You’ve made up your mind! You’re ready to reach out and take hold of your life. You’re focused on realizing your hopes and your dreams. The economy is good, inflation is low, interests rates are great, unemployment is at a 25 year low, and most importantly, people are buying!

An honest look at yourself is crucial. You have to test every part of the way you live and think. There are many questions that you must ask of yourself. You’ve made up your mind! You’re ready to reach out and take hold of your life. You’re focused on realizing your hopes and your dreams. The economy is good, inflation is low, interests rates are great, unemployment is at a 25 year low, and most importantly, people are buying!

Is there anything else you should think about before you buy? YES, there is! You need to look at yourself, the steps needed to successfully get yourself into business, and the type of business you are going to be part of. The business should be a good one, and you should be good at the skills that the business most needs its owner to have.

Starting any small business requires that you have a host of strong personal traits. Probably the most important of those traits is the drive to make it happen, or the “Fire in the Belly”. Without this ironclad desire to get ahead, you may not succeed. Ask yourself if you are willing to do “whatever it takes” to get your business to succeed. If the answer is yes, you are well on your way to real independence and freedom!

Many people have dreamed for years of having their own business. Very often they are the hardest workers and leaders in their jobs. Despite their hard work and achievement, they never quite feel fulfilled. They often feel the money they are paid doesn’t fairly compensate them for their contributions to their company. Many times they find themselves disenchanted by what they perceive as corporate politics and minutiae.

Regretfully, wanting to own your own business is not enough. You also have to possess the wisdom to see business ownership for what it really is. You must be aware that you will probably have to work long hours, at least at first. You will also need to be able to get along with your personnel, handle money, and the assorted daily crises that every business confronts.

To start your business, you must have both the talent and the financial resources needed to make it work. You must be able to look honestly at how much you are willing to invest. Simply having enough money to start a business does not mean that you should.

You have to determine how much money you are willing to put into your business, and along with your family, you must determine what portion of your net worth (your total assets minus your total liabilities) you are comfortable investing. You could lose your investment, so you want to be very careful.

If you want to finance part of the cost of getting into a business, but you prefer not to use a commercial institution like a bank or lease company, you may decide to borrow money from your family, or find a partner.

While it may be a challenge for your ego, bear in mind that one of the best sources of funds to start a business can be from members of your own family.

Many first time business owners get help from their families. If the business becomes successful, the family glows in the knowledge that they helped make it so, and if the business is not successful, family tends to be more forgiving and understanding than a bank!

If you are unable to finance your business startup on you own, and don’t feel that outside financial institutions or your family are the right places to turn for financial help, you may want to go into business with a partner.

However, you must realize that you will not only be splitting the investment cost, but also the profits, so the business must be one that can support both partners adequately.

Additionally, choosing a friend as a partner for mainly financial reasons can be very tricky. If you decide to go into business with a partner, make sure that your skills and personalities complement each other. Otherwise, when faced with the pressures of running a business you may find that the personalities of each partner conflict with the other. The result can be that the both the business and the friendship suffer.

It’s important to get into a business that utilizes the your strongest skills. However, your business should not be one where you do the same things you didn’t enjoy in your old job. Look for other opportunities. For instance, you might very well have a hobby that you enjoy where you could also use your best business skills, while you’re having fun!

You might also consider a business where you hire the tradesmen or experts with the technical know how to run the business, thus freeing you to manage the business as a whole. If the new business is multi-departmental, you can’t be expected to be an expert in every job anyway, so you must bring in people who have the necessary expertise.

Be wise: take a personal skill inventory. Be aware of your level of competence in such fields as finance, marketing, accounting, human resources, operations, advertising, technical, and all other areas of your chosen business. Know your limits.

Don’t get hung up on the idea that you have to be an expert in a specific business before you can start it. In a franchised business, the franchisor will train you how to run the business. Franchisors spend large sums of time and money developing training programs to teach their franchisees who have no previous experience in that business how to be successful.

As you can see, an honest look at yourself is crucial. You have to test every part of the way you live and think. There are many questions that you must ask of yourself. Just a few of these questions should be:

• Am I willing to work long hours if my business needs me to?
• Can I manage financially until my business begins to make a profit?
• Do I honestly like this kind of work?
• Do I have the whole hearted support of my family?
• Am I personally like the people who are already successful in this field?
• Am I mature enough to own my own company?
• Do I want employees or am I better off with few or none at all?
• What kind of employees do I want: blue collar, professional, young, old?
• What am I good at? What am I bad at?
• What is my preferred working environment? Office? Home? Store?
• Am I searching for an absentee or semi-absentee ownership situation?
• Would I like my family to be involved in this business?
• What would happen if I failed?

