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.

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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.

photo credit: brunkfordbraun

Many people today are contemplating the idea of becoming their own boss and starting up their own business. This can be a wonderful idea for them, that is if they truly have what it takes to be their own boss and own their own business. Here are some of the most common traits an individual should have in order to be an entrepreneur.

• Passion and determination. It has been said numerous times that the more you love what you do for a living the easier things will be on you. This is true in entrepreneurship as well. If you have a strong passion, love, and drive for your business, then you will surely have the determination to stick it out through anything, as stated on Lets Blog Business.
• Fearlessness. When starting your own business you will no doubt get several comments, good and bad, from the people around you. Many people tend to be skeptical on owning a business. Many obstacles will present themselves and stand in your way, this is where you need to have no fear in order to push by and keep going.

Knowing Limitations. Nobody can do all things at all times, it’s just a fact. It is especially difficult to do all of the things necessary to get a new venture going if you aren’t knowledgeable on the subject. There are all kinds of software packages for developing business or marketing plans, simple incorporation, etc., but sometimes you just need to know when to call in for reinforcements.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: Svadilfari

I recently read an article by Tim Berry that I found to be very interesting. It talks about lessons learned over the years by employer to employee relations. When employers are working with employees, it is no surprise that there will always be some bumping of the heads and even some bad decisions made (also known as “duh moments”). Below are some of the tips found in the above mentioned article.

• People will always be very unpredictable, which makes it difficult to ensure that you have hired the absolute right person for the correct position in your company. It’s basically a guessing game, once you have completely reviewed their resume, references and more, there’s nothing left to do but bite the bullet and hope you have made the right choice.
• Often times you end up hiring the right person for the wrong job. This is not catastrophic, simply find the correct job for that person and all is well and solved!
• People have minds of their own and can change in mysterious ways sometimes. You can always change the job or change aspects about the job, but unfortunately you can not change the person on that job, change is up to them entirely.

“Fit” as in employee fit, is vital but also overrated, and too often used as a rationalization. You want people unlike you, not people like you. But you like people like you.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

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It is always difficult to have to let go of an employee. Even when the employee has not exactly been a “good fit” for the company, it is still not a task that anyone truly looks forward to doing. So how does a manager go about making this task not only easier for them but for the employee as well? Here are some tips that I recently read about on Entrepreneur.com to help you through this difficult task.

• Always make sure to think about your future when firing an employee, this will keep your mind on a more sensitive mind set and should keep you from causing any damage through the words that you speak. Remember that that the employee might be a future client of yours or may be in a position to spread negative information if pushed too hard.
• Make sure that before the final termination is made that you have reviewed the situation and have all necessary paperwork in order. No company should be firing anyone without proper documentation to back up the fact that this is the only and last option for this employee.

Recognize lessons learned. Although the company may think it handled a particular termination well, employee sentiment may not line up with the employer’s perception. It is important to talk to employees and supervisors left behind to ascertain their thoughts and feelings about how the company handled the departure keeping in mind confidentiality issues relating to the termination.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: danesparza

Now is the time to create a credit policy to keep your existing customers, get paid, and stay in business. This policy should include clearly outlined procedures and actions for when someone can’t pay so you can immediately take steps to help your customer and protect your business. Recently stated on Entrepreneur.com.

Begin starting your credit policy by looking at your reports. See who already owes money, how much, and how far past due on their bill they really are. Start making some phone calls, commit to say 5 phone calls per day or more if your prefer. This will begin the process of getting back the money that is owed to you. Meanwhile, don’t let anyone else charge until you check their credit. This ensures that you will know who will be able to make a later payment, who will not, and who is just attempting to get free items.

Put out a written or typed up statement in your store of what your credit policy is, how much they are allowed to charge, how long until their payment in full is due by, and so on. This lets them know as soon as they walk in the door where you stand on credit and what you will not let them get away with.

Once a customer becomes past due, this is the time to start getting on them. Start off by sending them a friendly reminder regarding their balance. Next, maybe give them a phone call when you know they will be home. If that doesn’t work you can always pay them a personal visit if need be. Or as the final result you could always notify them that they will be sent to a collection agency if the balance is not paid.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: Per Ola Wiberg (Powi)..away

Today we keep hearing about several companies laying off people left and right or even just out right firing people on a daily basis, cutting wages, vacation time and sick leave time. When a manager gets a list of people to ax, it must go through their mind at some point that those people are hard workers with young children relying on them. I recently read an article posted on Harvard Business regarding a boss who actually laid himself off!

That’s right, when he was handed the list of people to lay off he saw two names on this list of men who he had taught and come to be very close with and fond of. Knowing these two particular men were extremely great workers and both had young families to take care of, he made the decision to lay himself off.

Luckily over his 30 year career with this electronics company he had saved up a nice chunk of retirement money for himself. While not exactly being ready to retire and quit the business, he still put other’s before himself in order to save two entire family futures. Now that has got to be the boss of the year if I have ever heard of one!

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

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We hear all kinds of tales and stories regarding everything in life, and it is no different when it comes to owning a business or buying a franchise, you will hear all kinds of tales and myths regarding this issue. I have compiled a list of myths below related to owning a franchise.

• You will only be successful if your doing something you madly love. While yes, this does help but it certaintly is not required in order for you to succeed.
• You’ll automatically pick up on the exact opportunity for you the minute you see it. If your waiting for your business to fall out of the sky, you will be waiting a long time. You have to work at business, learn and adapt to it as you go along.
• You have no control over what happens within that franchise, the corporate people decide everything. This is one of the biggest myths that deter people from buying a franchise. Corporate control’s the general system on how the franchise works, other than that you control everything and decide everything in your franchise.

Can franchises still fail? Sure they can. But the vast majority of the time this is due to the owner deviating from the system and cutting corners by using inferior materials or altering formulas. The key to making it as a franchisee is consistency.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: haydnseek

In today’s economy many businesses are finding themselves in financial disaster fighting everyday just to barely get by. So what are your options these days when you find yourself in this situation? Here are a few options that I read about recently on USA Today that I think could help you out a great deal.

Try negotiating with your bank and creditors. Even they are finding themselves in quite the pickle with so many delinquent accounts and even worse, accounts that went through bankruptcy that they now have to totally write off their books, no money for them! So use their situation to your advantage, let them know either you will be going delinquent soon or you will have no choice but to file for that dreaded bankruptcy, see what they will do for you.

Sell as many of your business assets as you are legally allowed in order to pay off some or most of your business debt and then either sell the building to another private owner, or go into a bankruptcy deal. No, filing bankruptcy is not the best option and is not easily swallowed by most people, but sometimes after attempting all of your options, this may be the only thing left for you to do.

This is one of those times when you really need to meet with your advisers to figure out the best way to go. Getting a consultation with an accountant, business or bankruptcy lawyer will be well worth the money.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.