Entrepreneurs as investopedia

HOW DO I TAKE OVER MY FAMILY BUSINESS?

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On the other hand, when it comes to taking over a family business; when you take control of a business that has been owned by members of your family. The following questions are the list of important questions needs to look at before taking over a family business:

WHAT IS THE FAMILY BUSINESS?

You should consider family and business issues separately as it will be conflicting in managing the business relationships and family relationships if you are working with your family.

HOW DO I PREPARE FOR RUNNING THE BUSINESS?

Preparation for taking over a family business cannot start too soon. Some important steps in preparing are declaring your intentions, apprenticing, studying business, getting outside experience and building network will help you building up the confidence and the support for running the business.

HOW DO I HELP PREPARE RETIRING FAMILY MEMBERS?

When you own your own business, there is no retirement age but as part of the baby boom generation, a large proportion of family business leaders in Canada expect to retire over the next decade. The majority of these don’t have formal plans for what they will do when they retire. So you should involve information and advisers and identify the needs and the wants for their retirement and include it in preparing a plan.

WHAT ARE THE LEGAL ISSUES?

Taking over the family business is really about two separate issues that is taking over management authority for the business and taking over legal ownership of the business which includes taxation issues, legal form issues, insurance issues and alternative compensation issues.

WHAT TAKEOVER PROBLEMS WILL I FACE?

There are great many factors that contribute to the poor success rates for second generation entrepreneurs because of the hasty expansion, losing key employees, succumbing to family politics, failing to develop a strategy and problems in managing the transition such as empowering employees, providing ongoing communication and rewarding support.

HOW DO I BUY FRANCHISE?

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In this blog we will look at the questions need to be considered before buying a franchise . Firstly we will discuss about buying a franchise so we look at the following questions:

HOW DOES FRANCHISING WORK?

In the above question we will cover the types of franchises like licensing, dealership franchising, conversion franchising, multilevel marketing and business format franchising.

IS FRANCHISING RIGHT TO ME?

Buying a franchise from an established, growing, and ethical franchisor can have a many benefits as well as drawbacks. Merits of franchising include marketing research, brand strategy, existing customer, training, advertising power and complete package. However the drawbacks involve the franchise fee, franchisor control, royalties, advertising and lack of goodwill equity. Although it also franchisor also look the personal skills which suits for being a franchiser.

HOW DO I CHOOSE A FRANCHISE?

These is full process you should go through before buying a franchise but the main three things you should keep in mind are minimum investment, initial franchise fee and required capital; also, assessing the franchisor, assessing the opportunity and buying an existing franchise.

HOW CAN I FINANCE A FRANCHISE?

You should keep in mind the financial requirements and sources of finance like personal sources, government programs, banks and investors.

WHAT ARE THE CONTRACT ISSUES?

Lawyers working on behalf of the franchisor prepare the franchise agreement to ensure that every sentence of every paragraph benefits and protects the franchisor. Your interest in the contract is to make sure that you understand the implications for each of its provisions, and decide whether or not you are willing to accept those conditions.

TRENDS AND CHALLENGES IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

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In the following blog we will answer the question of how will I prepare for the future as we will tell the emerging trends and issues in entrepreneurs which will be an advantage an disadvantage in some or the other way around. Our focus will be the currently shaping the understanding and the practice of entrepreneurs:

WHAT ARE THE RECENT CHALLENGES FOR SMALL BUSINESS?

In the current times, entrepreneurs are having great challenge with e-business technologies for small firms which include websites, e commerce and operations software. It is also challenging in using of social media like Facebook, twitter, YouTube and blogs etc. however the economy and the environment of small business is also changing according to the challenges in the market for the firms.

WHAT ARE SOME CURRENT TRENDS IN RESEARCH?

It is relatively focusing on scientific inquiry like policy makers, practitioners, educators and other researchers. They classify the entrepreneurship in three ways as novice entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs and portfolio entrepreneurs. It also shows the studies of minority and female entrepreneurs producing more result and equal benefit to all business owners.

