Starting A Business

Running a successful small business involves more than just working for yourself. Before you leap in, you need to consider four important aspects:

1. Will the business satisfy your needs?
2. Do you have enough skills to run the business?
3. Do you have a sound business proposition?
4. Access your Readiness?

Will the business satisfy your needs?

People start a business for a variety of reasons. This may include trying to find an alternative to paid employment or a desire to earn more money or be more independent. You are more likely to be successful if your business venture can meet your interests and needs. It’s also worth thinking about whether you are prepared to cope with the impact of running the business on your lifestyle and family commitments.

Ask yourself:

• What is really motivating me to go into business?
• Is it strong enough to keep me enthusiastic and involved?
• What do I want to achieve?
• What aspects of running the business am I most likely to love or hate?
• Am I prepared to put the necessary time and energy into the business and will this be acceptable to those closest to me?
• Am I prepared to work long hours as and when required? Can I live with the stress and the risks involved?

Do you have the skills to run your business?

You need to be realistic about what skills you will bring to the business. This includes both business and technical skills, and also personal traits such as how you cope with risk and your ability to sell or to organize your work.

Knowing your capabilities will help you to decide whether you are likely to be suited to running your own business. It will allow you to work to your strengths and think about how to manage your weaknesses, eg by undertaking training or involving other people, so that the business doesn’t suffer over time.

Experience suggests you are more likely to succeed if there is a which will be useful for my good match between your business venture that may cause problems in and your skills, interests and motivations.

Ask yourself:

• What skills and personal strengths do I have business?
• Do I have weaker skills or personal traits running the business?
• What do I need to do to counter my weak points?

Some typical business skills:

• Business planning.
• Problem solving.
• Financial management.
• Marketing and sales.
• Communication.
• Time management.
• Dealing with people.
• Negotiating.

Assess your Readiness

Entrepreneurial Self Assessment

Here is a tool developed by Business Development Bank of Canada to help better measure your entrepreneurial potential. This questionnaire includes 50 statements, and will take about 15 minutes to complete. There are no right or wrong answers. Your honest rating is what counts.

SBA Checklist For Starting A Business

This assessment tool is designed to help you better understand your readiness for starting a small business. It will prompt you with questions and assist you in evaluating skills, characteristics and experience – as they relate to your preparedness for starting a business. Your responses will be scored automatically and an assessment profile provided, when you click the submit button.

SBA online Small Business Primer

This is an SBA self-paced, online small business primer course. It is designed to assist individuals who are thinking about starting a small business or who are in the early stages of running a business.