e-sbforum  , the Small
Business Forum, is a
business unit of
The InterConsultGroup. designed
to help medium, small and
micro businesses to
create the right business and administrative
structures and control mechanisms for operating
successfully in a business environment.
When
you start a business, you have to go about in a
planned way, so that your venture and your
efforts, have a reasonable chance of success. Before
you start a business plan or look for financing,
you have to be clear in your own mind, what your
business will be all about. "I
want to make millions" is a good
premise, but not a sufficient one
to start a business.
How
to Start a Business: Business Selection and
Business Planning
These
pages are there to help you in your effort to
create a viable enterprise. We start with an assessment
of your own abilities. Because,
that is the key to your success.
You are the initiator, and you are the
guide, that puts it all together. Knowing
yourself and your own abilities and
short comings, within the context of
starting a business, takes on a whole new
meaning.
If
you don't know something, or if, for instance,
you are not good at organizing yourself or the
world around you, it does not mean you cannot
start and successfully run a business. It simply
implies, that you need help in those areas. But,
in the first instance, you have to know, that are
not good at that! That is what
self assessment is all about: Know
yourself!
The
next
step is to select a business opportunity that
really interests you and which, in your opinion
will provide a viable long term future income.
You might very well bring something with you from
your past which you want to develop and expand. That
is a great idea. Because, presumably,
you will bring with you expertise, that will make
up the initial core of your saleable business
opportunity. Having gone through a self
assessment, you should now
be easily able to match what
you want to do, with your
abilities to do it.
If
you are looking for a business
opportunity, rather
than bringing one to the table, you will
have to seriously evaluate, how you and your
personality can take the business idea
and turn it into a viable venture, that will
remain around for you to grow and prosper with
it. We give you, on two, three pages, some
business ideas and some
low priced products, that help you build from the
initial idea. Over time we will add ideas that we
judge viable and not some "pie in the
sky".
The
next step, step number three, will
bring your initial work together. You will be
starting to write a business
plan that will help you, "grosso
modo" (in "large
junks") look at the enormity of your
undertaking. Hopefully, you will still be
full of enthusiasm as you get to the
details of what you have to do to "lift
your baby out of the water"! You don't
want to become one of the victims of the three
to five year early business infant deaths!
A good initial planning and evaluation
effort will reduce the risk of that happening.
You
can use our template of a business plan to put
some order into the chaos. If you get stuck or
want to talk issues through with someone, the Small
Business Forum offers a
variety of consulting services. For a small
fee, we will review
the Business Plan which you have
created, and suggest any changes that we perceive
as increasing your chances of succeeding. But you
don't have to use our review mechanism, if you
use our template! Alternatively, for a prepaid
fee, we write the Business
Plan for you.
e-mail us for a
quotation.There are obviously various approaches
to establishing a business plan for a new
venture.
For
a Business Start-Up and for the Small Business
Owner, there are many other suppliers of business
plans. Some are tailor made for a very large
variety of businesses. For instance, The
Business Plan offers simple
step-by-step instructions. It is a
complete Business Plan Kit.
What
help you use will depend on your own
sophistication and understanding of the process.
Some of the plan aids offered in the market tend
to be complicated, others simple and easy, but
not less helpful. If you have little experience,
you might want to use an easily
understandable system, rather than
create your own. Some of these are shown below,
or you can find them through a search at Google.
Here
are some third party products that are easily
understandable.
Write a
Business Plan
Here are prepared Business
Plans for a large variety of businesses
with an easy step by step set of
instructions to guide you through the
creation of your own personal business
plan. It will include all the help you
need. An incredible worth for only
US$ 59.95.
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How To
Write A Business Plan… Made Easy
Everything banks, lenders and the SBA
look for! Produce your business
plan quickly and easily... For
entrepreneurs and small-business owners.
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More...
Why is writing your business plan
so important to you?
This is the question you will
need to ask yourself over and over
again.And once you come up with the
answer that is right for your business,
you will be ready to get started
preparing your business plan.Your
business plan can provide potential
lenders with details that may help you
with getting financed.
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The type of plans shown above have
been used by us and are easy to comprehend. If
you feel the need and it makes you feel more
assured, we will review the plan, once you have
written it for a small fee.
Once
you are satisfied with your business plan, you
will start with step four,
the implementation phase.
In your business plan you have touched on many
different issues. Now, you have to convert them
into real actions, so that your venture moves
from an idea to a real substantive subject.
Why
to Incorporate and what you have to know about
Incorporating a Business
The
first questions you probably want to answer is
whether you should incorporate your business,
what incorporation brings you, what type of
corporation you need, how much it costs and where
to incorporate. We have created a page in Why
and how to Incorporate, that
should answer these questions. If you want to do
all this yourself rather than contract some
outside help, you will find the state
offices to do this here! But we
strongly recommend that you use an incorporation
agent to help you!
Business
Tools from Accounting to Product Definition and
Marketing to Creating an Internet Presence
We
think that the first
issues to be tackled should be the selection of
the accounting system. Since you
will already have made some expenses during the
planning phase, you should start a disciplined
method of collecting the records of these
expensed and record them in an easily
understandable way. Starting now with an
accounting system, also has its advantages.
Because, it is likely that you have few
transactions, at this state of the game, you can
actually learn how your accounting system
works. Something which might be more
difficult at a later stage.
In
between your learning process,
you might have time to read something.Below are
some texts, that could be of interest!
| Some
Books from amazon.com |
One
of the key issues in your new business will be your
cash management. More
start-ups go out of business, because they cannot
manage their cash properly, than for any other
reason. It is singularly the most important item
in your agenda, and it would be a good
habit to look at your cash position, as the first
order of business every morning you
enter the office!
The
next important step will be to identify
your clients and customers. Without
them, you will not have any business. You have
already done some work in your Business Plan. But
that needs refining. You need lists of
potential and existing customers with names of
contacts, phone numbers, e-mails and comments
about buying habits or any other thing
you think is important. There are commercially
available programs for that, but if your customer
list is small, you can start off doing it
manually on a sort of manual spreadsheet.
Once
you have planned your business,
set up some "basic systems" and defined
your products, you have to
make your products ready for the market. Getting
the right selling tools is important. As is,
knowing how
to propagate the products in the market. You
want people to know about yourself and about your
fledgling company.
We
have some
tools that help you get the
customer relations right. There are many ways of
managing that aspect of the business. The tools
on our pages might "jug your
memory" and help you to select
the products that you will find useful.
Your
Business and the Internet: Some things you need
to know
If
you have an Internet site, marketing
that site and making it known to the public will be
an important issue, especially if your business
depends on it. There are a whole host of
specialist products that help you in that task.
Not all of them are needed, even though they
might be useful. We offer several pages that deal
with Internet
issues or products that
help you.
In
addition, we will provide a growing list of Business
Resources and
a series of useful
Software Business Tools. These
might range from office suppliers to furniture,
or printers . The Links are to sites that help
the small business owner (or the larger
one), and the start-up, to find
the right resources for their venture.
Some
Frequently Asked Questions
Finally,
the Frequently
Asked Questions may
provide some answers to your questions. If you
would like to know something specific and think
that the answer to your question has general
appeal, send it to us and we will add it to the FAQ's.
So,
what are you waiting for? Start your business
now!
e-sbforum
Small Business
Forum
Part of
The InterConsultGroup
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