Small Business Blog

Posts Tagged ‘First’

Managing a home based business requires tremendous effort and sacrifice. Before you should embark on any home based business, you should first develop a business plan. This is the first step in determining the success of your business because the plan outlines all the important characteristics of your business such as type of business, target group of customers and financial source. It also functions as a blueprint and helps you to keep on the right track. Spending some time to formulate a good blueprint is essential to avoid pitfalls and needless frustrations. A business plan is a must if you intend to look for loan funds. This article explains how to write a business plan for a home based business.

The first component of your plan should consist of the basic details of your business. A guide to do this is through the use of 6 keywords: Who, What, How, When, Why and How Much. The average length of a business plan usually varies between 30-40 pages. Keep your words concise and reveal as much detail as possible. To write a good plan, you will need time. Discipline and privacy is also important to enable you to focus on your points.

A business plan should consist of elements such as executive summary (mission statement), financing goals, competitive analysis, market strategy and operation plans. Your executive summary is a one-page overview highlighting the business plan essentials such as nature of business, name, legal structure, amount for loan and repayment proposal. Financing goals highlight costing and estimated financial projection while competitive analysis examines the industry competitiveness relevant to the business. Market strategy has to do with identifying your marketing plans and customer demographics while operation plans identify the location, structure and regulations involved in setting up the business. These are all the main key elements that you must include in your business proposal for your first step to success in home based business.

If you are not familiar, you can always engage the help of a professional business plan writer or small business marketing coach to assist you. You should also read up on effective ways to set up a business, of which includes business plan writing.  Business plan evaluation is an ongoing activity. It requires owners to review and modify plans according to changes in the market. Abovementioned are one of the many tips on how to write a business plan for a home based business.

You’ve been dreaming about what it would be like to start your
own small business. It has been on your mind since you were in
school, and there are times, especially on Monday mornings, that
you daydream about it. But, you’re not really sure what it would
look like. You don’t have the first clue how to get started, and
of course, you’re afraid that you would put your heart and soul
into it, only to fail and look like a fool. You barely even talk
about it out loud, because you don’t want family and friends to
laugh at you.

But, anything is possible! The only limitations we have are the
ones we put on ourselves! With planning and learning the steps,
and doing your homework, if this is something you really want to
do, you can do it, AND succeed greatly at it, too!

I’m not saying it’s easy! Nothing worth having is. I have had
to learn a great deal; about myself, about business, about my
clients and potential clients. And it never ends, because my
interests and passions change with the years. But, how exciting!

When my daughter started kindergarten, I returned to school. It
took me five years to get through school, but I had a vision: I
wanted to help people become healthy and fit in the privacy of
their own homes. After school, I didn’t have that plan fully in
place, even in my mind, but after six years of working in a
hospital, I was ready. I opened MEG Fitness in June, 1996. It’s
been an incredible ride! I’ll never look back at my life with
regrets that I didn’t pursue my dream. I really have learned
that the only limits are those I impose on myself, too! So, I
continue to dream bigger and allow my vision to become more
grand. Why not? What’s the worst that can happen?

That’s what you have to ask yourself. If you never try, will
you be happier? If you never try, how will you know if you could
have done it? Consider some of the well-known names in sports,
such as Michael Jordan, the basketball player; he has thrown
more MISSED shots than those that have made their mark. What if
he had not taken the chance to see what was possible for himself?

Okay, so now you’re ready to take the next step! First, in
order to help you focus, I recommend that people start working
on their business plan. The Small Business Association has
invaluable resources on their website (www.sba.gov). This was
the route I took. A year before I quit the hospital, I started
working on my business plan. It helped me determine exactly who
I was, what I offered, why, who my ideal client was, who my
target market was (at that time), who my competition was, where
I would offer my services, how I would offer them, and so on. As
I coach other health professionals who want this dream, I now
use a 3-page business plan for clients who don’t plan to look
for outside funding. Regardless of the type of business plan, it
will help answer many hard questions for you.

There are resources specific to most specific fields, too,
including other professionals who help others get started. Do
your research to see who you can contact for support and to ask
questions of as you progress. Once you have your business plan
in place, it’s not time to celebrate, yet! How are you going to
accomplish the goals you have come up with in that plan? You
next need a marketing plan. Now, although the marketing plan is
also part of a business plan, it’s really just the intro! The
marketing plan will become your template, your schedule, and
will spell out the actions you will take to make those goals
reality. If you use it seriously, it will be your day-to-day
guide to making your dreams come true!

It’s common that everyone makes mistakes, especially when they are just starting out.  If you know the most common pitfalls, you’ll be less likely to struggle in your path to starting your first small business.  I’ve rounded up the seven most common mistakes that you should avoid when starting your first small business.

Mistake One: Thinking You Can Make a Million Overnight.  You cannot, I repeat, cannot, become an instant millionaire.  I don’t care how fast you are at website design or how fast some program claims you can be making money online, it simply takes time.  Yes, there are sites that can make it in the first week or so of their publication, but they have money backing them–and lots of it.  For us mere mortals without a million in the bank, building a website and getting it seen online takes time.

