Month: September 2019

Recognize What Has Gotten You This Far.

In life we mark certain periods of time with some type of commemoration. After you’ve completed your first twelve years of school in the United States, you graduate with a high school diploma and in college you graduate with a degree in whatever major you have declared. Whenever you are ending a period of time in your business, it’s important to acknowledge how you got to wherever you ended up. Whether your success has been achieved with the help of people, places or things, you must stop to assess what has helped you to accomplish the goals you have reached.

If you’re a small business owner, chances are you did not accomplish everything in your business without help. With that said, who do you need to show acknowledgement and or appreciation to? What team accomplishments should you commemorate? Make sure to show your team that you recognize and appreciate their efforts. This simple act of recognizing them and even rewarding them, will assist in employee loyalty and retention.

If you’re a solo practitioner without a team, think about the marketing efforts and business tools or resources you’ve used to get you as far … Read the rest

Systems allow the business to take on more work and process it efficiently with marginal incremental costs. As you develop your business, you determine strategies for product development, manufacturing, service delivery, logistics, marketing, distribution and many more. In addition, consider systems for administrative and financial management, human resource management, regulatory compliance and reporting.

Relying too heavily on people to conduct most of the work in your business, you are likely to discover cost of that approach. Hiring individuals can be costly and time consuming. People have limited time capacity so the incremental investment is higher. People need training; they are more prone to errors and they tend to need time off frequently. People are typically the highest expense item on most income statements. Well-designed operating systems can defer much of this expense while providing an efficient growth platform.

This does not mean to suggest that you never hire people in your business. People must run businesses and successful business relationships depend on the people who establish them. People can ingeniously solve problems, invent new products, serve and support customers and generally improve the operation of your business in ways that automated systems cannot. The emphasis here is on repetitive work … Read the rest

A sole proprietorship is the most used and inexpensive type of business entity. Most businesses start in this form because of the low cost and ease of formation. All it takes is a trip to the county clerk’s office and less than twenty bucks and you are in business. A sole proprietorship is a business that is owned and operated by one person. Typically identified as an “assumed name,” it is a way of operating a business under a different name other than the business owner. If you have a low risk business or intend to keep the business as small or part time operation, this could be a viable option.

The best thing about a sole proprietorship is the ability to have control and make decisions by yourself. You are the business and the business is you. There is no separation between the two. There are no requirements to maintain minutes or other formalities. You may file your personal tax return form 1040 and simply add a schedule C. Depending on the amount of income you make by running the business this can be simple and inexpensive option.

The same benefits of operating as a sole proprietorship also act … Read the rest

Real Business Requirements. If you were to open a restaurant, you would do so understanding that you will need to put a lot of work into it. You will need to invest both time and money. You will need to advertise. You will make sure that you learn what you need to in order to run a successful restaurant. All of this is the same if you open an internet based business. Thankfully, you can start, and run a highly successful business on the internet without the incredible overhead that a typical brick and mortar business costs.

Building an online business. For starters, it is important to find a profitable, proven opportunity. Once you know what opportunity you are going to invest in, it is time to get started. The first tool that you will need is a web host. This will allow you to set up you own website. They range greatly in price and features. Many companies will provide you with a company site, but it is really a good idea to set up something of your own.

Auto-responders. This is one of the most helpful tools for both online and brick and mortar businesses. There are many … Read the rest

Not only are these people able to work at home just by using the Internet most of them are earning six figure incomes doing it. The Internet is a very powerful tool that if you used correctly, and you can understand just how it works and how people use it you can make an extreme amount of money.

So just how do you go about handling the power of the Internet, and open up shop? First you must turn it into a business. You will have to start all the way at the bottom of the ladder and work your way to the top just like you would if you worked for a large company. This is what most people fail to do. They want their success to happen over night, and that will never happen no matter what business you are in.

Once you open up your new business on the Internet the next thing you must do is make a name for yourself, and this will be very hard. Working on the Internet you will be competing with millions of other businesses. That’s why people find most of their success in a niche business. A niche is something … Read the rest

If you are unaware of the purpose of a business plan or wondering the different topics usually covered in the document, turn to a variety of sources for answers but just remember that a traditional business plan is made of up a number of topics such as, the executive summary, company fact sheet, company overview, market overview, target market, competitive research, a marketing plan, financial projections, break-even analysis. In addition, a stand-alone Executive Summary should include summaries of each essential elements of the business plan. A solid business plan, a strategic marketing and a complete continuity plan are essential elements to your long-term success and peace of mind.

You have two options when writing your business plan: you can either do it yourself or hire somebody.If you are seeking capital of less than $200,000, consider creating the plan yourself after taking a class or reading some books or getting some coaching for someone who has written successful business plans.Now if you consider hiring somebody to write your business plan for you (and this is the ideal way of doing it), it will usually cost you between five or ten thousand dollars.

If the above options are not affordable to you … Read the rest