|
|
|
|
StrategicPlanning360.com - Strategic Planning Information At Your Fingertips... |
|
|
 |
|
Questions to Ask Yourself When Starting a New Home Business
I love the excitement of starting up a new home based business. I enjoy trying out new ideas and approaches with the new venture. I dream the big dreams and hope to obtain some of them (if not all of them). I am sure you have those same feelings as well. Organization is imperative when starting any business. Some say that a well funded business has the best chance to sustain losses until it's profitable. However, if you are on a shoe string budget like me, money management is the key. The place you need to start with your home business is with the pen and paper or word processing software and a PC. One thing I learned about starting businesses is there are so many variables involved it is not possible to "keep it simple" if you try to run the entire business without some type of plan. Not knowing or not being able to prioritize your needs with your business can result in bad money management and eventually failure. Writing down what your business is about helps put your business into perspective and helps you define your immediate needs and hold off on spending on items you don't need right away. Most recommend you write a business plan. You can buy software to write a plan and go through a set of questions to write one. You could always research how to write a business plan online. Whether you use software or not to write a business plan you could always ask yourself the basic questions. Getting to the basics means a lot to me. It provides a foundation to your ever evolving business plan. If you are starting your own home business, try asking yourself these questions. They may help you in the same manner as they help me: 1. What is your business name? 2. Is your business registered as a "Doing Business As" (DBA) or Corporation? This is very important for tax purposes and banking. 2. Explain what you business does in one short paragraph. Describing your business in a few sentences helps define the main focus of your business. 3. What products does your business sell? List any product your business is selling and any variations of its availability. 4. Who does your business sell to? This will help you define your market (if any) Try to describe the personality of the market and why they would want to buy your product. It may provide a starting point for your business's marketing strategy. 5. How do you want prospects and customers to contact you in regards to the product your business is selling? You may decide that you don't want prospects to call your home number and you may need a separate phone line or a toll free number. This is part of defining your daily operations and costs. 6. Does your business need a web site? If the answer is "Yes", then you will want to think about what type of site you want and how you are going to build it. 7. How is the business to receive money? A very important question! Do you have a business checking account to receive checks? Does your business accept Credit Cards? Pay Pal? 8. How does your business make money? You should know how you can make a profit on the product you sell. You should know all of your costs to run the business. This way you know how much product you need to sell each month. 9. How much money are you going to spend on marketing? Marketing your business should be the priority and you should realize that you will need a budget to market your product. You cannot sell your product if your market does not know about it. Also, you may want to start out with a very small amount and try different methods until you learn how to market your product correctly. Asking yourself these basic questions may help you shed light on areas of your business that you may have not taken into account. After all, it can be overwhelming running a home based business. Asking basic but tough questions about your business can help you identify the immediate and long term focus of your business and most of all sustain your business until it reaches profitability. Topher John is a webmaster for http://www.mybenefitsavings.com and http://beinbusiness.net. He specializes in building internet small businesses. His interests are the healthcare industry, specifically how it relates to the family and physical fitness.
 Strategic Planning News for Monday, Feb 6, 2012...
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
SWOT Analysis Is No Magic 8 Ball Q: A key investor in my business has suggested that I hire a consultant to do a SWOT Analysis to help plan for the future. I try not to argue with my investors, but I'm not so sure I need to have this done. What do you think? -- Laurie B. Seasonality: What's the Big Deal? Do you work in or own a business that's affected by seasonal cycles? Do you live in a community whose population changes significantly during the year (e.g., tourist influx, students returning to college)? Do you ever feel stressed out or frustrated by the seemingly constant changes or the extreme highs and lows of your life or your business? Pressure Washing Entrepreneurs Can Help With Government NPDES Permits If you own a pressure washing business one of the smartest things you can do is get involved with the local and regional enforcement for storm water environmental laws. The reason being is they do not understand the washing process of the industry and you can assist them with pertinent information. Secondly you learn about opportunities in the market and third, you can prevent really bad legislation which could potentially put you and your business out of work. Leverage - A Small Step For You /A Big Change For Your Career Cassy was an employee of a nonprofit who had been at her job 5 years. She came to me because she felt that the organization she was working for didn't value her and was upset because others had been promoted but she had not. Strategic Planning Fundamentals Strategic planning is vital while starting a new business or expansion