relationships with area authors provide real assets that can’t be outmatched by the more impersonal online experience.

2. Aggressive social-media presence

In tandem with this community focus, Brazos has beefed up its online activity. Readings and other events are announced via Facebook, email newsletters, Twitter, and across multiple other platforms. In-store inventory is now visible on brazosbookstore.com, where they are also selling e-books. On an internal level, the office has streamlined its operations, going all-Google for mail, document collaboration, etc.

3. Personalized service

This spring the store launched an initiative called Inuchan, patterned on a Japanese retail concept Ellis had read about and become enamored with. Enrollees in this subscription program complete an interview with mysterious questions right out of a personality quiz (“Paris or New York?” “Dogs or cats?”) in order to determine what monthly books and gifts each customer will get. This high-end service complements the store’s existing book club, special-order policy, and savvy, approachable staff.

4. Quality over quantity

Along with the new manager came a new buyer, Danielle DuBois Dimond, a graduate of the University of Houston’s prestigious Creative Writing Program. Besides her extensive literary knowledge, Dimond brings a keen aesthetic eye, insisting that “customers do judge books by their covers and so I do too.” Indeed, the store almost gleams with colorful displays and its gorgeous out-facing art section. This is not mere frippery, says Dimond but another strategy of survival in the shadow of Amazon: “I treat my job like that of a curator, because that’s our competitive advantage: we can’t have everything, but we can have the best things.”

About the Author: Aniya Wells is a freelance blogger whose primary focus is writing about online degree programs. She also enjoys investigating trends in other niches, notably technology, traditional higher education, health, and small business. Aniya welcomes reader questions and comments at aniyawells@gmail.com.