1.Are you a self-starter? You must have the self-discipline to plan, set goals, not procrastinate and stay focused.
2.What are your expectations? Do you think you'll work less and have less stress and more money? Think again.
3.What are your financial goals? Be prepared to work more for less money, at least in the beginning. Set up your retirement plan in the beginning and stick to it. Forget vacations and be sure to keep your health insurance going?.now there is no one but you to take care of these things.
4.Can you plan and organize? You'll be making countless decisions each day. Can you make a workplace for yourself that is free from distractions, where you can think, plan and communicate? To be a success, you must combine your fantastic ideas and business tools with solid planning and organization.
Success is never guaranteed and the variables and factors can sometimes be out of your control. But if you ask yourself honestly, before taking the plunge: Do I have what it takes to run a business? The answer should tell you if the ?American Dream? is right for you.
95% of small businesses fail within the first five years? Why?
Here are a few reasons why:
1.Mistaking a business for a hobby. Just because you ?love? to cook doesn't mean you should/could start a restaurant.
2.Poor planning. Have you researched all aspects of start-up costs and on-going expenses? Do you know what your monthly nut is going to be and do you have enough capital to carry you through for several years? Do you realize the sheer number of hours you'll be working? Do you have the management skills to wear all the hats necessary?
3.Only one product, one service or one big client. Markets change and needs change?will you have the foresight, flexibility, resources and ingenuity to change with the times? Diversification will cushion you against the ebb and flow of business tides.
4.Poor record-keeping and financial controls. If you don't know how to keep records and do accounting and file taxes and other business filings, find an expert to do it for you! Learn how to review your revenue and expense reports each month so you always have your finger on the pulse of your business.
5.Poor money management. Be prepared to plow all revenues back into your business for the first several years. No frills, no thrills, stick to a budget and a plan and forget vacations. Don't use any of the business income on personal spending and watch your business and personal debt, it can kill your new business faster than a speeding bullet.
6.Wrong location. Can your customers easily find you? You know the old saying ?Location, Location, Location!? What about visibility, image, parking, room to expand?
7.Competition. Check out your competition. Know who they are, what they offer and what makes your products or services better (or worse).
8.Poor time management. Wearing many hats is a reality of an entrepreneur. Learning how to manage your time means the difference between success and failure. A daily ?To Do? list is essential, with the top priority items at the top of the list. Hire help for those things you don't know how to do or hate to do.
9.Lack of Marketing and Sales Skills Keep track of what marketing/sales ideas work and don't work and quickly drop those that don't work. Hire a pro if you need to.
10.Poor Customer Service. Once you have a client, you need to keep them. This means you have to pay attention to the customer, fulfill their needs in a timely manner, return their phone calls and emails promptly, bill them properly, utilize a win-win problem-solving attitude and BE NICE!
11.Entrepreneurial burnout. Owning your own business requires a huge investment of time, money, energy and emotion. Take time off for yourself, you are your greatest asset!
A lot of people do not realize that entrepreneurs play a big role in our society.
When you put the total number of entrepreneurs together, they count as the biggest financial contributors to our nation's wealth. If only politicians would give grants to finance small business start-ups, the economy's growth could be hastened.
Knowing the obvious financial rewards and the important role to society of business owners, many individuals aspire to be entrepreneurs. The fact remains, however, that several business start-ups fail and never take-off from the ground because of one thing: the lack of adequate and sufficient knowledge on how to start and run a profitable business.
With proper planning and research and the necessary professionals to help you in the areas that you are lacking in, accompanied by adequate capital and resources, and fed by imagination, energy, excitement and self-discipline, you could be one of the many successes that is the backbone of the American economy.
But there can come a point when your business outgrows this arrangement. You need constant, reliable and secure communications with others in the company to ensure successful growth. You need an intranet.
An intranet is similar to a website, and it uses internet protocols, but it's an internal network exclusive to one company. (An "extranet" also is an internal or private website, but access privileges are extended to designated customers, partners and/or others.)
Most large corporations use intranets. Information distribution is a huge task when you have 10,000 or more employees. Intranets can make it easier.
Collaborate Online with Your Own Private Website
With Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft's intranet/extranet solution, you can create an online bulletin board for your business as well as share documents.
I can give you three major reasons why your small business should invest in one. Here they are:
1. Communication suffers when dealing with more than one person
Even a very small company has communication issues. Most people find out what's happening while gossiping. Stories change as they spread, leading to a misinformed and disgruntled staff. If you have telecommuters, off-site workers, employees who travel a lot or a "virtual" company, communication issues become even more challenging.
