Is Your Business Plan Missing This Vital Ingredient? Image credit: Shutterstock As many as half of startups are no longer in business just four short years later, according to some statistics. Most businesses are owned by entrepreneurs who are driven, passionate and ambitious. So, how is it possible that so many fail? Having built several businesses over the past 20 years, I have come to believe that the rampant failure of businesses comes down to the one tool that is supposed to help businesses thrive -- the business plan. Most modern-day business plans are flawed, however, missing the one key ingredient. So listen up, entrepreneurs, adding this to your business plan may mean the difference between success and failure. What you need in order to accomplish all of your goals in business is a network of people who can help you along the way. Related: How to Make Networking Suck Less 1. 2. Related: 8 Financial Planning Tips to Keep in Mind This Year 3. 4. 5. It takes a village to grow a successful business.
Startup How-To Guides. Quitting your job to launch your own business can be a hard pill for your company to swallow, particularly if your company is in the same industry. Here's some advice. Laying the Startup Groundwork Starting your own business is not just about having a dream. There are real steps to ensure your business a successful start. Planning for a Successful Start The old adage goes: failure to plan is a plan for failure. Raising Capital You've got the idea and you've got a plan. Establishing Your Image You may have a great idea, product or superior service, but have you thought about what image your startup will take on?
Finding Customers Without customers, it doesn't matter how great your product is, how well you branded you are, or how well funded your start-up is. More Startup How-To Guides How to Start a Foundation BY Gwen Moran Establishing a nonprofit requires an ongoing commitment, not just an initial injection of funding. An Introduction to Business Plans. The 10 Fastest-Growing Industries for Small Business. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, as the old business truism says. But you also may have heard that you can’t know where you’re going without knowing where you have been. To get a sense of which industries small businesses are growing in, the analysts at Raleigh, N.C. -headquartered private-company financial-information company Sageworks ran some numbers for Entrepreneur.com. Here’s a look at the industries where U.S. companies with $10 million or less in annual sales have shown the highest and lowest percentage change from Jan. 1 to Dec 31, 2012. As a benchmark, the average growth rate across all U.S. small businesses in the time period was 8 percent, says Libby Bierman, an analyst at Sageworks.
Fastest-Growth Industries for U.S. Related: Hunting for Business Ideas? Slowest-Growth Industries for U.S. Related: Franchise Forecast Continues Strong for 2013 Not all of the businesses on the fastest-growing list are service based. 7 Stupid Branding Mistakes Your Small Business is Making. When you think about great branding, Coca Cola’s distinctive red and white lettering, Nike’s swoosh and Adidas’s three stripes likely come to mind. But as a small business, imagining the level of investment that’s gone into these iconic images can make the thought of undertaking your own branding initiative seem overwhelming.
It’s actually easier to do than most imagine. Just make sure to avoid some common pitfalls and branding mistakes. 1. Defining your brand is also valuable from an SEO perspective. Related: 3 Ways to Get Graphics for Your Website 2. Logo (both an overarching logo and any logo lockups your company uses for individual product lines) Brand colors Taglines Fonts and typography The “voice” used in your branded materials Imagery Mascots and spokespeople Clearly, this list isn’t comprehensive. 3. Small businesses can learn a lesson from this beverage industry giant. Related: 4. So what’s the solution? 5. Can you do it? Related: Building Your Brand's Warmth and Competence 6. 7. Need a Business Idea? Here are 55. This article has been excerpted from 55 Surefire Home Based Businesses You Can Start for Under $5,000 by Entrepreneur Press & Cheryl Kimball (2009), available from Entrepreneur Press.
Today, tens of thousands of people are considering starting a home based business, and for good reasons. On average, people can expect to have two and three careers during their work life. Those leaving one career often think about their second or third career move being to their own home. People who have been part of the traditional nine-to-five work force and are on the verge of retiring from that life are thinking of what to do next. . $1,500 or less to start up 1. Create a flier outlining your services. In many parts of the country, this business tends to be seasonal, but you can find ways around that. 3. Boats that are hauled out of the water for the winter or even just for mid-season repairs will need the hull cleaned. 4. There are many directions you can take this business. 7. 8. 11. Copyediting. Choose Your Business Structure. Sole proprietorship, corporation, LLC: Try them on for size to find out which legal structure will best suit your business.
Of all the choices you make when starting a business, one of the most important is the type of legal structure you select for your company. Not only will this decision have an impact on how much you pay in taxes, it will affect the amount of paperwork your business is required to do, the personal liability you face and your ability to raise money. Mark Kalish is co-owner and vice president of EnviroTech Coating Systems Inc. in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a company that applies powdered paint through an electrostatic process to items ranging from motorcycles to musical instruments. Kalish has also been involved with a number of other start-up businesses, both as an owner and in various management positions. The answer to the question of "What structure makes the most sense? " A sole proprietorship is the most common form of business organization. Quality of Life Around the World: The Best and Worst Cities (Infographic)
If you are going to get employees to pack up and move to locations around the globe with less desirable living conditions than we have here in the U.S., prepare to pay up. Determining exactly how much to pay can be confusing, primarily because of the wide range of factors to consider. That’s where quality of living ranking specialists come in. Global consulting company Mercer examined the elements that make a location more or less comfortable to live in and then merged all of that data into one metric that can be compared apples to apples.
“Political instability, high crime levels, and elevated air pollution are a few factors that can be detrimental to the daily lives of expatriate employees and their families,” said Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at mercer, in a written statement. “To ensure that compensation packages reflect the local environment appropriately, employers need a clear picture of the quality of living in the cities where they operate.” Click to Enlarge+