You might be unhappy with your 9-5 job and if there aren’t many opportunities for advancement, you might be thinking about going freelance, which is an attractive alternative to being an employee. Once you have a business idea, you need to crunch the number to determine if it has adequate mark-up and should that be the case, you can move to the next step.
Write a business plan
A doable business concept can be researched and a plan of action created. A good business plan would be 15-30 pages in length and would cover the following:
- Business overview – A general overview of the business and its role.
- Mission and values statement
- Start up and running costs
- Asset acquisition and management
- Marketing and branding
- Organization flowchart – A detailed diagram showing who does what.
- 1–5-year forecasts
If you need some help, a local business coach can teach you the basics and we cannot over emphasize the importance of a good business plan.
Marketing
Your business is going nowhere without some form of marketing plan; talk to the number one digital marketing agency, King Kong who have all the solutions and an impressive client list and yes, they do work with small businesses. You need to set aside a monthly budget for SEO if you want to reach your target groups and bear in mind that your rivals are all using marketing agencies.
Capital
Some businesses can be set up on a minimum budget; e-commerce, for example, only needs to build and host a shopping cart site, you can get your products on credit. Other businesses like retail or food and beverage demand capital to launch. Crunch the numbers and consider bringing in a partner if you are financially stretched. The number one reason for small business failure is lack of funds, so make sure you have access to money to support the business in the first few months.
Register the business
You can register your business with the US federal government and that can be completed online, which is super-convenient; indeed, the government runs many initiatives to help small business owners and you should explore what is available. Once you are trading, you will be on a steep learning curve and thinking outside the box is recommended.
