You dream of one day owning yourself and stealing on your own. You do not yet have a clear idea of the activity you will choose?
Don’t wait to be on the starting line. Take advantage of your time and energy today. In the sports field, good preparation will generally help you get better results.
In your way, you may come across many problems while starting a new business. If you stick to your business with proper mindset and money saving strategies, YOU WIN!
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Solving Problems Faced by Small Businesses
Here are some ways to get off to a good start.
1. Change your mindset
Moving from employee to freelancer involves many changes. While some aspects seem obvious (fluctuation of income, freedom), others are often ignored. For example, by no longer having a hierarchy, you will have to organize yourself and manage your priorities.
Here are some thoughts to start the change smoothly …
Become an intrapreneur.
Adopt an entrepreneurial spirit within your current business. Detect anomalies, propose improvements and implement them. Become an actor of change with your employer. This first step will help you anticipate your next challenges.
Analyze the decisions of your hierarchy. All companies have their peculiarities but the problems faced by small businesses are often the same. When you are at the helm, you can be inspired. Do not hesitate to ask your leaders what motivated a decision and the difficulties they encountered in implementing it.
Take stock of your situation and your motivations:
- Personal aspects:
What are your goals? Why do you want to get started? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What do you intend to do to familiarize yourself with these themes? In what areas do you lack knowledge? What would be the job of your dreams? What do you want to learn from this new challenge?
- Family aspects:
What would be the impact on your family life? What budget do you plan to spend on your project? How much time will you allocate to your project? What does your spouse think? Does he or she agree to share the risks?
- Social Aspects:
Will the absence of colleagues weigh on your social life? Will the drop in income force you to make choices about your sporting, cultural or social activities? Do you foresee specific networking activities? How would you experience a situation of failure?
2. Explore and Ignite:
Take advantage of your time to discover new concepts and new ways of working.
Get a list of your competitors business. Find out your competitors marketing strategies. It helps you take your next move.
The entrepreneur.com has mentioned analyzing competition is one of the best business research idea.
But, please do not limit yourself to Internet research or traditional networking.
During your free time, discover different things. Learn a new language, visit museums or atypical exhibitions, read books and subscribe to a magazine on the theme of entrepreneurship or your passion, visit a trade show or a company you are interested in, enjoy your holidays To discover an unknown place or to try out a new sport.
In everyday life, shake up your habits. Change the mode of transportation for a week, take a different road/street to go home, stop in a new restaurant, visit a trendy shop or test a new way of shopping.
At work, get out of your comfort zone. Work on new topics, test and propose different approaches to your hierarchy, participate in a specific project, ask a colleague to explain his / her activity.
3. Save Money, and Money will Save You.
Your income may fall drastically during the first months of your independence, or never take off. In Switzerland, 20% of companies disappear in their first year of existence and half in the first 5 years. The majority of these failures are due to the financial problems faced by small businesses.
If you want to be financially strong before getting into the business, you can opt for any online profession to earn money. The profession you choose depends on your skill sets.
Here are some simple ideas to anticipate the cash flow difficulties of your future business…
Determine your current budget. To simplify your life, you can organize your main expenses as well:
- Monthly expenses: rent and expenses (interest, depreciation), taxes, health insurance, transport (car, train, 2 wheels), food, energy (water, gas, electricity), communication, education/childcare, reimbursements …
- Occasional and unforeseen expenses: clothing, outings, and leisure (restaurant, sport, music), holidays and travel, computer and multimedia equipment, household appliances, a new vehicle, repairs, fines, gifts, jewelry …
- Annual expenses: insurance things, Billig, subscriptions newspapers, and magazines, …
You should have these financial ideas so that in the future you can spend money on business branding. There are lots of benefits to making people aware of your business brand.
Get your business website done. Spend money on writing quality content to encourage people and to become your customer.
Also, read case studies by inc.com on how 3 Growth-Companies don’t run out of cash.
Spare. Constitute a reserve.
If some save for an exceptional trip, why not do it for your future business? 200.-, 500.-, 1’000.- francs per month or even more; All is good to take. This reserve will be very useful during the start-up to finance your initial investment or to pay your first salaries.
Determine your “TROC” (Time to Run Out of Cash).
In other words: how long will you be able to hold and pay your current bills if your income stops overnight? The formula is simple: Divide your reserve (amount saved) by your monthly budget. The result gives you the duration in months that you will be able to hold.
Every second you waste, cost you money in business. So you should have proper digital marketing strategies to save your time.
With these few tracks, you can overcome the financial problems faced by small businesses. Now, start working on your project. If you already have a more precise idea of your future activity, you should focus on the theme: Making Your Business Stand-out with tips and tricks.
Once you have a business established, you should be more curious about your marketing strategy.
Read marketing strategy followed by Starbucks.
It’s the complete reason behind their success.
Wrapping Up…
When you start the new business or if you have an existing business, you face many problems. Sometimes it is a laundry list.
It is not possible to cover all the problem, as sometimes it may depend on your individual circumstance. We have covered widely talked and problems faced by small businesses.
If you have any problem while running your business, feel free to share with us by writing in a comment.
Editor’s Note: This article is curated and shared by Sandy Scott.
