Posts

How to Start a Business with Little to no Capital

/in /by

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Start a Business|How to Start a Business with Little to no CapitalYou have a great idea for starting your own business, but you’ve got little or no savings. While starting a business when you’re strapped for cash is a challenge, know that this doesn’t mean you can’t go into business. Nor does this mean that people will think less of your new business. There are many firms famous for starting with a few hundred pounds in someone’s garage, and you could be one of them if you take advantage of the resources that are available to you. Let’s look at a few ways you could start your business with little to no capital.

Use Sweat Equity

Don’t buy things when you could rent, and don’t buy new if you can make do with used. The main source of capital will be you and your efforts. Do everything you can yourself before you hire others.

This route isn’t an option if you don’t have the time to work for the business for free or the cost of entering the field is more than you have saved. But, if you are able to start the business on effort alone, recognise that you’ll have a lot of competition and will have to hire people to scale it up.

Leverage Your Day Job for Capital

A common criticism of artists and entrepreneurs is ‘don’t quit your day job’. There are several good reasons to keep your day job while building your small business, too.

First, you can live frugally off your income and funnel the rest of your money into the business. This does mean you’re pressed for time, but you can often build your business if you carefully budget your time outside of work. Your job also improves your credit. You’re eligible for no guarantor loans based on your current income. You don’t have to ask anyone else to co-sign the loan or ask family to loan you money for your business.

A side benefit of starting your business as a side business is that you have margin for error. If you need to tweak the design or change your business model, it won’t hurt the business. You can get feedback from friends, family and referrals.

Find Ways to Generate More Revenue from Your Business Idea

You may have to find new ways to generate revenue from your business. Find ways to generate cash flow from services while designing and selling a product.

Product-based businesses are capital intensive. Try to find ways to make money servicing current owners of the product, such as repairing or appraising the item. If you want to build an app, get started building websites and apps for others. Provide tech support for customers while you’re designing hardware. This will not just generate cash flow you can live on, but it will connect you to potential customers.

You can start a business with little to no cash, and it doesn’t have to involve a ton of debt. Understand your options so that you can find the best solution for funding your start-up.

How To Take Your New Business Idea To The Next Level

/in /by

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Starting a Business|How To Take Your New Business Idea To The Next LevelWhen you come up with a great business idea and begin to lay the foundations for your dream to become a reality, you might find that you are being held back by certain restraints that can stop your concept from truly flourishing. It’s unlikely that you can be a one man band, and you need so many different contributing features to bring the whole venture together and really make it work. Becoming a successful entrepreneur takes skill, effort and time, but if you are ready to commit yourself and reach your goals then the results that you will achieve will make it all seem more than worth it. So, if you want to know how you can take your business idea to the next level and really hit the ground running, then read on for some of the best top tips and tricks that you can make the most of to start generating a respectable profit in no time at all!

Hiring The Right Support

Though you may want to keep all of the credit and control for your business, at some point you are going to have to let go of some responsibilities in order to allow your organisation to grow into something much bigger. Hiring the right support is such an important step to take, as having some experienced and qualified employees by your side to assist you with every task you complete is going to take a huge weight off your shoulders. Finding the right staff doesn’t have to be difficult, as there are several different ways that you can attract potential candidates – by posting a job application online, approaching a recruitment agency, or networking with others in your industry to spread the word about your vacancies. It’s easy to find more info about where you can hire the best professionals, but it’s up to you to identify which person will suit your own specific company needs.

Sourcing The Best Equipment

Whatever kind of business you are going to run, you will need to source the best equipment to ensure that you and your staff can complete every task to the highest standard. Whether you need computers or laptops, heavy production machinery or general labourer tools, its key that you can collect each necessary item and have it set up and ready for use as soon as you open your doors for business. If you purchase secondhand or poor quality machinery, you’re going to end up with a bad end product that will be worth half of the price of its properly made counterpart. It’s likely that you will need to provide training for some specific items as your staff may require the knowledge in order to operate them safely and securely.

Get Marketing Now

The sooner that you are able to start marketing your business, the more attention and excitement will build for your new idea. You can even start advertising before you open the doors to your company, as you can use your grand opening date as some kind of special day that includes offers or vouchers, therefore attracting more buzz and potential customers. The type of marketing that you use should really depend on your target audience, for example if your business is directed towards young adults and teenagers, you may want to make the most of social media advertising. You simply create a business profile, and update your page with regular posts that can receive constant feedback from actual users, whilst even offering options to purchase items or services straight through the social media platform itself. To reach an older generation, get on board with day time TV advertisements or put up a sign in your local newspaper or relevant magazine subscription to get their attention.

