The Ultimate Startup Book

Find Your Big Idea; Write Your Business Plan; Master Sales and Marketing

Kevin Duncan, Iain Maitland, Christine Harvey, John Sealey

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781473688704
• eBook ISBN: 9781473688674
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Skills
• Index: Business

If you want to be the best, you have to have the right skillset. From generating ideas and creating business plans to sales and marketing, THE ULTIMATE STARTUP BOOK is a dynamic collection of tools, techniques, and strategies for success. Discover the main themes and key ideas you need and bring it all together with practical exercises. This is your complete course in entrepreneurship. ABOUT THE SERIES
ULTIMATE books are for managers, leaders, and business executives who want to succeed at work. From marketing and sales to management and finance, each title gives comprehensive coverage of the essential business skills you need to get ahead in your career. Written in straightforward English, each book is designed to help you quickly master the subject, with fun quizzes embedded so that you can check how you're doing.

PART 1

Your Start Your Own Business Masterclass

Introduction

We owe it to ourselves to make our working life enjoyable, even if the main reason for it is to make money. The central principle of this book is that starting your own business can be the best feeling in the world. Free of the constraints of company life, and brimming with enthusiasm at the prospect of at last being able to realize the benefits of your own idea, you are all set to experience the thrill of being your own boss.

When you start your own business, you have total responsibility – that’s right, total responsibility. The glory is all yours when things go well, and of course the problems are all yours when they don’t. Therefore, as well as being a hugely rewarding experience, it can also be a very scary state of affairs – a world where there never seems to be a weekend because you can’t stop thinking about a problem or fretting over where the next payment is coming from.

This Part is intended for anyone who has decided to start their own business. It is designed to be your business companion. Running your own business is all about self-confidence. It’s essential that you believe that you are good at what you do.

Do it your way and make it work for you, because that’s what running your own business is all about.

Chapter 1

Getting started

It’s a daunting prospect, isn’t it? An empty desk, no customers, no confirmed money coming in, and no one to gossip with. Welcome to running your own business! Every issue is now yours to wrestle with, and yours alone. But then so is all the satisfaction – mental and financial – when things are going well. In this chapter we are going to work out exactly how you are going to turn what many would regard as an ordeal into the start of a fantastic success.

We are going to look at:

• how to be honest with yourself about your offer

• what you need to prepare in order to be a success

• how to write a simple, realistic plan

• working out the materials that you need

• how to get it all under way.

Assume that you have something to offer

‘The beginning is half of every action.’

Greek proverb

Let’s start by assuming that there is a market for your talents; otherwise you wouldn’t have got this far. We have to believe that this is true because you probably wouldn’t be reading this book unless you were convinced that you have something to offer. By now you will have established the basics in your mind. Your thought pattern will have been something along the lines of:

• I am good at what I do.

• I believe that there is a market for my product or service. (Whether this is actually true, and how you set about proving it to yourself, will come a little later.)

• I can do my job better on my own than in my current set-up.

• I have a way of doing my job that people will like.

• What I put in alongside what I get out will be a better-balanced equation than my current state of affairs.

Thousands of people go through this thought process at some point in their working lives – sometimes on many occasions. However, even if you have been able to tick all the boxes so far, the issue that you have to grapple with next is far more fundamental: ‘If I ran my own business, I’m not sure if I could live with myself.’

When people say this, they mean that they are thinking about important issues such as where exactly they are going to do their work and what their domestic arrangements are. Could they possibly accommodate getting everything done that they need to without disrupting all the other aspects of their life?

Secondly, there is your frame of mind: are you cut out to operate outside a conventional office environment? Could ...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title
• Contents 
• Part 1: Your Start Your Own Business Masterclass
• Part 2: Your Successful Business Plans Masterclass
• Part 3: Your Successful Selling Masterclass
• Part 4: Your Small Business Marketing Masterclass
• Answers
• Copyright