How To Ensure Your Business Makes It Past The First Year
Most like the idea of being their own boss and would like the opportunity to run their own business
. Lets take a look at just what is required to run a successful business. It is common knowledge that a lot of new businesses will fail in their first year. This is no coincidence and can be put down to one or a few of the below reasons. By reading this article you may well be able to put the steps necessary to succeed in business into place and make it not only past your first year but maybe into millionaire status.
Planning
Most people will produce a business plan that is quite imaginative. This is no secret and of course you are going to elaborate a little because in most cases your business plan is to impress a bank manager so that you can get a business loan. The biggest mistake you will make after this is believing your business plan instead of amending it. Ok so you may think that when producing your business plan your figures will be one hundred percent accurate, when in fact you are so depending on a positive answer from your bank manager you will more than likely stretch the truth to make your business seem a more worthwhile investment. This goes on and after you have got your business loan the first thing you need to do is re produce your business plan but not only make it realistic make sure you produce it in a worst case scenario. By doing this you will have a more solid grounding on moving forward.
Dont run before you can walk
Another temptation is to try and get to big too fast. When things are going well it is all too easy to start expanding. The trick here is to go back to your business plan and take another look. If you are above or on target then re think expansion. Sit back and take stock. Do you really need to expand right now or can it wait for another month or two? If it can then you should wait. Get some more cash in the bank and that way you will be in a much stronger position if anything should go wrong.
Keep everybody informed
Dependant on what sort of business you are running always keep your customers informed of everything they need to know at all times. This will keep them on side and if anything has gone wrong and they know about it before they have to ask they will be much more understanding and are likely to keep their business with you.
Cash flow
Probably the most important of all issues when it comes to surviving in and beyond your first year is cash flow. If you only take one piece of advice from this article let it be this. Where possible do not offer credit in your first year. Always try and get your money upfront. Most businesses will not offer a business in its first year any decent credit so if you havent got the money from your customers you wont have the money to pay your suppliers. Its quite simple get your money first.