Starting a Successful Business: Stuff You Need to Know
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About this ebook
Debi J. Peverill is a rare individual: a Chartered Professional Accountant with a sense of humour. Debi has been advising business owners and managers about taxes, finances and lot of other stuff since 1978. She has a wealth of relevant experience and she writes in a easy-to-understand and frequently humourous manner.
Buy this book to start your successful business today. In this book you will learn the three things every business owner needs to know:
. How to make money
. How to stay out of trouble
. How to avoid making rookie mistakes
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Book preview
Starting a Successful Business - Debi J Peverill
Chapter 1. Things to Do First
I hope you have picked this book up before you quit your day job!
There are a few things that I think you should do before you become completely self-employed.
One of those things is to get your financial house in order. If you need money to start your business, you may have to borrow it, and this could involve visiting your banker. The problem is that once you quit your job it is too late for bank visits. You have no job and to a bank you are unemployed, as the bank does not see much difference between a person who is newly self-employed and one who is unemployed. So now you need money and you can’t get it. I would suggest that you get a line of credit secured by the equity in your house before you quit your job. Now I am not suggesting that you lie to anyone about anything, but I bet you could get a line of credit without mentioning that you are thinking about starting a business. That is the type of information that a bank manager is unlikely to ask. Can you picture the manager saying, Do you plan to quit your job any time soon?
If you are asked that question, then you have to answer it truthfully, but I bet they don’t ask.
Do you need a new car? If so, don’t wait until you quit your job to get it. Same reasons as above—way easier to get a loan when you have a job!
Financially you are in a better position as far as a bank is concerned when you are an employee than a newly self-employed person. Being self-employed is more risky and banks are generally risk averse. So consider your financial situation carefully and make the moves you need to make before you quit the day job.
Start Part-Time
A new business owner would be wise to start the business on a part-time basis before leaving full-time employment. Now this may not always be possible. If you are a lawyer and want to open your own law practice, then you can’t start part-time. Your employer will object somewhat strenuously to you doing legal work for anyone other than him or her. However, if you are a lawyer and you want to start a bakery, then you are probably allowed to do so. There could be language in your employment agreement that will keep you from conducting another business. Sometimes the agreement says that you may not do any other business activity that takes more than fifteen hours a week or something like that. The reason, of course, is that employers feel that they deserve most of your energy and enthusiasm.
The advantage of starting part-time is that you can check out the amount of interest that the market has in your business before you give up that paycheque. You get a chance to see which parts of your business idea work for your customers and what types of things you might be selling that no one cares about. You might also find out that the business idea is not really valid for the location you were planning to use. If you start part-time and no one cares, no customers and no profits, then you might decide not to do the business in the way you were thinking. Perhaps you need to change locations, pricing, or the products you are working with.
Starting part-time lets you practice before it really matters.
Starting part-time lets you practice before it really matters. There are other considerations beside financial ones. It is possible that you will not actually enjoy doing the work! Perhaps you have heard of students who were studying education for a couple of years before they actually set foot in a classroom. There are tales of people who only lasted a couple of days before realizing that their idealized versions of teaching
do not match up with the reality of unruly children who do not want to learn anything. So ponder this—maybe there is a way for you to practice before you actually make the move. Could you shadow a person who has a similar job? If that is possible, you get a chance to see what it is really like before you take the plunge full-time.
Save Up Some Money
This point is a variation on the other recommendation that you get your financing in place before you quit your job. So if you have a plan to start a business, and you have not yet quit your day job— consider trying to save up some money. Preparing a budget of how much you really need to earn to live is an important step. Some businesses fail only because the owner did not have enough money to begin with. The stuck-up term for this is undercapitalized.
If the owner of the business needs to take a paycheque out of the business from the moment that the business opens, there is less chance for success for that business. If a business owner can live on their savings for a while, then the business has a better chance to survive. Think about a plant—the plant cannot grow tall if you need to eat it right away.
This is one of the reasons why the SEB program (Self-Employed Benefits) increases the likelihood of success for new business owners. The program, which is administered provincially but is funded through the federal employment insurance program (EI), allows people who qualify for EI benefits to start a business and still receive EI for a time period—generally forty weeks. A person who is on EI and starting a business is generally disqualified from receiving EI once they identify as self-employed unless they are in the SEB program. This program allows for EI payments to continue and also provides the participants with access to training and business advice. The chances of business success increase when a business owner is on the program. So if there is a way for you to be laid off prior to starting your business, then you could have access to this program. Check it out before you quit your day job.
Family Support
Check around and see how much interest your family has in you starting a business. Have some in depth discussions about this. You do need family support in order to make a success of the business. If your spouse is dead set against you leaving your secure job and venturing out into the wilds of self-employment, then it is going to be harder for you to be successful. There will be days when you are discouraged and you need someone to tell you that everything is going to be okay. You do not need someone telling you that they told you so,
and that your business is never going to work,
that you better start looking for a job, and so forth.
Your family also has some valuable feedback for you. These people know you well and may be able to point something out that you may have overlooked—such as that you don’t actually like people all that much! Maybe you are thinking about opening a restaurant. Your spouse might say, Really!! You have no patience for people who can’t make up their minds about what to eat!
or something like that. Ask your family and your friends, and see what people think about you being your own boss.
Conclusion
Starting a business is a big step. Taking some time to consider all the decisions that are going to have to be made is a good strategy. If you are better prepared for the choices you will need to make, the chances are that you will make better decisions. You want to start a successful business, not just start a business. You should read the other chapters in the book before you quit your day job.
Chapter 2. Personality
What kind of personality do you need to be an entrepreneur? There are all kinds of people who run their own business. To do it successfully, you need to have some of the following characteristics. I say that you have to be …
FIERCE!
F — Fearless
I — Intelligent and Independent
E — Energetic
R — Realistic
C — Curious and Committed
E — Effective
Fearless—Are You