Top 10 Tips for Business Start-Ups
August 24, 2011 | 
Author After starting and advising a range of small business start-ups over the last ten years I have learnt from my own mistakes and the mistakes of others. Here’s my list of top ten tips that will help you navigate start-up success without coming completely unstuck. The list is certainly not exhaustive and I’m sure I’ll amend it over time, please feel free to comment and contribute:
1. Define Your Vision and Goals. Be certain what you want to achieve and arrange a set of goals of how you are going to achieve your vision. Your goals and strategy will change over time but your vision should remain fairly rigid until you have achieved it. Your vision might be ‘start my own successful business installing and repairing computer systems for local businesses’. Goals along the way could be, ‘acquire five new customers in the next six months by advertising in the local paper’, ‘employ myself full time within one year’, ‘have 3 employees within 2 years’ and ‘expand into another region in the next eighteen months’. Without a clearly defined vision and achievable goals you will be relying on luck to achieve your ambition.
2. Start Small, Grow Fast. Try to take small steps to start with. Don’t give up the full time job and put your life savings into the venture straight away. Prove to yourself that the idea is sound, that there is a market for your product or service and most importantly that you enjoy doing it. Once you have proven these things then you can start to build, expand and invest in the business. If it’s not quite right, adjust it. If it doesn’t workout, change the formula and try again. Don’t expect to hit gold on your first try. However, every attempt should teach you something about the market and yourself.
3. Develop Your USP – Unique Selling Proposition. Your product or service doesn’t need to be unique, but you must be able to explain to a customer why they should pay YOU for your service or product. The 3 golden rules are: Better; Different or Cheaper. Your product / service must be one of theses otherwise there is no compelling reason for someone to purchase from you. Just look at the coffee stands in railway stations and ask why certain people buy from one rather than another. Is AMT coffee better then Starbucks or is it because they are cheaper or is it because it is more convenient, by being closer to your platform?
4. Know Your Customer. It is imperative you have an understanding of who you are offering services to and what they might want from you. You will naturally develop this understanding over time but you must have an idea at the very beginning. From this understanding you can then develop your marketing messages, advertising and tailor your services so that the buying process has limited obstacles to overcome. You want the internal dialog of the customer to be ‘wow this vendor really understands my needs’. Don’t focus on the mass market; think about a niche that you can dominate.
5. Know Your Competition. It is important to understand who you are competing against and how crowded the market might be. Going back to your definition of your USP you must ensure that you are better, different or cheaper that others who are offering similar services or products. Remember you don’t have to be unique, you might simply grow a fantastically loyal customer base because your customer service. Look at the John Lewis Partnership, they are remarkably successful because people love their customer service and aftersales service, and that is their USP – differential customer service.
6. Know Yourself! So you have come up with a great service that is unique, has a good price point and the local competition is weak. However providing that service is something you find a complete chore and get no enjoyment from. In time if you do not enjoy, or you are not enthusiastic about, your business, customers will spot this and drift, nay run away. It’s hard enough doing something you enjoy immensely and turning it into a successful and thriving business, therefore examine the type of business you want to run AND it is one that complements you skills and competences.
7. Know Your Real Value. You have a few people working for you, revenue is respectable and you are drawing a nice dividend from your new business. But have you truly calculated all the effort, time and money you and other business partners are actually expending on the business? This ‘off balance sheet’ contribution is to be expected during the start-up process but it still needs to be accounted for when you are considering the true profit of the business and where your break-even point is. This is especially important if you are giving up paid employment to join the business full time. Many small businesses have artificial profits and in truth are loss making and being subsidised by the owner.
8. Be Positive. To make any business succeed you need to maintain a positive outlook and face your challenges head on. As I recently heard someone say ‘focus on the road ahead and not on the bugs on the screen’. The bugs need to be dealt with but if you focus on them to the exclusion of your goals and vision you will surely crash. It’s also important not to surround yourself with naysayers. Good honest direct feedback is important, but it needs to be considered. Find people you can trust to discuss your goals, vision and objectives with. They will be worth their weight in gold.