WHAT IS SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

A social enterprise, unlike a traditional business must have a purpose other than making profits. A myriad of organizations could be called social enterprises, but most will fall into one of the three board categories such as non-profit organizations, co-operative enterprises and mutual benefit societies.

WHAT ARE THE EMERGING TRENDS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION?

Business school approaches has been changed and e tools available in schools and universities for teaching and also it will be helping in entrepreneurship as well as international development.

WHAT ARE THE MANAGEMENT ISSUES FOR SMALL BUSINESS?

We looked at management in terms of its broad functional areas or activities but for convenience these skills are grouped into four categories such as leadership skills, communication skills, organizational skills and crisis management skills.

In conclusion, the trends and challenges have been giving a new direction to small firms and changes the economy and environment so tremendously.

THE PURCHASE ALTERNATIVES.

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In this blog we will look at the purchase alternatives and the process of becoming an owner, or part owner, of a business that is already up and running. Just like starting a new business, this method of getting into business will require a business plan and it also include the following questions:

IS BUYING A BUSINESS RIGHT FOR ME?

Buying an existing business is usually expensive than starting a brand new company because you can shrink your ideas down to fit your budget in the market however, the existing business require the same expenses as an mature company spend in the market. Let’s talk about the merits and the risks of buying existing business.

MERITS

· Efficient methods and procedure: existing company systems have refined over time for some measure of efficiency that you would not have when starting a new business. The owner of the existing business should have made already most of the mistakes so it leave no room for error anymore.
· Defined market: through several mistakes the existing company should have already found their potential customers and how to deal with them in an appropriate way.
· Established customers: Existing customers have earned a great image and branding in the market; also they have build their customers with the goodwill in the market. Although a new business has to go through a hard time to build a great image and branding.
· Established suppliers: this is important not just because of proven reliability, but also because of any credit terms that are in place with them.
· Trained employees: having employees in place not only keeps the business going and generating cash, but these employees can also serve as a resource to help train you as the new owner.

RISKS

· Overvalued assets and redundant assets: the assets are overvalued sometimes and as a follower you have to buy because the existing company rules. Also redundant assets are owned by a business that are not necessary for it to produce profit at current or projected levels.
· Lease problem: escalator clauses and inability to renew are major problems. You may be looking at a business whose success depends on the site, but the lease for the property runs out in three years. Alternatively, you can first make a offer on the business that is conditional on your being able to negotiate an acceptable lease with the landlord.
· Negative Image: some business has a bad reputation among their potential customers. However it can be changed with changing the name of the company or have the same name but put up under new management.
· Impending location changes: Some businesses are depending on the geographic area of the business like retails and consumer service business. If the location is not good to gain traffic for the business it is better to change the location and if planned changes will dramatically alter the traffic patterns around the business site, you might rethink your buying decision.

WHAT’S INVOLVED IN BUYING THE BUSINESS?

Many of the risks in buying a business can be minimized by properly assessing the business. The assessment should logically cover most of the factors in the business plan, looking whether the business is satisfactory in each area as well as identifying things you can do to improve if you owned the business. You should always consider before buying the business because sometimes business owner is in trouble and look for new capital to keep business alive but it only works for few years more and it end up in failing with the new capital with it. If you buying a part ownership in a business it should be because the business is growing and need capital for well-planned expansion; also you have some expertise that would be an advantage to the business and the current owner are willing to give up some equity in order to get you in his business.

WHAT SHOULD THE PURCHASE AGREEMENT INCLUDE?

