Business Start Up - Observing the Nitty Gritty

Business Start Up, Entrepreneurship, Business Development Programs, and other such combinations of words are touted about in the media a lot nowadays. Especially in times of economic hardship and uncertainty of the economy, stifling taxation policies and limited access to actual funds make the entrepreneurs become overwhelmed.

Finding sound, proper, practical technical assistance is becoming a myth. Not making negative references to those qualified theoretically, and having little experience to truly guide an emerging / expanding business. But T/A programs are often underfunded, seeking to pay such reduced rates to those providers that they would rather do without the payments from these programs; which are often excessively late. The reasons for the late payments is another story.

In short, entrepreneurs and businesses seeking funding to expand their operations are between a rock and a hard place. The expanding trend is to take classes and enter competitions in hopes of winning the prize money to springboard your business. It seldom materialises.

So let's get real. What's going to get you to the money. Here's what is NOT working:

• A brilliant idea 
• You management team comprising of your family members 
• The fact that you're under funded with no access to collateral (There are no sympathies for the death of your business before it gets started.) 
• Your presentation of the business plan and countless slides 
• Your talking past the close when you don't realize what you're selling has already been sold. 
• Not realizing that your novel idea / concept is not really that unique. (Someone else pitched it just two candidates ahead of you) 
• Saying that you can sing better than Rihanna (Yes I've heard that countless time) Same as making better burgers than Chefette. (It's kind of in that category)
• Not knowing how you actually will make the money and from what channels; not to mention how much and within what time frames. 
• How will you present your service / product that people (your customers) would love and welcome. (I fired someone today that just didn't cut it.)

Here's what you need:

1. A clearly thought out and documented concept that conveys exactly what you'll be doing in as few words as possible without diluting the meaning of what is intended. It should be backed up numerically and be able to withstand cross examination confidently. Your operation should be immaculate and functional. [How will you make money sustainably and by doing what?]

Some resources that you need:

• Get professional help it's necessary
• Accounting
• Legal
• Business Advisory Services - Operations
• Access to highly liquid collateral - Funding 

Money's not everything, but it's right there with oxygen, if you don't have it you're going to miss it. (Zig Ziglar) 

If you don't have these things covered, don't get into business. Even when going to professional help, they won't take you seriously if they have to commit to your business more than you're willing to. 

Here's hoping that I'm not too controversial, but too many people are seeking to get into business totally unprepared. Have some great weeks ahead. 

It's annoying...

At points in our lives everyone has situations that annoys them. It's an element of life that we just can't seem to get away from. It may be something that you've observed, experienced, or perhaps got a third party story; the thing is everyone gets annoyed at some time for some reason.

Recently, someone borrowed something from me, kept it an extremely long time, and after being asked to return it (as I needed to use it), I found that it was broken. Not a word was said to me by the borrower, I only found out when I was doing the cleaning checks.

Do you think they'll ask to borrow it again? Your guess is as good as mine.

Here's why:

• They kept mine for so long that I needed to go and borrow one myself. (Now something about that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.) 
• They broke mine and said nothing. Therefore, it's will I repair it / get a new one. They'll never know in a hurry. 
• I've often heard, if you have to borrow something more than three times, then it's best to get your own. That quota for borrow / lend was long passed. 

The thing is, if there's a genuine need, I'm reluctant to lend again since being burnt on the last occasion the memory's painful because I take care of what is entrusted to me and they didn't. I am also out of pocket, which though it may be small it wasn't conveyed to me there was a problem, and since it's small then you can buy your own.