How do you establish a successful business?

 

How do you establish a successful business?

Are you in between jobs?
Just starting to look for a job and can’t seem to find the right fit?
Maybe you are unhappy with your job?
Or do you want to start a business and don’t know how?

Well then this is the article for you

People have been losing more and more jobs recently because of the economy ups and downs. Starting your small business might sound fun but it is a lot of consistent work. When you are starting a business then you have to give more hours to work than you would on a job.

With time running your business you get stable and it can get easier.

You are your own boss and life is great. But most businesses fail in the early years of their start up.

The reason this is such a common occurrence is mostly due to the fact that they are not well prepared before starting their business venture. We would like to call this a small business owners’ guide to success.

Small business owners guide to some of the Do’s and Don’ts of starting a successful business.

The Do’s

First of all as a new small business owner you need to know what you want to do.

If you want to do something that you love and have a genuine knack for it and you would like to manage, create and have good public relation skills to deal with the variety of different customers then running your business is the thing for you.

Just set your goal and the way to achieving it will be possible. Select your niche, do not overburden yourself at the start and keep it simple so it will be easy for you to handle.

Small business owners need to have work experience if possible in an already running business to gather understanding of what is required to run it on a day to day basis.

This will polish your skills and give you a pretty good idea of how things are run. Having relative experience for your business is very important for the success of your business. You need to invest time and money in your business.

For this is essential for new small business owners to have a financial plan in place for the business.

It is important that you estimate the total cost of starting a new business, as it could take three, six months to a year or two before you start to see some positive returns.

The point is you don’t get the profit until you get your ROI (Return of Investment). So plan the cost until it is estimated when you will get the return and also put the ceiling function on the cost and time of the return of investment.

After this you will be able to make profit. Small business owners also need to speak to a lawyer or their accountant for advice in the respective field of your business. What are the legal implications that you have to abide by to start your business?

Get registered and get a legitimate license for the business you want to do.

You do not want to make for example $50,000 profit in ten months only to be fined with $10o,000 for a copyright issue or for workplace mishap and your not adequately insured. Ten months work down the drain and addition $50,000 in debt. If you have a unique business venture or product maybe consider even getting a patent for your brainchild. Talk to your lawyer for the right term that applies to your business.

Small business owners can claim copyrights to your ideas. Before opening a retail store, you should try selling online or selling door to door. You need to know your audience as well as the ability to sell your product or service. Start on a small scale and see if it has the potential to improve and grow.

You need to grow your network. Make new contacts, stay in touch with the old ones and build up your network in your niche.
Keep your clients happy even if you have to get a smaller profit at the start.

Build your brand with good public relations is key. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer while building a bigger network you need to stalk your competition and see what they are doing and how well they are doing it.

You need to assess the quality and reliability of your competitor’s product or service. As a small business owner you need to see how or competitors market their products and learn from them.

If you get even a bit of an edge in any particular area of the product or service than you are in business. If you think you have a better product or service or even just the packaging is better in some way then you can market that.

Small business owners need to build up on their some specific specialty that people will travel thousands of miles to get. It’s a long road getting there for small business owners but it is very possible if you do it right.

The Don’ts

Small business owners need to stop the following if you want to be successful in your business. It is really important to get rid of these bad habits because these can gravely affect your business.

Stop doubting yourself or continuously second guessing yourself as this will cloud your judgement on important business decisions you will make.

You will miss opportunities, half hearted decisions will sabotage you and you will be setting yourself up for failure if you continuously doubt yourself. Think about why you started this business to keep you strong in the face of any problem.

Don’t make excuses and you should start planning about the future with some back up plans if the first one doesn’t exactly pan out the way you wanted it to.

Procrastination and laziness can be the slow death of any business.

Failure is a part of life so stop fearing it. If you fear failure then you would fail to accomplish anything in life or business. Take calculated risks, step out of your comfort zone. Sometimes the most risky actions can be the most rewarding.

Small business owners have the flexibility to do this at a small scale and see how it affects their business. Just a slight change sometimes can make a huge difference.

At the end of the day it is your business and you have to go at it alone. Don’t expect that your employees will care as much about your business as you do as they have not investing any financial risk into it.

However, in saying that, don’t fail to set incentives for your employees so they keep working hard. And put some incentives or milestones for yourself.

Staying motivated in growing your business when you find yourself going through hardship is not easy, but you must push through and continually put in the hard work, time and money in your business to make it successful.

The rewards of your hard labor is what will set you up financially for the rest of your life, whilst adding value to your business when it is time to sell.

So try not to get depressed or disappointed when your business hits a snag. Persevere and work even harder. If you get stuck then try looking at the problem in a new way. Try to market in a different way or to a different audience.

Big companies also see drops in sales all the time that is just part and parcel of running a business in seasonal economies, so just learn to understand and ride the waves that small business growth brings you and adjust to the conditions.

Finally, though this article targets small business owners, it is however,  great advice for any business owner large or small just to keep at it because achieving success in your business has its long term rewards both personal and financial.