Tips for Budding Entrepreneurs
Running your own business is highly rewarding, as it offers you personal satisfaction, enables you to identify your capabilities, gives you financial independence, provides you the opportunity to excel in life and above all, contribute to the community. However, you need to plan wisely and assess your available resources in order to start a low-cost business. Some of the following tips will help you to start your business in the most economical manner:
a) Seek Advice from an Experienced Mentor: You need to seek advice from a mentor who has already faced similar problems in the initial stage of entrepreneurship. The mentor should be someone who has gained the respect of people because of their hard work and ultimate success. You will learn a lot in your business from your mentor’s experience and advice. Due to the well-established position of the mentor, you could also get help from some of their contacts and resources, such as business colleagues, lawyers and accountants.
b) Communicate with Other Business Owners: You can get acquainted with business leaders by joining your local chamber of commerce or similar business groups in your city. This will make it easy for you to share viewpoints, exchange ideas and get answers to various business-related questions with other small business owners. Since hiring a business consultant is generally expensive, exchanging advice on enhancing the standard of business can prove to be invaluable.
c) Hire College Interns: Starting a business requires taking care of areas such as sales and marketing, and public relations, as these areas are key to the development of your business. However, concentrating on these areas can be quite taxing, especially while you are managing other vital aspects of the business. Consider hiring college interns to carry out some essential jobs. They could be trained to photocopy material, mail or fax business correspondence, answer customers’ questions and handle other PR-related duties. College interns are often eager to learn, and will jump at the chance to work for you, make some money and gain valuable business experience (especially if they don’t have any), in exchange for a good, solid reference.
d) Do Adequate Research: As an entrepreneur, you need to research many factors such as the best location for your business, market trends and demographics, advertising and potential customer base. Usually, small businesses fail because they haven’t done the necessary legwork. Doing good research provides a good foundation, in terms of building a roadmap for your business.
e) Develop Business Know-How: Elementary business know-how is very important, as it enables novices to manage their finances, budget for their business, arrange and run meetings, and eventually make good profits. You should at least have a basic understanding of how business works and the basic concepts of different business strategies.
f) Networking: Networking plays a very significant role in starting up a small business. It entails developing a network of similar business associates. Interchanging, exchanging, and pursuing the same business goals and ideas together enhances the prospect of expanding your small business enterprise.
Managing Finances
Entrepreneurs need adequate monetary support in order to create and run a small business. You can seek financial help from the following sources:
- Self-finance
- Loans from friends or family
- Private stock issue
- Through partnerships
- Venture capital
- Credit card debt
- Bank loans
A small business owner requires basic business acumen, know-how and support in order for the small business to succeed. Even though starting a small business demands a lot of hard work and patience, the fruit it bears is sweet.
