Posts Tagged ‘Decisions’

 
photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

So you have made the first step and decided to start your own business, congratulations! Now you need to know what it takes to run your own business, resources, who to hire, how to market, and all of the other avenues that need to be explored. For now, I will give you some basic steps on starting your own business which should get your plan into motion.

1. Know your customer. NYTimes recently stated that your customer is your number one priority, and this I would have to agree. They are your bread and butter, they are what will make your business bring in profits or not. Focus on a specific group in your area, people who may have the most stress or hardship in their lives at the moment, these people will be more willing to bet on new ideas as they don’t really have anything to loose.
2. Know the market. This is very key, you need to drown yourself in the current market and know everything you can about what is going on right now. The newest trends, the trends that are expected to grow and go far in the future, who is investing in what type of market and more.
3. Do research on your start-up costs. Know what your ball park figures are going to be, what you will need to have down, your monthly loan payments, any equipment purchases, hiring employees, utilities, taxes and stock to name a few.

Once you’re satisfied with the business plan, the next step is to test it. This means answering the question: Do customers really want to buy what you intend to sell? It’s a brutal question, but you need to be realistic. One idea is to talk to potential customers, but avoid your friends; instead, identify a list of likely customers and call them.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

 
photo credit: lepiaf.geo

In today’s economy we are seeing so many people being put out of work only to find that the company still ends up going bankrupt. Why is this? A big reason is because often times no matter how many employees are let go, the costs that the company has still ends up being more than what their profits are. Here are some creative ways where you can start cutting costs rather than cutting your employees.

• Enlist the help of everyone who work’s for you to come up with areas where you can cut costs to equal up to or at least close to the amount that you need to cut. In the end you may still end up having to let a few people go, but it will be a smaller number then it was before the brainstorming took place.
• Think about firing some of your costly customers. American Express cut out 2.7 million accounts because they had no balance or were inactive, this means the company was spending money to keep up these accounts even though they weren’t making money off of them, as stated on Bnet.com.
• Take a look at some of the resources and products that your company uses, are some of them extremely costly to your company? Is there another product that does the same job but costs less? If so, try cutting out the extravagant lifestyle of certain products and down size to a cheaper version.

Go for cheaper tech. If your shop needs a tech upgrade but you can’t afford it, consider the cloud. Increasingly, businesses are finding they can do almost all of their computing with free or cheap services that store your data on remote servers — that is, in the cloud. Moreover, there is so much good free software nowadays, including office suites with word processing and spreadsheet software, that this is often a no-brainer.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

 
photo credit: Gunnar Wrobel

It makes sense to buy a franchise with proven methods, marketing, and product rather than start your own from scratch right? But when getting ready to sign that contract, how do you know that the contract is completely truthful? Below are some franchise contract time bombs to look out for.

• Do the numbers smell a little fishy to you? It is almost unheard of to have a franchise contract that supplies a full income statement. Watch out for exceptionally high and “pretty” looking expected income numbers.
• Take a look at what they want you to pay up front. Some franchisors make money right off the bat with a one time franchise fee. However, if the contract seems to show that you have a lot of costs up front then you should run in the opposite direction. This may mean trouble for you later when your having a tough time and they have already made their money off of you earlier on, recently stated on Forbes.com.
• Make sure your royalty payments are not going to cost you an arm and a leg. Not all franchises charge these but if they do they shouldn’t break the bank to the point where it’s impossible for you to turn a profit.

How Easy Is It To Get Out Of Your Contract? Franchise agreements can last for 10 years, and many franchisers make it difficult for franchisees to cut and run. Breach the contract and you’ll pay “liquidation damages.” Every UFOC contains (or should contain) a section devoted to rules governing termination, renewal and transfer of contracts. Read it–closely.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.