How to Get Your New Business Started

Thinking of starting your own business? We’d like to share this thought provoking article “10 Mistakes that Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make” By ROSALIND RESNICK

February Financial Year-End?

February is a fabulous month with signposts along the path reminding us to live better and love more. With summer now well and truly upon us we can all look to the sunshine and warm days to find optimism all around us. Isn’t it time to steal your share?

For many February also brings in a financial year end and this is a time for assessing achievements and planning targets and goals for the next fiscal.

As one financial year draws to a close the stepping stones need to be laid to lead your small business to the destination you want to be a year from now. Choose to adopt a positive mindset and chart your own course.

This is the key to developing a business strategy that will have you seizing opportunities with gusto and making 2010 your best year yet.

Yes, 2009 was a tough year for many and you may well feel scarred from the lack of activity in your industry or sector. However, with the blank canvas that is the year ahead it is important to review last year’s activities, failures and successes, acknowledge the lessons learnt and move forward towards a more successful new financial year.

Globally, economic shifts have left entrepreneurs spinning. Now more than ever the business strategy you commit to for your financial New Year must give cognizance to all the practical knowledge you have acquired, take traditional business guidelines into account and rock with chutzpah!

To develop a business strategy that will have you taking the profits off your competition and growing your own debtors book visit TheSmallBusinessToolbox.com now and find out about an easy, practical, step-by-step programme that will have you smiling all the way to month end.

Big 5 Business Tips

There was an interesting article in the Sunday Times this weekend about how Old Mutual base their financial education programme around the Big 5 animals and it struck me that their analogy is perfectly aligned also to what skills are required to grow a sustainable business.

In identifying particular traits of the Big 5 animals they say:

The lion eats first, before his pride. In other words you should pay yourself (in the form of investments) before starting to spend. This is certainly true in business, particularly in small businesses. If you don’t put away money every month for the rainy day, when it arrives, and without doubt it will, you won’t have the cash reserves to see you through. 10% of turnover every month needs to go into an interest bearing account so that you can sleep at night in good times and bad!

The leopard has realistic goals; while young he stalks catchable prey, graduating to bigger animals later. So set realistic and achievable goals. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else, try to keep up with the Joneses or waste precious turnover on non-essential expenditure. And, constantly go for stretch within all aspects of the business so that your goals stretch as the team’s skill base grows.

The elephant’s power is its perfect memory. Knowledge is power and networking is your trump card. You can’t grow your business if you stay behind the counter. Remember people, keep in touch and help them so that when you need help they’re willing to assist.

The rhino’s approach to a threat is to charge at it. Face up to your challenges, find out the facts and don’t play games with yourself. Sit down and develop a plan of attack and charge it with all your energy so that every day sees small, incremental improvements.

The buffalo is deliberate and steady, growing the herd over time. Be patient and harness the power of compounding, not only in financial compounding but the compounding effect of consistently driving improvement, customer service and flexibility within your business.

By focusing on these Big 5 analogies you have a simple process for building sustainability in your small business. Remember, it’s not about dramatic changes, but constantly striving for 1% improvement in key areas every day. By doing this your future is secure.

Business Dreamers – Where Are You?

Where have all the business visionaries gone? As we celebrate 40 years since Neil Armstrong landed on the moon much has changed.

Where that event left us with an expectation of great futures filled with possibility and achievement, the water that has gone under the bridge since has definitely discoloured and become polluted, figuratively and literally!

History tells us that the companies that positively get out there and market themselves now; focus on improving their service delivery levels and introduce some cost effective new product/service offerings are the ones that will not only survive, but thrive. They’ll steal market share from their competitors who are too busy crying over spilt milk to do anything constructive.

Your customers and your staff need you to become a true leader and show them the way. Most of them can’t see the way forward because they’re so caught up in their own personal problems right now. Besides, if they were capable of seeing the way forward they’d be sitting in your chair!

Have you got a clear strategy for your business for the next 12 months? If not, why not?

Look at signing up for The Small Business Strategy Toolbox if you need assistance in structuring your thinking and ensuring you cover all the critical success factors. Usually outside, professional yet practical advice is just what’s needed when you don’t know which road to take and you don’t have the time or money to try several options before you find what works for you.

If you don’t have the expertise and experience to find the opportunities that already exist get help earlier rather than later. To call for help when the creditors are already shouting is too late, develop your plan of action now and ensure you are still in business this time next year.

Financial Scams – Beware!

It seems that there is no end to the number of people who are able to set up supposedly legitimate businesses and proceed to use them to relieve the unsuspecting public of their hard-earned cash and increasingly much of their retirement funding.

It appears that we have learnt little from Masterbond, Supreme Bond,Fidentia, Bernie Madoff et al. Now we have another alleged scam in the Frankel Chemical crisis. It also seems that the South African public are as gullible if not more so than our overseas counterparts.

There is one very simple rule in investing money – if it seems too good to be true, then it almost certainly is. When the market is paying around 10-12% and someone tells you that he can give you returns of 15-20%, that is the time to look very deeply into the package you are being offered. It is alleged that the latest debacle of the Frankel Chemical Corporation is yet another elaborate “Ponzi” scam and that it could run into billions of rands.

Recently in KZN, an investment business taking funds from investors for ostensibly investment into private companies also appears to have hit the wall – and hundreds of investors – mainly private individuals as it appears is the case with Frankel – will in all probability lose their money. And all this despite the fact that the Financial Services authorities have apparently been bolstered and certainly legislation has been tightened up.

So what are the lessons for us in small businesses? Well, whilst you will come across the odd brilliant entrepreneur who has spotted a gap in the market and is charging through it making an undivided fortune, for the rest of us, making money equals hard work, long hours, persistence and endurance mixed with the odd stroke of good fortune and a great deal of vigilance!!

So when someone approaches you with one of these “too-good-to-be-true” offers or schemes, your first reaction figuratively should be to button the pocket in which you keep your wallet. And when you do look at opportunities, leave no stone unturned. And when someone resists your efforts to check every detail and every supposed “fact”, then run a mile and carry on protecting your hard earned cash.

The more successful you are in making money, the more you are likely to attract those who may have schemes and ideas which may be less than honest. If it looks too good to be true, then think again!!

It is difficult if not impossible to flout the laws of the market – to consistently produce returns that are 5-10% ahead of what the market is paying is just not a realistic proposition.

Time will tell how much the investors in Frankel will lose – but one thing is certain, they ain’t getting all their money back! And this should set the warning bells ringing in the heads of any local investor with a grain of common sense.