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Keep your eye on the big picture and prepare for the worst now.

Do Hard Analysis, Don’t Get Bogged Down
When things are good, it’s the right time to conduct an in-depth analysis of your business. Consider doing a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) when business is good, so you can repair your weaknesses while things are running smoothly.
Many small business owners fail to look at the big picture because they’re too bogged down in minutiae—the everyday challenges of running the business. But it’s a mistake to ignore the big picture. Take the time to shut out everyday things and force yourself to gain a longer perspective on what’s going on. Look at much longer metrics, such as what’s happened in your business over the past couple of years.

Ways to Look at the Big Picture
Mission and vision statements are good to jump start your thinking about who you are and what you’re really about. What winds up in the statement is secondary. It is the process you go through when forced to take a hard look at your business that is most valuable.
Small business owners should have a good team in place to help them keep the big picture in mind. It’s important that everyone on the team commit to the direction in which you’re trying to move the business. If you disagree with the advice and have good reason, consider getting a new team.

Don’t Forget the Industry as a Whole
It’s dangerous to look at just your own performance on sales and profits. You have to check out the competition. Remember that our economy changes. You can achieve success from making comparisons over time to learn what the competition is doing, what’s different about his or her customers and what’s happening with your own suppliers.

Use Advisors
For small business owners, teams of advisors can be expensive, which is why it is so helpful to seek free advice from organizations such as industry trade associations, SCORE or the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Advisors will be able to identify trends in your business sector, new developments, and who’s succeeding and why. It can be hard for business owners to do this after operating on their own for a number of years, but the outside perspective is invaluable and will help you evaluate your business more effectively.

Aspiring entrepreneurs often wonder how long it takes to get a small business started. The answer is, “it depends.” Some new enterprises can be up and running in a matter of weeks; others may require several months or more of diligent planning.

If you currently have a job, you can pursue your small business ambitions without risking your family’s financial security (assuming, of course, that your research doesn’t interfere with your 9-to-5 responsibilities). If you’re unemployed or facing a layoff, you’re obviously eager to move things along.

A good rule of thumb is to allow six months to make a complete transition from employee to entrepreneur. By following the steps below, you’ll be able to wisely invest this time in building a sound foundation for your new business, and your future.

Assess Your Personal Strengths & Experience
Determine if you have experience in the business you are planning to start. If you don’t have experience, how will you get it? An honest and thorough review of your experience and education should give you some leads about whether a particular venture is right for you. Be honest; your review must consider both personal weaknesses and strengths.

Be sure to consider the most common reason why a small business does not succeed: lack of management skills such as record keeping, personnel management, market analysis, communication skills and taxes. Many universities, community colleges and adult learning programs offer courses and seminars in these and related topics.

Begin Planning What Your Business Will Sell or Do
Ask other small business owners how they got started, what mistakes they made, and how they’d do things differently. Research your potential markets and determine whether there’s enough demand to sustain your proposed business. And, examine your idea from the customer’s point of view. What will you offer to attract them, especially if you’re competing with existing businesses?

Attend a SCORE Workshop on Starting a Business
This is a great way to learn the nuts and bolts of launching a business from veterans of the business world. The workshops cover the process of building a sound business plan with tips on information resources, legal considerations, working with lending institutions and other important topics.

Work With a SCORE Counselor on Different Aspects of Your Business
Experienced business counselors make valuable sounding boards to answer questions, evaluate ideas and point you in the right direction to find additional information. Depending on the nature of your business idea, you may work with one SCORE volunteer counselor or several.

Develop a Business Plan to See that the Business is Viable
The information you gain from research, workshops and conversations with SCORE counselors will help you understand everything necessary to start and manage your small business. Now, it’s time to put your plan on paper. Don’t worry if the answers lead to more questions. Evaluation is an ongoing process, even for long-standing businesses. And, as you address and eliminate unknowns, you greatly increase your chances of success.

Finalize Your Plan & Gather the People and Money to Start Your Business
If you’ve prepared a thorough business plan, you’ll be ready to make a strong case for acquiring the resources you need to bring your small business planning into the “home stretch.” You’ll know what banks to approach, where to “set up shop,” how to market yourself and contact potential customers, who to hire, and what other tasks necessary to make the big jump.

Ready to Roll?
Don’t worry if, after six months, you feel unsure about moving forward. Many variables involved with starting a small business are beyond your control. Your research may also reveal that the wisest course is to wait and gain additional experience, explore other ideas or simply put your entrepreneurship dreams aside temporarily.

But if everything is ready, you’ll enjoy that proud moment when you can look at yourself in the mirror with confidence and say, “Hi boss!”