· Shares vs. Assets: the store, factory, or office will look the same and the company may have the same name and the same employees, but it will be a different legal entity consisting of you and any partners you may have. When you are buying a company either you can buy the assets of the company or the shares of the company.
· Payment Options: in many cases, the seller wants to have the full payment on the finalization of sale. But the seller will be in trouble if a buyer found out the actual reason for selling the company. In that situation buyer will have leverage to negotiate with the seller on the payment or he can ask for the advantages or benefits from the owner to buy .
· Non-competition issues: purchase agreement will often include the restrictions that prevent the old owner of a business from entering into any form of competition with the business. These usually preferred with the geographic range or a time limit. The need for such a restriction is obvious if the business involved the personal services of the owner.
· Disclosure Issues: it basically says that the seller agrees to tell you about anything that might adversely affect your decision to buy the business. This covers all of the items listed in the risks of buying a business.
· Continuing assistance: it is a fairly practice to have the old owner on the board to help as a employee or adviser, often for an extended period after business is sold. It can be arranged under the conditions of the purchase agreement.

HOW MUCH SHOULD I PAY?

A business is constantly changing and adapting to the market place, the environment in which it lives. It grows, it shrinks, it gets sick or healthy. We use different methods to analyses the actual value of the business which includes valuation concepts which involves ratio analysis, rate of return and present value. However we can also use valuation methods like asset methods and income methods. In spite of many objective methods of valuing a business, ultimately the value of a firm is whatever price can be negotiated between a buyer and seller. In determining a price to pay for a business, however, it is only prudent to use a variety of different techniques for estimating the value of the firm.

In this process of purchasing you should consider all the possible alternatives you can think of. Buying alternatives will lead to the leverages and merits of existing business to buy at a negotiate price from the seller.

HOW TO MANAGE FINANCES AT WORK?

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Organizing the finances is the last step in the basic business plan. But for many business plans it’s easy to prepare as much of the work is already done in first step. Now it is only matter of organizing numbers and work on the accounts of the business. For organizing the finance in an appropriate way, the best way is to go through the following questions.

How will I explain the Business Finances?

The standard way is to use the financial statements which have different purpose but they all lead to increase sales in future but in the business plan usually we consider three main types:

BALANCE SHEET-It is a statement of the financial position of a business at a particular point of time. They also include projected balance sheet which shows where the business will stand financially on opening day, at the end of the first year, at the end of the second year and at the end of the third year.

INCOME STATEMENT-it is a statement of a business‘s profit or loss over a given period of time. It also shows the projected income statement which includes first three years of business. They will show the year’s expected sales, costs, expenses, and profit or loss. In all it will show why the balance sheet has changed every year.

CASH FLOW STATEMENT: it is a statement of cash going into and out of a business over a given period of time, and how this has affected the cash balance. It also includes the projected cash flow statements which has three of these covering the same periods as income statements. By planning when cash comes in and goes out of your business, you will conclude that you will always pay bills that are due.

How will I track the Finances?

To have a profitable business plan, you should consider break-even point before start making profit in your business. However BREAK-EVEN is the point at which a company starts to make a profit; the point where sales are sufficient to cover all of the costs and expenses of a company. There is only one formula to calculate the break –even point. You may include this valuable tracking tool in your business plan.

FIXED EXPENSES

BREAK –EVEN = --------------------------------------------------------

CONTRIBUTION RATIO

Secondly, you can also track you finance with CREDIT AND COLLECTIONS in which an entrepreneur assign the collector policy if their customers are not paying the payments within the time period. It will help to maintain the credit of the company by messing up the customer’s credit if they are not paying the money for the service/product. They also include the information such as the sales of the firm, the amount of assets and debts it carries, and the speed at which they usually pay its bills. Set limits of credit for individual customers and stick to these limits, regularly checking to see who owes you and how much. Your credit and collections policy and how you enforce it will have a big influence on when money comes into your business. This is important for you to be able to plan your cash flow.

Lastly, the cash flow as I described in first part of finance statements. Cash flow helps to maintain the day to day credit of your business and also helps to avoid bankruptcy. The first task in preparing cash flow projection is to look at your annual sales forecasts and then break this down into monthly forecasts. This is a guesswork, part experience, and part logic. For a new business, the problem of monthly fluctuations is compounded by the expected pattern of growth. This issue was examined when you prepared your sales forecasts and then look at the sales by monthly.

Where will I get the money?

