Running Your Own Business

Running Your Own Business

There are many types of businesses that you can run on your own whether it’s a hobby turned into a business that you do from the comfort of your own home or something like a café or an online shop. There’s something for everyone who wants to be their own boss. Depending on the type and size of your business, there are a few things you might want to consider to help everything run smoothly.

• Before You Start

Before you properly start your new business, make sure you think it all through thoroughly and make a business plan so that you know what you’re getting yourself into. Smaller and more independent businesses don’t require as much planning but it’s always a good idea to know what you want to achieve and how you plan to do it.

Check that there is a market for the product or service that you’d like to offer to avoid disappointment from an oversaturated market or from lack of interest/customers.

Find every available resource at your disposal and use them for your advantage. Speaking of resources, there are free as well over at smartspabusiness.com.

• Are You Ready?

Running a successful business takes a lot of time, especially at the beginning. Are you ready to invest most of your free time in your new venture to make sure you’re doing everything you can to succeed?

The start-up phase also usually requires you to have some savings to keep you going as most businesses don’t make much money, if any, at the start.

• Choose a Name

The name of a business is a very important part as it’s what will help make customers remember you and also find you in the first place. Quirky names sometimes work really well but you also need to think about what people might be searching for online and take that into account when narrowing down your list of names. Also check out competitors to make sure the name you’re looking at is not too similar or already taken. Check what domain names are available too as you’d like your business name and domain name to be the same.

• Get the Training You Need

For some types of businesses, you might need to do some training before starting. Some things might be useful, and others might be a legal requirement so do check what you need for your field. If you’re in the food industry for example, make sure you have up to date food hygiene training and that all your staff do too.

• Staff Performance

Having staff naturally complicates how easy running a business is but most businesses need staff to work and grow. Read as much as you can about having staff in your field and consider getting a performance and talent management software, like WorkPAL from Thirsty Horses, to drive staff engagement, learning and appraisal.

When hiring staff, consider the increasing importance of reasoning aptitude tests to help you find the right people for you and your business.

If you need help with anything staff related, check out Zenefits HR which is a People Operations Platform that makes it easy to manage your employee documents, HR, benefits, payroll, time and attendance.

• Consider an Accountant

If you’re running a small sole-trader business, you can probably look after your own books if you are organised but anything bigger benefits from an accountant that can make sure everything is going as it should, everyone is being paid on time and all tax returns etc. are done on time.

• Consider Vendor Performance Management (VPM) If your goal is to make a profit and have satisfied customers then using a vendor performance management system to run a vendor performance evaluation, would be in your best interest to get incorporated as a part of your work flow. This will help monitor the vendors you do business with on points like i.e. quality of service and reliability. You will be able to assess them for these factors and make better decisions. Not only that a VPM will help you reduce stock levels and reduce the inventory costs for your business.

Collaborative Post. Contains sponsored links.