Starting A Business - The Three "P"s
There are a lot of factors to consider when starting a business.
Primary among these are the three "P"s - Plan, Prepare and
Persist.
Plan
After you have selected some ideas from your brainstorming to
base your business around, create a plan of attack. List what
you'll need before your business starts. What will your ongoing
expenses be? Factors include rent, utilities, permits,
licensing, legal fees, inventory, staff, design, marketing
collateral, mailing lists, software, advertising and more. Get
as much as you can out on paper and set deadlines to get things
accomplished. This will allow you to evaluate your pace.
Prepare
Once you have a plan, carry it out. Preparing to start a
business can be a lot of work. Tasks include getting an identity
designed, creating business cards, brochures, web sites and
other marketing material, consulting with CPA's, lawyers, and HR
professionals, in some cases finding and renting or buying a
storefront or office, furnishing the business space, getting
utilities in place, receiving and organizing inventory, getting
a database for your customers and leads and any number of other
tasks. By running a home business, some of these steps will
already be taken care of, yet opening a business of any kind can
be an enormous task. While planning your business make sure to
leave plenty of time to get up and running. Better to plan your
setup time too long than too short and finding yourself running
out of money.
Persist
This is the most important step of running a business. Without
persistence, you won't even be able to finish your business
plan. Hang on like a pit-bull. When the going gets tough, get
tougher. Have worst case scenario plans to fall back on, as well
as best case scenario plans.
Some businesses become over-night successes, while other take
year to develop. If you plan, prepare and persist, you've got a
very good chance of making it.