How to Start Your Own Small Business

Summary:

The most common mistakes people make when starting their own business is trying to get too big too fast and not properly organising their time between content (e.g. stock) and marketing and promotion. Here are some tips to avoid the simple mistakes.

Keywords:

business,small business,marketing,merchandise

Article Body:

Opening your own business can be a real big gamble. If you do not do your research well, you will wind up like most small businesses, and that is out of business soon after you have started, realising that you are getting nowhere and making no profits, worse still even trading at a loss because you did not fully prepare your budget and be aware of your costs.  

The most important thing to remember when opening up new business is the location. Will you have a physical or online business, or indeed as most successful businesses do ...you have both.


 When doing your research for your new business you want to make sure you are the only business of your type in the area. If you are opening a gift shop you do not want to open near another gift shop. Remember if you are exclusive to the area, you will automatically get the business of many of those living in that area, especially if they know you. Many websites for people starting a business will tell how it is known that we hate to sell to family and friends and that they hate being pestered and pressurised by a family member or friend with a home business too, but feel under pressure to buy from them. However, when starting a business, initially the problem is that most people will not know you, therefore they will not trust your business model. You do not have to try to force your family and friends to buy from you or use your services but do ask them for a bit of free advertising e.g. on their social media sites.

The next most important thing about opening a small business is your supplier. Do not have just one place to get supplies from, you should have several.

My suppliers are different in what they offer. I have two websites, one is for mainly gifts and some home essentials such as candles and lunch boxes, items that can be given as gifts, the other is a one stop shop for just about everything a home and family could need or that you may want to give as gifts. Most of my orders are fulfilled by drop ship and only one requires me to mail the items myself , as I have health and mobility issues this can be difficult for me and the nearest post offices are both bus rides away , so I tend to use this site to source item ideas , but supply them from sites that will mail them to my customers, even if they do not officially drop ship .

Remember when starting your home business that you are a small business and quite likely a sole trader. This will mean that marketing your stock or service must be a priority for you as you have a lot to compete with. As a small business / sole trader you are not likely to be able to compete with and match the prices of sites such as eBay and Amazon and established online stores. I know that my prices are higher than can be found on eBay and Amazon and some company websites , but I have to factor in that I am an older person with disabilities and this is my income, I have to pay for buying the items I sell, adding in VAT and mailing and that I have to pay for my websites and internet access , to compensate for this I offer a personal shopping service and will source any item on request that I am not already stocking on my sites .  

Make sure that the products or services that you will be offering are desired, do not just decide to open up a store without doing any market research, it is like gambling. This is where the term Niche marketing comes in, and while I have chosen to offer a wider market of choice in the products that I sell, there are definitely markets that are most profitable ...phone cases and accessories being one….

Advertising is important. Remember just like a casino you are trying to make money and not lose it. By spending some money on advertising, you will increase your sales from your opening day. It is best to have a professional help you with your advertising rather than dong it yourself, there is no point in spending money on advertising if no one in your target demographic is going to see it. However, I am very aware that many reading this may be unable to even consider using paid advertising and this is where social media and its rise as a vital tool in business comes in. There are many social media groups and pages where you can advertise your business and products for free …. explore Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and the rapidly rising Instagram,

along with others.

 When picking your stock, it is sometime better to have a bigger selection of items and maybe not so many of each item, this way you can see which items sell best and order more of those more popular items, and less of the less desired ones. This is why drop shipping as a business method works well as you do not have to actually buy the stock in advance, you only purchase it when a customer requests it and pays you for it

Depending on the type of business you are opening try keep your staff as small as possible, and if it is possible try to get friends and family to help you out. This will allow you to keep your costs low until you can really get a good idea of if you are making money or not. Once you are making money you can go out and hire people, e.g. to do the marketing for you while you concentrate on stock or providing your service.  

 Good luck with your business !!!

Valerie

Turning your hobby into a business …Hobbies that can make money

I try to provide some free or at least cheap ways to still enjoy life when unemployed and with little or no spare money for leisure activities. As I have written previously, it is actually more important than ever when looking for a job that you stay in circulation. It is important because meeting people and networking is one of the best ways to get a job, with many jobs being found through word of mouth and someone who knows of jobs being available rather than advertised jobs, this is called the hidden job market.

