small-business-workshop.com

Thinking of starting a small business or home based business?

Starting a small business requires a wide variety of personal attributes and skills, a good deal of planning, some startup funds and the ability to work hard. If you think this sounds like fun, then you're probably a good candidate.

You can significantly increase your chances of success, if you're willing to study and learn from others prior to starting your small business. The purpose of this site is to help you learn about the various facets of starting a small business by learning from experienced others.

Choosing Your Line of Business
A fundamental factor in the success of a small business is that you match yourself closely with the line of business. If the risk, pressures and activities of the business are not a good match for you personally, then it will be very difficult to succeed. Conseqently, we recommend doing a thorough self-assessment before starting your new small business, so you are aware of any areas that may present challenges further down the road. This process of self assessment is covered in the Know Yourself section.

Next you need to decide what style of business best suits your needs - a "bricks and mortar" business such as a store in a shopping mall, a consultancy, a home based business, or an online business. Some of these business styles overlap, but generally a business falls primarily into one category.

Each of these business types has distinct advantages and disadvantages, which may or may not be a good match for your personal circumstances. A thorough assessment of the pros and cons is desirable. You can read more about the different styles of small business in What Business Should I Start?

A Most Important Phase
Next comes the planning phase. This is the most important phase of starting a small business. If you can't get your business idea to work on paper, then it's unlikely to work in the real world. We suggest you take your time during the planning phase, do extensive and thorough research, particularly when it comes to calculating sales estimates. Also, seeking the advice of experienced business people in the same field is highly recommended. Their first hand, real world, experience can be a great reality check for your business idea and save you thousands of dollars and heartache finding out the hard way.

Financing Your Business
Once you have your small business thoroughly planned on paper, it's time to find a source of funding. There are many ways of financing a small business - borrowing, bringing in a partner, bootstrapping or some combination of all three. Again, financing your small business is a phase which requires careful thought and is not something to be rushed. You need to be sure your business can afford the cost of borrowed funds, or that you can work with your proposed new partners.

With your startup funding in place, the real day to day work begins - advertising your business, dealing with customers, delivering your goods or services and managing employees.

Save Yourself Thousands of Dollars
Each of these areas requires a great deal of skills and experience. Much will be learned from first hand, on-the-job experience. However, again you can save thousands of dollars and a lot of heartache by studying and planning in advance.

Here at small-business-workshop.com, we have combed through thousands of web pages to find some of the best business resources on the Web.

As well as articles about small business, you will find links to online courses (some free) and self evaluation tests (some free) that can give you valuable insight before you launch your business.

You will also find a selection of recommended business books on many of the topics.

Please use the menu links in the left hand column to take the full guided tour, or jump to any section you wish. (igx)