No one can guarantee you success. Your future success in business, and many other things in life too, depends largely on how much you are willing to invest — it’s not only about the money, it’s also about your time and effort. When you sum it all up, it’s all about how well informed are you — you can do almost anything with the right kind of information or data. If you follow these next few steps, you'll have a good idea about what to expect when starting a business.
Pick out a business market that'll allow you to grow
If you're indecisive about what you want to do and you are mainly just looking for something that’s profitable, you should dedicate some time to learning about today’s economy. There are things that people will always find necessary, like food and medicine. That’s why certain branches of industry always look like a good choice, but getting involved can be very hard at the start up business level — if you don't want to get too deeply involved in the manufacturing and production aspects of business, you can always turn towards procurement or service provision.
If you're more into the idea of starting a smaller concern, that’s less demanding, you should consider starting an agency type of business — being a middleman in areas like travel, employment, property or even dating could be the thing you're looking for, especially if you have good people skills.
Before you make an investment, do the research
When you think have an innovative idea that you consider “a runner” and completely doable, the next step is testing it in the market and getting the proof. You should put together some questions and conduct a survey, letting the people you're living with as well as trusted (but hopefully not biased) friends take the survey will unearth some unique facts and opinion, you’ll then know more about things you may not have considered to date, which should definitely affect your final thoughts and decisions.
A small note of caution — Often people think, when researching to start a business, that one of the most certain paths towards success is simply providing people with the things that make them satisfied or happy, but, with this in mind, you will need to filter the results of your survey to offer real, practical knowledge — for example, chocolate clearly isn't something crucial for human survival, but some people when asked will tell you that they can’t live without it… So, “rinse-and-repeat” your surveying as appropriate. The data you'll gather after a couple of surveys and some service or product testing will also help you find out about how people might trust your business. Trust, after all, is one of the key things that helps make a customer become a member of the very important circle, that of the precious, loyal, repeat customer.
Be open minded. Even the negative comments about your ideas should be considered helpful — you'll find out what the weak spots could be , and by having all that in your mind, you'll know how to prevent possible failure. Being well prepared for any kind of crises in the future, helps you to be one step ahead of your competition — you need knowledge and foresight to be in that position, and that’s how you develop a successful business.
Create a strong, professional group of employees
The idea of relying on people you don’t know that well in both business and private life can be a bit frightening. That’s why you need to be completely thorough when it comes to checking out your potential new employees. You should consider making a list of qualities that you’re looking for in your future colleagues — like loyalty, creativity, reliability, the ability to work within a team, professionalism etc, before you write specific job descriptions or start interviewing. Additionally, make sure that you check the authenticity of any references or recommendations received — when you determine the skills, experience and reliability of the working history of a possible employee, you should have all the information needed to make that hiring decision. Stay lean — the overall work force should be minimal — you shouldn't hire people just because you may need them at some point in the future; you can simply hire them then, when actually needed.
Find an office space or premises that matches your needs
Depending on the nature of your business, you should try to find an office space or work space that can easily be adjusted to your needs, and let us remember that few start ups are in a position to actually purchase their work space. When you speak with a possible landlord, the first thing you ask about is the tenure, the policy or term that determines how long you might be committing to. Generally speaking, the more flexible the tenure (time period and terms), the better. There are basically four different ways to occupy or rent an office space.
This way is perfect for those who want to rent a space long-term. The majority of landlords will offer you a contract that will last three to five years. The disadvantages of occupying office space in this way are obvious — you are tied in to the office for the agreed term regardless of business growth or contraction and you’ll generally already need to have a stable monthly income in order to pass credit reference checks, pay the rent or loan money from a bank.
Using a serviced office means you are provided with a fully functioning, usually furnished office that is ready to use within a matter of hours or days. Serviced office space meets the demands of businesses when they have occupancy needs with tight time constraints. These offices also generally offer more flexible rental terms, when compared to a to a conventional leased office space (Leasing / Letting / Renting), which require furnishing, equipment, and also have longer and more restrictive leases. Serviced offices are also often also referred to as business centres, managed offices or executive suites.
Sharing an office with another company or companies, AKA Coworking, can be fun and productive, especially if you're working in similar areas of business. There are great possibilities for cooperation, and you'll split the rent — the only problem with the most popular Coworking offices is that it could turn out the place starts being too overcrowded in time.
Bartering is all about exchanging goods or services. If a company needs your goods or services perhaps you could barter to use some of their office space — why wouldn't you exchange your knowledge for free office space? And especially when starting up, working with or for a larger more experienced company can help you learn a lot, just make sure you're well informed about how long your services are needed and your bartered office space might last.
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