This is the last big question in the preparing the business plan. It shows the sources required to start the business. You can use the following sources to start your business:

PERSONAL SOURCES- the new business owners contributes materials and equipment or personal cash, or puts up other personal assets as COLLATERAL for borrowing money from bank for from funding sources.

LOVE MONEY- this source of seed capital is referred as love money because it is largely loaned on the basis of relationship as opposed to the strength of the business plan or the amount of collateral. Interestingly, the ease of access to love money seems to be culturally related, with some ethnic groups setting a higher priority on family entrepreneurship.

GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS- many millions of dollars are earmarked each year by the federal and provincial governments to assist small entrepreneur in one way or another. But politicians and bureaucrats are much like managers in other large institutions: they need to prove their accomplishments with statistics. These programs involve the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), Canada Small Business Financing Program (CSBF) and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC).

CHARTERED BANKS

Basically banks lend money to small entrepreneurs in two ways:

TERM LOANS: these are loans given with a fixed repayment period, usually for fixed assets at a fixed interest rate. They are typically used for things like store fixtures, vehicles, and equipments.

LINES OF CREDIT: these allow a borrower to “overdraft” a cheque account up to a preset amount. Typically, the borrower pays back a portion of the outstanding balance each month at a variable interest rate. The amount the borrower has access to is often a percentage of inventory or account receivable.

INVESTORS

INVESTORS are the wealthy individuals who invest in independent small business and who are not related to the business owners.

The process of rewriting may be more necessary for the financial section of the business plan and than any other. Every other planning decision you make will have some financial implications and the above information will help you to prepare your financial section of business plan. After finance most of the work for the basic business plan will be completed.

HOW CAN I ORGANIZE MANAGEMENT AND WORK? .

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To analyze an idea, it should work practically. In addition, we will talk about the evidence to operate and organizing a business through this blog. This blog is basically emphasis on day- to- day routine required in managing a business. To determine the evidences we will look on the following questions which will help us with our result.

How will I manage the Space and Equipment?

- It allows being knowledge about using the space effectively with required equipments. The important thing you have to consider before buying equipments that you are not buying it for home so if it is possible buy the used ones to acquire necessities. Secondly, when it comes to office set-up it considers the personal work habits, idiosyncrasies, and needs and efficiency with flexibility. However in the retail set-up volume of self space allocation, positioning of merchandise and security get involved in the process. In manufacturing or wholesale set-up should be carefully plan the shipping and receiving functions .the storage set-up is a balance between maximum use of the space and maximum ability to locate and access materials and finished products when they are needed. It also involves the process set-up and the product set –up which is an important consideration in wholesale set-up.

How will I manage the Process?

- The steps which need to require in managing the process is logistics, purchasing, procedures and quality and customer service.

How will I manage Information?

- To manage information keeping records, small-business software is helpful. It is easy to keep records depending on the financial complexity of your business activity, your own ability and training, how much you can afford to pay an accountant to do the work and your accounting software.

How will I manage myself and others in the Firm?

- Management is the setting and achieving of a company’s goals and objectives, often through the work of others. The following steps should consider to maintain management in business:

Planning: goals and Objectives

Dividing the Tasks

Leadership: Accomplishing More

Getting paid

How will I manage the Government?

- To avoid conflicts between your business and government you should have license and permit to run the business and pay taxes on time to maintain good credit and also consider the regulation applied on specific area. However, professional and industry Associations are nor owned or run by the government, although in some cases they form a type of government themselves to oversee the regulation and licensing for a profession.

In End, management helps to coordinate and operate work properly according to the plan which will be useful and effective to get the desired results.

HOW TO MANAGE FINANCES AT WORK?

THE PURCHASE ALTERNATIVES.

FRANCHISE & FAMILY ALTERNATIVES.

BEST WAYS TO EXPAND A BUSINESS.