Mistake Two: Forgetting to Pay Your Taxes.  Yikes.  But many new small business owners have no idea when, or how much taxes they need to be paying.  Call a tax guy and chat with him about your situation.  Tell him what you sell and how much you’ve been making.  You might have to shell out a bit of cash, but it’s much better than the IRS pounding on your door.

Mistake Three: Not Checking on Inventory Sources.  Many new small businesses drop ship their products.  This means that they select a drop shipper who has something they’d like to sell, and they place that product up for sale on their website.  When a sale comes in, the business owner sends an email to the drop shipper, who then charges wholesale costs for the product.  The drop shipper then ships out the product for the business owner.  It sounds like a beautiful relationship, and often it is.  But sometimes, the drop shipper simply cannot be trusted.  They ship late, they never tell the business owner when a product gets back-ordered, or worse discontinued, and often they have high drop ship rates.  Before using a drop shipper, always do a little research (try Rip Off Report.com).

Mistake Four: Pricing Too High or Too Low.  It’s easy to get carried away and price 500% over wholesale, thinking you’ll make a killing on those designer handbags.  The truth is that 150-200% over wholesale is acceptable, even desirable, and you’ll make a good profit.  Don’t be greedy.  Your only problem comes in when a drop shipper has fees that have to be considered in the price, or if shipping costs need to be determined.  Then, consider how much those fees are, how much the wholesale cost of the product is, and calculate 150-200% over that number.

Mistake Five: Trying to be a Super Affiliate.  Being an affiliate for a product is a fun and easy way to make money fast online.  Promote a good product and you can see decent, if not great, rewards.  However, often, it “looks” like people make a lot of money as affiliates, when actually they are scrambling just to keep their shorts.  It’s common to see affiliates spending ,000 a week in pay per click, just to make ,000 in conversions.  That ,000 in one hour looks pretty good on a sales page, but if it took ,000 out of pocket to get there, that isn’t a wise business decision.

Mistake Six: No Search Engine Optimization.  This one should be a given.  You cannot have a successful website anymore unless you learn a bit about search engine optimization.  You can’t even trust an “expert” to do it for you because they just overcharge and under-perform.  You must learn to do this yourself.  It isn’t hard, and it doesn’t take very much time.  It only sounds scary because it is a concept that has even the gurus scrambling to get their acts together on.  They didn’t learn it because they always had pay per click and affiliates to fall back on.  Their websites never had to perform in the search engines, let alone do well.  Now, we’ve seen the gurus crash and fall because they’ve made this fatal, yet preventable, mistake.

Mistake Seven: Not Having Enough Content.  As they say, content is king.  For your site to perform well, you need to write some content for it.  You just do.  It doesn’t matter if you can’t write to save your life, you need this part to happen if you want to be successful.  And, the truth is that if you can’t write 300 words about the product or service you are selling, perhaps you shouldn’t be selling it.  Take a deep breath and consider the product you are selling.  What are the highlights?  What are the low-lights?  What are the specific benefits?  What color/texture/fabric/etc  is it?  What would you tell a friend about your product?  What would you tell a complete stranger?  Answer these few basic questions and you’ll be surprised how much content you can come up with.

If you have hopes of starting a new business in New Jersey, there are a few things that you will need to do first. Although starting a business in New Jersey is not as simple as simply tossing down a few bucks and signing a lease. There are many things to consider such as tax law, liability, and consumer protection clauses and each state has different rules and regulations. However if you are starting a business in New Jersey, this is what you need to do.

Register your business. If you are starting a new business, you will have to register it for tax purposes. If you have a home-based business, like dog grooming or direct selling, you will just have to fill out a one page form. If you have a corporation or L.L.C, on the other hand, prepare for a more extensive process, one which includes authorization or formation documents.

Check to see if you need a permit or license. Certain businesses, like child care centers, taxi services, or restaurants you will need to apply for a license to operate in.. This is a process in itself. You will need to find out which license or permit you need, and then contact the agency responsible for giving out that particular license. If you don’t want to go through the hassle, you may want to make sure you are starting a business that does no t require a license.

Get an accountant. Ideally, you will want to do this before you’re in business. You will need him to help calculate the start up costs associated with starting a business, so he can deduct it from your profits. Make sure to get an accountant who is very familiar with business law, because a mistake from him can turn into a major headache for you. If you have experience, or know someone with a lot of experience, you can try to do them yourself, but the rule about mistakes still applies. Ignorance is not bliss in this instance.

In the previous decades, the Yellow Pages were probably the best tool used for easily spotting a local vendor, or certain business establishment. Fast forward to today, and the Yellow Pages are still there, but they’re not the preferred mode for finding businesses or shops anymore.

