When
you are unemployed
it is a relief to have almost any job. Not only is money a
strong incentive, self-worth can easily be crushed by unemployment
even if you are not at fault.
Some give up and re-enlist. But an excellent
alternative to
regain employment is to start your own business. This can be a trap
and is for many. Some businesses seem to take off on their own;
others resist success even after repeated reinvestments.
Formula for a Successful Business Start-up
It should be obvious that, to be successful, a business should have
a viable market. This, of course, can
require the help of online market research companies prior to
the organization and startup of the business. Every bit as
important, however, especially in the case of a solo proprietorship
or a 'ma and pa' enterprise, is that you have a personal
feel for the activity. The more enjoyable operating the business is
the more easily you can overcome the many speed bumps that always
appear.
Finding Your
Personal Niche
We call this 'finding your personal niche'. The following
fifteen questions will
help determine if being in business is the
right thing for you and, if so, what kind of
business, directed to what market, would be most successful for you.
Please consider your answers confidential and are not to be shared
with us. This is a decision that you, alone, must make, — but to
help ensure you make a good decision, you must objectively review
your qualifications, attitude and drive for being a small business
owner.
1. Are you a self-starter or do you require a lot of prodding?
2. Are you a good organizer?
3. Are you easily able to get most people to go along when you
start something?
4. What is your biggest goal over the next 30, 60, 90, 120 days
— a
year or lifetime? (Personal goals usually vary with the time frame
and can be critical to the success of a small business.)
5. What gives you the greatest joy in life?
6. Do you admire and respect any successful business personalities
and, if so, whom and why?
7. If you decide to do something do you
pursue it regardless of the obstacles?
8. Do you always seem to find the energy required even after an
especially tiring day?
9. Do you have an income goal?
Have you tied this goal to a specific time
frame? (It can take up to two years for many businesses to become
significantly profitable).
10. Do you have special, perhaps unique,
talents or training you received in the military related to your intended product or service?
11.
Are you ready to get started
as soon as plans can be formulated?
12. Are you able
— and willing — to devote
50, 60, perhaps 80 hours a week to this business?
13. If your spouse, partner or sibling is to be involved with you,
how many hours per week is he/she able — and willing
— to devote
to this business?
14. Do you find that you rarely get sick
though others around you do?
15. I being in business for yourself your passion or an economic
expediency?
If You Have a
Partner
If your spouse, 'partner' or sibling is to be directly involved,
we also need these questions answered by him/her. Preferably, the
questions should be studied and answered individually without
collaboration between the two of you. Each of you
should write down the answers, review and study them and the
implications of each question and associated answer. Being a small
business owner is a great challenge and can cause many hardships on
the way to success. Many feel that the challenges are well worth it
and, certainly, overcoming them successfully is destined to help
make a better and more capable person of you.
Follow-on
Self-Inventory
After we
receive and evaluate your reactions to these questions, we use
our conclusions to determine if we should submit another set of
questions as input to help determine what kind of business,
directed to what market, would be most successful for you.
You will return that completed questionnaire so we
can review and evaluate the responses. (Actually, we use an old but very effective
formula, Bayes Theorem of Inverse
Probability, to eliminate those endeavors which
would NOT be compatible with you (and/or your partner).
Before You
Act, Think It Through
Again, it must be stressed, if you are really serious about starting your own business, you
should take whatever time
is necessary to deliberate very carefully about the
answers to the above questions. It usually takes a lot of time and
thought — and rethinking — before you can feel sure that you have
the best answers. You must be honest with yourself because the
success of your future business is very dependent upon it. |
