Ditching your day job, and starting a business whether it’s small or large is not a small thing, but a real challenge. A business is something which almost anyone can get into with an idea, a workable business concept, and a business plan with the understanding of investment/finance, marketing and other required resources.
It’s no new that small businesses are everywhere these days. Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, but not every business is set for success. There is no need of any special training to run a business though. But it’s important to start with it right and run it correctly.
So, here we have 7 steps for you to start your own small business if you have already made up your mind to be an entrepreneur:
1. Research:
Know what interests you and what you’re good at. Once you’ve figured it out you need to think about the type of business you’d like to run. It could be selling a product; it could be working as an Architect or Interior designer or anything you would prefer doing.
This is how you are going to identify your business idea. You can also consider turning your favorite hobby like blogging, writing etc. in which you have some sort of experience into a full-time business.
2. Define your business goals:
It’s important to take the time to define your business goals and look at them from a broader perspective to see what lies ahead in the upcoming months or years.
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But, at first you need to ask yourself a few questions: Does your business solves a problem or fulfills a need and provides value to your potential customer? Does your business offer something the market wants and makes people’s life easier? And so on…
3. Business Strategy:
After you’ve figured out what you’re good at and the type of business you are going to run, and your skills are best suited to, you need to think about the business strategy.
You will have to figure out, who your potential customer is? What you will do? Who will you serve? How will you grow? How will your business sustain in the upcoming few months or years? Do you have any competition in the market? If yes, then how are you going to provide better service to the customers and win their trust?
And things like that.
4. Finances:
You will have to identify how much money you will need to invest in your business initially, and how it’s going to sustain financially for the next 12 months at least.
You will have to invest in an office space, furniture, staff’s salary, and other work resources which also include your bills like the internet connection, taxes, marketing, advertising and so on, keeping in mind the next 12 months period at least if not more than that.
5. Business Registration & License:
From choosing your business name to the registration, you will have to take care of many things such as checking if it’s trademarked or currently in use by someone else or not. If you are looking to build a website you will have to check whether the domain name for the same is available or not.
Then, you will need to register your business or firm making sure that you do the required paperwork, and know what permits apply to your business, and complete the process with accuracy.
6. Hiring employees:
Even a small business need at least 2-3 employees to work on specific tasks at a work place, but it’s important to hire them when you actually need to have an extra hand for the work.
Hire an employee or assistant when you feel like you need one to assist you with basic things so that you don’t have to bother about everything on your own. Increase the number as your business expands.
Other than above, if your work is something that could be done from home or from anywhere in your country with flexible working hours then you may go ahead and create a team from where you can outsource work when you need to and vice versa.
7. Marketing and promotions:
Once you are done with the business set up and the above steps, it’s now time to make a marketing plan for your business and promotions. If you have an online website then you may contact the social influencers, and can also use the social media platforms for the marketing and promotions across the web.
Also, if you have offline business then you may consider using traditional methods for the promotions like the flyers, flex printing etc. depending upon your needs.
I hope you found the above steps on starting a small business helpful. Please subscribe for more informational updates and comment below if you have any queries or suggestions for the same.
Until then!
Really helpful content. Keep up the great work.