Starting business requires planning, positivity
When a person comes to me wanting to start a business, two things come to mind. “Why the heck are they coming to me?” and “How can I talk them out of it?” I’m no business expert, but I do know there are a lot easier things to do in the world to earn a living without starting a business. I figure that if mere talk can get you off your game, then reality will really bite.
But having your own business can also be a wonderful, successful experience. At least I’m enjoying it. So let’s see why it may be an okay thing to do.
First, you don’t have to be perfect. Entrepreneurs are flawed individuals. This is because all individuals have flaws. You’ll make mistakes. You won’t be an expert on everything. Some folks won’t like you. You will occasionally fail. Heck, look at Donald Trump or Steve Jobs. Both different, both flawed, both successful. You don’t need a good upbringing, a membership at the country club, or even good grades. In other words, normal people can start and run a business.
Nor does your business idea have to be perfect. Remember the college paper that first proposed what would become FedEx? It got a bad grade because it was deemed unrealistic. Sure, there were many hurdles to overcome. But an entrepreneur is the kind of person that doesn’t see a wall as a block to their path. They may go around it, over it, build a door through it, or just knock it down. But the idea of stopping just doesn’t occur to them. There are a lot of business ideas, or tweaks to existing ideas, that can be capitalized on.
One great thing about having a business is that you’ll have some security in your life. What? Don’t most businesses fail in the first five years? That is true. But every entrepreneur knows that they aren’t going to fail. Successful entrepreneurs are the ones who know what might cause them to fail and work their tails off to keep those things from tripping them up. They don’t ignore the risk, they plan for it. So while times get tough, and you may lose some big clients, you technically can’t loseyourjob. You’re not going to lay yourself off, after all.
If things go wrong, there’s an out. A smart entrepreneur can acknowledge that even if they do everything right, their business could still fail. While they won’t let it consume them, they do make contingency plans. They understand that they might start their business at what proves to be the worst possible time. Imagine someone who was trying tostarta business in the travel and tourism industry in September 2001. Their worse-case scenario went to extremes and might have become impossible. That’s why a smart entrepreneur knows when to fold ‘em and has a back-up plan.
Oh, and they don’t wait for the “right time” to start a business. If they waited for that, they would never start one.
Interested? In that case, there are some people you need to talk to at the Small Business Development Center. They offer help with creating business plans and other services for small business, at no cost to you. Go to sbdc.mwsu.edu or call 940-397-4373 for more information.
This article was published under the title "Starting business requires planning, positivity" in the Wichita Falls Times Record News Febuary 2012 Biz to Biz.
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