Are you ready to quit your job and start your own business? Before you give notice, take some time to consider all of the challenges ahead of you. They’re not insurmountable, but if you’re serious about generating your own income and being your own boss, you’ll need to prepare in advance for some of the most common roadblocks experienced by first-time business owners. Here are just five tips for making it happen.
- Set Goals
This is the first step towards turning your vague dreams into a solid reality. Whether it’s “find three investors” or “purchase a retail building before the end of the year,” creating specific and actionable goals can keep you focused as you move forward with your business plans. They’ll also spur you on and give you a sense of urgency when there’s a deadline looming. You won’t be able to procrastinate with a ticking clock right in front of you.
- Have More Capital Than You Need
Don’t scrape the bottom of your piggy bank for your start-up money. You’ve probably heard the old wisdom that most businesses fail within the first year, but what they don’t tell you is that these failures usually stem from money troubles. The businesses don’t bring in enough revenue, or it costs more to pay the staff than it does to keep the lights on. If you want to avoid this fate, make sure that you have plenty of money saved to get you through that tough first year.
- Hit the Books
It’s never too late to go back to school, and if you start taking classes at somewhere like the University of Southern California, you can get a great education through their online degree programs. Not only can you learn about the ins and outs of running a company, but you can also be taught about business, finance, communications, management, marketing and other things that you’ll need to help your brand grow. A degree will look great on your mission statement, too.
- Know Your Demographic
Every business has a target market, and it’s especially important to know yours when you’re first starting out. You can always diversify your customer base after you’ve established your brand and started to make money, but until that day comes, you should be aggressively marketing yourself towards a specific age, gender, nationality or income bracket. See how much you can succeed with one demographic before you start to reel in others as well.
- Push Past Failure
Failure is an inevitable part of life. You’ll almost certainly make mistakes before your grand opening. The most important thing is that you don’t let these setbacks stop you from achieving your goals, especially if they’re not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. So, what if your liquor license wasn’t approved on time? So, what if you miscalculated that budget? Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep going.
These are just a few tips for becoming a CEO. As you can see, there’s a lot more to the process than simply hanging a sign and declaring yourself open for business, so take your time and do it right. You want to be profitable straight out of the gate, and that means making smart, economically sound decisions from day one.
