Nibletz Staff
If you are considering starting your own business, it is important to realize that the plans you make up front on its structure often will be the keys to its success. Indeed, the difference between a successful small business and one that fails is often determined at the planning stage. It’s not always easy to know what those plans involve and how to make them. But we’ll help you do so with five crucial questions to ask yourself. Your answers will help you shape your own venture and will go a long way in making it work for you. These questions are based on a study that were conducted of scores of successful small businesses over many years. We know that they can help you focus your mind and help you succeed.
1) In Which Business Field Do You Have The Most Experience?
It is vital that you start your small business in a field that you know and that you know well. If you start out in a field with which you are unfamiliar, you will have to learn as you go. You will make mistakes and you will lose money as you learn and the business likely will collapse. We have watched many businesses fail because they did not realize the importance of experience in the field into which they went. The way most people gain experience in a field is through working in it. They learn how the system works. They learn about sources of supply, about invoicing, and about profit margins. They learn what customers want. They learn about the competition. They learn where they could start their own business to fill a gap. Your answer to this question, therefore, will determine the nature of your business.
2) What Is Your Aim In Starting Your Own Business?
If your aim is simply to make money, you are probably better off working for someone else. You should have a passion for the business you want to start. Making money comes second.
Here’s why:
If your aim is solely to make money, you will be tempted to cut corners to boost your profit. The result is likely to be an inferior product or service. Customers soon will be turned off. If your aim, however, is to produce a quality service of which you can be proud and which you love to provide, you will put all you have into making the product or service excellent.
The money will follow.
3) Do You Have The Drive To Make The Venture Successful?
Unless you are fully dedicated to the business and throw all you have into it, it will collapse when you face the first hurdle (and you can be sure you will face hurdles). If we have found one characteristic among the small businesses that we have studied, it was that the owners were determined at almost any cost to make the venture succeed. When failure loomed, they learned from their mistakes, picked themselves up, went in a new direction if necessary, and tackled their venture with renewed energy.
4) Will You Fulfill A Need In The Market?
Here’s where your experience in the field helps. You will know whether the product you produce or the service you provide is already available in the area in which you plan to provide it. You will know where there is a need that you can fulfill. You will know that it is a losing game to compete with major players in the field. The difference in your product or service could be geographic; the area is undeserved. It could be the nature of the product or service; no company anywhere is providing it. It could be the price; you can produce this at a significantly lower cost using today’s technology and still come out ahead. It could be a host of other ways. But there must be a need for it. Clearly the answer to this question must be yes.
5) Do You Have Access To Capital?
Almost all small businesses need some sort of seed capital. Some, such as a restaurant for example, need substantial upfront money. Furniture, cooking equipment, an industrial kitchen and staff are all expenses that need to be met even before the first customer walks in the door. Others, such as an online shopping store, need little in the way of start-up capital beyond hardware and software. One way is to obtain financing online. You might want to learn more about applying for 90 day loans from reputable websites like WeGot1000. But businesses also need money after they have been launched. Indeed, many small businesses are likely to need to tap into a money source at some time. Markets change, natural disasters occur, and sales suddenly slump for no apparent reason. Usually the downturn does not mean that the business will fail. It means that it will have to take measures to overcome the temporary setback and that it will need capital to see it through the tough times.
Bottom Line
Your answers to the questions above will help you to focus your thinking so that you have a plan to be successful even before you launch your own small business. Please share this article and let us know if these questions have helped you.
