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Writer's pictureMiley Nguyen

8 Tips for a First-Time Business Owner

The newly established enterprises face many risks, negligence, and mistakes. No matter how much experience you have as a business owner, you will likely run into problems at some point. According to Mike Michalowicz, a small business expert, the key to success lies in recognizing mistakes quickly, learning from them, and avoiding the same mistakes from happening again. Most small business owners fall into the same trap. Starting your first business is a thrilling venture and one of the most exciting things you’ll ever do in your life.

However, entrepreneurs who start a business for the first time often encounter a lot of fear and uncertainty. Taking a risk and starting your own business is a real challenge, because not every small business is prepared for success. Starting a business is hard, and starting your first business is the hardest. You need every advantage to find success on your first outing. Here are a few tips for those taking their first steps toward starting their first business.

1. Research Your Market

Do you have a good idea for a business? That's great! Nevertheless, it takes a lot of work to transform ideas into viable business plans. Before doing big planning, it is wise to check the market trends of companies similar to yours. Research can take many forms, such as reading market reports, talking with other small business owners, or contacting your local chamber of commerce or other small business organization. Consider your local, regional, and national market trends.

This research will assist you to answer some basic questions: is there an unmet demand within the marketplace? Would customers get your product or services to fill that demand? And would it be profitable or not?


2. Start basic business planning

The business plan is the blueprint of your entire operation. Writing a reliable business plan is one of the most important steps in starting a business. It is not only a guidance document for logistics, but also essential for obtaining loans and investments. All of this importance can make business plans daunting, especially if you have never written any plans before.

3. Think of a Good Name

The first step in building a brand is to determine a good name. The business name can be changed in the future, but this may damage your brand awareness and customer satisfaction. Your company name may just be your name; even so, it is still a brand-a very personal brand. You will want to consider how your name conveys an idea to your customers-is your company friendly? Is professionalism a top priority?

4. Get to know your customer before you start

First, when starting a business, you need to understand who your customers are? Customers are the individuals or organizations that your business's product or marketing plan is aimed at. They will make a purchase decision, evaluate the quality of the product - service.

This is a potential object, directly bringing in revenue and profit for each company. Therefore, business owners need to invest, have a specific care strategy for them to attract customers.

5. Don’t skimp on marketing.

Marketing is an important strategy of the business and is seen as a heart to coordinate the operation and coordination of the business strategy of an enterprise. The right marketing strategy will help your business become more stable in the market as well as widely promote your brand and products to customers and consumers.

Currently, according to the trend of modernizing technology fields, when the popularity of social networks and the internet is more and more replicated, the competition among enterprises in the market is also getting fiercer. Having a good marketing campaign will help businesses take advantage of their resources and advantages to reach customers, widely promote their names, and increase the rate of competition.

6. Assess your finances.

Starting any business requires a certain price, so you need to determine how to have these costs. Do you have the ability to fund your startups, or do you need to borrow money? If you plan to leave your current job to focus on your business, will you have enough budget until you make a profit? It is best to find out what your startup cost is. Many startups fail because they ran out of money before they made money.


7. Don’t do it all by yourself

Usually, business owners want to be an expert in every field related to their business because they believe it will help them understand the workflow in their company. This is also the biggest mistake of small businesses. They believe they can do everything on their own. Yes, a business owner can do almost anything, but then nothing will really come to a good result. As an entrepreneur, your job is to identify those talents and focus all of your energies on them. Hire good people in areas where you're bad. The most successful companies are those that exploit a few certain strengths, not those that want to be experts in every field.

There are only 24 hours a day, so you cannot do everything. Recruitment, management, legal, accounting ... can all become outstanding problems for business owners. Look for people with the right expertise to do these jobs.

 
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8. Having an accounting expert with you

If you are a small business starting for the first time, then you probably know your industry, customers, and products or services, such as the back of your hand. But when it comes to the ins and outs of taxation, accounting, and finance, it never hurts to have experienced professionals seeking guidance. More and more accountants are also responsible for matters such as cash flow forecasts, invoices, and human resources. In the end, many of them played a role similar to CFO.

If you have an accounting background and a solid understanding of business finance, then this may be a good place to cut costs. However, if you lack experience in managing account books and want to follow along, you should think twice. Incorrectly managing your own accounting system will not only harm your business but will also harm your business in the long term.

Therefore, if you find that the back-office finance and accounting functions are spending a lot of time and being stress, and you can use knowledgeable consultants around you, then seeking the help of an accountant or bookkeeper may be a good way to help you run your business smoothly.


Irvine Bookkeeping is a bookkeeping and tax services firm, we provide accurate and reliable accounting services to help our clients to have better control and knowledge of their company finances. At Irvine Bookkeeping, we are working to save your time and money. Once you are free from financial troubles, you have more opportunities to grow your business bigger and stronger.

 

If you, as a business owner, see that you cannot handle accounting on your own, consider hiring an accountancy service for contractors to help you with it.

Call Irvine Bookkeeping now for a Free Quote!

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