A New Course

I've been following Sara Brown and Tony Shepherd for some considerable time now and was interested when they posted their new KickStartCourse. This was something I just had to have. Why? Well I have always found them to both to be so understated and straightforward that I knew whatever they produced would be honest to goodness, down to earth, useful knowledge. That they produced it together was a big plus when it came to deciding to get into it now.

I'll let you know how I feel about it when I've had time to read the lessons - mind you that is going to take a while because it is a 12 month course. So if rather than wait you would like to get your hands on it for yourself just Click Here!

Choosing a Business Idea

So many ideas – so little time. If you want to start a home business then you have to go ahead and choose something. Next focus on your choice and get going.

So how do you choose? Well the simplest way is to write down a list of all the things that you can do or would like to do. Then organise your list into areas. Then figure out where in the market you wish to place yourself. Find a niche and or a unique selling point.

Whatever you do decide on something that you can handle and that you are going to love doing. Of course, there will be parts of the business you won’t like or can’t do. In these cases either accept that you will have to face the bits you don’t like or maybe you will find someone else to do them.

An obvious area that comes to mind is accounts. So long as you keep all the records of incomings and outgoings the best option is to pay an accountant to put it all together. Accountants also know how to save you money because they understand all the tax deductibles.

If you would like some ideas to get you going have a look here: Business Ideas

Once you have chosen the idea you are going to run with you can begin to organise all the various parts to get it underway. This is the most important part for any business. Do plan but do get it underway. Don't wait for perfection in planning - you'll be waiting forever. Just get on and do it. Good luck

Business Plan - Part Three

People and Qualifications

People and their qualifications are an important part of your business and so will need to be detailed in your Business Plan.

Now it may be that you are going to be the only person working in your business so you think that you needn’t bother with this. Oh, yes you do. A good idea here is to write out your CV or Resume. Then match up your skills and qualifications to what is required for your business.

When you find gaps you must then figure out how you are going to fill them.

• Will you need to employ someone?
• Is there someone amongst your family or friends who could (or would) do it?
• Will you have to get yourself some specific training?

It is much better to recognise a deficiency before it becomes an imminent necessity. By completing your Business Plan you will see what is needed and set about getting it.

Business Plan - Part Two

The Vision Statement

Your Business Plan will cover various main areas. You will find outline plans which you can complete quite freely throughout the internet. Most banks will also be happy to give you detailed forms alongside an instruction booklet. I don’t think that the layout matters too much so long as it is well presented and covers the necessary areas.

One extremely important section usually comes at the beginning: The Vision Statement. This is a summary of what you see as the purpose of your business and the goals.

I think this is best written first – and last. Write your Vision Statement to begin with and then put it aside whilst you work on the other sections of the Business Plan. You will probably be drawn back to it time and again and improve on the words.

Then when you have finished everything else come back and make sure that it reads to your liking and that it is concise. Don’t have a single word that is superfluous.

More next time.

Business Plans - Part One

The Importance of completing a Business Plan

I believe that a Business Plan is important no matter how small your business. Most of us think it is for going to the bank or other finance places in order to beg for money so that we can start up. Well, yes it will be jolly useful for that. However, I think that it is much more beneficial in helping ourselves.

If you draw up a Business Plan you will help yourself in the following ways:

1. You will force yourself to be precise about all the areas you must cover.

2. You will be able to focus on each and every essential point.

3. You will discover the areas you are missing (or attempting to gloss over!)

4. You will have to face up to your weaknesses and do something about them.

5. You will need to research in order to fill gaps in your knowledge.

6. You will probably ask advice of others rather than ploughing ahead blindly.

7. You will use your Business Plan to keep you on track whilst building your business.

Come back for more thoughts on this in a couple of days.

Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification

A good name for the business

I am spending a great deal of time at the moment thinking about a new business I want to start up. I know what the main part of this is and am itching to get going. It has been going around my mind for quite a time now. Lately though I have been trying to trap it on paper. This is always an important step. Whatever is in my head looks kinda different when I try to organise it.

For the last couple of days I have been tussling with a very big problem that must be overcome before I can move on. The business needs a name. Now if it was a purely offline business this would be fairly simple. However, it’s major part is going to be online. This means that I need a suitable domain name. This is turning out to be an enormous obstacle. It seems that anything that seems to be ideal is already taken. So I am exploring the not so ideal (and the downright stupid!). It needs to be a dot com ending as far as I am concerned because if people try to commit to memory they will try dot com before anything else and I don’t want my traffic going to others. Also there is the question on whether to hyphenate or not to hyphenate. Again – people are likely to forget the hyphens.

The English language has so many words which mean almost the same as one another that you’d think there would be plenty of alternatives. What I find though is that the word(s) I want cannot be substituted.

The rest of the business planning seems to be falling quite neatly into place. There are so many segments to be thought out in order to produce some sort of cohesive whole. I believe it is important to have everything in place in order to start the business. If I don’t know what I am doing and where I am headed there is no way that my clients/customers will.

It is absolutely essential to have plans in place before the start and then it is just a case of following through and filling out all the areas. On the other hand, the planning should not be so detailed that it prevents progress. You have to get going before perfection is reached because that would be never.