 Also, being unemployed has a very powerful and negative effect on mental health as well as finances and issues with mental health such as stress lead to physical health problems such as high blood pressure . For further information on this subject Google the psychological effects of unemployment, effect unemployment has on people and also articles on this blog

https://valeriehedgescareers.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20psychological%20effects%20of%20unemployment

When unemployed, there is no money in your benefits allowance for leisure activities. However, becoming a job hunting bore, talking about nothing other than looking for a job and the problems of having no money is a big turn off when you do meet people and can make you look desperate and leaving people more likely to wonder why you cannot get a job than to think off anyone they might know who could help you.

So, try to do something other than read your job alert emails and apply for jobs. It is true that many hobbies such as the arts and sports cost money, but if you are reading this then quite possibly at home you already have one of the best tools, that is the internet, for finding or developing further, hobbies that that are free or at least cheap and can even lead to a job.

Google hobbies that can make money online and look up writing, sharing knowledge, selling your photographs online , selling your crafts and cooking, gardening and sewing , all hobbies that can lead to making an income from your skills.

Also search terms to use are: Hobbies that make money ideas, hobbies that can earn you money and hobbies that can be a job.

If you have hobbies that you can write about then you can make money from writing about it and getting paid for your articles. If you do not already have a blog, start one and write articles for it, then look up ways to… Monetize your blog, with advertising and products relevant to your topic.

Google search: Websites that pay you to write:

Some examples:

  http://www.epicpassiveincome.com/pay-per-article-websites/

http://www.malleeblue.com/best-article-writing-sites-for-earning-money-online/#

http://allindiewriters.com/websites-and-blogs-paying-100-per-article/

http://www.writersincharge.com/110-websites-that-pay-writers/

http://www.makealivingwriting.com/140-websites-that-pay-writers-updated-2014/

http://www.amylynn.org/home/paidtowrite

Reading also can be turned into a means to make some money by writing paid book reviews.

https://dramaquill.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/get-paid-to-review-books/

http://www.sellbox.com/5-resources-for-paid-book-reviews/

http://www.findextrawork.co.uk/reviewbooks.php

Start a blog about your favourite books and books that you read and join Amazon’s affiliate programme, get the links to the book and advertise and promote your blog or website so that you can sell the books.

Quite likely you are already on Facebook and or Twitter, they are not just for fun and posting pictures of cats and writing on walls. Use the job hunting pages and groups and also search free advertising in the Facebook search bar , advertise your skills or crafts , post your CV or resume and share the groups and pages to your own page. Interact with other posts and almost without knowing, you will be building up networking connections and learning the basics of social media marketing.

Be sure to get some exercise, even just a walk into town if you have had to give up your gym membership, clears your head and reduces stress.

Valerie

Secrets to A Better Future

The New year is already two days old !!!, maybe you are working, perhaps not, but either way, the year is well under way. So, stop for just a second, look around you and ask yourself if this is the quality of life you were hoping for. How was last year for you, are you still waiting to get this year’s New Year resolutions going?

If not a lot has changed for you for the better since this time last year then my question to you is “why not?” “What are you doing to change your life?” Many people who have been asked what they’ve done to change their lives say, “it’s no use because….” and so it goes….

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The first step in getting out of the rut is to assume responsibility for the quality of your life. You can change a lot of things starting right now. There will always be obstacles such as lack of money for many of your dreams to be fulfilled and limitations due to health issues, but none that can’t be overcome albeit with some adaptions. The only requirement is the desire to change. Mark Twain once said, “It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog.” If your “want to” is strong enough, you can achieve almost anything you set your mind to.

The second step to getting out of the rut is step out in faith, whatever you put that in and “Just do it”. There is no time like the present to change course. You might not succeed the first time but keep trying. Success will come with persistence. Remember the old saying “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Don’t worry about making a mistake. Albert Einstein once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

So, step out. Take a chance, and as William Durant, the founder of General Motors said “Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it.”

Was one of your new year resolutions to start a home business? For many it is a resolution made frequently each New Year and soon forgotten about and shelved as being too difficult, then dug out again next time the resolutions are to be made …

However, what if right now you do not have a job and cannot seem to get one? What if you are an older and or disabled person or have health conditions that make it very difficult to do as the social security systems are forcing people to do? to work on regardless of health, age and physical ability until 70 and beyond with no retirement in sight, with more increases in the age at which state pensions can be claimed. You may well be one of the many needing a home business to take them into later life

Even the home business market has suffered losses as well as high Street businesses. Home businesses that have gone include Kleeneze, Bettaware and Phoenix cards, though the latter has started up again under a new name and Kleeneze is trying to restart with a new name and business format, but while the home business market is as risky in its long-term security as a traditional job may be, to start an independent business of your own, not dependent on another company can be a  very good move. This can be done with your own products for sale e.g. crafts or affiliate links selling other people’s products, and a website such as Shopify or blog on which you can sell via a Paypal link and or selling on social media with Facebook especially having many local, national and worldwide buy and sell groups .

