First Step Marketing

You often hear that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. When it comes to running your own business, obviously both are important, but with all the tasks you have on your plate, you may find that getting together with other entrepreneurs—who are probably as consumed by their businesses as you are—is something that doesn’t take priority in the course of your busy day. Read the rest of this entry »

Undoubtedly, the type of business you start will determine the people who will become customers. The first step to reaching customers is to draw up a profile of the kind of client you’d like to attract.

Defining your customer means you can then narrow down your choice of the marketing methods you use. 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 »

If you plan to start a business where it’s standard procedure to collect payment before you provide your product or service to customers, you can skip this section. Obviously, most retail businesses conduct pay-as-you-go transactions: customers can choose to not use their own money to pay up front by using a credit card; however, their purchase then becomes more expensive with the subsequent interest charges if they don’t pay it off all at once. But that’s their problem, not yours. You still get paid up front. 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 »

Basically, all businesses fall into one of two general categories: either they provide a service to a person or to another business, or they manufacture a product. There are infinite variations on each of these themes, but most businesses can be categorized in either of these ways. Read the rest of this entry »

1. What are some favorite things you like to do in your spare time?
2. Name a time when you’ve seen another person making a living by working with one of your favorite hobbies. Could you adapt it in a similar fashion? Read the rest of this entry »
   

Think about the last job you had that you really hated. Didn’t you start to resent getting out of bed every morning, knowing you were not going to enjoy yourself for at least the next eight hours of your day?

Now think about not only slaving away at that job but also assuming responsibility for every facet of it, Read the rest of this entry »

Do the people in your life think you have gone absolutely bonkers because you want to start your own business?

Good! Not only does it mean they’re probably a little bit jealous of you, but it will also add some fuel to your fire and keep you plugging away at your business. Here’s a little secret: Many of history’s most famous entrepreneurs have kept their businesses going because their number one concern was to prove some naysayer wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

Flexibility

Nothing about running a business is predictable. People who tend to thrive as entrepreneurs are those who were bored as employees because they knew exactly what they would be doing when they got up in the morning.

There are chaos junkies, and then there are those who view life through a rigid viewfinder. Somewhere in that vast middle are entrepreneurs, who need to borrow a little from each side. Read the rest of this entry »