Starting a Business
A blog for
businesses with 20 or fewer employees or for people planning on starting one.
There are two threads. One for Starting a Business and a second for Growing a
Business. Author: Henry McCabe.
New Thread
With this blog I am starting a new thread addressed to
people who want to start a small business.
In a series of posts I plan on covering the following topics: Assessing
your readiness ● Defining your business idea
● Creating your marketing plan ● Legal
and tax issues ● Managing your business finances ● Facility,
staff and operations ● Making your financial projections.
Assessing your
readiness.
The first question a nascent business person must answer is:
Am I really prepared to make a go of my proposed venture? Do I know what I need to know? A small
business owner must juggle a lot of balls. Dropping just one of them can doom
his venture to ultimate failure. Just take a look at some of what you will be
called upon to do.
You will have to perform all of these functions and more.
Do you know enough about accounting, banking and insurance to do a proper job as Chief Financial Officer? Perhaps your answer is that you don't have to know about accounting because you will employ an outside bookkeeper. Many do, but it is essential that you know enough so that you can understand financial reports and the relationships between them. After all it will be your money and acquiring and hanging on to
some of it is why you are starting the business. Don't delegate 100% of the tracking of its comings and goings to outsider.
Do you know enough about accounting, banking and insurance to do a proper job as Chief Financial Officer? Perhaps your answer is that you don't have to know about accounting because you will employ an outside bookkeeper. Many do, but it is essential that you know enough so that you can understand financial reports and the relationships between them. After all it will be your money and acquiring and hanging on to
some of it is why you are starting the business. Don't delegate 100% of the tracking of its comings and goings to outsider.
What about advertising? Do you know much about the myriad of ways you can advertise your business? How about labor law, payroll taxes and so on. If you are to be an employer, you need to have basic knowledge about these issues.
What I am suggesting is that you do a thorough assessment of what you need to know and match that up
against what you do know. Then find a
way to plug the missing gaps. That is the first step in assesses your
readiness. More in the next post.
Find a SCORE mentor to help you learn what you need to know.
Find a SCORE mentor to help you learn what you need to know.
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