TRENDS AND CHALLENGES IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

GREAT MARKETING STRATEGIES

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In previous blog we discussed about the important things we should consider to attract more customers in which MARKETING is an important step to persuade customers. In early era, marketing was done through traditional way like newspaper, radio and television. In 21st century the advertisements and promotions are done through different resources of Media. However, word-of-mouth was the common resource in every era but still it is hard to rely on this resource for sales. In real world business plans commonly use the following promotional strategies to persuade customers:

ADVERTISING MEDIA

Advertising is defined as the attempt to persuade through mass communications media. The question rises here is “What Advertising Medium Might I Use” which leads us to consider the market segment of our business. You do not need to pay to all advertising media sources as it will be more expensive for new business. Choose the best sources which will help you to persuade your potential customers. There is different variety of advertising mediums as follow:

Internet Advertising: Many young entrepreneurs, typically people highly familiar with the Internet, assume that Web will be the best avenue for promotion. It is described as the variety of evolving promotional options through the medium of World Wide Web; still relatively lacking in data as to cost- effectiveness for small firms. It is the growing medium in every sector which is least expensive and increase sales really quickly. It is recommended medium for the new beginners and specifically for young entrepreneurs.

Direct Mail: A form of advertising that communicates individually with large number of potential buyers through postal or electronic mail. This advertisement is basically done by following the postal track, customer lists, subscription lists and compiled lists. Through these lists marketers send promotional, regular mails to potential customers. It is expensive medium of advertisement and it is not commonly referred by customers.

Newspaper: For small businesses, it is too expensive for daily circulation of newspaper. However, community newspapers can be helpful for promotion as it is a smaller-circulation newspaper targeting a specific geographic area, often published weekly. In addition, there is a specialty newspaper can be used too as it’s a smaller-circulation newspaper targeting customers who have a particular interest or are of a particular ethnic background. But to choose the newspaper medium, you should consider your market segment of your business.

Magazines: However, the newspaper and magazines are almost similar when it comes to promotion. It is expensive too but the advantage of promoting your business through magazine is that your ad will be there for your customers for three months. In addition, the most important magazines for small, new specialty businesses are trade journals which are written for people involved in specific industries.

Directors: these are the published lists of supplies for particular gods and services; for example a trade directory, an antique dealer’s directory, a directory of professional actors. It is useful if it is published in online versions of directories. It can be useful in search engines to promote but it can be wasted depending on the search engines used to promote your business. It is not too expensive but it can be wastage of money if you business do not need to get searched often.

Outdoor Advertising: Visual promotion aimed at passing vehicle and pedestrian traffic. For example posters, handbills, vehicle lettering, sandwich boards. It can be used if you have a business like real estate but your most significance piece of advertising is business sign. Illuminated store signs are expensive, so plan to have that sign for a long time. Don’t forget, the sign will often be the first impression potential customers have of your business.

ADVERTISING CONTENT

The advertisement content is the one of the important part where marketers need to think a lot as it should grab attention, project the right image and get action. In your business plan, you should explain the media you chose for advertising and promotion and the reason for choosing this media; will it work effectively and how you will know you spend your money wisely. To track the advertising effectiveness you should include activity, sales and profit to keep records of media.

PUBLICITY

It is describes as promotion by spreading information about a company, product/service without directly paying for the use of media space or time for example, campaign including letters, clippings, brochures, free t-shirt.

ONE-ON-ONE SELLING

It is also named as personal selling which described as promotion of services/products through person to person interaction between the supplier and the potential customer. Many new entrepreneurs are afraid of the fact of being a salesperson but selling is required in every career of life. There are few steps that should be considered in selling i.e. prospecting, approach, qualifying, presentation, and closing. After the deal is done the last step is to manage objectives.

SALES PROMOTION

It is a collection of techniques for getting customers to buy goods or services. These techniques do not fit into any of the more discrete categories of advertising, publicity, or personal selling. It can be preceded through giveaways, coupons, premiums, events, trade shows, displays, and free samples. In conclusion, the blog describes all the marketing strategies which are greatly influenced by small business owners and others too. However, Internet has be the cheapest among all in the terms of expense.

HOW WILL I GET CUSTOMERS?