Valerie

Working Online and freedom

Working Online and freedom

What do you feel gives you freedom? To me, it is time, money and choice that comes from having money, and it is the freedom not to have to work for someone else or be governed by government rules about what jobs you must apply for whether or not you can physically do them, but have to apply anyway because you have lost your disability benefit and are forced to go to the job centre and sign on to get job seekers allowance, as has happened to thousands in the UK because of welfare reform. The more time you have that is your own, the more choices you have regarding what you want to do and how you want to direct the course of your life…. And one of the best ways to free up time? It’s Working online.

This is perhaps the most common example of lifestyle management: working online so that you can start to choose when, where and how you work. Now you can decide to make your work fit in around your lifestyle instead of being forced to squeeze your life in when you can.

However, what do we do with this freedom once we have it? Some people travel the world while working online. They use the ability to work not in an office and instead work on the move. These people travel from country to country, meet new people and see incredible sights, then, they use the rest of their time to work in cafes and bars – anywhere with a power socket and an internet connection. Smart phones with excellent internet access and apps and great deals on data, make this lifestyle even easier, as indeed do tablets with their portability and again, wide selection of apps.

This is true freedom. These people can support themselves but in doing so they are also getting to climb mountains, see famous landmarks and discover other cultures. They aren’t tied to any one place and surely that’s one of the truest demonstrations of freedom. Some do it another way and have a regular job that facilitates working from home, or even if it didn't they have negotiated this with their bosses.

But the reality is that not everyone would enjoy this lifestyle. Some of us need colleagues to avoid going mad and many of us have partners or families that depend on us – we can’t afford to go travelling for days on end. However, you can make adaptions, you can use the same thing to just have more freedom at home.

How about working in cafes near you? Or perhaps there’s a beauty spot you could enjoy working in? Because there’s no commute though, you can spend an extra hour in bed. And if someone invites you out for an impromptu lunch? Then you’ll be free to take them up on that offer!

You can travel more but still come home in between to spend time with your family and with your creature comforts (like tea…) …If you have family and or carers responsibilities, these can much more easily be accommodated in your working life.

Job hunting ~ start at the beginning with 4 magic words beginning with ‘A’

1.) Attitude.

Attitude is everything, even whether we live or die when faced with serious illness can have a lot to do with attitude, so it’s a good starting point when looking for a job or starting your own business.

Attitude is a good starting point because attitude shapes your actions and beliefs about how your actions will work ~or not. Attitude is about belief ~ You need to believe that what you want, be it a job or your own business or a qualification will happen, not might or could but will.

You also need to believe that you are worthy of it and have a right to it. This is going into some pretty deep psychology because it concerns reasons and influences that may have you believing it is not for you, you are not worthy and this involves influences such as peer pressure, family, self-esteem and so on. 

I got my first job by one of the most traditional methods of all used for generations of school leavers, my mother. I had wanted to be a teacher and for years imagined myself with proud parents as I went off to university. However, it dawned on me through my school years as I grew and became far more aware of my background, that this was not going to happen for me.

My mother made it clear to me that she stayed with my father only as long I was attending compulsory school and that she needed me independent. She herself born in 1927, had won a scholarship to grammar school but with her mother unable to afford the uniform, she was unable to take it up. I often wonder why children in her position were even made to sit for an exam that someone must have known would only set her them up to failure and disappointment…. She later wanted to be a hairdresser, but yet again her mother was unable to afford to pay for her training and so she followed the same path as many young 14-year-old girls of her era, she left   what was called Wandsworth Central school and went to work in an office, bitterly resentful and terrified of the bombs from the blitz falling down around her as she did so …it’s difficult to imagine that only two years before she had been seen as a child and evacuated to the country, but in those days children from poorer families , which was most of the families my mother grew up with, grew up fast and work started at fourteen. 

Apart from my mother desperately wanting me financially off her hands and no longer the responsibility of her and my father, from whom she wanted a divorce but felt that she had to stay with him as long as I was of school age, while every day she reminded me of it and made me pay for it emotionally and physically, she also was of a very firm opinion that what was good enough for her was good enough and indeed going to be the same for me …When I came home from school one day announcing as I did my homework,  that I was going to go to university , my mother beat it out of me and accused me of jumping out of my class and being a lily livered lizard afraid to go to work and hiding in school . …That did a lot for my ambition as you might imagine.

