Run Your Own Business: Teach Yourself Ebook Epub

Kevin Duncan

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781444129625
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

Running your own business can be a daunting, challenging and sometimes stressful experience, but also one of the most rewarding. This book expertly guides you through the principles of running a successful business. Crammed with practical advice - from assessing pro's and cons, to motivating yourself and adopting effective practices, it will prove invaluable as you tackle one of the biggest adventures of your lifeNOT GOT MUCH TIME?
One and five-minute introductions to key principles to get you started.
AUTHOR INSIGHTSLots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience.
TEST YOURSELFTests in the book and online to keep track of your progress.
EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGEExtra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding of running your own business.
FIVE THINGS TO REMEMBERQuick refreshers to help you remember the key facts.
TRY THISInnovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it.

1

Where do I start?

In this chapter you will learn

• how to be honest with yourself
• what you need to prepare in order to be a success
• how to write a simple, realistic plan
• how to work out the materials that you need
• how to get it all under way

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 when things go well, whether that is mental or financial. So let’s dive straight in and work out how you are going to turn what many would regard as an ordeal into a fantastic success.

1 Assume that you have something to offer

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 otherwise you probably wouldn’t be reading this book. 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.
• There is a market for my product/service (whether this is actually true and how you set about proving it to yourself will come later).
• I can do it better on my own than in my current set-up.
• I have a way of doing it that people will like.
• What I put in and what I get out will be a better balanced equation than my current state of affairs.

That should just about cover it. Thousands of people go through this basic 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.’

What do people mean when they say this? Well, first, there are important issues with regard to exactly where you are going to do your work. What are your domestic arrangements? Could they possibly accommodate you achieving everything that you need to without disrupting all the other aspects of your life?

Second, there is your frame of mind: are you cut out to operate outside of a conventional work environment? Could you cope without the interaction? Could you motivate yourself when no one is there to give you a kick-start?

Evidence suggests that the majority of people are very capable of working on their own. They simply need a little guidance and encouragement to point them in the right direction. If you don’t make the leap, you’ll never know, so let’s make a start.

It is essential that you feel good about yourself. You must genuinely believe that you can offer something of value to others, otherwise you would not have taken the plunge to set up on your own, or even be toying with the idea. Make this vital assumption and start from there. Don’t be apologetic about your skills, either to yourself or to a potential customer. State them clearly, get used to saying them out loud, and become comfortable with explaining them to others. Without being arrogant, everyone who works on their own has to have a certain level of self-confidence. You no longer have colleagues to witness your performance and help you with encouraging observations. You rarely get debriefed objectively on how something has gone. Consequently, you have to be very adept at self-assessment. Now all the motivation has to come from within.

2 Be honest with yourself

Do remember, however, that confidence can be misplaced. In fact, over-confidence could beguile you into believing that you have a viable idea or a pleasant way of doing things when you don’t. Confront your own hubris and work it out privately before it trips you up.

You work for yourself now, so you don’t have to pretend about anything. In truth, you mustn’t ever stray into the realms of fantasy because you would only be fooling yourself if you did. From now on it is your job to be sensible and realistic. Do not exaggerate your potential or delude yourself that you can do all sorts of things that you cannot. Equally, do not be sheepish about your skills. You will need to get used to showing a fascinating blend of confidence and humility. It is perfectly fine to have a different external persona, but make sure that you are honest with yourself and that you know your true self.

Consider your position with extreme care and as much objectivity as you can muster. Ask yourself:

• What are you good at?
• How much is that worth to someone else?
• How much will someone pay for what you have to offer?
• Is that enough for you to live on, or to satisfy your ambitions?

Get a piece of paper. Write down what you want to do in your business. Consider it for a while, and then decide whether anyone else would agree with you. This is the beginning of establishing whether there is indeed a market for what you do. Go for a walk. When you return, look at your piece of paper again. Is it any good? Is it nonsense? If so, write a new one. Stick it on the wall and live with it for a few days. Does it still make sense? Is it rubbish? Does everyone else claim the same thing? What’s so different about the way that you would run your business?

