10 Tips to Starting Your Career as an Entrepreneur

Apr 18, 11 10 Tips to Starting Your Career as an Entrepreneur

This article offers 10 Essential tips to starting your career as an entrepreneur. Offers emerging entrepreneurs information on how to start their own business.

There are a few basic steps you can take to begin navigating your course to a more fulfilling life and career. To begin you must,

1. Determine the type of business you want to pursue and what business you are actually undertaking. Is your business in manufacturing, distribution or service?

2. Determine if there’s a gap in the marketplace that your business could possibly fill? Some of the most successful companies have taken advantage of this opportunity. Is there a growing customer base for your niche?

3. Do your research: you must understand the market for your business. How does the current economic climate affect your business and business in general? Business periodicals and journals including Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal and Huffington Post are great online reference materials to do further research

4. Networking with other business owners: Talking to other business owners is one of the best education’s you can receive. Attending local networking events is a great way to meet business owners and learn about the dynamics of running your own business versus working as an employee. You should begin networking as you are developing your business plan and beyond.

5. Create a vision for your business: Write down how you envision your company functioning and growing. Where do you see your company in five or ten years? Determine what your exit/transition strategy will be in the event that you are longer able to effectively run your business for personal or health reasons.

6. Create your business plan: This is a guide for setting up your business and will help you craft a strategic plan to accomplish those quarterly objectives stated in your plan. A great resource is bplans.com which provides free sample business plans and templates for various industries.

7. Create a financial plan for your business. Include the cost of producing and distributing your product/service, staffing needs, renting/leasing a location, marketing/advertising costs, and insurance and legal costs.

8. Determine your Social Media Strategy: With the growth of social media sites as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, there is a great opportunity for startup organizations to use these tools to market their business, increase brand awareness and widen their consumer base. There are so may resources out there in the area of social media and it is growing daily. It not necessary to hire a company to manage your social media. At this point, I would do the research and test to find out what works.

9. Find a mentor or business coach to help you navigate the waters of entrepreneurship! A great reference is George C. Fraser’s book Click about the art of building and cultivating business and personal relationships.

10. Believe in yourself and your business, and know that failure is never an option.

Moreover, read as much as you possibly can! Reading about how business is evolving, educates you about the career you are undertaking. It also provides insight, helps you develop, strategize, and exposes you to new ideas and opportunities.

source: http://business.wikinut.com/10-Tips-to-Starting-Your-Career-as-an-Entrepreneur/z7y1m-dx/