Here are a few more pieces of advice for starting your own business based on our personal experiences. Read on to avoid our mistakes!
Have Patience
You may have a sound business plan. You may have the latest and greatest widget or service. You may have a large sphere of influence. You may even have one or two clients in the bag when you launch your business. One would think-certainly we did-that having all of these things would ensure that your new business would be rolling right along sooner rather than later.
The truth is that it takes time-typically 6-12 months-for a business to get going. And that's assuming that you are doing the things you're supposed to be doing like pursuing your target market, building a name for your company locally, attending the right kind of events and participating in the right types of groups, etc.
Be prepared to spend the first six to twelve months doing a whole lot of work, being in front of your computer a lot and working on relationship building-without a lot of short term return. Remember, these things take time and the work you do today plants the seeds for tomorrows harvest.
Befriend Those Who Know More than You
For us, this meant working with a mentor. We were fortunate in that one of my good friends is a highly respected member of the business community and had successfully run several businesses for many years. We continue to bend her ear and seek advice on a regular basis.
We also created an advisory board to help us fill in the gaps on the stuff we didn't know. We invited someone with a strong background in HR, someone else with a background in marketing and another person with a financial background. Bouncing ideas off the committee and hearing alternative perspectives, particularly in those areas in which we are not experts, has been tremendously helpful.
Look for pitfalls to avoid next week!
No comments:
Post a Comment