Setting Up for Your Startup Business

1. Setting Up for Business One vital decision you must make in year one is how you will set up for business. If you are going to have a back-end business that doesn’t literally see customers, like a retail store would, you have more options than if you do have a retail center or

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Financial Management of Your Startup Business

1. Business Checking Accounts One of your first tasks as a new business owner is to obtain a checking account. I remember my very first business and the feeling of seeing my company’s name printed on an official docu­ment that had the means of actually paying for something. Today it doesn’t offer quite as

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Advertising and Marketing Your Startup Business

1. Using Online Tools In the Internet era, we have a lot of online tools available to us to advertise businesses, many at little to no cost. Some online advertising tools are more effective than others; just as many are significantly more expensive than they were even a year ago and may not neces­sarily

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Growing Your Startup Business

1. Moving Your Business Ahead You want to move your business ahead—but what that means to you might differ based on your plan. Moving ahead might mean expanding your existing service offerings. It might mean tapping into a new demographic. It might mean taking a brick-and-mortar business online in a supplementary fashion, or vice

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Service Demands in your Startup Business

1. Customers Are Demanding—And They Should Be! Customers are generally demanding—and they should be. There are millions of companies out there competing for their dollars. Every family and individual has only X dollars available for discretionary spending. That means that if your product or service is optional, you need to fight incredibly hard to

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Porter’s Five Forces Analysis of Your Startup Business

So who is Porter, and what the heck do his five forces have to do with your busi­ness? Just about everything! Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School developed the five forces model in 1979 to help determine the competitive intensity of a specific market. In turn, he believed that this model also identified

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Controlling Your Startup Business Growth

1. Review Your Five-Year Plan Periodically, as you move through your business, you should review your original plan and consider future plans when you wish to expand (discussed further in Chapter 13). As you review your plan and take account of where you’re headed, be prepared to identify changes, determine where you need to

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Succeeding and Expanding Your Startup Business

1. Feeling Successful and Loving What You Do: The Ultimate Payoff! What is the ultimate in business success? In my view, and in the view of 98 percent of those surveyed who are existing entrepreneurs, it means meeting goals for the business and also loving what you do. If you are highly successful but

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