In order for a company to succeed, all employees must understand its goals. Neither long-term nor short-term goals should be confined to upper management meetings. Everyone needs to be working toward common goals.
An intranet is the perfect place to post weekly reports, memos and goals. This way, everyone has the same information.
Toby Ward, president of the intranet consulting firm Prescient Digital Media, notes that even a company with few employees benefits from an intranet. Even if you don't have people working remotely, your sales staffers or consultants aren't always in the office.
Building an intranet can enhance communication through message boards, instant messaging and moderated chats. How?
Let's take a typical business scenario. The sales staff of five has to come up with a presentation to the president on increasing sales in the next fiscal year.
Those five people will enter a conference room, have lunch, drink coffee and talk for hours. The first meeting turns into a three-hour idea exchange. The second meeting starts with a review of the best ideas from the first. The participants discuss why they will or will not work. By the third or fourth meeting, the five will come up with some proposals.
Using a discussion board in the days before the meetings can streamline the experience. Ideas can be debated beforehand. Participants come into the sales meeting more focused.
2. Time is money
Yes, this is a cliche. But it's too valid not to use here.
An intranet allows you to post critical information for all employees to see. Even having human resources information posted is valuable. One of my employees said workers in his former office once spent 45 minutes trying to find out if an upcoming holiday was a paid holiday. The personnel manager was gone and no one else knew.
Posting of calendars, company policies and company benefits is a great start. They'll reduce wasted time. But an intranet can be used for more than basic information. The beauty of an intranet is its interactivity.
You can save time with interactive forms. Vacation requests, supply orders, changes to benefits and more can be handled quickly and efficiently.
Make sure your intranet follows good design principles. You can't just post information and hope people will find it. Organise your intranet to make it as user-friendly as possible. We're trying to save time here, not frustrate people.
3. It's better than e-mail
You may be thinking, "Why doesn't the personnel person just e-mail the form?" Or, "I communicate well with my employees through meetings and postings on the cork board."
According to Ward, e-mailing multiple versions of the same document or presentation leads to confusion and sometimes information overload.
Let's take that same sales group we envisioned earlier. They've decided on three major ways they will increase sales. They are now working on a PowerPoint presentation.
Five people collaborating on one PowerPoint file can lead to disastrous results. I can hear the shouting now. "Who has the most recent version?" "Johnson, you gave me the wrong figures. I thought we fixed that." And so on.
By using an intranet, people can work on a shared file and have a central location for the most recent file.
This will also help save space on your server. It may sound like a tiny thing, but having versions of various files on everybody's computer takes up valuable space.
How to Get Started
Before you set up an intranet, make sure you understand what you want it to do. Understand how employees will use it. Finally, use good design principles. If it takes five or six clicks to find a vacation request form, it is too complex.
You'll also have to decide if you want to build your own solution. A consultant can build an intranet to your specifications. It will have the look and feel and design principles you specify. This route will cost you $10 USD to $500 USD per person per month.
There also are software packages such as Windows SharePoint Services that allow you to customise and design most everything yourself, using someone else's template. SharePoint runs $39.95 USD a month or $399 USD a year, no matter how many users.
Some packages, such as Instant Intranet Builder, use Microsoft Access as the core database. They incorporate linking mechanisms to create a workable intranet easily. You don't need a dedicated IT person to set up and maintain it. Depending on the company's size, the entire package is available for as little as $5 USD per person per month.
Some other software products available include InfoStreet, IntraSmart and Intranet Suite. Pricing varies, depending on the number of users.
There's Got To Be A Downside, Right?
To get your intranet ready for employee use, you will need someone to develop and maintain the content. The idea is to have continually updated information available. How you delegate those tasks may depend on the size of your company. If you only have 10 people, one person may be sufficient to maintain the information.
If you have a larger company, you'll probably want to separate content updates among departments. No matter the size, you'll have to budget maintenance time into an employee's schedule. Remember, we're dealing with computers - nothing ever runs as smoothly as we would like.
You'll also have to invest in time for employee training. You may even have to spend time convincing some employees to use the intranet. Once the system is up and running and everyone understands it, the return on investment will be significant.
Both Cynthia Macy & Kim Komando are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Cynthia Macy has sinced written about articles on various topics from Stock, Customer Service and Forex Online. Cynthia Macy has been successfully self-employed since she was 28 years old. She has traded foreign currencies and has co-authored 3 forex training ebooks.. Cynthia Macy's top article generates over 3600 views. to your Favourites.
Kim Komando has sinced written about articles on various topics from The Internet, Computers and The Internet and Small Business. Kim Komando writes about workplace technology and . She's the host of the nation's largest talk-radio show about co. Kim Komando's top article generates over 1600 views. to your Favourites.