Your attitude and know-how plays a crucial role in the growth of your business. This means being honest about a range of issues - this means your personal qualities, knowledge and your financial status that you can introduce in your new business. Dedication and time is required in setting up your own enterprise. Here is a list of the challenges you may need to think about. Another essential way to discovering about the day-to-day realities of running a business is to engage with the people who are in business already.Support of family and friends, the commitment and drive as well as the perseverance will highly benefit you when transforming your idea into reality and will be vital during your initial days.

Do you have what it takes to set up a new business? This guide will help you decide if you do. In addition, it provides an insight at the day-to-day reality of setting up a business and highlights the know-how and qualities your required:

• Personal dedication - the physical and emotional sacrifice of starting up in business should not be underestimated. Setting up a business is a life-changing event that requires you to put in long hours of hard work, especially during the initial stages.
• Financial risk - there could be a number of times where your business may face financial uncertainty that could have a knock-on effect for both you and your family. You may have had personal savings invested or used as security your family home and in the worst case scenario you risk having your investment or even your house lost.
• Company perks - starting up your own business enterprise means that you can no longer take advantage of the usual benefits supplied with a permanent job e.g. loss of “safety net” benefits such as sick pay, paid holidays, pension rights and other.
• Pressure on close family and friends - their support plays an important role and they should be aware the effect of setting up a business will have on your life and that they support you all the way.
• Isolation - it can be a satisfying experience being your own boss but shouldering all the responsibility for the development of the enterprise can become lonely.

Research has proven that there are certain personal and business qualities commonly found amongst business people.

A typical businessman will posses the following key qualities:

• Self-confidence -passion and self-belief about your commodity or service - your ideas should be won over by your enthusiasm.
• Self-determination- rather than based upon external factors or other people’s action, you should have the belief that the outcome of events are down to your own actions.
• Being a self-starter - the strength and ability to develop your ideas, take the initiative and work independently.
• Judgement - as well as bearing in mind your own objectives for the business, you should also be open-minded when listening and initiating in other people’s advice.
• Commitment -willingness to dedicate yourself through long hours and loss of recreation and leisure time.
• Perseverance- despite setbacks, you should still be able to continue even during financial risk and exposure to risk.
• Initiative - the power to be resourceful and productive, rather than adopting a passive “wait and see” approach.

As a business owner you need a core know-how to execute your ideas to make certain that your new business survives in the long term. You should begin by assessing your own know-how and understanding. This will help you decide on whether you need to learn new know-how or draw on outside help by recruiting, delegating or outsourcing. The key business skill areas:

• Financial management- which includes having a good grasp of credit-management, cash flow planning and maintaining good relationships with accountant and bank.
• Commodity development - The ability to identify the people, materials and processes required to achieve and make long-term plans for commodity development. Before making such plans, you will need to be familiar with your competition and your customers’ needs.
• People management - This includes managing recruitment, resolving disputes, motivating staff and managing training. Good people management will help employees to work together as a well-functioning team.
• Business planning - The ability to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your business and plan accordingly.
• Marketing know-how - A sound marketing approach will help you set up and oversee sales and marketing operations, analyse markets, identify selling points for your commodity and following these through to market.
• Customer/supplier relationship management - The ability to identify suppliers and positively manage your relationship with them.
• Sales know-how - Without sales your business cannot survive and grow. You need to be able to identify potential customers and their individual needs, explain your goods and services effectively to them and convert these potential customers into clients.

Comment:

1. The bottom line: Securing the right financing for your new business is crucial, as there is no guarantee that your business will make money for you straight away. You should aim to have sufficient reserves to last you for several months without an income from your business. You need to be honest about your start-up capital reserves. If there is not enough money to see you through until your business begins to make money, then you are not ready to start up. Being realistic at this stage is likely to save you a lot of pain. If you decide to launch your new business without enough funding behind it, keeping it afloat will prove extremely difficult. There are many different sources of potential start-up funding, including bank loans, overdrafts and private loans.

Tags: entrepreneurship