Roadmap of Getting Down To Business

Starting a business needs careful planning, analyzing, and even testing before it’s fully implemented. It is a risky venture if you will simply jump into it by impulse. It’s not only money, that’s lost in a business that failed. Time, reputation, job, and family relationships are wrecked when business goes bankrupt. The cycle of risks never stop even if the business survives or becomes financially successful. But you can dramatically reduce the odds of failure if you develop the right plan and actions in every phase of your business.

What are the bases for planning, starting, and growing a business? What are the best strategies to look upon when starting a business? Below are general strategies most entrepreneurs use when starting a business.

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Dig Into Your Passion
Start a business that you know, and love to grow. What are the things that you love most, and are worth developing into business? Focus into it, and find a business that fits that passion. Do you love to cook, and is fast food service needed in your place? Then, go open a fast-food center or a restaurant. Do you love computers, knows how to build and fix them? Is there a need for computer store and repair shop in your place? Then, go, open a computer sales and service center.

I started my tricycle business based on my passion for driving a motorcycle. This was the first motivating factor that gave me an idea why I should go into this business. I knew how a motorcycle works, and I knew how to fix it when it breaks down. I have so much fun on this two-wheeled machine when I’m driving it. When I applied that passion in my tricycle business, I was still enjoying the fun of driving it. But with a sidecar attached to it, I was at the same time earning money from it.

Find a Problem, and Solve it
Look around and find problems of the people around you. This is the next thing you’ll check when thinking of starting a business. Don’t start a grocery store when you see lots of them in your neighborhood. Unless you have money to start a large wholesale grocery store business with a wholesaler’s price, then, start your own thrifty grocery store at wholesaler’s price.

I was living in a new residential subdivision few kilometers away from the town’s commercial center. Everytime I drove my motorcycle from my home to the town’s commercial center, I could see a lot of people waiting for passenger jeeps and buses at the highway outside the subdivision. Some would wait for few tricycles passing-by at the entrance road of the subdivision. They’d wait for an hour or more at this corner, or at the highway until a tricycle, passenger jeep or bus pass-by to pick them up.

One more thing I’ve observed, these residents walked from their homes to the gate or to the highway, and waited under the heat of the sun or drops of rain to wait for their rides to their destinations at the town. So, from there, I’ve realized there was a problem on transportation at my residential subdivision. I’ve thought of resolving the problem with tricycles that would pick-up these people from their homes and drive them to their destinations in the town. When they return home, they needed the same tricycles to drop them at the front of their homes.

Find a Niche Market
By definition, a “niche market” is a focused, targetable portion of a market. It is a narrowly defined group of customers from larger market. In my tricycle business, for example, the mainstream business is transportation business that serves the whole province, region, or country. But the narrowed down market for it are passengers coming to and fro in a residential subdivision. My niche market for my tricycle business is the people residing in my subdivision.

Another typical example is the large market for migrant and global Filipinos all over the world. There’s almost 10 million Filipinos scattered all over the world. This is a large market to tap for millionaire businessmen – like the Lopez family who have the TFC channel, dollar remittance service, long distance phone service, balikbayan box delivery service, and Filipino magazine service, all catering to serve the Filipinos around the world. As an entrepreneur with just a small capital to start with, you could narrow down this large market of OFW’s into niche market by focusing on OFW’s who speak your regional dialect, and have computers to connect to the Internet. You could build a web site or a blog, using your regional dialect to attract only OFW’s speaking your regional dialect. Then, from your website or blog you could start selling products that are locally made in your place. When these selected OFW’s go home for vacation, they’ll buy your products online, and give these products as gifts when they return back to work at the countries of their destinations.

Think of the Solutions, Not the Decorations
People who are new to business would always focus on spending a lot to decorate their stores with flashy designs to attract customers. However, when customers come into their establishments, they could not find the products they’re looking for. That’s disappointing.

When starting a business focus on how your product or service will benefit your customers. Center your attention on how you will resolve your customers’ problems or needs. In a small eatery business, for example, focus on serving cheaper and delicious food, instead of decorating your place with expensive high definition TV and expensive stereo for music listening. Remember, people come to your place to eat, because they’re hungry. So, you resolve that hunger problem, by serving your customers with cheap and delicious food.

When I started my tricycle business, I started it from a five-year old motorcycle attached to an old P500.00 worth of sidecar. When it was built as a tricycle, I simply repainted the old figure of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at its front, and started serving my prospective customers. It was an old tricycle, but served the same purpose as a new tricycle would do – to carry passengers from their residences to places they wanted to go in the town, and back.

A Road Map or a Blueprint
Setting up a business is like planning for a long distance road trip. You need a road map to trace down your starting point, and list the names of highways where you are going to turn until you reach your point of destination. You should follow this road map, or else, you’ll get lost and your travel to your destination will be longer than what you expected.

Starting a business is like building a commercial establishment, which needs a blueprint before the construction is actually made. You need to draw a plan on where to get your source of capitalization, how you will build and maintain a positive cash flow for your business, and how you intend to use your profits.

If you intend to borrow from other sources, you should be able to find the right person or business establishment who could lend you the money for your capital. Is it your friend, relative, a cooperative, or a bank? Even before your business becomes profitable, you need a plan on how to use your profits. Are you expanding your products and services on the same location? Or are you branching out to another location?

You also need a plan that outlines the space requirements and equipments for your business. How are you going to display your products at your location? Is it open for public? Or is it through online catalog, using the Internet?

Don’t forget to draw a marketing plan that details how you intend to distribute or sell your products. Are you going to use the traditional way of selling your products through a regular store at your local address? Or are you going to use the Internet as your marketing outlet? If you are selling your products, or offering services using the traditional way, you should study the location where you are opening your business. Are there people passing-by and converging at that location? McDonald and Wal-Mart would even use helicopters and airplanes to check if the location of their prospective businesses have people and cars crowding. If you are planning a business online, see to it that people will come and surf into your website, then see your product and service offerings.

Time management and people management are also important factors one should consider before opening a business. Focus and attention is needed in growing a business. So, if you don’t have much time to directly manage your business, you should be able to delegate it to the right person who could manage it. See to it that this person meets the requirements, having the attitudes and characteristics to manage the business in your absence. The people plan determines what kind of employees you’ll need, and what skills should they posses to run your business.