Home-based businesses are fast becoming a popular way to operate your small company, while reducing expensive start-up costs such as leasing space, lease hold improvements, utility and phone deposits and major office equipment. Thousands of people across the country are finding that working from home provides them with the advantages of earning an income with the flexibility to work when it is best for them and take care of family and other responsibilities that often arise throughout the work day. However, before starting your home-based business, consider the following advice:

Determine local and state requirements for licensing and zoning regulations. Be sure to check with your local zoning office to find out how the zoning regulations in your area may affect your business plans. Determine if your business requires any licenses and file the necessary forms.

Rent a post office box and use that address on your promotional mail and stationery, doing this will make it less obvious that you are working from home. The professional image you portray is very important to your clientele.

Install a phone line in your home dedicated to your business.

Use an answering machine for incoming business calls.

Organize your work space with great care. Make sure that you have sufficient space to meet your needs.

When scheduling appointments with clients, consider meeting at your client’s office or renting a conference room to maintain a professional image.

Establish contacts with your competitors and join associations pertinent to your business. Have your clients suggest possible new clients and ask if they will recommend you.

Keep excellent records of entertainment and travel expenses. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tends to audit home-based businesses more frequently—especially when they are writing off a variety of expenses, including the percentage of the mortgage or rent for your office space. There are several good record keepers such as Day Timer®, Franklin Quest® and Day Planner that will help you keep track of your expenses. Your accountant, a CPA is recommended, can advise you on deductions you can take and records you must keep for the IRS.

And above all, put some of your earnings into a savings account for those times when your business is in a slump . . . and it will happen.

Discipline yourself. You must be a self-starter and follow a routine, just as if you were working for any other business. In many cases, you are the only person you can rely on to get the job done. Unless it’s an emergency, do not baby-sit or chat with your neighbors.

By Terri Lonier
Small Business Author

If our vision is the destination, the ideal structure we see on the horizon, then goals are the substance that gives flight to our ideas. For example, assuming you’ve chosen the type of building your want, you can now decide how many rooms it will have and how they will be furnished—the style and ambience you want to achieve.

Business goals are as diverse as the people who establish them. Some are no-brainers, such as “win enough clients to pay the rent and my salary.” A goal can be as specific as “install a new graphics program, so I can target that client who demands this capability from its vendors.” A goal might be as short-term as “get this done by Friday” or as long-term as “in 10 years I want to be reporting $10 million in sales.”

Goals are measuring sticks; but on these sticks, we get to draw the dividing marks. We determine what we’d like to achieve during a specific time frame; we design a particular outcome. You define your goals to meet your needs.

Goals are also your guideposts, established to keep you on the right path and to help you assess your progress.

Manage Tactics
We all wrestle with innumerable tasks that fill up our daily “To-Do” lists. Most new business owners, and many experienced ones, too, are all too familiar with activities that can take us in a dozen different directions at the same time. They scatter our focus, until at the end of the day we’re exhausted—but find ourselves wondering whether we’ve accomplished anything of importance.
No doubt about it, such tasks can derail the most capable business owner. That’s why it’s important to make the distinction between a tactic, an approach to accomplishing something, and an activity, which, while necessary, could be assigned a lower priority or delegated elsewhere, freeing you to keep your eye on the prize.

Formulate Strategies
Unlike establishing a vision, defining goals and employing daily tactics, which are individual undertakings, strategies can be shared, adapted and refined among other entrepreneurs in other field.
Strategies are the blueprints you draw to help you achieve your goals; they are the systems you use to get yourself where you want to be. Employing strategies is putting brain before brawn, planning before you act. Strategies are so important that I had no difficulty filling an entire book with them! But to give you the power you need to succeed, strategies must be put in the context of your business “building”—integrated with your vision, your goals, and your tactics.

Your product line should be able to be delivered economically and conveniently through the mail or over the Internet.

The Web allows you to market to customers outside your geographical location. Your product should appeal to people nation-or-continent-wide.

Compare new “technology” costs to current bricks and mortar costs, e.g.: rent, labor, inventory and printing costs.

Realize that the World Wide Web levels the playing ground—you can look like a big company with a great Web site.

Draw visitors to your site cheaply. Establish and grow alliances that will hotlink to your site for free.

Visit the sites of other companies to find out what you like and dislike. Do some sites seem to “work” while others don’t?

Decide what objectives you want your site to meet. Do you want it to be fun, funny, educational, “cool,” or all of those things?

Consider your corporate culture and your company image. Your site should support both.

Design or re-design the site to meet your objectives. Unless you have a real expert on staff, hire a consulting firm to do the job.

Get feedback. Ask customers how your site can be made more useful to them, and keep making improvements

Take the long view and do long-term planning. Map out where you want to be five years from now and how you plan to get there.

Write the plan yourself. You will learn more about your business by doing so.

Think of your plan as a living document. Review it regularly to make sure you are on track or to adjust it to market changes.

Share the plan with others who can help you get where you want to go—such as lenders, key employees and advisors.

Understand that you might pay a price in the short run to obtain long-term business growth and health.