Local Business

Local Business  » Starting Your Own Business

Starting Your Own Business

STARTING YOUR OWN BUSINESS By Steve McLaughlin (930 words)

So you want to start a business - congratulations! Some of the

largest fortunes belong to people just like you: people who had

a vision, the ability to set things in motion, and the drive to

follow through with their plans. Whether your business is

wholesale, retail, service, bricks-and-mortar or Internet based,

whether your idea is to maintain a single location or your dream

is to take your business global, if you have the right product

or idea and are willing to work hard, a fortune could await you.

That's the good news. The bad news is, just because you possess

the vision and are filled with entrepreneurial spirit doesn't

mean that your business will be a moneymaker. Fully half of the

businesses started each year never see their first anniversary,

and some estimates put the number of businesses that fail in the

first five years at over 80%. In some cases, of course, these

failures are due to simple bad luck: wrong place at the wrong

time, an idea that is just beaten to the marketplace by a

competitor, natural disasters, etc. In many cases, however,

businesses fail for one simple reason: poor planning.

Competition for consumer and business spending is more fierce

then ever. The same holds true in the international marketplace.

Failure to adequately prepare your business - both before and

after it is actually started - for the challenges that the

marketplace will throw at you can spell disaster. While there

are dozens of things that you need to have in place when

starting a business - whatever the size - there are three key

areas in which many of the businesses that fail shortly after

inception all fall short. 1. The Business Plan: A business plan

is a resume for your business. If you want to get a job, you

have to have a resume. If you want to attract investors or

partners to your business, you need to have a professional

properly formatted business plan that presents not only the

basics of your business and its potential markets, but also the

state of your business at its inception, as well as reasonable

projections for three and five years down the road. The business

plan allows potential investors/partners to get a quick and

manageable idea of what it is you are asking them to invest

their money in as well as providing you, the entrepreneur, with

a roadmap for the future. 2. Start-up Capital: Perhaps the most

common - and the most avoidable - cause of new business failure

is inadequate start-up capital. All too often, start-up

businesses look at the minimum amount of capital it will take to

get them off and running, without looking at the broader

picture. In fact, even the most successful start-up businesses

can operate in the red anywhere from 3 to 9 months, and many

only start generating significant revenues after a year or more

of operation. During this "lean" time, cash reserves are

essential to keep your business functioning. Determining, and

then obtaining, an adequate level of start-up funding is crucial

to the overall success of any business. 3. Market Research:

Understanding your product or service is only half the road to

success - the other half is identifying who needs what you have

to sell, and understanding the best way to sell it to them.

Identifying and appealing to your customer base - be it consumer

or business - and completely understanding who your competitors

are and how they operate is crucial to the success for your

business. For many businesses, market research can be the most

challenging and daunting aspect of the entire start-up process,

but it remains a major component to your business's success.

With the above three components in mind, here are the areas I

suggest you should focus on to maximize your chances of success.

Doing so helped me grow my company $2 million and four

Today's Popular Articles

• Making The Most Of Your Business Credit Card Account

• Locating Your Home With A Real Estate Business Plan

professional staff members in just three years. * Know what it

is you have to offer (this should be clear and easily understood

by potential clients) and what your clients will pay for, not

just what they need. EXAMPLE: I know my American clients need to

earn a certain portion of their revenue from international

sales. * Have a clear plan--usually a business plan--with

defined success and failure markers. Use these markers to

recheck your assumptions. EXAMPLE: Regular checks led me to

switch my focus from clients in publishing to those in

manufacturing. * Examine your business objectively and not

personally. Your goal is to make money, not prove how smart you

are. * Know your strengths and weaknesses, and adjust

accordingly. EXAMPLE: I knew my strength was reading people and

not numbers; I therefore hired a good numbers guy as a

consultant to help me out.

Whether you intend for your business to remain domestic or your

plans are to go global, the above principles apply. In the

international market a broader spectrum of challenges await the

new business and in many cases you would do well to know your

market and your product.

Author Bio: Steve McLaughlin founded Global Market Insights,

with offices in Europe and the U.S., with his vision of giving

clients two synergistic competencies: knowledge of the global

marketplace and industry expertise in manufacturing, finance and

information technology. Steve has over twelve years of

international experience in three continents, having started in

executive search as a Beckett-Rogers Associate. Steve is a

graduate of Rice University, where he was student body

president, and completed post-graduate studies in International

Economics at the Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile.

About the author:

Great ideas for starting your won business.