Today I will tell you about what you should know before you start a business as an entrepreneur. I am certain that the moment this thought crossed your mind let alone you sharing it with your close ones you could identify your dream crushers. They are your closest friends, family, relatives colleagues basically your whole world. Few of us and the most luckiest of us have supporters instantly when we share that we want to start our own enterprise. Trust me the first thing you must know about dreaming big is you are bound to get this welcome.

For any enterprise you must have a vision. A vision need not be a measurable, achievable or limited goal, in fact the other way round. Visions are suppose to take you as far as your imagination and thought process can take you. The louder people laugh at your vision the bigger it is, the bigger the vision the better the goals, the better the goals, the more fruitful your achievements will be. Its clear you dream big when you intend to reach heights as they all say the fact that you are able to dream justifies that you are equally capable of achieving it. It also helps when people are not in favour of your capabilities to achieve your dream so when you do reach there you laugh the loudest on their face. Believe me there is no feeling greater than that one.

Intimidated by a business degree ? Firstly let me tell great businesses were not run because their owner was a rank holder in Harvard/ Wharton Business School, not that a degree isn’t helpful, yes it is indeed but not the necessary tool. What they don’t teach you in B schools is how to apply your common sense, knowledge and gut instinct to good use with your passion of course. Everything you don’t learn in a B school you learn in the outside world. Again I do not advocate that you mustn’t get a formal education if you can. I advocate that if you haven’t got any formal education you need not be shy of going ahead and getting into business if you believe you can do it.

You need a plan – business plan. You need to know what is it that you want to make a business out of? It could be a product or a service or it could be a service to get either one of them to your clients/ buyers. Whatever may be your product / service you have to identify your market. Nothing will work in your favour unless you don’t identify, understand and communicate directly to your market. When I say market I mean your target group (TG) or target audience, target customers. So when I sell my service of wellness management I must know who wants to buy it, can buy it and where are they looking for it ? You see if I don’t even know where my audience is searching for my product how will I communicate to them?

If I don’t know who are likely to buy my product? whom do I sell it to? If I don’t understand what capacity of money are they willing to buy it for? will my pricing be correct enough to make a profit? Now once you have regarded these commonalities you will chart out a plan of action – your business plan. Your budget, that is for investment and return of investment and the time period taken to recover your primary investment will be determined by this exercise. I know its huge deal for first timers, but do not be overwhelmed to an extent that you quit or drop the idea of your business.

The first sign that you can be a good business person is that you have enough resilience, perseverance and killer instinct to educate yourself, invest in acquiring any knowledge or skill that will give you good returns later in your running enterprise. So keep your business plan simple and straight. Nobody is coming to inspect it and rate it anyways so why confuse yourself by following management jargon’s and loaded methodology. Follow what you can understand and not what Business Gurus will. Your business plan should be cut and clean, measurable, and datelined.

Budget / Capital Investment is usually where ideas can shrink or disappear in reality. Well there is a common adage that goes ‘ no pain no gain’. You don’t need a huge capital to begin, in fact best businesses in this world have begun most humbly with sometimes no money at all. But that depends on how much of skill do you have to go to an extent to make it happen. Your business is actually nothing but a concept and it ends up as a concept till the end. What does that mean? Simply put, you didn’t need money to think you can do it so don’t let limited funds keep you away from your dream becoming reality. Begin small and end up big is the key to a successful business. Prioritise your investments, spends and stakes.

You can give certain things for lower price tags in the beginning to start up. However short selling should not be encouraged as it can later kill you before you know it. Position your spends diligently. Spend on what can’t be done away with. You need to make peace with the fact that in this world no matter what you do, you receive only after to give; even in case of a job your paycheck arrives after a month not in advance. So is the case with business, therefore don’t be bogged down by people who crib the fact that you’re spending more than you’re earning during the first months of business. Stay cool, collected follow your plan, keep verifying it and rechecking it with situations as updation of your plan is a must.

You can’t stick to the same plan if a drastic situation arises, like your city or town undergoes a natural calamity, epidemic disease, economic crisis, lifestyle trends change in your TG. Verifying your plan with the situation and suitably adapting to it will ensure success.

Well absorb what you learned today and I shall return with the same topic with different things you need to know to star a business.