Starting your own business can be a whirlwind adventure, but following the steps above will show you just how simple it can be to take your idea to the next level and make some serious profit. There are so many risks that new business’ face whenever they are released onto the market, but you can reduce these risks dramatically by taking these top tips and tricks on board. Start by sourcing the right group of staff to support you through your venture, that have the necessary qualifications and experience to push your company to grow and evolve. Ensure that you have invested in the best quality equipment your employees need to do their job well, and put a big emphasis on marketing your brand to gain a wider influence.

Finding Your Feet: Your Checklist For Starting A Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Starting a Business|Finding Your Feet: Your Checklist For Starting A BusinessIf you are thinking of starting a business, then this is a great step for you to take towards a new future for yourself. However, this is not an easy task to complete, and you are going to need to dedicate not just time, but a lot of money and resources into making this work. If you are not willing to do this, then you might as well quit now, because you are not going to make it on the market without this level of dedication. But, if you do have this level of determination and you are willing to commit to this venture, then you need to know exactly what you need to get your business started. Keep reading to find out some of the things that we have come up with!

Come Up With An Idea

The first thing that you are going to need is a good idea. Now, this might sound obvious, but a lot of people who are trying to start a business these days don’t think beyond their own company. You need to look at the market and figure out where there is a gap that you can slide into. If you are going to dive straight into an industry that is already crowded, then you are going to have to have an amazing strategy to get customers to choose your new business over an already established one. This is not going to be easy, which is why you are going to be better off trying to find somewhere that your company fits in easily, rather than trying to force your way in.

Having an idea is the first step to creating something great, and you need to have a solid foundation before you try to build on this. To do this, you need to make sure that you have done plenty of research on the industry you want to enter.

Get Started On A Plan

The next thing that you are going to need to do is to get started on writing a business plan. This is going to be one of the most important steps in the process because this is where you are going to figure out what’s going to happen with the finer details of your business. It is going to be your opportunity to get down the details of what you want to achieve, how you are going to do it, what your business is going to be all about, and all the other things that you need to have decided before you can start a successful company.

The sooner you manage to get started on your plan, the more time you are going to have to finalize it if you are looking to progress your business by a certain deadline. Make sure that you are setting yourself goals for things like this so that you have a time frame in mind.

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Starting a Business|Finding Your Feet: Your Checklist For Starting A BusinessFind The Funding

Something else that you are going to have to figure out is how you are going to fund your business. Before you can get up and running, you are going to need to find the correct funding that will keep you afloat. Now, there are a number of ways that you can do this, and one of them is to put the money up yourself. If you have the money spare, you are going to be able to put the money up, have full ownership of your company, and not rely on anyone else to help you out financially.

But, for many people, this is not going to be an option for them to consider, and this is where you need to look at alternatives. Finding investors for your business does not have to be too difficult, but it can take some time. One of the things that you can consider is taking your business to a trade show, where you will find plenty of people who are looking for their next business venture. Make sure that you are getting your business to stand out from everyone else that is there so that you can attract as much attention as possible. This way, you are in a better position for investors to choose your business.

Put Together A Team

You are also going to need a team that will be there to help you launch your business. You are not going to get anywhere on the market if you don’t have a team established before your business launches. A team of hardworking individuals is going to be invaluable to you and your business, which is why you want them on your side as soon as you can. They will be able to help you set up your business, and build it into a success!

Make sure that the hiring process is done thoroughly, though, because you are only going to want people to be part of your business if they are willing to put in the effort. There is no use in having people who aren’t dedicated to helping make the company the best it can be because this isn’t going to work out well.

Marketing Is Essential

Finally, you need to sort out some form of marketing for your business, or nobody is going to know about you. This needs to include social media, leaflets, setting up your own website, writing guest posts on blogs, and so many other marketing methods. Every step on this list is going to be important, but this final step is the one that could make or break the entire company. Without marketing, nobody is going to know about your business, and then you aren’t going to see any profits, and then your business could collapse. We don’t want that, and you don’t want that, so you need to make sure that you have the correct marketing strategies in place, long before the launch of your business.

We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now know what you are going to need to start your business. Follow this checklist, and you are going to have a higher chance of achieving success!

