How Do You Choose the Right Business?

Often, the decision to go into business for yourself is prompted by an independent and entrepreneurial spirit rather than an interest in a specific industry. Remember that buying a business is a major financial commitment, and in order to make an educated decision, it's important to ask yourself some key questions:

• Do you want to sell a service or a product? Answering this question can help narrow the field of potential businesses considerably.
• What is your price range? How much are you willing to spend (and how much can you afford) to buy the business that´s right for you?
• Do you want your business to be location-specific? Location is often crucial for a business to be successful. Is the business tied to a specific location or will it be viable if you — and it — move somewhere else? Are you willing to relocate for a particular business, or are you only considering businesses in your area?
• What type of owner do you want to be? Consider what level of involvement you plan on taking as an owner, and examine what industries will enable you to match that type of commitment. Also consider whether you want your business to be your passion or whether it is strictly a financial investment — or somewhere in between.
• What is the ideal size for your business? Do you want to manage five employees or 50? Do you want to grow the business considerably, maintain the status quo, or downsize? How big is too big?

As you answer these questions, you'll likely think of more. Don't be afraid to survey other small business owners or consult a business broker about the appropriate criteria for selecting a business. When you find a particular industry or trade that matches your criteria, you'll want to ask more specific questions about that business such as: Why is the owner selling? Never be afraid to ask questions. For a purchase of this size, you deserve all the answers you want.

Techno Finance and Executive Diary

Techno Finance and Executive Diary

3 Biggest Time Wasters

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Have you ever stopped and consider how much time you have during the day? How about during the week? How much of this time do you spend on activities and people that waste your valuable time? What are your time waster during the day? Sometimes we go through life surrounding ourselves with activities and people that take away our time. Once time is gone. It is gone forever. Only by realizing what and who takes away are time will we move forward to the next level.

Time wasters are poor decisions or not making a decision during our day. They cost time and also money. It is a vicious cycle. Poor decision making and being indecisive is like a tornado. It goes round and round. It destroys everything goals, dreams in your path. It becomes a habit. Look at you life right now. What were you doing 1 year ago? What were you doing 3 years ago? Does it look about the same? It is based on the decisions that you made.

There are 3 biggest time wasters. Your ability to deal with them will determine where you will be in the next year.

1.Procrastination. Procrastination is one of the biggest time waster of them all. You probably have heard or even know people that live their lives in quiet desperation and end up retiring poor. Have you meet people that go through life that find every reason or excuse not to do it today. They do it over and over. They make excuses day after day. Then one day their lives are OVER.

2.Not making decisions. Not making decisions rob more time than you realize. It cost you money too. It can produce unnecessary tasks. Decision making requires courage and moving forward. When you are wishy-washy, you are unable to make decisions with family, kids, or careers. Nobody likes to follow someone that is indecisive not even kids.

3.Putting out fires and taking care of emergencies. This is a huge time waster. When you are about to settle down to do a task or go to work. Something unexpected happens and pulls you away from that task or work. This sometimes rolls from minutes into hours and hours. The greatest leaders throughout our history thought ahead and determine all the things that maybe go wrong. Then they would plan in advance. If something did happen, they could move quickly or delegate it. They would get it done. Poor leaders trust in luck. Crisis will happen just don’t pitch a tent next time.

Most valuable skill you can develop is a sense of urgency. Get on with it. Make things happen. It is the most powerful factor. It can move you forward no matter what situation we are in right now. Most important way to improve your decision making is you are not perfect. A not perfect decision made immediately goes far then not a decision at all. When fires do occur think before you act. Action without thinking leads to failure. Just be objective. Live your life if it was your last day here on earth everyday!

Amanda Young, founder of The Time Mastery, specializes in helping people get more done in less time in their career and personal life. To learn more on how you can get more done and gain balance in your life today. Grab your free simpleology course at http://www.thetimemastery.com/
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Choosing a Business to Start

Two opposite approaches? Or the best of both?

