Jumpstart Your Business

The CEO of a company sets the vision, makes a set of rules to establish a company culture, builds the management team, then leads the team on the journey to make the vision a reality. The CEO needs to be able to fly at thirty thousand feet to be able to differentiate the forest from the trees.

photo credit: nggalai

The management team is tasked with using the set of rules to realize the vision. They are similar to referees in a game, making sure that the game is played according to the rules. Generally the environment may be changing and the rules need to be tweaked. The management team typically operates at ground level, planting the trees, and generally cannot see the shape of the forest.

The entrepreneur in a successful start-up has to learn to be both the CEO and the manager. He/she needs to fly high to establish the vision and see how the forest is progressing but also needs to come down to ground level to keep planting the trees in the forest.

So you want to be an entrepreneur. Well, here are fifteen items you need to be on top of. These won’t ensure your success by any means but they might prevent you from failing.

photo credit: Infusionsoft

1. Your customer is your biggest and most valuable asset. Know your customer.

2. Understand your product and how it solves your customers’ problems and makes their pain go way.

Women-owned businesses account for some 30 percent of all businesses in the United States and represent approximately 800,000 new start-ups per year and account for close to 55 percent of new start-ups. There are considerable resources available to help women in business especially in the areas of financing and business planning. These resources are in both the public and private domains.

A good place to start is the Small Business Administration (SBA). They have considerable resources for women owned businesses. They guarantee loans and provide additional services to help in the search for funding. To apply for a loan, you’ll need a business plan, a credit report and some start-up capital.

The most important element of your business plan is undoubtedly the financial analysis. This will tell you whether your business idea is financially viable and whether it will be profitable in a suitable time frame. You also need to understand how much startup capital (money) you’ll need to get the business up and to keep it running until such time as you think it will become profitable. Here are some items to keep in mind as you try to add up the startup costs. You might also want to use this startup calculator

1. Legal Fees
2. Licenses and Permits
3. Prepaid Rent
4. Deposits (Public Utilities, etc.)
5. Remodeling Work (Build Out)
6. Furniture and Fixtures
7. Letterhead, Cards, Logo, Brochures
8. Advertising (Signage, Grand Opening, etc.)
9. Computers, Web Site, Software
10. Insurance
11. Accounting Fees
12. Management Consultants
13. Cash
14. Accountant
15. Beginning Inventory

Every small business, whether established for a while or just starting up, should have a small business support network. This should be at a minimum an informal group of friends or acquaintances who are there to provide both moral and subject matter support or the group can be more formal in the shape of an Advisory Board to give you advice and counsel whether for a fee or better yet pro bono.

The members of this team should consist of the following:
Your attorney
Your insurance broker

In these tight economic times, it is critical that the business owner pay attention to the financials of the company. Money is very hard to come by and revenues are falling while expenses are increasing. To stay in business the savvy business owner needs to take these seven steps:
• Keep good records
Every revenue and expense transaction should be recorded and preferably in one place. Do not use the shoe box method but rather, invest in a computerized financial package like Peachtree or QuickBooks.

photo credit: mundo resink
• Keep a Separate Business Bank Account

Many a business plan pundit is out there preaching the gospel of the One Page Business Plan. Many a business owner or entrepreneur is suckered into agreeing with this concept because it justifies their basic laziness to sit down and write a proper business plan. To understand why one page is not enough, let us look into the reasons for a business plan in the first place.

You write a business plan in order to understand what you are getting into or what you are already into with your business. Hopefully before going into business, but most definitely if you are already running one, you should know who your favorite customers are, what pain they suffer from and why they want to buy your product or service. You need to understand their geographic variables and if they buy through referral or on impulse. Information of this sort is critical to choosing the right location for your business and even may determine the legal structure you choose.

Starting Friday, April 2nd 2010, as part of the new CARD Act of 2009, companies advertising free credit reports are now required to clearly disclose that what’s being marketed isn’t the free credit report you’re entitled to receive by law.

The Federal Trade Commission provides consumers with one free credit report a year from each of the major reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and Transunion. Consumers can access their free report by going to AnnualCreditReport.com. But other sites that claim to offer free credit reports often come with strings attached.

As an entrepreneur, you wear two important hats: management and leadership. You put on the management hat as you run the day-to-day business operations. The leadership hat you don as you set the vision and the mission of the organization and take it along the path established by your strategic plan. The challenge today is the meaning of strategic.

“Flying by the seat of your pants”, so to speak, is very exciting but is not a recommended way to run your business. Just remember that almost 90% of start ups never see a second year all because their owners never filed a “flight plan”. To prevent a small business from running sluggishly, the owner needs to invest in a business plan. Here are 10 good reasons for that stinking business plan:

photo credit: David Boyle in DC
1. Help you understand who your target market is and what customer problem you are trying to solve.