Examine Your Motivation for Business
Ownership
This
series will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
Knowing them ahead of time will help you plan for any
problems that may occur because of them. You can overcome
your weaknesses, by either hiring someone to do them for
you, patterning with someone that can handle that aspect
of the business, or train to strengthen yourself.
Answering
these tough questions is the first and one of the most
important steps in your decision-making process to enter
the world of business ownership. Ask yourself hard questions.
Be brutally honest with yourself as most small businesses
fail due to problems and issues that arise which should
have been anticipated and dealt with initially.
Table
of contents:
Your
Personal Evaluation - What are the personal traits
most used in owning and operating your own business?
Pros
& Cons of a Home Based Business What
is a homebased business like?
Financial
Consideration Can
you afford to start a business?
Personal Goal Setting
What do you want out of your business?
Your
Personal Evaluation
Your
Personal Objective
Have
you defined your personal needs? What
are your financial objectives?
Why
do you think you will be happy as a business owner?
Are
you mainly interested in money, power or flexibility?
Have
you examined your family needs?
Personal
skills and education.
Make an honest appraisal of your personal skills and
education. You should list everything, especially if
you are unsure what type of business in which you want
to become involved. Don't list any faults or doubts
here. This is a place to remember all of the things
that you know how to do well (no skimping on personal
praise).
Do
you like to sell? Can you sell? You will be required to
sell yourself, your company and your products.
Do
you have special skills or education in a particular industry?
How
will these talents help you in the development and operation
of your own business?
Your
Business Knowledge.
If you know what you are interested in, list what you
know about the field or industry. If you are well versed,
simply outline the general areas. If you are not sure,
you should list everything. Concentrate on specific business
information rather than general life experience. All experience
will be useful, but we can only use the business experience
when we are making a decision about what skills you may
need to develop in order to run your business.
Your
decision making abilities.
When you own your business, you are in charge, and many
decisions will have to be made based on what you think.
Not all of these decisions will have to be made immediately,
but some of them will have to. If your normal response
is to give problem solving to someone else, then you will
probably have difficulty with running a business.
Are
you authoritarian or a team player? How will this affect
your relationship with employees, customers, and suppliers?
Can
you handle the stress of time deadlines from customers?
Can
you live with yourself if you have to fire an employee?
Are
you willing to risk everything you own?
Will you be able to live with yourself with the fear of
loss? Will your family?
Can you handle weeks or months of “entrepreneurial terror,”
I.e., insufficient cash flow for all the reoccurring obligations
such as taxes, payroll, accounts payable or debt payments?
Identify
your entrepreneurial skills.
As we mentioned earlier, a lot of Successful entrepreneurs
have a lot of initiative and also take risks, and they have
learned from making their own mistakes. Taking a clear look
at your source of motivation and your belief in yourself
will help you to be prepared for the challenges that come
with owning your own business.
Are
you persistent?
Do you keep your goal clearly in mind?
Do
you learn from your mistakes?
Am
I adaptable to new and different ideas?
If
something can't be done, do you find a way?
Do
you see problems as challenges?
Do
you take chances?
Are
you willing to undergo sacrifices to gain possible long
term rewards?
Probably
the three most important factors on the road to Success
are: the ability to be flexible, the willingness to change
with the market as technology advances, and the ability
to trust yourself. If you have all of these, you are more
than halfway there. Once you have completed your assessment,
you may want to review all three areas to determine where
you are at this point in time. By evaluating and understanding
the whys and hows of what you have or have not accomplished
up to this point in your life, you can better use this
knowledge to your advantage, now and in the future. The
following questions will help you do this. Remember, the
more honest you can be in answering the questions, the
more useful the information will be to you.
Evaluate
yourself.
What do you feel are your main strengths?
What do you feel are your more serious weaknesses?
How do you think someone else might answer the above two
questions about you?
What talents do you possess and in what situations have
you been able to use them?
How would you personally define the idea of having a job
or being employed?
Now,
things are already starting to make sense or you are beginning
to have doubts. Either way, listen to your feelings and
trust yourself. In the end, these are only tools for you
to use in your evaluation process, nothing more and nothing
less. Next
are the pros and cons to having a home-based business.
Next:
The pros and cons of having a Homebased Business
Back to Homebased Business Homepage