2.) Ask.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get goes the saying, yet so many say that they cannot ask for anything and feel uncomfortable doing so. It is especially important to be able to benefit from asking for help from those who can help you!!

 A lot of people insist they do not know how to ask for help, or say I don’t like asking, but plenty of other people became experts themselves by asking !!!, you have a choice, either give up or ask for help. You can be pretty sure that you will not be the first person asking for the advice you need, so you need not feel daft and today so much help and advice about job hunting and starting businesses is available all over the internet and also from organisations such as job clubs.

3.) Action.

Once you have your mind set in the right attitude and all the help and advice you need, the next step is to get going, get started. One of the main reasons that people do not get going with their plans is fear of failure and the what if ‘s of failure. Another reason, particularly when planning to start a business or to study can be security and money. My mother probably did not intend to be deliberately spiteful when she beat out of me my plans to get to university, it was just essential to her that I was financially self-sufficient as soon as possible and that was her goal for me.

I have written before about having a plan B where your career is concerned and always being sure to have something you can fall back on, especially a hobby maybe or something that can be turned into a home business if you become unable to work outside of the home due to health reasons.

Useful Google searches are:
Hobbies that make money ~ http://www.pluckmyfeet.com/hobbies-that-make-money/

http://www.goodfinancialcents.com/hobbies-that-make-money

List of micro job sites ~

Micro jobs are very useful to begin with when building up a freelance business because they are small jobs that can be done quickly and earn small amounts of money that build up while you are building your reputation and business. https://jobmob.co.il/blog/micro-freelance-marketplaces/

http://wvve.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page_9857.html

http://list.ly/list/5Qt-23-micro-job-sites-to-earn-money

http://microsjobs.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/micro-job-websites-list.html

http://microsjobs.blogspot.co.uk/

http://genuineejobs.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/list-of-genuine-micro-job-sites.html

http://communityclerks.com/micro-job-sites/#.VsHNfNDOgwg

http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/list-of-the-best-crowdsourcing-websites-and-pay-per-task-sites

http://freelancewayoflife.com/micro-task-websites/

http://99businessideas.com/top-money-making-microjob-type-sites-beginners-guide/

http://www.fillmymoneybox.com/make-money-online-micro-job-websites/

https://www.techmesto.com/earn-money-by-doing-micro-jobs-online/

http://celebratebeingawoman.com/httpwp-mep3u0ul-4m/

A term that has become better known in recent years is Side hustles ~ A side hustle is a way to make some extra cash that allows you flexibility to pursue what you're most interested in. It can also be your true passion – a chance to delve into fashion, travel or whatever it is you care about the most without quitting your day job. 

 ( www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/230431)

http://www.sidehustlenation.com/ideas/

http://www.moneypeach.com/the-top-68-side-hustles-add-some-more-money-to-your-life/

http://onecentatatime.com/101-ways-to-earn-extra-money-from-side-hustle/

http://www.doughroller.net/earn-extra-income/side-hustle-ideas/

http://www.slideshare.net/NickLoper/79-sidehustles

http://30streams.com/80-side-hustle-business-ideas-you-can-start-today/

http://julliengordon.com/50-side-hustles-you-can-start-pretty-quickly-for-50-or-less

http://thecollegeinvestor.com/14608/make-money-fast-side-hustling/
http://brokegirlrich.com/114-side-hustles-ways-make-money/

4. Ability.

Maybe you have been in the same job for many years and now either because of a loss of that job or for health reasons you need to make a change but do not have the skills for e.g. working online. In most places when there have been cuts to education budgets, the budget to have the most severe cuts has been adult education, but there are several resources for useful free online courses if your skills need an update ~

https://alison.com/

https://www.futurelearn.com/

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses

https://www.coursera.org/

http://www.derby.ac.uk/online/free-courses

https://www.open2study.com/courses

http://www.reed.co.uk/courses/free

http://www.academy-cube.com/topic/information-technology/?gclid=CJ-EmqH4-coCFQoHwwodnqUNjw

**** https://www.vision2learn.net/****

I have gained a Level 2 Equality and Diversity qualification through Vision2learn
https://www.reading.ac.uk/15/Study/study-moocs.aspx

http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/courses/free-online-learning.page

http://creativeskillset.org/who_we_help/creative_professionals/free_online_courses

http://www.digitalbusinessacademyuk.com/free-online-business-course

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/info/130503/online_courses

https://www.foundationonline.org.uk/course/index.php?categoryid=2

So, there you have it, four words, starting at the beginning with A, that can help to change your life for the better ~