Starting out in Business

I love to encourage younger people who have a dream to establish their own business. In my local area we have the Gen YQ Penrith Networking Group set up for business entrepreneurs and professionals under 35. This is a great initiative and is attracting a lot of interest locally and across NSW.The following is from an interview with John Drury by Michael Todd CEO of Gen YQ Penrith.

If you are thinking about starting up your own business in 2012 I suggest you use the following keys to help you prepare.

1. The Preparation you need:

• You have a service or product that is in demand which you are able to provide at least as w ell as your competitors
• You have a clear written business plan which includes a realistic start up budget and marketing plan
• You are passionate about your business idea and have decided you are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve your plan.

2. The Attitudes you need:

• Treat it as an exciting adventure in which you are on a quest to learn as much as you can about people, business and yourself
• Work hard to add fantastic value to your clients so you create raving fans
• Get yourself as skilled as possible at what you do (people do not care about how young you are if you are good)
• Look for gaps in the market and learn how to fill them so you have a clear point of difference from your competitors
•  If something doesn’t work, don’t fret over it, treat it as a learning experience and try something else

 3. The Skills and Knowledge you need:

• Know what you are good at, and if you don’t know, then ask  people you trust who know you pretty well. Get an E-DISC profile done which is a great personality profile which can really help you to learn about yourself.
• Get to know your ideal client very well (do some serious market research)
• Connect with a mentor or two, people you admire and are successful. Drive the mentoring process by asking great questions and you will pull gold out of them.
• Test and measure everything you do so you learn quickly what works and what doesn’t. No guesswork.
• Get organized. If you are not naturally organised then find an organizational system that works for you
• Be highly relational. This is essential. 85% of business success is who you know not what you know.
• Delegate what you are not good at except control of your marketing and your finances. You have to be good at these or learn to be. If you do not like marketing then I suggest you go and get a job.
• Outsource before adding staff, it’s better value for money

4. The Values you need:

To be consistently successful at anything you need to know yourself well and be true to yourself. When you are younger you do not always know what you believe. Strong adult and business values develop from age 25 – 40 in most people. To make it easy, know how you would like to be treated and treat people like that. If you have to change who you are at core in order to please somebody else, is not worth the deal.

Reasons Why New Businesses Struggle include:

• They are isolated, not well connected in their market place and do not have good personal support to pick them up after a tough week.
• Poor marketing, you must develop a system (ideally an automated system) for getting new prospects
• Poor cash flow which is really poor financial administration which usually develops because you cut corners and do not pay to get good advice from an accountant.
• They do not have interests (e.g. sport or hobby) outside their business.

Feel free to leave your thoughts, questions or comments in the box below.