Why Isn’t My New Business Making Any Money?

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Setting up a Business|Why Isn't My New Business Making Any Money?When you finally take the plunge to escape the rat race and set up your own business, it’s easy to get ahead of yourself. You have dreams of making lots of money, customers come flooding in and all of your financial worries just melting away. But of course, this isn’t the case most of the time- starting a company is hard work and things probably won’t take off as quickly as you think. Here are some of the reasons why you’re yet to make much (or any) money in your venture.

Be patient

First things first, you might need to just be patient. It can take time to build up a reputation online, for those first customers to start posting reviews and making recommendations. It can take a few weeks for any marketing efforts to show their effects. Try not to panic and give it a little time, as long as you’re sure you’re doing everything else right- you might just need to be patient.

Improve your website

Have you set up a free or cheap website as a way to get your business online but without spending much money? Even if your site looks ok, it’s always going to lack the sleek professionalism that you can only get with an experienced web designer. Customers are picky and have high expectations, it doesn’t matter what kind of business you run. If they think your site looks cheap or amateur, it’s easy for them to assume that rest of your business is run the same way. Your website really is an investment, it’s essential for success and something to consider improving if you’re not making much money.

Better images

Stock images from the internet lack the personalisation that customers will be looking for. You don’t want to look like any other bland business out there, you want to be unique and sand out. This is impossible to achieve when you’re using images that people have seen online hundred times. Invest in good images for your company’s website, this could be things like professional model shots to show clothing or products or photos of your staff on a ‘meet the team’ page for professionalism. Show whatever it is your customer is going to be buying. If you’re a corporate business, photos of your team and office can help give clients that sense of who you are- it makes things feel more personal.

Marketing efforts

If you’re not reaching the right people, it doesn’t matter what your business does or sells- you’ll simply never sell enough to make a profit. Don’t just wait for customers to stumble across you, use a marketing agency or a hire a professional to run things for you since they will have the skills and expertise needed. In many cases, a lack of sales can be fixed by marketing. If you know you’re selling good products or services that people want, it might be a case that you’re just not reaching the people who are likely to buy from you. Marketing can fix that.

Ensuring Your Business Starts On Stable Footing

/in /by

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Starting Your Business|Ensuring Your Business Starts On Stable FootingWe can often see businesses as stable institutions, perhaps absolutely secure on the platform upon which they stand. But most of us who have experience in the industry know better. For example, industry titans can easily lose plenty of their stock if rocked by deep controversy, if failing to live up to their obligations, or if investing in a bad route without caring for the sunk cost to make that work.

But all of that is in the future. For a business just starting out, ensuring your firm begins on stable footing can allow you to move forward to the future and develop a more cohesive output, potentially allowing you to sidestep issues before they occur and staying optimistic about meeting challenges.

After all, a tree with deeper, more secure roots will take much more effort to become uprooted in winds of chaos. This means that no matter what your business weathers, these essential preliminary tips can help you start in the best possible sense, and for the best possible reasons:

Plan Effectively

Planning effectively is not just a nicety, it’s a requirement. You need to be able to list, to the letter, exactly how you hope to proceed in a certain capacity. This means knowing how you will commit to a certain task, how much it will cost, who will be assigned to it, when your deadline is, and potential variables that can go wrong. Time is money in a small business trying to establish itself, and so as far as that is concerned you need to be as careful as possible. Chart each step as delicately as you can. When you follow this process, you can treat your clients with the care they might require, offsetting the risk they have taken by using your services despite the lack of testimonials.

Dot The I’s, Cross The T’s

Ensure that your paperwork is perfectly considered. For example, a fein application can help you immediately find an ID number that allows you to curate your best taxes planning and payment schedule. Additionally, taking an accurate view to your paperwork can help you more appropriately catalog it, even if you then offset that to a professional accountant or tax management lawyer.

Hire A Consultant

Many firms feel as though there’s something shameful in hiring a consultant, but of course, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, a consultant can help you inject the experience that you may have never been able to curate on your own, and this can be a real problem. Additionally, you might find that hiring a consultant can help you dispel your own foolish or inexperienced notions, allowing you to refine your own skillset and embark upon your own necessary training. Business leaders who are unafraid to admit this need can only come out stronger and more capable in the end – and that’s never a negative thing to consider or promote.

With this advice, you’re certain to ensure your business begins on stable footing. We wish you the best to that end.