6 Things To Consider When Starting Your First Business

this day and age starting a business doesn’t have to be a lonely experience. There are plenty of ways to get started and a lot depends on what you want to do…

You probably already have an idea in mind and right now you want to know what you need to do next and also what to avoid.

Starting your first business will be a steep learning curve and you will make plenty of mistakes, but just to save you a few slip ups (and for tough love) here are a few things you should consider before taking the leap:

What Is Your USP?

If you can’t give a convincing answer to this question then you might have to rethink things. Your USP isn’t so much why you are different for your customer’s benefit it’s more about why you are better than your competition.

Here are a few ways to better:

• Have a faster shipping process
• Be better quality
• Be better at marketing
• Be cheaper
• Be more efficient (lowering your costs)

Getting Committed

A big mistake many first time business starters make is getting over committed unnecessarily. This is a big risk if your business is relatively un-proven. What if your business fails? Will you still have liabilities or costs?

Here are a few things you might over-commit to:

• Renting an office (ask for a break clause)
• Buying too much stock (before you know what sells)
• Subscribing to services with a contract (pay monthly if possible)
• Hiring more staff than necessary

Getting Distracted

You shouldn’t get yourself over-committed, but you should make sure that you are mentally committed. It is all too common for entrepreneurs to get distracted, if your business isn’t making enough money from day one, you will soon find yourself considering other business ideas.

Choose a business idea that you can commit to and make sure that you well and truly commit your attention to making it work. Don’t even think about other businesses until your first one has run its course.

Office Space

Ok, if you have gotten this far without changing your mind then things are getting serious, so ask yourself how serious your business is going to be? If you plan to take your business seriously you may want to consider office space and the possibility of taking on employees.

Many businesses are started from spare rooms, but when working from home it is also easy to limit yourself and it is easy to shirk off or procrastinate.

If you do get an office you will have to work extra hard to grow your business and cover your overheads, so don’t forget to think about things like:

• The cost of rent
• The cost of rates
• Can you get out of your lease?
• What about bills? (electricity, air conditioning, servicing)
• Will it be comfortable for your staff?

Don’t forget that an office has costs other than the rent and accounting for the cost of servicing, heating (or air con during the summer), internet and phone lines can save surprises later.

Marketing Strategy

Once you have figured out the logistics and how you are going to actually run your business you need to have a think about how you are going to market it. Chances are most of your marketing will be online because that’s just how most industries work these days.

Marketing and actually getting customers is the biggest single aspect of most businesses and you need to understand how you are going to do this and have a plan in place before you start.

Content Strategy

Technically your content strategy will be a part of your marketing strategy but since content marketing is so important right now I thought this would be worth mentioning on its own.

Content marketing is a powerful way to build trust and attract traffic, but it is not an instant way to do so and therefore if you want your new business to hit the ground running you will need to think about your content in advance.

Think about what sorts of topics will be relevant to your readership, not just to publish on your own site but also on other blogs (guest posting).

• What will you write about?
• How will give it a new spin that hasn’t been covered yet?
• How often will you publish new content?

If you can get plenty of good content scheduled ready for launch that will free up your time to get the rest of your business up and running without neglecting your marketing strategy in the mean-time.