ARE YOU READY TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS?
Are you contemplating becoming an entrepreneur or have already made the decision to start your own business? Before you get started there are a few things to consider as you develop and move forward with your vision of business ownership. You will greatly improve your odds of success if you are thoughtful in your planning and execution of your business idea and what you want to accomplish with your new business. Taking the time to work on the details can have a significant impact on how well your business launches, grows and flourishes.
Once you have decided on what goods or services you want to provide, you need to begin with a thorough research of your chosen market. As a provider of that particular good or service you will need to understand your product, your market and what needs it fills for the target audience. You will need to decide where your market share is, what area you will provide your goods or services in and what trends are happening in your industry.
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now”
~ Alan Lakein (Author)
As you gather and organize competitive intelligence on your industry you will have the pieces necessary to begin to write your business plan. A business plan may seem overwhelming, tedious, or maybe even unnecessary, but it is a very important and critical step in forming and maintaining a successful business venture. A business plan starts out as a blank canvas, or a puzzle so to speak. The image of what you want to form is in your head and you have to collect and organize the pieces to form the real life picture of your vision. This puzzle then becomes the blueprint of what you want to create and establish. This blueprint that you create becomes a living, breathing document of your business. This plan provides information on your business, it's purpose, it’s mission, it’s functionality, and its goals. Your business plan becomes an essential tool that will aid you in making decisions on your business, monitoring your growth strategy and creating future endeavors. Your business plan is also an important tool when attempting to secure business loans from lenders or investors, future business partners and important clients. The benefits of having a good quality business plan is significant to business ownership.
Your business plan should include a description of your business, the product or services you intend to provide, who your customers are, and what needs will you fill with your product or service? What will be your business model, and your business strategy look like? Your plan should also include your financial stability and your marketing plan. A business plan, much like a SWOT Analysis, will help you better understand your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Understanding your market thoroughly and knowing what is happening in your industry is also imperative. Take time to research your competitors, know who they are, how they operate and what the trends are happening around you. Be focused and precise with what you will be offering. Start small with what you do, do it well, and excel in the delivery of your product or service. Once you have built your business and established your success, you can grow, diversify, and move into new business segments.
Another key part in starting your own business is knowing and understanding what your start-up costs and ongoing costs are as you launch and grow your business. You need to have a clear picture of what it will cost to start your business, and what the ongoing costs will be to maintain the business going until you start to generate revenue. To do this you must create a start-up budget, a forecast of future expenses and maintain a monthly balance sheet of revenue and expenses.
The next step that you should consider as you move forward with establishing your business is your branding and marketing plan. What is the messaging that you want to relay to your audiences? How do you want to be seen? Where and how will you market your business? What's your budget for creating a branding statement and for marketing your business? This is also a critical step in your business development process. This is where you decide how you will present your business to the public, and where you will market your business. Included in this category should be your website design, logo, business cards, social media presence, type of ads you would like to run and the outreach effort that you would like to move forward with.
Lastly, you will need to decide how to best legally structure and protect you and your business. There are several legal structure options to choose from such as, a Sole Proprietorship, Limited Liability Company (LLC), C-Corporation, or an S-Corporation. All of these options serve to determine how taxes are paid and how the personal assets of the business owner are protected. It is imperative that all those looking to start a new business do their due diligence and research each option thoroughly, and seek legal counsel when necessary to make the correct decisions for their business. The use of a good accountant may also be beneficial when determining how you want to set-up your legal business structure and managing your business taxes.
Living out your dreams of entrepreneurship and starting a new business is within your reach. You just have to follow your dreams, create a plan, develop action steps, do not take shortcuts and work daily to meet your goals.
Creating your business plan does not have to be a daunting or overwhelming process. If you need assistance in getting your business plan written and executed, we at HIVE Connex can help. Additionally, we have services that can provide you assistance with all your business needs such as, business plan writing, competitive intelligence gathering, business strategizing, training, coaching and mentoring. Please take a minute to review our service offerings at www.hiveconnex.com. To schedule a complimentary consultation to determine your business needs contact us via email at HIVEConnex@gmail.com, dial (267) 420-2076.
Feel free to contact us directly with any questions on this particular blog topic, or any of our other HIVE Connex Blog Posts (see, www.hiveconnex.com) that provide insight and informative content about: the power of positivity, growing your empire, creating a vision board, decision making, business planning, branding in the marketplace, public speaking, creating a social media presence, business communication practices, business ethics, how to generate profit margins, managing through unprecedented and challenging times, building high performance teams, business elevator pitch, community engagement and budget administration.