9. Be Flexible and Adapt. It is highly possible that some of your assumptions on formulating your business plan will be plain wrong. This doesn’t mean your vision is incorrect, but you may have to modify your plans to accommodate these changes. Being flexible in your approach to business is a key factor to success. However, this does not mean changing your mind every 5 minuets, as having a certain purpose is also vital. You will encounter many challenges and obstacles to the successful establishment of a business, therefore you must be able to identify these issues and react accordingly.
10. You are Not an Island. Starting and running your own business requires a wide range of skills, tenacity and lots and lots of hard work. Whilst you can do many things yourself you should seek to understand all the things that need to be done that you are not particularly good at or do not have the required expertise. Concentrate on the things you excel at and get some external help with the things you might struggle with, for example accountancy, technology or marketing. When leading an organisation it is also useful to sound out ideas with people who are not trying to support you such as a family, as they are not going to tell you the harsh truths, and remember advice is worth as much as you pay for it.
Andy is a highly experienced consultant who has successfully advised and developed a range of small business over the past 20 years. He has also worked as a consultant for a wide range of national and international companies including: Marks & Spencer; NatWest; RBS; Gartner; Morse and central and local government.
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New Business Ideas
A good business idea will often be borne out of your experience. Have you observed people experiencing a problem or frustration, and do you have an idea that might eliminate or reduce that problem. The richer your experiences and the more observant you are, the more you are likely to come up with workable business ideas. Take an inventory of your experiences; of all the work you have done, paid or unpaid, and of all the games you have played, did you encounter problems looking for a solution?
Start with your resume and expand it as follows:
· Add all your activities so you have a detailed resume. Don’t limit this to work. Include games, chores, and any other activity that engages you.
· For each job or activity state what you accomplished. Remember this is not for an interview; it’s just for you so be honest.
· State what you like most about the job or activity
· State what irritated you or your coworkers most about the job or activity
· If you interacted with customers write down their frequent complaints
· For every irritation or problem that you list, think of and write down a way that you could eliminate or reduce it
· State the primary purpose of the job or activity and ask yourself if there is a better way to achieve that purpose.
This exercise will get your creative juices flowing and may result in your winning new business idea.
Always allow your brain some down time. You will spend a lot of time thinking about and perfecting your idea for a business, but often the best ideas come to you when you are in a moment of rest or mental inactivity. When you are done working on a problem, the mind continues to work on it in the background, but you must give the mind space and time to do that work, which means taking a break from active mental work.
While I urge giving your mind rest time, if you wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea get up and write it down. When you are out and about always have a means of recording those ideas that run across your mind unbidden. Sometimes you get a great idea in an unlikely place, but after hours of other activities, and distractions you forget about it. Your note pad will keep these potential business ideas from slipping through the cracks.
If you are still not coming up with any ideas don’t give up; keep thinking about it, but most importantly, you must be actively living and observing. Try to broaden your experiences and become more observant. If you have work experience, but no formal training, take some business courses. If the reverse is true and you have business training but no work experience get to work. If you can’t get paid to work, do some volunteering. This is not to suggest that you wait until you complete a course or get a certain number of years in experience before you start your business, but while you work on your idea broadening your experience in these and other ways will be helpful.
Safety Equipment Testing
Whatever business you might be in, it is very crucial to make sure that you have properly done your safety equipment testing. This is especially the case if you are into the business where one mistake of yours could cause threats to life. Therefore, you should make sure that everything is in order and is working properly otherwise there are chances that a need might arise and you might not have the right equipment to handle it on time. Safety Equipment Testing becomes most essential at two places. One of them is lifting of equipments and the other one is industrial places, where fire safety is always a concern. Both these places can have more than a few people around and any casualty might mean that there are many people whose life might be at risk. Let us understand the safety equipment testing needs in these industries.
When talking about safety equipment testing in the industrial places, you should know that the biggest threat that these industrial places face is from fire. Many types of machinery are running at the same time and hundreds of workers are making sure that they are reaching their production targets. Hence, a small short-circuit can cause a large fire. So, what do you do? You have to make sure that all your systems are in the right place. Fire safety equipment testing is the priority in such industry place. You could do this by firstly equipping your factories with the best standard of equipments. Trying sub standard equipments will only escalate the chances of a fire break out. Moreover, you might also need to know more things. These things could include the maintenance that is required on a continuously basis and having a fire safety equipment testing at frequent intervals.