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In Business World, Entrepreneurs execute an image of the plan before they execute the plan into reality. To have a great image in the market, the company needs to plan the tactics to promote the product or service to customer. A good brand image always attracts more customers, branding is not relatively considered with the product or service. It is considered with the marketing and how the marketers can bring bulk of customers to company. The following are the questions which need to be seen before an Entrepreneur sign an ad agency for full service:

· How will I become a specialist?

There are three ways to become a specialist and developed strategies to get customers. One is the projected image which is considered as the impression of your business created in the minds of potential customers by everything that you do. Second is the name of your business, before you choose a name for your business you should aim for getting attention, be easy to remember and project the image you want through the name. Last is the market strategy which includes the marketing mix i.e. product, price, distribution and promotion.

· What combination of things I should sell in the market?

The specialization product/service is a good criterion for starting stage of the business as your business needs to have customers rather than variety of products/services in business. But when the business has enough capital to invest it into expanding of business then it is the time to manufacture and introduce more variety of products/services in the market. For example, if you are a web designer which is your specialization and you earned enough capital from web development that you can introduce web course trainings and seminars, it will become a combination of products/services through same business.

· What should be the price?

According to marketers, low pricing is a good strategy for a new business to start with rather than having high pricing without having high quality and branding name. Low pricing attract more group of customers but it can increase the selling quantity of product/service. However, there should be a limit to lower the price. In addition, there is also a competitive pricing strategy where price id same as your competitors. It is really competitive if you have same price as competitors because the business should stress more on marketing mix.

· How will my products or services get to the customers?

The answer is through distribution channels which are defined as legal or contractual elements of how a service or product gets from the producer to the end –users.

· How I should promote my product/service?

Promotional strategy is the approach a business users to inform and persuade its customers, including techniques of advertising and selling. Business history is full of contests between entrepreneurs with superior products versus entrepreneurs with superior promotion. Superior promotion mostly wins; it is the best way to actively promote the business plan that projects your objected image. The common promotional strategies are as following:

Advertising media
Advertising content
Publicity
One-on-one selling
Sales promotion.

These are the most important ways to judge your business on the basis of why customers choose you business as one of their choices.

Try it and then Apply it!

HOW MUCH BUSINESS WILL MY FIRM GET?

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The answer is SALES FORECAST which is a critical component in business plan. SALES FORECAST is an estimate of how much money a business will bring in over a given period. Typically, a business plan included at least three years of annual sales forecast to determine the sales. The process of developing your sales forecast will be closely associated with the work to determine market potential and should follow the same principle of using secondary sources first.

Quick Note: Market potential provides information of how much money a group of potential customers will spend on a particular product or service.

However, the sales forecast can provide more accurate result if we use more sources of information to prepare the forecast. The following sources are the most likely which can be used:

· Industry Statistics

Library information on specific industries that used to determine market potential can be used to understand correlations of sales which is describes as a known facts about an industry that can be expressed as a ratio of the industry’s sales.

· Customer buying intentions

With help of primary research as questionnaires for the market potential, you can basically intent customers to be the potential customers and offer the service or product with particular price.

· How long it takes to get new customers

If your business is new, you will be aware about how many hours of selling or how many calls it takes to generate single new customers. However, the test marketing which is a process of trying to sell product or service to a limited number of customers and carefully measuring factors like customer feedback and how long it takes to make a sale. The investors are more likely interested in how easy you can get a new customer with your product or service which shows the speeding operation of your company in the market. But the fact is that it takes more time to make a new customer than serving the existing one.

· Expert opinion

The other best way is to confirm the expert’s opinion because interviewing several people who have expertise in your particular industry can help you to guess the sales forecast range for you business plan.

· How much business the competition gets

The idea is to monitor the sales forecast of you direct competitor for the same particular industry. It will give you an idea of your estimate sales forecast as you have same potential customers.

· All the business out there

This explains the idea of all the business in the market related to your industry can also help you to estimate the sales forecast of your company.