These early enquiries are really important. They are the starting point of you being able to have a board meeting with yourself. A degree of schizophrenia here is essential. One half of your mind needs to be capable of putting forward an idea, and the other half needs to be smart enough to confirm or reject it without upsetting yourself in the process. That’s no easy matter. So practise debating things on your own, weighing up the pros and cons, reaching a sensible conclusion, deciding what to do next, and remaining calm and objective throughout the whole process.

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Insight – Personal honesty

People do talk a lot of nonsense these days, particularly in business. Do not let this be you. Woolly thinking will give you and your business a false start, and self-deception at this stage will lead to trouble later.

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3 Research your market thoroughly

If you think you have an excellent idea, the first essential thing to do is to research your market thoroughly. Actually it isn’t simply one thing to do – it’s a lot of things. Try asking yourself these sorts of questions:

• What demand is there for what you provide?
• If you are producing a product, who wants to buy it?
• If you are providing a service, who needs it?
• Who else in the area does this already? (This could be geographical or sector-based.)
• Are they a success? If so, why?
• Are they a failure? If so, what does that tell you?
• What price can you put on your product or service?
• Does that represent a going concern or will you be hard-pushed to make a living?
• What outside factors are you subject to?
• Can you influence these factors or are you totally at their mercy?
• If you have no control over them, does that make the whole venture too vulnerable?
• If you were someone else, would you honestly embark on this venture?
• Why?

The questions are endless, but one of the best pieces of advice here is to be like an inquisitive child and always ask ‘Why?’ three times in relation to every question. Or, if you are inclined to overstate the potential of everything because you are so enthusiastic about it, ask someone else to ask you ‘Why?’ in relation to all your assertions about how this venture is definitely going to be a roaring success from day one. There is absolutely nothing wrong with oodles of enthusiasm at this stage. Actually, it is an essential prerequisite if you are to be a solo success, but the business won’t succeed on enthusiasm alone if it is not tempered with some good old-fashioned realism. If you are a hopeless dreamer, get the reality mongers in to check if you are heading off on a wild goose chase that could end in disaster. This will soon establish whether or not you are deluding yourself.

With the advent of seemingly endless online data sources, a huge amount can be gleaned from just sitting at your desk and letting the information pour in to your desktop. In one respect this is fine, and it is a good place to start. However, do make sure that you get out and about and talk to people. There is no substitute for talking to prospective customers, wandering about a locality, and getting a human feel for things. Strike a balance between the two.

4 Work out how much money you need

This sounds obvious, but it is amazing how many people don’t really cover the groundwork in this area. What is required here is not a forest of spreadsheets – just a really clear impression of how your business will work financially. Put simply, there are three types of money that you will need:

1. Investment at the start.
2. Monthly cash flow.
3. The profit (monthly or annual).

It is extraordinary how many businesses mess all this up. Here is the layperson’s guide to the three types.

INITIAL INVESTMENT

Let’s look at the investment needed at the start.

• Do you need to put any money in at all at the beginning? Pause on this one for a moment. If the answer is no, then don’t do it.
• If you do need to borrow from some other source, what demands will the lenders make on getting it back? Banks want interest. Investors want cash back. They don’t lend money out of kindness. It is so easy to be seduced by the sort of macho talk that goes with establishing a business. You know the sort of stuff: ‘We’ve got some seed corn investment from a consortium of city backers’, ‘The Venture Capital guys are really interested in the idea’. This may make you feel very important, but these people want their money back, and some. And they may want to be involved in the way you run the business. Therefore, if you can do it without them, then do.
• If you do have to put money in yourself, w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Preface
• Meet the author
• Only got a minute?
• Only got five minutes?
• Introduction
• 1 Where do I start?
• 2 The right tools for the job
• 3 Getting the money right
• 4 How to communicate effectively
• 5 Taming the telephone
• 6 Understanding time
• 7 How to conduct yourself
• 8 Meetings can be fun
• 9 Staying sane and relentlessly enthusiastic
• 10 You are not alone
• 11 How looking back helps you to look forward
• Taking it further
• Index