Preparing to Start Your Own Business

If you are unemployed, underemployed, or just unhappy about where you are employed, the idea of taking control and becoming your own boss may be sounding pretty good right about now. With the unemployment rate almost 9 percent, it has become clear that jobs are not as dependable as we had previously thought. However, the success rates for owning a business can be very scary, with the majority of all new business failing in just a years’ time.

Here are 3 ways to make sure that you are prepared before you start your new business.

1. Define and Evaluate Your Goals:

You cannot figure out a path to get somewhere if you do not know where it is that you want to get to. Also, once you have your goal in sight, all you need to know is if your path is the most direct route in reaching what you want. Ask yourself some tough questions about why you really want to start a business. Are you wanting to get richer, quicker? Are you looking to showcase your talent, your new product idea, or your new service? Are you done with your boss taking all of the credit for what you do? These kind of short-term goals can lead you down the wrong path. On another hand, if you really love the idea of running an entity, if you like to create systems and procedures, if you adore costumer service, and if you thrive on wearing many different hats and balancing responsibilities, then entrepreneurship may just be the right path for you to be walking down.

2. Show the Money:

The cost of trying to start your own business in many different industries has come down quite substantially. But, that is only half of the story. Businesses very often take a couple of years to grow a solid foundation, so you need to make sure that you have enough money to start the business, and also operate it while it tries to stabilize, and have enough money to live on in the meantime. If you don’t have the money yourself, identity whether or not you have enough credible access to capital; the downturn has made this much more difficult to secure the financing and you don’t want to be three months into starting a business and realize that you don’t have enough money to continue the business and pay the mortgage, so you have to decide which one is more important.

3. Gain Relevant Experience:

Being able to manage both employees and vendors is the type of entrepreneurial skill that you are going to need to acquire before you start to build your own business. You’ll also need to know your certain industry inside and out, including the aspects you may, or may not, be very familiar with or may not even like, including marketing, accounting and many more. If you don’t have the experience you need yet, then spend some time working in a similar company to yours, shadow a business owner in your industry, or take a jobs on nights and weekends in a business comparable to yours.