of an business or planning to boost the performance of an existing business. But it requires detailed strategic planning and controlled deployment activities. Strategic planning is used to delivers its value proposition and achieve its mission. Break-Even Analysis A significant advantage of some business ideas is that the venture can break even at what seems to be an easily achievable volume. A technique for quantifying that volume, called break-even analysis, examines the interaction among fixed costs, variable costs, prices, and unit volume to determine that combination of elements in which revenues and total costs are equal. Microsoft Great Plains in Advertising & Publishing ? implementation highlights Microsoft Great Plains, former Great Plains Dynamics is excellent fit for service oriented business and in this small article we'll give you magazine publisher and advertiser implementation and reporting scenarios. The system we describe is not real, we are putting together industry specifics, based on our consulting practice. In the case if you do not see some unique features of your publishing business ? this just means that publishing industry is diversified and say, regional newspaper publishing is quite different from magazine with narrow specialization. Be Like Bill - Think! Twice a year, Bill Gates goes to a remote island hide-a-way for a week at a time. No, he's not going for a fishing vacation; instead of rods, reels, and lures he takes market analyses, position reports, engineering reports, and opportunity papers. In solitude he reads and thinks and reads some more, writing notes in the margins then composing questions, thoughts, and his own positions that will impact the future of Microsoft and the entire technology industry for years to come. How to Snuff Out the Competition Without Leaving a Mark Does the competition drive you crazy? Memo: Sustaining Growth in Your Business What gets measured gets done. The Top Ten Rules of Effective Networking Many of us are discouraged by the networking events that we go to. We feel swamped by people just looking to get money from us, and we rarely feel as though the event was worth our time. SWOT Analysis If you've ever listened to Warren Buffett talk about investing, you've heard him mention the idea of a company's moat. The moat is a simple way of describing a company's competitive advantage. A strong competitive advantage, or a wide moat, gives a company sustainability, which, as investors, we're highly interested in. Bounced Checks in Your Business Location Outlets The new check cashing instant clearing will take some time to get use to. If checks clear immediately and deposits take a few days then franchise outlets may find more bounced checks in their establishment. 6 Changes You Can Make to Increase Business Profits I read once that something like 30 percent of all drinkable water gets wasted on the way to the consumer by leaky pipes. Likewise, your business may be letting potential revenue drip away, to be lost forever, all over the place. Use this checklist to make sure you are taking best advantage of all the opportunities for earnings that would be arriving safely if you only plugged up those holes. Akron OH; A great place to do business When looking at Akron carefully one cannot help but notice it's brilliant location to rivers, water, large cities and middle class consumer spending populations. With Canton to the South, high-end and growing Fairlawn to the North, Kent State and University of Ohio both a stones throw; the potential for any business is quite apparent. There are 160 trucking companies many of which are located in the area due to its proximity to large markets on a major freeway. Everything you want is there or can be delivered within days. Business Plan: The Simplest Business Plan Ever If you're a solo professional like I am, you know how tough it is to find any time at all to do any business planning. Doing a full business plan is a must if you're planning to seek financing or investors, but most solo professionals don't need anything that complicated. Insurance Requirements in Franchised Companies Franchised companies often require what some believe to be excessive insurance requirements. This is because so often if a franchise is sued for any reason that the Lawyers go after the big money of the franchisors and name them in the lawsuit. It is amazing that a lawyer can write garbage in a lawsuit and file it in court and if you do not hire another lawyer to fight them, you could lose your entire life's work and company. But our legal system as most entrepreneurs agree is a complete joke and more closely represents the extortion tactics of the mob than any legitimate sense of fairness or truth. This is why franchisors must require huge limits of liability insurance and additional insured certificates as part of the franchise agreement. A Backup To The Internet Is Vital & Now Cost Effective It doesn't take a Terrorist Act, Tsunami or Earthquake to put a business heavily dependent on the internet in the dark and effectively out of business, for hours or even days into weeks. Is Your Company Growing Fast Enough for You? Are you frustrated by the lack of growth in your firm, or the effort required to squeeze any up-tick in performance? Are inadequate policies and procedures a root cause? To find out, take this simple self assessment to see if this may be inhibiting real growth at your company. Family and Friends Referrals Make the Best Franchisees As a franchisor it is imperative that you seek, find and recruit the best franchisees to maintain a strong franchise system. Your current Franchisees are your very best sales people, sometimes without even knowing it. As a franchisee starts making more money, it will show. Soon they will be moving out of their apartment or home into a nicer area. They will be driving a nicer car. They will be frequenting nicer eating establishments.
|
Copyright © 2005 - 2012 StrategicPlanning360.com. All rights reserved. Legal Info Site Map |
 |
