These are the 3 things that I would recommend for any new business. These are all from experience, not only my own experience but the experience of the many small businesses I have helped over the years. Take heed...!
1. Don't spend loads of money on 'stuff' for the business
Although one of the most exciting things about setting up a business is buying all the new 'stuff' you 'absolutely' need (believe me I find buying stationary extraordinarily exciting, I have every kind of post-it you can imagine...but then I do need them *ahem*), chances are you don't really need it and what you are actually doing is throwing away the money you need to be building the business. Trust me when I say that although you are sure that your website must be a very professional, top end looking one from the start, it honestly doesn't. You may want the bespoke business cards with a logo that you have had designed, but actually vistaprint will do fine when you start out, they are cheap, they look great and you may find that you need to alter your details slightly as time goes on and you don't want to keep paying to replace them if they are super expensive.
Remember that right now you are just starting out, people get that, they understand, we are in a recession, people may even prefer that you are not presenting yourself as the most expensive looking option out there. People buy into YOU, they want to like you, trust you, feel like you understand them - they won't buy with you or not buy with you on the strength of your business card - all of the smart stuff can come when you are making good money, right now you just need customers.
One thing you can spend some money on is a new outfit...to make you feel really confident and reflect the new you...it can be a cheap new outfit, or even from a charity shop (I loooove a charity shop bargain!) but if you want to make a good first impression then treat yourself to this and leave your personalised post-its at home (why would you want to use them anyway, they are just so yummy to look at, don't use them for anything they'll get ruined!)
2. If you can, don't get a loan to start-up or use your credit cards.
This varies according to what business you are starting of course but the amount of times I wrote a business plan for someone that 'needed' a huge business loan or a big injection of capital because they wanted to 'start big' always bothered me. How do you know its going to work? Yes it won't be your money you have lost but if you have lost your business then it can be a long crawl to get back to just standing still again. If you can start smaller but on less borrowed money then DO IT! I borrowed money for the magazine I decided to start for new mums, initially I thought I would just do a newsletter type thing that I would deliver around the local area myself, it would be printed on my computer and it would serve the purpose I wanted it to of telling mums what was going on locally and where they could go to meet up with other mums. However...as the idea grew and grew I decided that I should just go big NOW, why wait? Why not just spend my cash and borrow from my credit card and make it glossy and have a massive distribution and and and...?? Why not? It had outgrown me before I had even started that's why. I should have started smaller, I was seduced by the idea of making it more than it needed to be because that was more glamorous than saying I write a newsletter...what a nutter. The magazine was actually quite successful for a while, I had good feedback, won some money for it, went on the radio a bit, had a high old time meeting people and interviewing people...but the fact was it was too big for me, I hadn't learnt my trade. Another magazine launched with the same demographic in the same area and blew me out of the water, I was left with the debts and no glossy magazine.
Start small, start cheap, learn your trade.
3. Panicking
So you've done all the exciting bits, you have your idea, your plan, your business cards, you have been meeting people, marketing yourself, all the right things...but nothing is happening. You start to slowly wonder if you need to panic, whether you should have given up your job, whether you will be able to pay the bills this month, whether it will ever work. These thoughts go round and round in your head until you can no longer see the wood for the trees and start slashing your prices and adding additional services or products in the hope that at least one thing will work. I've been there, I've done that. It 'ain't pretty, don't do it!! One thing I learnt early on is that specialising is a great thing, trying to be all things to all people is not. Panicking will lead to all kinds of trouble. If you find yourself here, which most people will, at least once (maybe loads of times) just remind yourself that this is perfectly normal. Yes its horrendous when you don't know if you have enough to cover the basic costs of life, it can be almost impossible not to panic, but the second you do you have lost all creative thinking capacity and right now you need that more than ever before. There is a way around or out of it but you have to be in the right frame of mind to see it and find the answers.
What are your top tips of things to avoid?
Love Nova xxx
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