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Six Things I Wish Somebody Had Told Me When I Started My Small Business

By Leslie Barber .......... I co-founded my business NutraBella, Inc. in 2005 after hearing my pregnant friends complain about their horse-pill sized pre-natal vitamins. We dreamed of giving women better vitamin options with Bellybar.

Fast forward to today where I spend my days on the QuickBooks team working to make small business management easier and more fun.  As I hear from small businesses owners from all walks of life, I am constantly reminded of the things I wish I had known. Owning a small business is a challenge, but here are six tips that will make the road to success easier.

1. Follow your passion and don’t let go. Your business probably stems from something you’re passionate about, but over time, the day-to-day running of the business makes it hard to keep that passion alive.

Fuel it daily by reminding yourself why you started your business. Make sure that you fall in love with a problem, not a solution. If your first solution doesn’t work, fall back on your passion for solving that problem to find another answer for your customer.

2. Cash is king. Running a business is an art and a science. The art is your passion. The science is your business model. Make sure you understand your own business model. It’s not something to abdicate to someone else. Understanding money-in, money-out, is critical to business success. Ignorance is not bliss. If you know how your business is doing at every moment, you can celebrate your success or plan for how to get more cash.

3. Hire smart. Hiring a team is thrilling but also scary. Take time to hire the right people for the right job. Fire them quickly if it doesn’t go well. As a small business owner, you can do anything but you can’t do everything! Hire people who love to do what you hate to do so you can focus on your dream and evangelize your passion.

4. Communicate with partners. Partners can be a great way to bring complementary talent to grow your business but, just like a marriage, it’s critical to communicate values and expectations. Create a business “pre-nup” to set expectations for the partnership.

Like every good marriage, go on date nights and remind yourself why you went into business together in the first place. You can also use it as an opportunity to brainstorm new ideas or talk through problems in a less stressful space.

5. Protect yourself from the unexpected. Think about roadblocks you might hit along the way. Expect the best but prepare for those unexpected hiccups.

Things will happen that you can’t control. Do what you can to protect yourself. Set up systems and processes in your business so that you can take a vacation or care for a sick child. Make sure that things won’t fall apart if you step away for a moment. Respect yourself enough to ensure that you can take care of yourself outside of your business.

6. The buck stops with you, but… You don’t have to be alone! As a small business owner, it can be lonely making all of the decisions. Ask for help. Not everyone has the courage to start a business but most people want to help and support you.

Find other entrepreneurs to learn from. Someone a few years ahead of you can provide invaluable advice. Someone just starting can bring energy and creative ideas. The best advice I ever received came from other entrepreneurs. It takes a village.

Running your own business is one of the most exciting, and challenging, adventures you will embark upon. Take care of yourself as you set the tone and culture of your growing business. Protect yourself to ensure the business will survive the ups and downs. Running your business can be fun with a little bit of planning and with processes to make things run smoothly. Take time to set it up right so you can get back to doing what you love. I’m cheering for you!

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236499

How To Win Clients Your First Week In Business

Entrepreneurs often have the mentality, "If you build it, they will come." And often they are disappointed. Just because you launch a company, you can't expect clients to be knocking down your door, begging to sign up for your service or buy your product. Building a company and generating revenue takes time. I advise new entrepreneurs that it often takes several months -- if not longer -- to win that critical first client.  

So imagine my surprise when I received a note from my colleague Melissa Ford Holloway announcing she had four clients and four prospective clients in her first week of being open. How is this possible?

Here are the strategies she used in getting her business off the ground immediately.

Boost your confidence. Many new entrepreneurs are hesitant to go “all in” at first. What will their reception be in the marketplace? What if no one wants to hire them? What if everyone else has a better product or better skills?

But Holloway was able to launch with confidence -- and display that to prospective clients -- because she knew how she stacked up.

“Over the past few years at the agency where I worked for four years, I had to fix freelancers' work on several occasions. It hit me that if they are getting work at their skill level, and my skill level is higher, I had nothing to fear," she says. 

Network strategically. You don’t want to wait until after you’ve launched your business to look for clients. Start planning in advance. 

