First Step Marketing

Warning! A business, which might seem an easy way to earn a living, is unlikely to turn out that way. It only looks easy because you do not know enough about it. Read the rest of this entry »

Creative thought does not end once a good business opportunity has been identified. For as long as the business operates, it will be faced with problems and opportunities that force creative thinking. Unfortunately, it is very easy to get into a rut and grow complacent. If this happens, good opportunities may be missed and many setbacks, which could have been avoided with some creative problem solving, could occur. Read the rest of this entry »

There is no right or wrong amount for a business to spend on marketing. Many factors will influence whether a business allots 5 percent of its total annual budget for marketing or 15 percent. Selecting a percentage for your business is the first step. Read the rest of this entry »

Entrepreneurs know to employ a variety of marketing techniques because it’s impossible to predict how effective any one method will be until time and money has been spent. A marketing plan will help you to keep track of the various marketing methods and should be considered to be as essential to the success of your business as developing the business plan. Read the rest of this entry »

Once you start to run your own business, you’re more likely to be able to negotiate favorable terms with clients and convince a banker that you need a loan by using terms that everyone understands.

The information in your operating budget contains everything you will need to draw up the documents that are essential to the growth of your business. They are: Read the rest of this entry »

In the course of running your business, you will have to deal with not one but two budgets: one for your business and one for yourself.

A business budget is also referred to as an operating budget, and it differs from the budget you developed for your start-up costs for several reasons: After operating your business for even a short time, you will have a much better idea of where the money goes, as well as what comes in. You’ll also have some sense of when the money tends to arrive in your bank account, so you’ll also know when you can expect to be able to pay your own bills. Read the rest of this entry »

For many people, the idea of a business is ruled by the images that come to mind when they think of various companies they’ve worked for in the past. Unfortunately, it’s this picture that most often intimidates new entrepreneurs who want to get their own businesses off the ground: either they think they need everything a larger, more established business has before they can open their doors, from fancy networked telephone systems to a professionally decorated office, and spend way too much to start, or they become overwhelmed at the amount of money they think they need to open their doors, and never do so because they figure they’ll never be able to come up with that kind of money. Read the rest of this entry »

Hiring a staff of employees, or even deciding whether to take on just one in the first place, can be one of the most difficult decisions a new entrepreneur can make.

Labor (and all the associated costs: insurance, additional equipment, supplies) and employer- paid taxes turn the employment section of your budget into your single largest expenditure. Read the rest of this entry »

Large international corporations have departments crammed full of people whose only responsibility is to buy, buy, buy for the company: office supplies, employee vehicles, computers equipment, phone service, travel . . . you name it, they buy it. Their titles are usually Buyer or Procurement Manager. They also keep track of what arrives when, where it is stored, and how long it will last.

To a new business owner, this is the consummate luxury. Not only do you probably wish you had someone to do all this for you, but you could probably use the same big budget, too. Read the rest of this entry »

Running a business is risky business. Advice on how to make sure your company is properly insured against every possible hazard that may arise could alone fill a book. All business owners decide to take risks at one time or another as a matter of course, but when it comes to choosing insurance, some go all out and insure their business, facilities, employees, and even themselves against the most remote risks, while others buy the minimum amount of insurance, usually for catastrophic events only. Read the rest of this entry »