Top Ten Mistakes Made in Starting a Business

Top Ten Mistakes Made in Starting a Business
People fail in business because they make avoidable mistakes. Start-up entrepreneurs are possessed with enthusiasm and confidence but too often are unaware of potentially fatal business potholes that lie before them. All it takes is a single mistake, one false step, and a business can be history. Here are the top most commonly made mistakes:

1. Not picking the right business to begin with.
2. Inadequate prior experience in the business.
3. Quitting job security too soon, before adequate plans are laid
4. Not having a progressively updated written business plan.
5. Inadequate cash flow management (running out of money.)
6. Opening a business in the wrong location.
7. Inadequate protection in business documents including leases.
8. Failed partnerships.
9. Lack of selling and marketing know-how.
10. Expanding too rapidly before adequate testing.

Insurance Companies

Insurance Companies
The insurance company the business owner chooses for their business insurance is an important decision. The insurer should be financially sound and possess an excellent record of service to its insureds. Here we look at ways to decide upon a business insurer.

Home Based Businesses

Starting out as a home based business offers some special benefits to entrepreneurs. Operating from a spare bedroom or a garage, a business can be run with a minimum of investment and exited with a minimum of obligations and risks. The Internet and computer technologies now offer home based entrepreneurs the same tools for communications, accounting and marketing as are employed by multi-national competitors.

Business Plan Checklist

Business Plan Checklist

The primary value of your business plan will be to create a written outline that evaluates all aspects of the economic viability of your business venture. It will be valuable in number of ways. Here are some reasons not to skip this valuable tool and roadmap:
It will define and focus your objective, using appropriate information and analysis. You can use it as a selling tool with lenders, investors, landlords and banks. Your business plan can uncover omissions and/or weaknesses in your planning process. You can use the plan to solicit opinions and advice.
Here is a checklist to help you get started:
Write out your basic business concept. Gather all the data you can on the feasibility and specifics of your business. Focus and refine your concept. Outline the specifics using a "what, where, why, how" approach. Put your plan into a compelling format
Here are suggested topics you can tailor into your plan:
A Vision Statement: This will be a concise outline of your purpose and goal
The People: Focus on how your experiences will be applicable. Prepare a resume of yourself and each of your key people.
Your Business Profile: Describe exactly how you plan to go about your intended business. Stay focused on the specialized market you intend to serve.
Economic Assessment: Provide an assessment of the competition you can expect in your business.
Cash Flow Assessment: Include a one-year cash flow projection that will incorporate all your capital requirements.
The My Own Business Online Course and Textbook can provide you with business plan templates that will enable you to create a custom plan for your own specific business as you proceed through the 14 sessions. Each session includes a business plan section that can be downloaded from website and provide you with a single, attractively presented document. Two complete business plan examples are also furnished, one for a product business and one for a service business.

Top 10 Business Risks for 2009

Top 10 Business Risks for 2009

For the second straight year, Ernst & Young has released a report ranking what the firm sees as the top 10 risks for global business in the coming year. This year's top 10, compiled in collaboration with Oxford Analytica and based on interviews with more than 100 analysts, contains a few surprises.
Not that anyone will likely be stunned by the ascent of the credit crunch to the Number 1 slot, or "deepening recession" coming out of nowhere to No. 3.
But the threat posed by non-traditional market competitors -- companies entering a sector from adjacent markets or distant geographies -- has leapt onto the risk radar for 2009. It's ranked fifth, up from sixteenth in the 2008 list. Companies based in the emerging economies will muscle in on new market segments and niche areas, E&Y notes (echoing reports from The Boston Consulting Group this year; see this article).
Reputational risk soared from No. 22 in 2008 to No. 10 for 2009, propelled no doubt by assorted Wall Street disasters. The rise of "radical greening," from No. 9 to No. 4, suggests that companies are becoming more aware of the real damage they risk if they neglect environmental and sustainability challenges.

Business Resources

THE TOP TEN DO'S WHEN STARTING A BUSINESS Live frugally and begin saving up money for starting your business. Learn your intended business by working for someone else in the same business first. Consider the benefits of starting a moonlight business. Consider the advantages of operating a family business. Objectively measure your skills and training against potential competition. Consider subcontracting to low cost suppliers if you're manufacturing a product. Test market your product or service before starting or expanding. Make "for" and "against" list describing the specific business you are considering. Talk to lots of people in your intended business for advice. Make a comparative analysis of all opportunities you are considering.

Business Resources

THE TOP TEN DON'TS WHEN STARTING A BUSINESS
Think about leaving your job before you have completed start-up plans. Consider starting a business in a field you do not enjoy. Risk all the family assets. Limit your liabilities to a predetermined amount. Compete with your employer in a moonlight business. Hurry to select a business. There is no penalty for missed opportunities. Select a business that is too high a risk or hurdle. Go for the two-foot hurdle. Select a business in which you must have the lowest price to succeed. Ignore the negative aspects of an intended business. Permit self-confidence to outweigh careful diligence. Allow the promise of a conceptual high reward deter reality testing first.

Business News Information

Asian stock markets resume slide after US rout
Asian stock markets resumed their downward slide Friday after Wall Street fell to its lowest levels in more than 12 years amid deepening fears about the fate of General Motors Corp. and major financial companies.
The region's retreat marked a return to the selling that had gripped global equities markets until a brief rally earlier this week on hopes China would announced major new stimulus measures.
Investors, already deflated after Beijing failed to deliver, were forced to grapple with a warning from General Motors that the struggling automaker may have to file for bankruptcy.
Along with growing uncertainty about the financial system, the news led to yet another rout in U.S. markets with banking stocks suffering some of the steepest drops. Citigroup Inc., stilling reeling despite billions of dollars in government aid, fell below $1 a share.
'You can buy Citi at the 99 cent store now,' said Paul Schulte, a chief Asia equity strategist at Nomura International in Hong Kong. 'It's nauseating. We keep grasping at straws to find hope, and the markets keep punishing us.'
Investors also were holding back ahead of what is expected to be an especially bleak U.S. employment report later Friday. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters/IFR predict the Labor Department will report that U.S. employers slashed 648,000 jobs in February — more than the 598,000 cut in January.
Every major Asian market traded into the red, though the losses were somewhat more muted than the sharp declines in the U.S.

Etymology

The word company is traced from a 1150 A.D.(CE) O.Fr. term compaignie or "body of soldiers" and from L.L. companio (companion). The word's meaning of "subdivision of an infantry regiment" is from 1590. The use of the word in a sense of "business association" was first recorded 1553, having earlier been used in reference to trade guilds (1303). The abbreviation co. dates from 1769

Companies Law

Companies law (or the law of business associations) is the field of law concerning business and other organizations. It is an establishment formed to carry on commercial enterprises.[1]This includes corporations, partnerships and other associations which usually carry on some form of economic or charitable activity. The most prominent kind of company, usually referred to as a "corporation", is a "juristic person", i.e. it has separate legal personality, and those who invest money into the business have limited liability for any losses the company makes, governed by corporate law. The largest companies are usually publicly listed on stock exchanges around the world, while private companies choose who their shareholders are. The defining feature of the corporation is that shareholders own the sole rights to vote under the company constitution and to appoint the directors who control the company. Companies known as partnerships have a different system of voting, whereby the partners own and vote for who controls the company. Partners may or may not limit their liability for company losses, although this is increasingly popular. Even single individuals, also known as sole traders may incorporate themselves and limit their liability in order to carry on a business. All different forms of companies depend on the particular law of the particular country in which they reside.