Starting A Business? Here’s Your Ultimate How-To Guide
Starting your own business is a tremendously exciting experience. But it also happens to be quite challenging at the best of times. You’ll be going from doing a job you know well, to having to learn a completely new one: being a business owner.
We’re not saying you shouldn’t try. After all, starting is always the hardest part and many business owners agree that being their boss is well worth the struggle.
To help you overcome the difficult entry barrier, we’ve poured over case studies of our most successful clients to see what their most common first steps are:
What Is Your Expertise?
This question is where it all begins and will decide the heart & soul of your business: what are you selling?
The best way to create a successful business is to sell what you know.
This could be the field you’ve been working in for the last few years, or even a hobby that you’ve been passionate about for the last decade or so.
The most profitable businesses we’ve seen were built by individuals who had spent ten, fifteen, even twenty years working in their field before starting their own company.
In some cases, new business owners may get lucky and strike gold with a business in an industry they have little to no experience in. This is especially the case in today’s modern world with Ecommerce, outsourcing, and decentralized networks.
However, these rare instances usually come about when the business owner is already an entrepreneur and has previous experience in running existing businesses, or have an amazing team behind them!
Takeaway: When starting a business, stick to what you know first.
How Will You Make It Profitable?
Next, you’ll need to find how to make doing what you know profitable.
There’s no point being the best plumber in the world if you’re not making money while you’re doing it.
It goes without saying that you’ll need:
- All your relevant qualifications & certifications in order
- Necessary equipment hired or purchased
- Important software updated and ready to use
- A list of clients ready to service – or at least a way to get clients.
If you don’t have a pre-existing client list on hand, then you will need to secure a channel of inbound customers ASAP – or have funds to cushion the first few months of low work.
You may consider digital advertising such as Facebook Ads, local networking, or cold sales calls to bring in new business.
You’ll also need to know how much money you’re going to get once you have customers. This could be in the form of:
- Product sales
- Ongoing retainer fees
- One-off deposits
- Royalties
- Profits from large-scale projects
- Government grants (if applicable)
- Hourly rates
And how much money you’re going to lose due to ongoing costs, such as:
- Manufacturing costs
- Travel cost
- Building rent
- License fees
- Salary/s
Understanding your cash flow (both in and out) is crucial to staying profitable.
Takeaway: To really map out how to make your new business profitable, check in with our start-up solutions experts at the A Firm today.
Discover Your Niche & Stick To It
Niching: We’ve all heard of it, but nobody wants to do it.
Why?
Because niching into a particular specialty of your expertise can sometimes feel like you’re cutting yourself off from other sources of income.
It’s only natural and all business owners go through this emotion at some point in time.
For example: a plumber may believe that if he/she offers a wide range of services – leak repair, toilet installation, pipe repair, drain blockage, sink refurnishing – then they will have a higher chance of landing a job.
But the thing is:
Everybody is trying to offer as much as they can!
Every plumber will be offering as many services as they can to cover all bases within their business and local area.
Everyone wants to snap up the “low-hanging fruit”, as it were.
But if you’re known as the best drain blockage plumber in your local city?
Suddenly, you gain authority and everyone is referring you to their friends and family. You might even land some extra-big clients because of your specialty!
Takeaway: Most customers don’t want a business who can offer them everything. They want a business that can offer them the best of one thing.
Being A Business Owner Is A Whole New Job
One of the most important things to remember when starting your business is that it will require an entirely new mindset than the one you’re used to.
You may have been the best plumber in your city, for example, but being a business owner is an entirely new job.
One that you’re just starting. So always keep an open mind.
Remember: you will have to learn entirely new skills, such as networking, payroll, supply management, procuring new customers, marketing, sales, customer relations, building management…the list goes on.
You’ll most likely have to do a wide range of things that were not in your previous job description. You might even have to do parts of the job that make you uncomfortable.
See: the dreaded cold sales call *gasp*. Or networking events where you don’t know a single person.
Thankfully, today’s online world means there are always a dozen and one ways to succeed.
Takeaway: prepare yourself to learn a whole new skill in business management.
Or, better yet, book an appointment with The A Firm and we can help you kickstart your new business from day one, just like we’ve done for 100+ Aussie small businesses!
Call us today and learn how we can help you skip the cold calls & debt pitfalls in one easy meeting!