A Great Business Idea Does Guarantee a Successful Business
What every aspiring business owner should know and do BEFORE starting a new business
There is nothing more satisfying and powerful that owning your own successful business … and nothing more stressful than setting it up! There is a lot to know and do to be a successful business owner that goes beyond having a great idea. If you are thinking about leaving your current career or job to strike out on your own, then there are some truths that you should know now!
Some Truths About Being an Entrepreneur
- Having a great business idea will not guarantee success
What will support your success is the planning and thinking around how you will implement this great idea
- Setting up your business is not always as much fun as you might think
There will be some things that you love about setting up your business, and there are things that you really don’t want to do. You must approach and complete ALL the required tasks to be successful, not just those that are fun or easy for you!
- Being an entrepreneur is really hard work
You must work on your business and in your business; you will feel that you never have time away from your business and the free schedule, island lifestyle will not happen immediately just because you have started a business
- Your passion will drive your business and there may be times when your passion is all that keeps you going.
Do you know why you want to start this business?
Here is some good news though:
Planning your successful business is not a mysterious process but rather a set of defined actions that you take that will help ensure your short-, medium- and long-term success.
Because if you do this the rewards are worth it in the long run; your hard work, sweat and probably some tears will be worth it when you can look back in 5 years from now and see what you created – if you are prepared to put in the hard work now.
Being an Entrepreneur is a Risky Business
Did you know that over a 10-year period 70% of business start ups fail? That the success rate is year 1 is a healthy 80%, and this drops to 70% and then 50% in years 2 & 3 respectively?
To increase the likelihood that your business will be in the top 30% of businesses that succeed beyond 10 years, you need to take the time now to really think about your great idea and what will make it a success. To those of you who are fans are “winging it” and “faking it until you make it” please understand that long term success demands more than this, and you owe it yourself, your family, and any potential or actual employees to spend the time to set up your business for success
Why Do These Businesses Fail?
There are many reason that new businesses fail, from lack of market access, lack of financing, management issues, ineffective or no existent business planning to not knowing how to market to business to attract the right customers.
Some data we came across shows the following as the top reasons that businesses fail:
How Can You Reduce the Risk of Failure & Increase the Likelihood of Success?
The answer is easy, but the outcome is not as easy to achieve – it comes down to your planning and researching your business idea fully.
When we review a business opportunity, we will take several defined and ordered steps to evaluate the idea and the business:
You can see from the process outlined above that creating the actual business plan with the defined financials is the last step in the process of setting up a successful business.
The preceding steps ensure that the correct facts and data are collected and collated to be able to critically evaluate any business idea to ensure it is, in fact, a good idea.
When we say that something is a “good idea” for a business, we generally mean that the idea will:
Be in an industry where there is an opportunity
Be sufficiently differentiated from competitors as to have an advantage
Provide relevant solutions to targeted customer based on the benefits that they need and will pay for
Be in an area that the prospective business owner is passionate about
Be able to be executed such that it delivers a financial benefit in relation to business goals
Once you know that your business idea you have really is a “good idea”, you can confidently build your business success plan and start working on and in your business.
Good luck creating your business success plan!
