When you want to go into business for yourself, you’ll often think about just how great your future will be. Because many believe that the flexibility and income possibilities of an entrepreneur are often quite glamorous – and it’s very much glorified right now. But the reality is that taking the entrepreneurial leap is quite serious and you have to be really practical about things, especially in the beginning.
If you choose the entrepreneurial path, you’re going to want to make sure that you know exactly what you’re doing and that you have a great foundation to build from. But at the same time, you don’t want to overwhelm yourself and end up putting things off because you feel like it’s too much of a big job for you to take on. So let’s break things down and work out what top five things you should focus on when you first “set up shop.”
- Where
The very first thing that you should think about here is where you want your business to be located. Do you want to have a physical shop or do you want to work virtually? If you want to be in a traditional brick and mortar space, then where will that be? Will it be in your own town or will it be somewhere else? And you need to choose well here. You’ll want to make sure that your target customer base is going to be able to find and interact with your business wherever you set up.
- Marketing
The next thing that you should do, is think about your marketing because there are a ton of marketing ideas for small businesses that you can work on. So you should think about what options are going to work for you, and what will be the best ways to promote your company so that you get in front of the people that want to buy from you. Spend some time here! It will be the most important strategy you can focus on right now.
- Equipment
Then you will want to make sure that you have all of the equipment that you need to run and operate your company. This could be technology like a laptop and phone, or it could be uniforms where you look at a catalog to choose them, or it could even be software or machinery. You need to make sure that you’re finding suppliers that you like, and who can get you the equipment you need while staying within your budget.
- Sales
It’s also important for you to be able to close a sale. You’ll either want to be confident enough to push sales for yourself, or you will want to make sure that you hire someone that can drive this for you. Because without driving sales, you simply won’t have a thriving business.
- Growth
And finally, you need to make sure that you’re thinking about how you plan to grow. This is often the most important part of all. Because if you only ever focus on the four things above, you may not be able to make the business work – or you’ll just get stuck. Instead, you really need to know where you’re going and how you can scale your product or services. You’ll want to figure out what you’re planning for and where you want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, etc. so that you can start putting the plans in place to make it happen.