The Internet has now replaced the veritable Yellow Pages as the fastest and easiest platform for finding just about everything. Find how using Google Maps Cash help to make your business rank high on Google’s firs page, as well as provide you with the ultimate Web Traffic system, which can generate as much as ten thousand clicks for your Web business per day.

Google Maps Cash Can Provide You With Keywords To Make Your Business Soar

The Google Maps Cash system is basically created to smoothly force your Web business into Google’s first page. If you have no idea of how to generate as much traffic into your web site, then the system should be the right one for you. The system is so easy to implement, and it actually requires no search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) ads or backlinks.

How The System Works

The Google Maps Cash system actually offers you a better way for optimizing your business’ search results on Google’s front pages. It provides tried-and-tested strategies, that allows your business to effectively compete with other multinational companies who have million-dollar SEO budgets.

The Google Maps Cash system offers a series of video tutorials, which effectively outline the fundamentals, along with the more advance techniques, to allow you to effectively utilize Google Maps for making your business rank high on Google’s front page. The course is primarily developed to provide users with the tools and tricks to easily force their business on top of the search engine rankings.

Once your business registers with Google Maps, a tangible address is given, and Google sends you an authentication code afterward. Once the user has claimed his business with the code, the site can then be matched with other businesses’, and on top of the Google results page, a small map appears before the search results, which pinpoints the map location of your business.

Using Advanced Methods For Placing Your Business Within Google Maps

The system actually uses what’s described as a “lateral” approach for optimizing Google results to your chosen physical regional market. It uses specific techniques which actually places your business on the 10 box maps results, even if you don’t actually have a local business.

This would surely would be of great benefit to businesses who only have an online presence. What’s also great about this course is that it does away with the use of tedious, heavy search engine optimization (SEO) terminology, and only outlines simple keyword-rich tactics and strategies. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions are also given for all procedures.
Discover The Ultimate FREE Traffic System: No SEO… No backlinks… And No PPC required. Plus so much more that if I tried to list it all, I’d run out of room on this web page.

There is a tremendous excitement in the air about niche marketing. Why? It’s the best way to get the most bang for your buck. And more than ever, marketing your product or service to a specific group of people is what funnels prospects to your website.

However, when you are a small business owner just starting out, niche marketing may seem counter-intuitive. After all, marketing to a larger group of people will net more sales, right?

As a small business start up consultant, getting my clients to focus on a specific niche market is one of the most challenging parts of my job. Often, they resist, saying, “I don’t want to restrict my market because if I do I’ll get fewer sales.” “Do you have an unlimited supply of dollars?” I ask them, “Because you’ll need millions to market to a broad market group.”

Is it okay with you if I save you months of agony and millions of dollars?

Good! Here are the three things every first-time small business owner must know before they market to their niche group.

Pre-marketing Niche Checklist

1. Do you know who isn’t in your target market?

Ruling out who isn’t in your niche is a fun way to get around the resistance many first-time small business owners have to narrowing their niche. Go crazy here. Consider your niche. Now, list all the things you know for certain about who your niche isn’t. How old aren’t they? Where don’t they live? What kind of a lifestyle don’t they engage in? Where don’t they hang out, live, or eat. What don’t they buy? What luxuries don’t they want? What aren’t they saving for? What product or service don’t they need you to supply?

This approach easily and effortlessly narrows the market. Besides that, it’s creative and fun. After answering this question, you will be much closer to determining who your niche market is and more open to focusing your business to serve a specialized, smaller niche group.

2. What problems do your competitors already solve for your niche?

In all my years of helping women start up businesses, every time I’ve ask the question, “What product or service does your niche need,” they’ve predictably responded with what product or service they are excited about rolling out. They haven’t a clue as to what their competitors already offer. Far worse . . . they don’t know what their niche actually needs.

To keep the focus off my client’s need and on her niche’s need, I’ve found focusing on her niche market’s competition to be a great work-around solution.

Engaging in market research at this stage of the start-up process gives you the inside scoop on your competition. You’ll come to know were the gaps are, and begin to formulate solutions. As you examine each of your competitors write down the answers to these questions:

+What products and services do they offer?

+What problems do you think they’re solving?

+How would you solve this very same problem?

Armed with the answers to these questions, you are ready to position your solutions for success.

3. What solution is your niche market willing to buy?

This question is designed to shift your thinking from what you are selling to what your niche market is buying. What are they willing to pay for? How much are they willing to spend? Why do they want it? You are placing yourself in a very powerful marketing position by knowing the answer to these three questions.

From this position, you can now focus your energy and resources on developing specific solutions that you know will be relevant and meaningful to your niche group. Ones you know they are willing to buy and want.

No need to guess any longer what your niche market wants and who they are. Complete the pre-marketing niche checklist to know for sure. You’ll save money, avoid months of agony, and attract a steady stream of potential buyers to your website, if you do these things before you market to your niche. Figure out who your niche market isn’t and what your market’s problem is so you can deliver your product with confidence.