10 BUSINESS TIPS TO CONSIDER

1. Do one thing perfectly, not 10 things poorly. 

1. Businesses built around your strengths and talents will have a greater chance of success.

1. Always be ready to pitch your business. State your mission, service and goals in a clear and concise manner. Fit the pitch to the person. Less is always more.

1. Surround yourself with advisors and mentors who will nurture you to become a better leader and businessman. 

1. Your wallet is your company's life-blood. Practice and perfect the art of being frugal.

1. Never jump right into a new business without any thought or planning, but don't spend months or years waiting to execute.

1. Find ways to prove your business model on a shoestring budget.

1. Entrepreneurship is a lifestyle, not a 9-to-5 profession.

1. Know when it's time to walk away. If your idea doesn't pan out, reflect on what went wrong and the mistakes that were made.

1. Failure is not inevitable. A true entrepreneur will prevail over adversity.

5 REASONS WHY YOUR SMALL BUSINESS NEEDS A BUSINESS PLAN

1. To map the future

A business plan is not just required to secure funding at the start-up phase, but is a vital aid to help you manage your business more effectively. By committing your thoughts to paper, you can understand your business better and also chart specific courses of action that need to be taken to improve your business. A plan can detail alternative future scenarios and set specific objectives and goals along with the resources required to achieve these goals.

By understanding your business and the market a little better and planning how best to operate within this environment, you will be well placed to ensure your long-term success.

2. To support growth and secure funding

Most businesses face investment decisions during the course of their lifetime. Often, these opportunities cannot be funded by free cash flows alone, and the business must seek external funding. However, despite the fact that the market for funding is highly competitive, all prospective lenders will require access to the company’s recent Income Statements/Profit and Loss Statements, along with an up-to-date business plan. In essence the former helps investors understand the past, whereas the business plan helps give them a window on the future.

When seeking investment in your business, it is important to clearly describe the opportunity, as investors will want to know:

• Why they would be better off investing in your business, rather than leaving money in a bank account or investing in another business?
• What the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for the business arising from the opportunity is?
• Why people will part with their cash to buy from your business?
• A well-written business plan can help you convey these points to prospective investors, helping them feel confident in you and in the thoroughness with which you have considered future scenarios. The most crucial component for them will be clear evidence of the company’s future ability to generate sufficient cash flows to meet debt obligations, while enabling the business to operate effectively.

3. To develop and communicate a course of action

A business plan helps a company assess future opportunities and commit to a particular course of action. By committing the plan to paper, all other options are effectively marginalized and the company is aligned to focus on key activities. The plan can assign milestones to specific individuals and ultimately help management to monitor progress. Once written, a plan can be disseminated quickly and will also prompt further questions and feedback by the readers helping to ensure a more collaborative plan is produced.

4. To help manage cash flow

Careful management of cash flow is a fundamental requirement for all businesses. The reason is quite simple–many businesses fail, not because they are unprofitable, but because they ultimately become insolvent (i.e., are unable to pay their debts as they fall due). While the break-even point–where total revenue equals total costs–is a highly important figure for start-ups, once a business is up and running profitably, it becomes less important.

Cash flow management then becomes more vital when businesses pursue investment opportunities where there are significant cash out flows, in advance of the cash flows coming in. These opportunities need to be assessed against any seasonal variations in the business and the timing of the flows. If you are a “cash-only” business, you can bank the income immediately; however, if you sell on credit, you receive the cash in the future and hence may need to pay some of your own expenses before that income hits your account. This will put a further strain on the company’s solvency and hence a well structured business plan will help you manage funding requirements in advance.

5. To support a strategic exit

Finally, at some point, the owners of the firm will decide it is time to exit. Considering the likely exit strategy in advance can help inform and direct present day decisions. The aim is to liquidate the investment, so the owner/current investors have the option of cashing out when they want.

Common exit strategies include;

• Initial Public Offering of stock (IPO’s)
• Acquisition by competitors
• Mergers
• Family succession
• Management buy-outs
• Investment decisions can be taken in the present with one eye on the future via a well-thought-out business plan. For example, if the most attractive exit route appeared to be selling to a competitor, present day management and investment decisions could focus on activities that would increase the company’s attractiveness to that competitor.

Given that valuing firms is notoriously difficult and subjective, a well-written plan will clearly highlight the opportunity for the incoming investors, the value of it and increase the likelihood of a successful exit by the current owner.

THIRTY GREAT BUSINESS QUOTES

Some of these quotes are well known. Most are very good and worth reviewing. 

Whether you’re in the early stages of your start-up or looking for some inspiration to keep going, here is the first of 100 kickass quotes for entrepreneurs. Remember when starting your own company, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

1. “Your reputation is more important than your paycheck, and your integrity is worth more than your career.” — Ryan Freitas, About.me co-founder Click to Tweet
2. “Every time we launch a feature, people yell at us.” —Angelo Sotira, deviantART co-founder Click to Tweet
3. “Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.” —Anthony Volodkin, Hype Machine founder Click to Tweet
4. “Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations.” —Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media founder and CEO Click to Tweet
5. “If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large.” —Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO Click to Tweet
6. “Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.” —Jeffrey Zeldman, A List Apart Publisher Click to Tweet
7. “Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.” —Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO Click to Tweet
8. “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” —Thomas Edison, General Electric Co-founder Click to Tweet
9. “Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.” —Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder Click to Tweet
10. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” —Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. co-founder, chairman and CEO Click to Tweet
11. “The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.” —Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA founder Click to Tweet
12. “Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you.” —Mark Cuban, AXS TV chairman and entrepreneur Click to Tweet
13. “It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” —Scott Belsky, Behance co-founder Click to Tweet
14. “There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.” —Jason Fried, 37signals founder Click to Tweet
15. “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” —Drew Houston, Dropbox founder and CEO Click to Tweet
16. “Get five or six of your smartest friends in a room and ask them to rate your idea.” —Mark Pincus, Zynga CEO Click to Tweet
17. “If there’s something you want to build, but the tech isn’t there yet, just find the closest possible way to make it happen.” —Dennis Crowley, Foursquare co-founder Click to Tweet
18. “Fail often so you can succeed sooner.” —Tom Kelley, Ideo partner Click to Tweet
19. “Nothing works better than just improving your product.” —Joel Spolsky, Stack Overflow co-founder Click to Tweet
20. “It’s not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas.” —Edwin Land, Polaroid co-founder Click to Tweet
21. “We are currently not planning on conquering the world.” —Sergey Brin, Google co-founder Click to Tweet
22. “Get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors.” —Chris Dixon, Andreesen Horowitz investor Click to Tweet
23. “Don’t try to be original, just try to be good.” —Paul Rand, Graphic Designer Click to Tweet
24. “It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.” —Paul Graham, YCombinator co-founder Click to Tweet
25. “If you’re interested in the living heart of what you do, focus on building things rather than talking about them.” —Ryan Freitas, About.me co-founder Click to Tweet
26. “Entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.” —David Karp, Tumblr founder and CEO Click to Tweet
27. “Best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch.” —Michael Arrington, TechCrunch founder and co-editor Click to Tweet
28. “I don’t think an economic slump will hurt good ideas.” —Rob Kalin, Etsy founder Click to Tweet
29. “The last 10% it takes to launch something takes as much energy as the first 90%.” —Rob Kalin, Etsy founder Click to Tweet
30. “Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.” —Tony Hsieh,  Zappos CEO Click to Tweet

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