· The amount of business the firm can handle

Usually the most business can handle 100% of their capacity which helps keep other people estimating about your sales forecast in perspectives. Mostly the capacity is determined by the fact is the firm can handle the expenses to grow his industry.

HOW DO I KNOW MY IDEA WILL WORK?

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LOCATION

A successful business needs a great entrepreneur to handle all the decisions related to business and profit. Sometimes entrepreneurs with great ideas do not get as successful as potential their ideas are. To start a business, passion and ideas create a vision of business but to make it real, entrepreneurs need to be realistic towards every decision they make. However, there are few concepts related to location of a business which I prefer to cover up in this blog.

· Do you think Market Research is important before you finalize the location?

Yes, it is important technically as it depend where you up the business. To finalize the location you should ask yourself below questions.

· How important is the location to the success in my business?

· How close the location is to your customers?

· Is it convenient for customers to approach?

· What site do I prefer for my business?

· Does my business need a great image according to site?

The main considerations for location are usually closeness to customers, transportation, supplies, and various services. Generally, your business location should be close to your potential customer or services but it does not matter if you are starting any online business because you deliver your service or product through online. So you physical location does not matter anymore in online business. For manufactures like in –house publication needs to be located near their suppliers as if publisher do the writing, creating and design but the printing is done by supplies, so its prefer to stay close to your supplier as often the number one priority so that you can have a checking proof on you printings.

However, site issues are different from location as it can be defines as a specific place where business is conducted, expressed as a particular block, address, suite, or part of a building. The main considerations related to site are traffic, visibility, parking and neighbouring business.
Ask yourself:

· When might too much traffic be bad for your business?

Traffic can be either the automobile or pedestrian varieties. To analyze your traffic, you should identify the time period your potential customers pass by your business. Again, it depends on the selling of product or service or who you are selling to? If you are selling frequently purchased products to a broad consumer market, then the trick is that you find a site where a lot of potential traffic of walking or drive by for example convenience stores.

· Will the sign be noticeable and readable from the stream of traffic? Will the entrance be obvious?

Visibility includes the ability to see into your place of business. If you rely on the high volume of traffic passes by from your place, your need to make them enter your place and let them see your products visible through windows which will lead traffic curious about your place for example, beauty salons.

· What parking problems will bother you the most?

To solve the parking problems, you need to identify enough space for your customers to park and come to you even in peak time. For example if your store is sited in mall and at evening there is not enough parking for customers to park and shop, they might neglect to come to you and find your competitor who situated in a plaza with his own parking only for his customers to park free under his name.

· What if your neighbouring business is a complementary business or competition?

If you are neighbour with complementary business means who sell different product or service to same potential customers. It is good site for your business as you will gain more traffic from your neighbour. For example, a discount shoe store suited beside a discount clothing store. Whereas, being a neighbour with your competitor is not a good idea as your potential customers get shared with your competitor and lose and also you face challenge of becoming specialized in ways that will make you slightly different from your competitor for example, restaurants.

WHAT BUSINESS WILL I BE IN?

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To start a business, Entrepreneurs need a plan before executing any idea. There are different forms of self-employment and different things to examine who should be in business as an Entrepreneur. As small business is an independently owned organization which seeks profit for its own and have less than 500 employees. Small business is not based on the number of workers working in a firm and there is not a limited requirement for small business; also the profit can vary depending on field of business. For an entrepreneur the best way is to start a small business with a mixer of their passion. However, to start a new business an entrepreneur is someone who risks money but being a risk taker they need to be realistic about their plan, so they take the help of CANADA REVENUE AGENCY which is the department of federal government that acts as Canada’s tax collector and helps to carry the taxes of each service an entrepreneur is paying from their pockets. There are following questions that an Entrepreneur will go through before making a plan.

· DO I HAVE AN ENTREPRENEUR PERSONALITY?