“A few weeks before I resigned from my last full-time job, I thought about people I've worked with in the past who have moved into senior roles,” she said. “I started booking coffees and lunches with people I could trust not to spread the word that I was on the move.”

Those people were able to provide immediate advice and referrals -- and the first day Holloway updated her LinkedIn profile, she received several inquiries.

Don’t be afraid to cold call. We’d all love to have clients begging to work with us right away, but at first, you may need to grease the wheels. Some hesitate to try cold calls, but when done well, they can be an effective option.

“I started phoning up advertising agencies to ask who I would need to meet to discuss my work as a freelancer,”Holloway said. Once she was able to connect to the right people, Holloway asked for their email address to send a short note along with her CV. And most agencies responded well to this strategy.  

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236217

Living The Dream: The Realities Of Starting A Business

Huddle co-founder Alastair Mitchell shares the five business maxims that made the difference in his start-up story ... 

Having set up Huddle back in 2006 with Andy McLoughlin, I’m all too aware of the trials and tribulations of turning your dream into a reality. And believe me, in the first few years, it involves working long hours, a terrible diet (pizza is the staple of entrepreneurs nationwide!) and almost constant feelings of uncertainty. But, for every down there are numerous ups and life as an entrepreneur sends you on an incredible journey.

You can go from feeling like Richard Branson one minute to Del Boy the next. Huddle has now grown from a two-person bedroom start-up to a company with 200 people, offices in San Francisco and New York, and clients such as SEGA, Kia Motors, Unilever and the Cabinet office, so I can assure you that the roller coaster ride is worth it!

In the spirit of sharing the entrepreneurial wisdom, here the top five tips I’d like to impart to all the aspiring young entrepreneurs out there.

1. Spend every waking hour researching and developing your idea

When setting up your own company, you need to spend every free moment working on your idea. Yes, this may get you into trouble with your other half and prove a challenge when you’re balancing your current job with your new venture, but you want to make sure you get it right. Look at what is out there already, what’s in the pipeline and see if there really is a market for your idea. Your friends and family might not necessarily be the best people to bounce an idea off – they’ll try and be as nice as possible! – so try and find a mentor that can give you a steer in the right direction and some objective advice.

2. Be uncompromising in your vision

Ensure that you don’t add to the endless list of bad products in the world and trust your gut feeling. Organisations live and die by their products so you have to focus on building the very best product you can. While you can certainly seek and take advice from trusted advisers and mentors, don’t dilute your product too much. Andy and I had a very clear and simple goal when we set up Huddle and that was to help people get their jobs done and work better together. This remains the foundation of the business today.

3. Network, network and network some more

Your network of contacts is vital and will prove invaluable when you’re looking to expand your team and gain feedback on your product or service. Take advantage every connection you have – help can come from the most random places. My first boss was Huddle’s original angel investor and this initial funding helped us get started. While online networking has never been easier thanks to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other sites, there really is no substitute for meeting people in the flesh.

4. Your customers are key – get them involved as soon as you can

Customers provide invaluable feedback, the comfort factor for prospects and proof that there is something tangible to your business for potential investors. Whether it’s an in-depth case study, press announcement or a simple logo and one-line testimonial for the website, having a customer willing to say “we use this and we love it” is as powerful a marketing message as one could wish for. Happy customers will be an extension of your marketing team (when you eventually have one) and true evangelists for your company, so place them at the heart of your business.

5. Be ruthless from the off

It’s not a problem to give away a chunk of your business as you get started – but be mindful of how much it is worth and be ruthless from the very first day. Even at the beginning, you need to be firm and strong when negotiating and doing deals. If you let people walk all over you, you’ll set a precedent from that point onwards for people to take advantage of you and get the upper hand in any negotiations.

And most of all – enjoy it!

Alastair Mitchell co-founded enterprise content collaboration company Huddle with Andy McLoughlin in 2006. Since then the company has raised $40m of venture capital in a series of rounds, has offices in London, San Francisco and New York, and names 80% of the Fortune 500 and UK central government as its clients. www.huddle.com

http://startups.co.uk/living-the-dream-the-realities-of-starting-a-business/

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