The Three Top Tips To Starting Your Own Business

Starting your own business with strength and confidence takes a bit of planning, and some real guts. It helps when you can get your questions answered first.

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There are a gazillion pitfalls.  If we stopped and thought about them all, nobody would ever go into business.  But there are ten times as many rewards -- and that is why we DO go into business.  Make sure your new business is as successful as possible. 

Yeah, I know, that is a whole lot easier said than done.  And I, for one, totally flubbed my first three businesses before I found success.  (Hey, I am a slow learner --lol.)  Because I have tasted failure, I can ease the way for you in starting your own business with a few top tips.

1.  Don't listen a whole lot to the community center teachers when starting your own business.

This was the first "entrepreneur" class I went to and I was hoping to learn it all.  The teacher did tell us some good stuff, mostly about how to file a fictitious name statement and taxes and doing basic projections.  He also told us to never sign a contract with a big company because his friend had lost his business to BigCo Retailer when he couldn't deliver a big order of gold fish on time.  Honest -- that is a true story.  I laugh about it now, but at the time it was the only information I had.

Not surprisingly, that first startup business didn't make it.  Heck, it didn't even make it a year.

2.  Do listen to those in your field.

So I found out how to get real, rock solid information. 

After my first failure I got another job.  Hated it.  And I still needed more information, so I literally took a leave of absence from my job and went and acted as an apprentice in another company several hundred miles away.  Now THERE is where I learned a lot.  Yes, I swept the floors and ran errands and did everything else that nobody else would do.  And I learned.  I listened.  I asked questions.  I took the boss to lunch and talked and talked.

And, wow, I went into my second business with a confidence I had never known before.  Sure there were shaky times, but after three years as a startup business I felt pretty confident.

Then I lost my second business.   Back to work again.  What in heaven's name had I done wrong?

3.  Invoke Plan B whenever it is needed.

I had some long conversations with the entrepreneur several hundred miles away (Jenny Sue).  Jenny Sue was having trouble too.  It was a tough time in the industry.  But she had done one thing that I had not done:  she had Plan B. 

Starting your own business is tough enough, but keeping it thriving is even tougher.  Wow.  Plan B.  How could I have neglected that?  It just wasn't one of the things that Jenny Sue and I talked about.  Once I asked her, she was very open and helpful.

... And all the other stuff when starting your own business

Sure there is a lot to learn.  But there are lots of people who will help along the way.  Building those networks of like minded entrepreneurs is probably the single most important thing you can do.  Choose people who are not competitors, but who do understand your type of business.  I have a core group of about a dozen people I can call upon for advice, and my sincere wish for you as you start your business is that you may have the same.

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