How to start a small business: short guidelines

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We all know that our life is hardly possible without money and moreover – without possessions or property. If a rich ancestor didn’t bequeath to you Microsoft Corporation, you’ll have to work hard to make enough money.

But quite often we do work and at the end of the month a mean boss deprives us of a bonus or even fines us. Unfortunately, 95 % of employers try to pay their workers as little as possible, but impose as much workload on them as they can.

When you get tired of such a system, you start thinking of how to start a small business.  And the longer you think, the stronger is the idea of self-employment.

Self-employment now sounds quite exciting to you and opens the door to a completely different world of freedom and self-expression. Besides a solid social status of an entrepreneur, you get an opportunity of working for yourself, set your own working schedule, and do exclusively what you like.

7 tips for starting a small business

To start a small business, generate an idea.

Maybe I’ll surprise you, but any small business begins with an idea.

Not with a business plan, as many people think, not with the analysis of the competitors, but with an idea.

So, begin with it.

Before you write your business plan or analyze your competitors, you must define the idea of what you are going to do. Don’t you agree?

And please visualize it in every detail!

For example, you want to start an English-language school for foreigners.

Initially, you must consider the scale of your business. Will it be a small school or a big educational centre? Are you planning to employ native speakers or are you going to work only with local teachers? And so on.

Before you start a small business, analyze yourself.

As soon as your idea is ripe and complete, start analyzing. Knowing your abilities and capacities of your competitors is essential for starting your business.

At this stage assess whether your idea coincides with your possibilities. Also assess all possible risks. Remember: unrealistic analysis can quickly lead to a bankrupt.

Also evaluate:

• your knowledge and skills as well as your possibility of applying them in your business;
• your target audience;
• your need in an office or special equipment;
• sufficiency of the budget or the possibility of a loan;
• your need in personnel;
• ways of reorganizing your business in case of an unfavourable outcome.

Yes, you got me right: before starting a small business, you must consider every single thing!

Starting a small business: analyzing your rivals.

Having weighed all pros and cons of starting a small business and having made the final decision, we can analyze the chosen niche.

At this stage you’ll have to collect all information about your competitors.

Create separate profiles for each of them and fill them with the most important data. For example, include such information to the profile of a language school: location, period of existence, number of languages, number of teachers and so on.

Remember: only such reconnaissance will give you a full picture of your competitor’s business.

Then you can visit every school and specify all necessary information.

To point out all weaknesses and strengths, better attend several classes in each school.

Thus, as a student, you will directly learn about their teachers’ work, their salaries, number of students, and what not.

What to start your business with?

Of course, you can be inventive and create your own ways of tricking out information from your competitors.

For example, my friend got an administrator’s job at a big educational centre.

Working there she also collected information about other centres and learnt the operation of her office from within.

Afterwards my friend enticed the best teachers of this school with a higher salary and opened her centre of rhetoric.

Many small business wind up during their first year because they neglect the necessity of analyzing their rivals.

Don’t make the same mistake!

To start a small business, write a business plan.

After having shaped an idea and studied your capacities as well as those of your competitors’, proceed to writing a business plan.

Your business plan will help you to delve deeper into a chosen niche, understand the peculiarities of competition and minimal initial investments.

Your business plan must include everything from the most detailed description of your products and service to the methods of promoting your company.

This is the only way to target your business at the right client.

Registering your small business.

Take this point very seriously and study existing types of business entities.

At the initial stage of organizing your business, I would advise you to consult a special accounting agency and pick the system of taxation.

You will also need a bank account and a seal.

As soon as all the formalities are completed, you’ll  have to find an office, hire employees and start your advertising campaign.

Hiring credit for small business.

Initially a lot of newly-fledged entrepreneurs would like to get a loan. But not all banks can provide it as most crediting programs are aimed at the established business.

That’s why before requesting a loan, study the conditions of the bank’s cooperation with the small business.

You would also benefit from learning about possible state programs for supporting small businesses as governments often subsidize some of them. Just figure out if such initiatives are available in your country.

Starting a small business or how to manage your company.

Finally, when formally it’s all over and you are standing at the door of the state fiscal service with a pack of papers appointing you as a director, the most challenging and the most exciting stage of your work begins.

After founding your organization, you’ll have to tune its functioning, employ personnel and create ads.

Your future profit depends on how well you manage your small business.

So, dear readers, don’t be afraid of brave steps. Make them!