On the other hand, safety equipment testing is also important in case of the enterprises which are into the business of lifting of goods and items. Day in and day out, they are helping construction companies move their heavy goods from one place to another. On the other hand, they also help the people when they are migrating from their previous house to the new one. The same applies to shifting of offices too. Therefore, these lifting agencies require safety equipment testing to make sure that all the lifting equipments are in the right order and working properly. In case one of these heavy goods falls down from a higher altitude, it could lead to a catastrophe. Therefore, it stays the responsibility of the company to avoid any such mishaps. The equipments have to be continuously checked and replaced on expiry, with frequent safety equipment testing from the lifting company.
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How to Make Money Doing Puppet Shows
If you have a creative or a dramatic flair, consider becoming a puppeteer. Children’s entertainers are in demand at birthday parties, festivals, company picnics, promotions, library programs and many other events. Depending on your determination and level of skill, you can create a career, or just earn some extra money.
First you will need some puppets and a stage. I suggest hand or glove puppets, as they much easier to operate than marionettes or string puppets. You can buy them at toy stores, thrift shops or online, or you can make your own. There are many good books available on puppet-making. There are also different types of stages. You can construct a stage out of wood, or even an appliance box. Again, a good book on puppetry will help you decide what type of stage to choose. Be sure to make your stage colorful and attractive.
Next, you will need a script. You will want to have your dialog in writing. If you are really creative, you can wing it, but it’s better to have a guideline and when you are more experienced, you can ad-lib and interact with your audience. That’s a lot of fun, since you never know what children are going to say!
You might want to choose a well-known fairy tale or folk tale to start with. A good example would be “The Little Red Hen”. It’s short, easy to learn, and doesn’t have too many characters. Create different voices for your characters. Practice deep voices, high voices, scary voices, scratchy and nasal voices, different accents. See how many you can up with. After you have put a little show together, try it out on a group of kids. Most child care centers would love to have a free puppet show. Practice and gain confidence before you turn pro.
Promoting your business: Decide on your fee. Then take some photos of your puppets and your stage and create a flier. Have some business cards made up as well. Post your fliers on as many community bulletin boards as you can find. Give a free show at a street festival or farmers market and give out your cards. Get free advertising whenever you can. Later, you might want to pay for advertising in a parenting magazine or you could create a website.
Start small and build up gradually and network, network, network! Keep creating new puppets and shows until you have a great repertoire. But above all, have fun. being a puppeteer is a blast!
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Benefits of Buying Your Printer Cartridge Online
There are so many benefits of buying your printer cartridges online. Shopping online is always more convenient and easier to do that shopping in person. Who has time to browse the shops looking for something or waiting for the shop assistant to finish dealing the customer in front of you before helping you with your query? Shopping online is easy, quick, safe and fun to do. Being able to browse the online shelves from the comfort of your home saves a lot of time and plenty of effort. We all have busy lives, so save yourself some time by purchasing your printer ink online. When you buy online delivery to your door is guaranteed. What could be more convenient than this?
The financial savings are considerable when you buy anything online, but especially printer ink. The reason for this is that online stores just don’t have the same high costs that high street stores do. There is no shop space to rent or warehouse space to find. There is no shop that needs to be decorated and filled with shelves and display units. All of these savings get passed straight on to the customer. You will always find better deals when shopping for printer ink cartridges online. There are usually further savings to be had too such as discounts on bulk orders or even discounts for repeat customers. Often shipping is included free on orders over a certain amount. In general you receive a more personalised service when you shop online than when you are simply a customer in a large high street chain.
There is no such thing as a high street store that sells nothing buy printer ink. There are computer and electronic stores available where you can purchase ink and cartridges. The result is the staff have a smaller knowledge of a broader range of items, rather than a very in depth knowledge of a specific product. When you are purchasing something as important as printer ink and cartridges, you want to feel sure you are being helped by staff who know exactly what they are talking about. This is another major benefit of buying printer cartridges online. The staff know their stuff.
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