One could easily list dozens of questions just as pointed as these. If you want to give yourself the best chance of being successful, your answers must be the ones that are honest and right.

Analyzing yourself can be quite complicated. However, when you start a business, not only must you consider your own feelings, but you also must think about the rest of your family. It is not just your money, but also theirs. It is not just your future, but theirs too.

You may want family members to be working partners. How do they feel about that? Or you may want to separate family and business so they have no role in the venture. How do they feel about that?

Owning a business is a family event. Get them involved in the planning, and insist that they stay involved in the final decision as to whether or not to start a business.

Find a business that fits your needs, and those of your family. Make sure that any business that you consider can adequately satisfy both your financial and personal needs and wants.

Take a few minutes and make a list of thing you really enjoy. Compare that list to the business you are looking at. Will it really make and keep you happy?

Even though you will want to enjoy running your business, owning a business is not the same as pursuing a hobby. For instance, an avid golfer who buys a golfing supply store may quickly regret that decision. Retail businesses tend to be open on weekends and at night, so retail hours might severely cut into the time that the owner has to play golf himself!

To start your business planning, create your own personal strategy. Create an “Entry Strategy”, a “Long Term Strategy”, and an “Exit Strategy”. Your entry strategy should look at and plan for your short term needs, and how to get into business safely while positioning yourself for the long haul.

Next focus on your long term strategy. Simply put, ask yourself where do you want to wind up if you are successful? Then plan the elements needed to make that happen. Look at what it will take to grow the business successfully. Consider funding, manpower, and corporate structure issues. Make sure you can maintain control as you grow.

Lastly, think about an exit strategy. Plan for the day when you retire, and think about whether this will be a good business to sell, or give to another member of your family or firm. When done properly getting out of a business can be as exciting as getting into it.

Taking a long hard look in the mirror is crucial. Knowing what it?s going to take to succeed and liking those things, will help you to be more successful. If you enjoy your business you will work harder, longer, smarter, and more productively. On top of that, your employees will see you as an inspiration rather than just the guy with the whip.

Be realistic when you are ready to make your choice. Make sure you have done the best job you can of making your decision a good one. Before you buy, ask yourself:

• Why you chose the particular business that you chose?
• Are you sure that it is the best choice for you??
• Did you choose this business because it is right or merely to satisfy your ego?
• Did you choose this business because it is good, or because it is glamorous?
• Are you sure you are going into business because you want to, and not because someone talked you into it.?
• Are you prepared for the both the good days and the bad days?
• Are you willing and able to do the hard work that come with every new venture?

With the knowledge that you chose the business for the right reasons and in the right way you are ready to set out on what could be the most rewarding venture of your life.

Once you've decided to go into business, but you realize you don't want to reinvent the wheel? You may very well choose to join a franchise system.

In a franchise you will get help from people who already know how to run that business. You will deal with trainers, site specialists, financial people, operations people, as well as other franchisees. They can all give you the benefit of their knowledge as well as the knowledge gained by all the owners who have come before you.

If you choose to be a franchisee, make sure you like what franchising does. You will probably need to be a team player, and will have to be comfortable with following a set of rules.

Most people work best when given a blueprint from which to work. In a franchised system, this blueprint is the result of years of making mistakes, correcting them, and then making sure they are not made again. For obvious reasons, avoiding these mistakes can be enormously helpful to your ability to succeed in business.

However, if you are the type of person who is not comfortable following a set program and would rather create your own set of rules, you probably will not want to be a franchisee. Realize this about yourself before you buy, and choose another form of business ownership.

Franchises can be like families. You can form friendships that last a lifetime. But don?t buy it because you like the people involved in it and are looking to make friends.

Also remember that most franchisors make their money from royalties. The more business that you do, the more money they get. As a result, they will continue to search for ways to achieve greater results. This can mean that you?re going to have to accept new ideas even if you don?t always agree with them, or even if they're wrong!

Should you own a business? By now you should have some insight into what it takes to do so. Choose carefully, and wisely, and you could well be on the road to prosperity, happiness, and great reward!

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