But wouldn't you rather put in the time before setting up your business and know that you have the right information to start with. It will help you stay focused, know your good points and your not so good points, and allow you to address issues that need improving before you actually start operating.
WHAT IS YOUR PROPOSED BUSINESS ALL ABOUT?
Now is when you need to thinking about why you are starting your small business.
Is it because you have always had a mad desire to run your own business, because you have a burning need to prove to everyone how good you are at selling, fed up with being bossed around by a so-called manager who knows less than you do, or do you really want to seriously commit your whole being to running a successful business?
That is what you need to address here?
HOW WELL DO YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR PROPOSED SMALL BUSINESS?
For example, if you want to have a cafe, do you understand all the health and food regulations that will apply to what you are setting up?
Do you realise that there will be strict council regulations to abide by? What is your view of the menu you want to have - is it just what you prefer to eat and are there thousands of customers out there who will want to eat the same thing?
If you prefer to drink strong coffee, do you believe that all your customers should have the same served to them?
Many questins need to be answered before you start your small business.
HAVE YOU HAD A SERIOUS CHAT WITH YOUR ACCOUNTANT?
Before you set too many wheels in motion you need to have a chat to your accountant and see if you will have the funds for starting a new business.
I know of one lady who got so excited about buying her dream cafe. I, as a business broker representing the seller, asked her if she had the finance. Her answer was, "Yes, my husband just borrowed against the house to buy a semi-trailer so I should be able to get a loan." Alarm bells rang with me straight away because I knew where they lived and I thought 'semi trailers are not cheap so there is probably not enough equity left in the house to borrow more money' and that was exactly the situation.
Before being too committed in setting up your business you need to know:
- If you have available funds
- If it is going to earn enough for your needs
- If you need to borrow money, are you going to be able to do so
- What entity you will use to buy the business
By addressing these questions at the beginning you won't get into trouble early in the piece. Financing a business is a big issue and needs to be very carefully thought out.
A business plan will help you analyse many areas of a new small business and you will be able to solve many of these situations before they arise and affect your new business.
By doing a business plan for your small business before you start spending money you will be well on the road to success. Your planning will be so much clearer and you will have more understanding of your stock, staff, markeing and finance. Many skills make up the success of a small business and having a business plan at the outset will help you start on the right footing.
Copyright (c) 2009 Kaye Dennan
You won't know which way you are going, what problems will create trouble for you and eventually you will totally lose your way and come to a slow grinding halt, scared to move in any direction.
A business plan will help you bring your ideas together in some form of structured format which you can use to go forward with your business in the short term and the long term.
If you are going into a partnership you will definitely benefit because you will have down on paper all the thoughts in the partnership and you will all be able to stay focused on the same goal.
From the point of view of finance, with all your assets and costs written down you to have a clear picture of what cash you have, what finance you need to arrange and how you are going to pay back any finance that you borrow. If you are in partnership you will be able to have in your business plan any differences in funds being added in to the business by each partner and how the partnership plans on handling the repayment to each partner.
Once you know your financial situation you will be able to go ahead with your set up cost analysis and the financing if you are borrowing monies.
From there another extremely important point to look at in a business plan for a small business is the marketing. No marketing or marketing incorrectly can make or break a small business. By having this set out in your business plan you will have a much better idea of what you need to do, when you need to do it and how you are going to fund it. Then when you know these details you can go ahead and write a more detailed marketing plan which you should include with the business plan if you are going to be presenting it to any lenders.
Another point of your business plan is to assess the competition and also look at any other negative factors that may impact on your business.
You can see the important role that a business plan plays in setting up your business. Most new business owners are so keen to get their business up and running that they do not complete this step, but believe me you will be sorry if you do not. Your small business has a much greater chance of success if you look at all the criteria before spending any money.
Kaye Dennan has sinced written about articles on various topics from Medicine, Family and Family Travel. A Guide to Working at Home is an ebook that helps people with income earning strategies on the internet. The ebook gives many suggestions to help you decide what to do. There is good money to be made, but there is a right and a wrong way to go about it. R. Kaye Dennan's top article generates over 27100 views. to your Favourites.