The Key to Success

There is one fact that no successful buisines ever overlooks. If you do every other thing about your business right, but get this one wrong, your business will fail. Conversely, if you do this one thing right, you will find there is a lot of room for other mistakes.

The key to starting a successful business is building your product or service on what the market needs. If you are selling apples when the market wants apples, you will find success. If you are selling paint in a market that wants apples, you are going to be stuck with a lot of paint.

Before you actually spend any effort acquiring anything, find out who your market is and what they need and want. The best product or service in the world is worthless in a market that does not want it.

What happens if you have a great product or service, but the market just doesn't know it needs it yet? Know that you have an uphill battle in front of you. You don't have to give up, but be prepared to work double to make your sales, because you will have to educate the market before you sell your product or service. You can do it. Just be sure that you want to.

Ask the Right Questions When Starting a New Business

You've made the list of things that you enjoy, and you've decided on a venture. Now what? It's time to educate yourself about the venture you have picked for your own. Write a list of questions and find yourself the answers. The questions will vary, depending on the kind of venture you settle on, but some basic questions everyone will have to answer might be:

1. Who buys what I have to sell?

2. Where do people go to buy the item or service I want to offer?

3. What is the going rate for the item or service I want to offer?

4. Do I have the equipment I need, or do I need to buy some equipment? Can I buy the equipment as I need it?

5.How do I find clients?

6. For an inventory-based business: Where will I get inventory? How will I pay for it?

7. Who is the competition? What are their strong points? What are their weaknesses?

Note: if the competition has a notable weakness that you can capitalize on, that is called a niche. For example, a cleaning service in a one-horse town does residential cleaning, but because the town is so small, they only clean offices during the day. A cleaning service that specialized in cleaning offices at night could get business from offices who were unwilling to have the other cleaning service because of their working hours.

There will be other things to think about, and questions to answer. Carry a notebook with you and write down the questions as they occur to you. Find the answers by doing research. The Internet, libraries and networking are all excellent sources of information.

And lastly, give yourself credit for working toward your goals. Baby steps are still steps. Diving in head-first may make a bigger splash, but if the water is shallow, it will also make a bigger headache.

More Help Deciding

Another way to think about the kinds of business ventures that might work for you is to think about what your family and friends ask them to do for you. Do you clean and organize your friends' houses as though it were play? Do you make 3 birthday cakes a month for friends, coworkers and family? Is someone always at your door looking for mechanical help for their car? These are clues that you are good at those things and that people will pay you to help them.

Write a list of things that people come to you for help with all the time. Once again, cull from your list all the things that you do not like to do, and the ones you do badly. What you have left is the best place to start.

But what if you have two things left on the list, and no particular preference? Simple: make a decision. If you are going to be in business, you are going to have to learn to make decisions and follow through. If you find out later that you have makde a mistake, you can always go back and do the other thing. So, flip a coin, choose alphabetically, or make a list of pros and cons. It doesn't matter how you choose, only that you do. Because choosing is what stands between you and being self-employed.

Frank Woolworth's first business venture, a five-cent store, failed within weeks. Two months later, he tried again, opening a second store, which was successful. Thirty-four years after that, he built
the Woolworth building in New York City, the tallest building in the world at that time. Woolworth knew how to make a decision.
© 2006

Step One: What Shall I Do?

There are as many ways to make a living as there are people who live. And there are as many different kinds of businesses as there are people willing to start them. So, how do you decide?

Start by thinking about what you like to do. What do you love? Make a list. Do you love shopping for antiques at garage sales? Are you mad about baking? Do you love to sew? Write? Draw? What are you passionate about?

Now go back through the list, and cross off anything you are not good at. I like to draw, but I'm not such a good artist, so I'm not going to try to get paid for it. Maybe you will end up with two things you could be happy doing. Maybe only one.

Think about other people who make money doing what you love to do. Some artists live by selling paintings, and quite a number of them teach drawing. A lot of artists write books about how to draw. Some work in museums. Some work in frame shops. Would any of these work for you?
© 2006

Welcome

I've never really pictured myself as being successful at a job. I've never really liked having someone else make decisions for me, especially about things like when I'm going to eat lunch or what time I should get to work. If that makes me sound like a bad employee, it's true--I am a dreadful employee. If that makes me sound unemployed, that's not so!

I work for myself, and I love it. I have the best boss, the sweetest benefit/flex time package, and I never get bored. If you think you would like to start a small business, read along, as I discuss things to think about on the road to self-employed bliss. I've been self-employed in my current business for over 5 years, and before that, I had 3 other businesses that kept the bills paid.

This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes hard work to start a business, and I don't know any way around that. What I do know is I work harder for myself, and have higher job satisfatction than most people I know.

I didn't start out with thousands of dollars' worth of investments, and I didn't always start full time. I did what was possible and manageable on a small scale, and I either worked at a day job until I got things rolling, or I depended on my spouse's income until the money came in. But the money always came in.

Stay tuned for a daily bit of advice on getting out of the rat race. If you leave questions in the comments, I will answer them in my posts. You can do it!
© 2006