start-business-loans.com » incorporate

Seriously, What do You do for a living?

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:10:44 +0000

Business Owner, Entrepreneur, Dreamer, Wastrel!

How often have you wished that you could come up with a great sounding title for what you do instead of what you actually do?

“I’m a business owner!”(Said sotto voice)

‘Yeah, sure! Where’s your shop?”

“I work out of my home!”

“How’s the weather?”

Seriously though, don’t you wish people would take you seriously when you say you are a business owner?

I do and one of the things I do that makes a difference to me, at least, is that I (am working on this) consistently do some small step to get closer to my goal of generating a serious income so that I don’t have to justify anything. What you or I do has nothing to do with anyone else other than as a customer or vendor. If you are a customer and are interested in my products or services, you should be concerned primarily on the quality of what I provide and on the reliability of my business. You want to know that I’m going to provide an above average product that will provide you long term satisfaction and that I will be around when you decide you need either more of what I provide and or need support for what I provide.

As a vendor, on the other hand, you should be looking at my ability to pay for what I order from you and that I will be a long term customer.

That should be all that matters.

So, how do we as business owners go about satisfying those goals?

First off, make sure that you are able to deliver and if at all possible, over-deliver, before you even think about opening your doors. Also, make sure that you have made yourself very visible to your customers. you don’t want them to guess where they think you live. Customers or buyers will be very reluctant to part with their money if they don’t know it is going to be returned in some form either product or the service your promised in exchange for the money. So, if you have a website, make sure there is contact information there.

Second, when you enter into a contract with a buyer make sure everyone knows exactly what is going to happen at every stage of the game. You don’t want to deliver a door to a customer who was expecting a half-door. Sometimes, the extra time you take to go over the order will pay dividends when the time to deliver is at hand. Under promise and over deliver.

Third, when you are starting out it is easy to promise the moon, the stars, and everything else in between. That is not a good idea. Your work is your very unique contribution to society and should be valued highly. Each minute you devote to complete a job for a customer is a minute that you won’t have for your family or for something else you would rather be doing. Treat it as a great treasure that you are making available to someone else to enjoy, so don’t give it away.

Overextending your reach!

Next, When you are starting out, you will be overjoyed to receive many orders, and have customers wanting to do business with you. The problem is when you start getting into delivery conflicts where you aren’t able to meet your deadlines and then your ability to stay in business gets impacted. This could be from lack of resources – not enough cash to pay for inventories, not enough cash to meet payroll, and so on, or it could be simply from burnout from working such long hard hours to meet those deadlines while working at a full time job and taking care of a family. Having lots of orders is great but not having a contingency plan can lead to disaster.

Another area that is a problem is dealing with vendors that are also working on building their reputation. When you started working with them you were an unknown and they treated you carefully, then as things improved on your end they started overextending their promises hoping to keep you coming back. Then, the realities of the business start impacting their bottom line and the vendor starts pushing back on promises made earlier on. At this point you could be placed on a hard place where you have no choice but to use the vendor in spite of the broken promises. So, diversify and even work with more than one vendor for the same product. It’s not lack of loyalty but business reality. Your customers expect you to meet the commitments you made to them, every thing else is an excuse.

Working for yourself is a challenge for sure, but you can make it a fun time too.

I’ll revisit this next time with my take on helping you reach out and touch someone to make working for yourself even more interesting.

Until the next time,

Good luck with your business venture.

You, Inc!

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:54:32 +0000

This message today is slightly different but still on-topic.

If you are going to look for financing for your small business, you need to look inwardly first before letting others see your outward presentation.

Charm and Looks First!

Not really, being charming and having great looks will work for the short term but when the chips are down, you will be facing some hard realities, just loot at what happened with Hefner’s bunnies when the economic reality hit the mansion! Fire the girls or there will be worse trouble! Sex doesn’t sell as it used to, I guess.

Back to the story, when you are in the marketplace you have to face the reality of the marketplace, the financial requirements or standards of the marketplace and you need to be able to present the right picture or you face much greater rejection, specially now when the financial market is facing such a high turmoil.

Here’s what I’m talking about, what does your credit report show when a financier looks at it? Does it show a responsible individual who takes care of business on time all the time? Does it show someone who is responsible for a large balance? Does it show someone who manages his financial assets and liabilities well?

If you know that your answer is going to be anything but yes to any of these items, the thing you have to keep in mind is that the financier is not going to be very interested in doing business with you. This person isn’t a financier for charitable causes but for profit. That is the bottom line, pure and simple.

Think about it, if you have money to invest in a business and were presented with a credit report that was shaky would you feel comfortable parting with your money to prop the business up? If you answered yes, then go for it, otherwise, work on changing the picture so that you will get a yes.

What does it take to change the picture, because that is usually why you are reading information such as this?

First, how do you respond to money?

Do you spend it faster than you get it? Do you borrow above your ability to either pay it or your maximum balances? Are you over-extended everywhere and living on edge?

Your response may be just the opposite, you may be someone who hoards money but not very wisely. You may be what’s known as a tightwad, or simply tight-fisted with your money.

Whichever way you respond to money, bear in mind that it is going to come across in your conversation and in your financial information. This will also impact the response you will get from investors whether they are bankers, or private institutions.

How do you resolve this if you don’t have a good financial picture?

First off, rather than waste your time fighting the bankers, find more friendly venues, such as buyers and vendor loan options. These are a lot easier to work with and you may be able to get your business handled with just those.

Next, work with a financial counselor that is not out to rip you off to find a way to clear up your credit history. This may take a while. Be patient, the rewards will be worth it.

If you are serious about your business, create an image of a serious business. This includes generating a business credit history which you may be able to use to find the financing you need and may be a lot easier to explain away. Again, this is not going to happen overnight, not even if you pay an arm and a leg to get it setup. Remember that stability can be seen in history a lot more easily than you think.

Finally, look into your own heart and answer the questions about your relationship with money. If this is an area that you should work on, there’s a real good program here that I would thoroughly recommend. Definitely worth it if you want to change the way you behave towards money.

I look forward to sharing with you some more thoughts on money and how we relate to it for the next few days and welcome your comments or thoughts on what has worked for you and what you are struggling with as well.

Until the next time, all the best on your venture