Being an entrepreneur itself is a freedom but it also comes with a lot of responsibilities. The attitude and the behavior of a person depicts its actions if a person is confident , responsible, self-controlled he will automatically gain a lot of people interests in his actions but if the person is shy, irresponsible and introvert he is not going to attract a lot of customers. For example the students who get average grades always become a good entrepreneur and the above average 80-90 becomes good employees, whereas the students who carry above 90 mostly become professors. It is just a rough calculus to show the most average of entrepreneurs born from the average students who like to create their own way to live a life, and it is all about a personality of entrepreneur. So before you start a business write the qualities you have and take a look if you can be good employee or a good entrepreneur.

· WHAT SORT OF ENVIRONMENT WILL I PREFER TO WORK?

There is a strong emotional component in entrepreneur i.e. their passion which provides the tremendous amount of energy to start a firm. The other emotions in business are not important that are just provocative. Now a days, people prefer to work at home as they think it will be more easy and comfortable for them but the reality is working from home does not sound professional for example, you arrange a meeting in your office which is in the basement of your house. Do you think the customers will be comfortable to come to your basement? The other reason for the people who wants to work from home is that they have a benefit of taking care of their kids but it can be a disadvantage because it will be harder to manage time with kids and work at the same time. To make a good environment around, it is better to work from an office and you will have a good image about business too.

· WHAT IS MY BUSINESS IDEA?

A business idea is all about the products or services you want to introduce in the market. The business idea is very important in creating the plan because everything revolves around that product or service. The major concepts needed before finalizing the idea are the specialization and targeting. The product or service should have a speciality which will makes it different from other products or services in the market place. For example, if you start a business of clothing then use the special kind of cotton, silk or textures to differentiate your products from others. The other concept is really important when you find the speciality in your product then find the target market which will buy your product in the market.

· WHICH FORM IS SUITABLE FOR MY BUSINESS?

There are different forms as I told you in the starting but you need to identify the form which will be suitable for you and your money.

SOLE PROPRIETORSHIP-It is a legal form of business where only one person owns and has the legal rights to operate it. It has unlimited liability for the debts of company.

GENERAL PARTNERSHIP-A form of business in which two or more people owns and operates the company and each owner has unlimited liability for all the debts of the company.

CO-OPERATION- A legal form of business that exists separately from its shareholders (owners), who have limited liability for the company debts.

OTHER LEGAL FORMS-Limited partnership, Limited liability partnership (LLB) and worker co-operatives.

· HOW SHOULD I START MY BUSINESS?

Now is the time when you take your first step in the business as making a business plan. Before taking critical decisions about manufacturing, marketing, finance and pricing strategies in real, you will need to prepare a proofread for you to start the initial steps of your business. REMEMBER: most of the things in plan are rewritten because you always make mistakes in your first plan and then learn from the scratch plans to made before to make the final first step of your business.

Go Ahead!

Take the first step and write your business plan.

ENTREPRENEURS AS ROOTS OF BUSINESS

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According to Stevenson, entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled. Entrepreneur defines a person who organizes and manages business with initiative and risk. They are commonly seen as creators and innovators who offer to sale new ideas in the business market.

Wardle Ball of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs play a key role to start up a business and act as a root of new firms in economy. The seeds are the ideas which need proper nutrition of business planning, investment and objectives. They make right decisions to make the ideas profitable. The rewards for risk taking in the potential market that entrepreneur could earn ventures.

Thinking different makes a person capable of Entrepreneurship.

As being an Entrepreneur everyone seeks the ideas and concepts of the leader. An Entrepreneur should have the ability to introduce products and services in creative way by introducing new technology, increasing more productivity and generating new products. An Entrepreneur builds an environment of positivity and creativity around themself. For example, Real Estate Agents are good example of Entrepreneurs. As the agents are positive in creating and innovating new buildings with a particular target market and provide great deals of investment for their clients. They are good in finding the needs of the customers and plan their services according to their clients need. However, every business needs an entrepreneur who can give direction to a firm. Entrepreneur binds their employees together as a team members aimed to one objective i.e. fulfillment of their clients need. Entrepreneurs are the innovators who lead people for their goals by providing them different ideas for their businesses.