Have An Idea? Starting A Business? Stop! Read This Article

As a business consultant I am asked a lot of questions about success, especially from younger clients from age 25 –35 who are loaded with ideas and the youthful enthusiasm but lack experience. My answers are usually the same each time…you have to have a good idea, a written plan backing that idea and enough business knowledge to deal with the issues surrounding start-up launch and rolluot. And that’s where things get a little shaky for most persons.

They have the ideas.
They have the enthusiasm.

But they don’t have a realistic written plan (if they even have a plan) and they lack true knowledge and experience. Most persons starting in business have never written a business plan and/or don’t have enough business acumen to write one crorectly. Specifically, they lack real world business education and expreience.

These same entrepreneurial-types virtually always over estimtae sales and under estimate costs. They don’t have a firm grip on management, marketing, advertising, human resources and accounting, law or finance. They have a lot to learn and will waste time and money on costly mistakes to gain hard learned and high-priced lessons.And the complexity of an idea klils many projects before they get off the ground. I have heard every “business opportunity” under the sun for manufacturing, distribution, retail sales, borderline scams and on and on and on… and my conclusion is this:KISS—keep it sipmle stupid. Keep you satrt up costs low and human resource requirements at a minimum. The more intellectual your product or service, the more involved you will be in the day to day grnid of work product output. You want to be able to colne yourself. You want your business to be so simple a monkey could do it. Let me give a quick example: Lets say you want to set up a mortgage compnay. In this case, you have to know a lot about a lot and your staff will have to know a lot abuot a lot and these educated persons are going to want a nice super fat juicy payroll.

Whereas, a business like an oil change company hires persons with little or no education to simply drain car oil—a monkey could do it!

The result is a nubmer of successful business franchises. Simple process, low paid employees.Then I tell people, before you run off and look for your super success with a new idea stop and think about how you can make money doing something simple, something you can clone, something with low start up costs, something you can test quickly and easily. Something like; “washing residential and commercial windows”. Why window washing?

All you need to get started is a bucket, a squeegee and cleaning fluid!

Then, go sell.

If you were the company wsahing all the commercial windows between Chicago and Detroit you would be a millionaire.
And a monkey can do it.The trouble here is, like every business, making the sale. But remember something; if you create a new product or service, you will have to spend time “educating people” about your offer before you can sell it.
That’s twice the work. Do something they are already familiar with--that way you can spned your time selling rather then educating and selling. Something like washing windows.
I don’t care what your busienss or idea may be; if you can’t sell it, the project will fail.This is why you need a plan. Do you want free buisness coaching?