So you've decided to start a business. Maybe you have a brilliant idea, and you're trying to figure out if it's viable or not. Or maybe you're out of work, or just fed up with your current job, and looking for an alternative.
Whatever the circumstances that have brought you to this point, the first question you need to ask yourself is, "Is owning a business right for me?" Are you cut out for entrepreneurship? Not everybody is. The rewards can be great, but so are the risks. And it will change your lifestyle in ways that you may not be prepared for. If you haven't explored this question yet, take a few minutes to review some of the resources in the Becoming an Entrepreneur section.
Once you've decided to walk the entrepreneurial path, the next question to ask yourself is, "What type of business do I want to start?" There are, of course, thousands of choices.

The Traditional Approach

The traditional approach to entrepreneurship is a methodical, scientific process. Generally speaking, the approach consists of researching the market, identifying a need, and creating a business to fill it. More specifically, the steps of the process are:

• Select the industry you're interested in working in.
• Research the kinds of businesses and various business models within that industry.
• Perform market research to see where there is an unmet need -- geographically, pricewise, complementary products and services, etc.
• Analyze the competition.
• Develop a preliminary business plan for a business to meet that need.
• Do some more market research to assess the realistic market potential for your business. Will people buy it?
• Revise the business plan and determine your funding requirements.
• If needed, seek out lenders or investors.
• Start the business.

Needless to say, this is not something you just knock out in a weekend. The most obvious problem to this approach is that it's extremely labor-intensive and potentially expensive to even decide whether or not to go into business. Of course, that time spent on the front end reduces the risk of failure down the road.

Do What You Love, and the Money Will Follow

In recent years, this philosophy has become increasingly popular following the success of the book Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow by Marsha Sinetar. While the approach sounds great, as career coach Dr. Marty Nemko puts it, "Millions of people have followed their passion and still haven't earned enough money to even pay back their student loans, let alone make even a bare middle-class living doing what they love."

It's not the book's fault. In fact, it's a very fine book that will take you through a number of exercises to help you discover your true life purpose and find a number of different ways in which you can fulfill that purpose in your work. It will teach you to distinguish the true inner voice from the flash-in-the-pan ideas that constantly run through your head. And maybe it will help you be one of the few to beat the odds and pursue your dream career.

The problem is that most people don't read the book and go through the intensive self-discovery exercises it prescribes. And when it gets boiled down to a mere slogan, it's more likely to become, "Do what you love until you go broke and can't do it any more."

Some of the common scenarios include:

• No one wants to buy it. You're passionate about it, but apparently no one else is. You can't sell people something they don't want to buy.
• Someone else already thought of it. You have a great idea, but it's a niche market, and someone's already beat you to it. And if they're better funded, they may be doing it better/faster/cheaper. (It happened to my first company - a mistake I won't repeat!)
• A lot of people already thought of it. Highly competitive markets are no fun. I don't care how much you love the business you're in, if you're constantly having to go head-to-head with competitors, it will get old very quickly.
• There's more to it than you realized. You underestimated the costs, or the development time, or the incubation period for the marketing to take effect, or the amount of energy required, or the toll it would take on your personal life.

So while pursuing your passion is an admirable goal, doing so to the exclusion of all reason and responsibility isn't. If you have family depending on you for income, you have to consider that, as well.


The Best of Both Worlds

These approaches are not entirely mutually exclusive. Let's start with the idea, rather than with formal research. Some of the possible sources for business ideas include:
Self-discovery. Find out what you're truly passionate about and figure out how to make a business out of it.
Inspiration. That idea that just popped into your head one day may not be so crazy after all.
Observation. Be constantly looking for unmet needs. Is there a product or service that you would buy if it were accessible and affordable?
Imitation. One way to increase your odds of success is to find a proven business model and replicate it in a different market. Or, consider buying a franchise, where you'll not only have a proven business model, but outside support for your business.

It doesn't matter where the idea comes from.

