Signs that You’re Ready to Start Your Small Business
So you think you’re ready to start your small business? Here’s a few tips to help you along the way. These are EXCERPTS from “Why Your Business Won’t Grow” a forthcoming How to book for minority entrepreneurs by Kevin Ross
I’ve been in business now for 17 years. I’ve been very lucky because it’s been estimated that up to 85% of new businesses fail within the first four years or less. Some studies state as high as 60% of new businesses fail within the first year. During the past two decades, I have seen many examples of why small businesses fail and I’d like to share those with you if you have considered diving in and trying your small business. Here are the things that you should ABSOLUTELY NOT DO if you don’t want to fail IMMEDIATELY.
Unbridled PASSION for What you Do
Start Your Small Business: Have you ever been in love? REAL LOVE? The kind that makes you forget the rest of the world exists and EVERYTHING is about the other person? You can talk on the phone for hours to them but it seems like minutes? You leap out of bed ready to take on the day with a huge smile on your face because you’re experiencing true happiness? Unfortunately, for most, this feeling is temporary but not if you small your small business. Why? Because business is the SAME WAY! Do what you LOVE and the money will Come” is exact and true. What is it that you LOVE to do, that you could do ALL DAY, that when you are doing it, it feels like you are not working? There’s your potential business!
You Have a Budget
Start Your Small Business: I would STRONGLY suggest not taking out loans if you don’t have to for two reasons. I don’t like dealing with middlemen, they can rob you of your passion and it’s always best to start off NOT owing someone. It ALWAYS helps if you have money stashed to start your small business because you start off is the same way you do business and the way you end it. If you start of begging, your entire business will most likely be based on you begging. If you have to beg people to convince them of your value, you are in the wrong business. They should SEE the value.
You Have Vision…
Start Your Small Business: I am surrounded by other entrepreneurs or people who are on their way to being entrepreneurs. We attract each other and most of my closest friends are entrepreneurs. I had a friend who loved to experiment with cheesecakes. He worked for the gas company for his full time gig but he would do things like make Peach Cobbler Cheesecake, German Chocolate Cheesecake, Cheesecake Pound Cake, Oatmeal Raisin Cheesecake and even Sweet Potato Cheesecake. People would go NUTS over those Cheesecakes and he started taking them to work and his coworkers would offer him up to $30.00 to make them ONE of his Cheesecakes. Before he knew it, he had to rent a kitchen and he was making at least 50 Cheesecakes a weekend as word spread. He LOVED doing it and he became a different person while he was doing it. He wasn’t bound by the work grind and the stress he had to often face working with broken gas lines in the field. Who could be passionate about that? To make a long story short, he was not comfortable with the lack of security he felt he would have without a full time job. I along with several other entrepreneur friends tried to convince him that he could triple and even quadruple his current income and have continued growth over the next 5 years that would make him incredibly successful but he did not have VISION. He is letting the opportunity pass him by.
Are you ORIGINAL?
Start Your Small Business: Doing what someone else does because you have the same contacts or you see that they are making money may work for a while but if you are not churning out the same quality product that they can you will eventually fail. If your business is based on mimicking what someone else does, it’s NOT time to start your small business, it’s time to either do a better job or think of something else. The greatest part of being an entrepreneur is the passion that you AND ONLY YOU have for what you do.
Do People Keep Coming Back?
Start Your Small Business: One of the GREATEST signs that you are able to start your small business is if whatever it is that you do has the same clients coming back for more WITHOUT you calling them. Your clients are the best friends to your business. If you have been in business for more than 3 years and you don’t have at LEAST one or two MAJOR clients, something is wrong. Prospects are not seeing the value of what it is that you do.
