Are You Ready To Be In Business?

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9 years ago

When anyone sets out to run a small business they usually concentrate on the name, and the little details of the running of that business that they find fun. Those items certainly need to be addressed but there are some bigger picture items that need to be looked at even before you get to the point of naming your business. There are usually a few "fun" things about every business, but there are many, many not so fun things that are required to make any business come together.

I am working as a life coach with two different clients right now who have decided to turn their hobby into a business. As I help support them on their journey to business ownership I have been reminded of the necessity of the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared!

The first client I want to tell you about is so fixated on the name that she hasn't thought about anything else. And I do mean anything else. It truly reminds me of the young girl bride who is so focused on her wedding that is shocked to find out that after the party is over she now has to live with this guy 24/7/365 and she is not happy about that. Or the pregnant women who is so excited about being pregnant and the baby shower, but hasn't put much thought into how to live her life after the baby is born. I've heard many a pregnant lady say that she plans to take the baby to work with her after it is a couple of weeks old. That kind of poor planning due to ignorance does not impress anyone.

I've seen this happen to other people over the years too. They get so excited about the concept of having a business or some other big life decision that they forget that it will actually be affecting your life from that moment on. In order to avoid unpleasant surprises I suggest to my clients to write out a week-in-the-life-of report. In that report you pretend that your business is going pretty well and you write down each and every thing that you can think of that may happen in your life for an entire week. Then they send it to me and I add all the other things that probably will also go on during that week. The things that are easily overlooked from the excitement. When I send back their paper with colored pen additions all over it they see very quickly that they have not been seeing things in reality.

After that point we can get down to a more realistic review and discussion of how things really might work out. If you are just starting out in your new business, or anything else life changing I suggest you write a week-in-the-life-of report for yourself. Ask a trusted friend to edit it by adding into it all the things they can come up with that may enter into a normal week. We all know that you can never think out everything, but everyone can do a much better job by using some strategies that are designed to bring out the reality in your thinking and planning.

My other client is having self-esteem issues. It has taken her over two years to make the decision to go ahead and turn her hobby into a business. She is not professionally trained in the area, she just enjoys doing it. My client has not checked into the competition that she will be dealing with, the prices they charge, the offers they make, nothing. She just picked some numbers out of the air and decided that is what she is going to charge. Then she explained to me how she is going to market her new business. I have been in business for myself for 30 years, I have had great successes and great failures. But one thing for sure is that I do my research.

When I asked her why she doesn't want to do research, since she protested it when I suggested it, she said that if she learned things that would make her feel less assured she wouldn't do the business at all. To which I told her that I didn't think she was really ready to go on this venture. Her self-esteem needs to be assured that the decisions she is making are the best that can be made at the time. Wishing and hoping that things work out the way you have dreamed that they could is not realistic at all.

Here are some suggestions to get yourself ready to start a business:

- Be willing to do your homework and research, know what the competition is doing, know what the marketplace wants and what they are willing to pay for it.
- Be willing to be wrong about your assumptions.
- Be willing to adjust your prices - what you charge is not always your decision, supply and demand and the competition have a lot to do with it.
- Some people feel that if they charge less (or nothing) it will lead or encourage people to donate larger sums that will make up the difference. That never works. You need to be able to charge what you think you are worth, and you need to be able to be comfortable with the sum that is the going rate.If you are not comfortable accepting that amount of money, you need to get some help in that area before you begin your business.
- Run through all the details of your business operation over and over again, because each time you do it will hopefully trigger a few items that you have forgotten. Ask your friends and family to review your business details with you, so that they can help you find the missing pieces (I once knew a lady who forgot to get a bank account for her business, she figured she could use her personal account).

And my #1 suggestion is:

If you are going into a business because you really need money now, and you are feeling desperate so you are rushing into opening up your business. Then you should stop immediately and go find a job. You should NEVER open a business with the intention that it is going to bring you immediate income. Small businesses usually do not make an immediate income (except some online opportunities) and most small businesses fail within the first two years, leaving the owner further behind financially than when it first started. Opening a business to relieve a financial problem is not a good solution to that financial problem.

Opening a business should be because it is something you are passionate about, not because it is going to save your sinking ship.

Here is a great article from the legal encyclopedia called: Top 10 Mistakes Made By Small Business:
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/mistakes-ma...

Wishing you great success in you WELL planned business!

Wendy Mae, Ph.D.
Academy of Spirit

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