Business Start Up Advice

From LoveToKnow Business

When you start your own business you step into the abyss where survival will depend upon your selling and social skills, and business start up advice can save you from failure. Being self-employed means you don’t have the cushion offered by your former employer. Mistakes then brought rebukes, but were recoverable. Making too many mistakes now can cost you. By keeping focus on service and professionalism, you can minimize mistakes and succeed.

Business Start Up Advice on Capital

You’ll need at least six months of operating funds as a cushion for lean start-up times. Unless you operate out of your home, you’ll need money for a rented office in a good location. Factor in utilities, phones, an employee to answer them unless you operate solo, office supplies and postage. Equipment needs include furniture, lighting, file cabinets, a capable computer with updated software, a laser printer, a copier and a cell phone. You’ll need a reliable automobile that looks good and auto insurance. A graphics consultant will be needed to develop a logo and print materials, unless you’re very skilled at desktop publishing. There are also printing and direct mail costs to consider.

Phone book advertising will require a year’s contract with monthly fees depending upon the size of your ads. Newspaper advertising adds up quickly. If you advertise on the internet, there are start-up and monthly costs in addition to developing and maintaining your website.

You’ll need PR money for business lunches with prospects, hosting local chamber of commerce breakfast meetings, lunches or functions, attendance at business social functions wherever you can finagle an invitation, and the inevitable donations to those seeking fresh sources of funding from any new business owner.

You Only Get One Chance To Make A Good Impression

Recognized professionalism is what it’s all about. Quality does make a difference. Don’t skimp on business cards, letterhead or envelopes. Your business cards represent you. Tailor your cards to the type of industry you’ll be approaching.

Dress For Success

The image you project will develop expectations of success in any prospect you approach. Anything less will result in brush-offs by gatekeepers or quick office ejections. Buy a conservative business suit. While video game developers dress quite differently than modular housing company execs, you don’t have that option. Make sure that your shoes are shined, hair style is neat, breath is good and no green stuff is stuck in your teeth.

Business Start Up Advice on Phones

Count to three before answering and pump up the positive attitude. No one likes to deal with anyone depressed because business is bad. Your attitude will mark you as an excited professional with a growing business or a failure about to go belly-up. Savvy executives know the difference between the two. Clients and customers do too.

Courteous Conduct

Meet the eye of everyone you talk to. That buffoon making a fool of himself at a business open house may well turn out to be the next executive or business owner you’ll need to see. Hold your tongue. Keep your cool at all times and your comments to others controlled.

Every secretary or personal assistant you encounter has the power to make or break you. The gatekeeper’s job is to erect walls between you and his/her boss. Most take their jobs very seriously. Cultivate relationships, be polite, tactfully aggressive and make friends wherever possible. Be polite when you call. With several persistent calls, you can develop a relationship. If the gatekeeper likes you, you’ll be granted that important appointment with your targeted executive. Or one call could kill your chances of ever getting in to see that VP.

Marketing Never Ends

Marketing is a full-time job on top of everything else. How you answer your phones, everything you send out, display, hand out or link to, must present an image of success and can-do professionalism, even if you lack a track record. You’ll need to stay on top of scheduled phases of your plan’s implementation and keep at it, difficult when things get busy. Business can dry up just as quickly when the flurry of jobs or orders suddenly dies.

Continuing Education Is Forever

Always invest time in honing your skills and developing new techniques. Read everything. Join industry groups. The need for business start up advice never ends because you company will continue to grow and evolve.

Networking

Attend as many chamber of commerce sponsored or business special events as you can. Develop contacts. Sell your business services, products and yourself at all times. Talk to everybody everywhere about what you do. Initiate conversations. Exchange business cards and write key information on those cards regarding dates met, where and what was discussed. This will be golden information when you call contacts, reminding them where you met and talked about, creating a favorable impression that you’re someone who pays attention and that they were important to you..

Do the Dance

Business success is akin to gingerly stepping on eggshells while crossing a minefield with hope that nothing will explode. Sometimes things blow up. Not all attempts to see prospects will succeed. Some presentations will fail to get you the job and you’ll never know why. Some folks will hate your product line. Others will develop an instant dislike to you that you’ll never overcome. You may say something stupid while at a business social function and offend somebody. We’re all human. Don’t fall down and wet all over yourself if you make a mistake or develop analysis paralysis trying to understand what went wrong in a meeting. Things go South. Learn from your mistakes and move on. Have a positive expectation and you’ll succeed, with your yearly income growing as the result. It’s all up to you. Remember when you step into the abyss, carry a parachute. Be prepared, willing to accept the risks and roll with the punches. By doing so, your business will always remain a welcome challenge.


 


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