What matters is what you do with it. And no matter how brilliant you think the idea is, you need some external input - a "sanity check", if you will. Even if you don't have the time or money for extensive formal market research or business planning, do the informal research yourself to find out if there's a market for your idea and to assess the viability of your business concept.
You can ask your friends and family, but when you do, make sure to let them know exactly what you are looking for -- honest, detailed feedback on the idea. True friends will be supportive of your ability to succeed, but they will also be willing to be honest with you.

If you make it past the friends and family round and still think you've got a viable business concept, put together a basic business plan. There are extensive resources to help you with this in our Business Plan section. It doesn't have to be incredibly detailed -- you're not going to the bank or investors with it.

Now, think of the three to five most successful entrepreneurs you know. (If you don't know that many, you'd better meet some -- it's going to be very difficult to be a successful entrepreneur yourself without several of them in your network.) Contact them and see if they'll take a look at your business plan and meet you over coffee or lunch (your treat!) to discuss it. Now would also be a good time to find a mentor

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Business philosophies and popular management theories

A business philosophy or popular management theory is any of a range of approaches to accounting, marketing, public relations, operations, training, labor relations, executive time management, investment, and/or corporate governance claimed (by their proponents, and sometimes only by their proponents and selected clients) to improve business performance in some measurable or otherwise provable way.

These management theories often have their own vocabulary (jargon). They sometimes depend on the business insights of a single guru. They rarely have the sophistication or internal consistency to qualify as a school of philosophy in the conventional sense - some (branded "biz-cults") resemble a cult religion. They tend to have in common high-cost consulting fees to consult with the "business gurus" who have created the "philosophy". Only rarely do such schools transmit to any trusted students the capacity to teach others - one of the key requirements of any legitimate non-esoteric school of thought or academic discipline.

Most of these theories tend to experience a limited period of popularity (about 5 to 10 years). Then they disappear from the popular consciousness. Occasionally one has lasting value and gets incorporated into textbooks and into academic management thought. For every theory that gets incorporated into strategic management textbooks about a hundred remain forgotten. Many theories tend either to have too narrow a focus to build a complete corporate strategy on, or appear too general and abstract for applicability to specific situations. The management-talk circuit fuels the low success rate: in that circuit hundreds of self-appointed gurus queue in turn to sell their books and to explain their "revolutionary" and "groundbreaking" theories to audiences of business executives for phenomenal fees.

Note too, however, that management theories often undergo testing in the real world. Disciples apply or attempt to apply such theories, and find them sometimes consistently applicable over time, sometimes merely an "idea du jour". The relevant and valuable principles become recognized, and in this way may get incorporated into academic management thought.

As rightly said:


"The beginning is the most important part of the work."

"Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance."

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."

"A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things as in a vision, a dream of the whole thing."

"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way."

The purpose of a business

Some would argue that the main purpose of a business is to maximize profits for its owners, or in the case of a publicly-traded company, its stockholders. The economist Milton Friedman is a proponent of this view. Others would say that its principal purpose is to serve the interests of a larger group of stakeholders, including employees, customers, and even society as a whole. Most philosophers would agree, however, that business activities ought to comport with legal and moral strictures.

Anu Agha, ex-chairperson of Thermax Limited, once said, "We survive by breathing but we can't say we live to breathe. Likewise, making money is very important for a business to survive, but money alone cannot be the reason for business to exist". Profit maximization is extremely relevant when top management is mandated with the job of selecting the right strategy for the business. According to Michael Porter, the primary goal for any business strategy exercise must be that of maximizing profitability.

Peter Drucker defined the very purpose of business as creating a satisfied customer. This definition is also useful in evaluating to what extent a business is succeeding in fulfilling its stated purpose.

Many observers would hold that concepts such as economic value added (EVA) are useful in balancing profit-making objectives with other ends. They argue that sustainable financial returns are not possible without taking into account the aspirations and interests of other stakeholders (customers, employees, society, environment). This conception suggests that a principal challenge for a business is to balance the interests of parties affected by the business, interests that are sometimes in conflict with one another.