Starting a Small Business: What Business Owners Must Do First to Build a Successful Foundation
You’ve just started your own small business, and once the excitement has worn off, you start wondering what to do next. There are a wide variety of things you can and should do at some point. However, business owners must prioritize those things that build a solid foundation for success. Here are some tips on how to move forward.
o Make sure you have a written business plan ready to implement. You never want to “plan as you go” and you should have a plan that reflects your vision for the company and outlines your strategies, objectives, and milestones. You should adjust the plan on a regular basis based on conditions and challenges that you did not anticipate.
o Get your financial reports in order from scratch. It’s much more difficult to create a reporting plan after you’ve been in business for a while. Talk to your CPA about the things you need to document and track and then set up your accounting in Quickbooks or some other financial software or hire an accountant to set it up for you. This is a step that people often downplay at first because the money isn’t coming in yet and it seems like something you can wait for. Well, you can’t wait and you’ll pat yourself on the back for being so resourceful when the money starts rolling in and you have your financial tracking in place.
o Most business owners have to borrow money at some point to expand or to cover expenses during economic downturns. Begin the process of establishing good credit early by obtaining and paying credit cards immediately and establishing vendor accounts. You want to minimize the use of your own personal credit as much as possible because that can be a slippery slope and can harm your own ability to borrow in the future.
o Study your market to identify the main players who can help you with references and general advice. It takes time to build credibility with referral sources, but you can save time by identifying the people or organizations that can send clients your way. This is true for an Internet-based, home-based, or physical business. You can also join your local Chamber of Commerce, which can be a very useful source of information and contacts.
o Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the management and leadership concepts that can serve as the foundation for success. You will undoubtedly learn as you go in many ways, but you will try to reduce the learning curve and the period of follow-up and error by learning the basics in advance. There are very good management training courses available on the Internet, as well as a wide variety of management consulting companies that offer workshops on management concepts.
Starting a successful small business can be complicated and challenging, but if you cover these areas initially, it will be much easier for you to get your business up and running.