How to Find Investors for Your Business Idea

Having a great business idea is just the first step. Getting funding for your new company is the more challenging task that follows up. Often, individuals are discouraged from making their dream a reality because of the limited funding opportunities that are available.

It is possible to find investment for a business idea, even if the economy is slow. Presentation of your idea and having a highly professional business plan will show potential investors that you are serious and that you have what it takes to succeed. The following tips will help you present yourself well and capture the interest of potential investors.

A Great Business Plan is Prerequisite Number One:
Investors are busy people. They have many years of experience in corporate management and they can immediately recognize people who are serious about starting a business and the ones that are making amateur attempts.

To impress a potential investor, you need a solid business plan. Good business plans require a lot of research and hours of preparation. You have to be familiar with the market, with your financial needs and with the specifics of the product that will turn it into a success.

A poorly written business plan will be discarded immediately, which means that your business attempts end before you will have even gotten the chance to prove yourself.

Offer Something Unique and Market-Worthy:
Even if you have the greatest product idea, you may still find it difficult to get funding. The investors will analyze the idea’s revenue-generation potential.

Choose the right market niche. It has to be relatively empty. Trying to compete against major, well-established players will make it difficult for you to get a market share and to begin making money.

Great product ideas are the ones that can be sold easily. Think about practicality and about finding the right target audience. This is the product development you will need to follow, in order to attract investment.

Have Realistic Expectations:
Having realistic expectations and understanding that failure is a possibility will help you negotiate and present your business plan in a solid, professional manner. Investors avoid working with dreamers. Although having a grand vision is great for a start, you will have to learn how to keep it real.

Just think about it! Investors meet dreamers and new entrepreneurs on a regular basis. Realistic expectations and understanding of business processes will help you set yourself apart and achieve the main goal – finding funding for your business idea.

Learn How to Negotiate:
Finding investment for your project will often mean that you will have to negotiate. Learn how to do it in a way that does not alienate people and that helps you achieve your investment goals at the same time.

Very often, interested investors will be willing to offer something but their conditions may be tough. You will have to talk it over, reaching an agreement that benefits both of the parties involved.

Good communication and negotiation skills will help you create a great first impression but they will also keep the integrity of your business idea. The experience that investors have could work against you and this is why you need to have an idea about the compromises you are willing to make and the parts of the process you will remain inflexible about.

Maintain a Healthy Amount of Skepticism:
Understand one very important part of the investment seeking process – if something appears too good to be true, than it probably is a trap.

Investment scams target young, inexperienced entrepreneurs. You could fall for such an offer, finding it impossible to recover and regain your financial integrity.

Refuse investment offers that have very unusual demands, that will bind you for many years to come and that will take away your financial freedom. If you have some concerns, talk to a forensic accountant about the investment option. The forensic accountant will do research instead of you, figuring out whether the funding is legitimate or a fraud scheme.

Author Bio: This is a guest post written by Nick Anderson. He is an experience finance writer and works for Forths Forensic Accountants.

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What It Takes to Start a Small Business

It comes as no surprise that thousands of businesses, large and small, have gone bust during the current downtrend in the economy. Literally millions of workers have been made redundant, leaving them on their own to carry on. Some have tried their hand at contracting whilst others put their expertise to work at launching small business enterprises. Those enterprises that survived understood what it takes to start a small business in a bear market. Against all odds, many of these small businesses are flourishing concerns today because they took the time to get the facts straight before launching their company.

So You Have a Vision – Is That Enough?

Some entrepreneurs have a grand vision and launch full speed ahead to make that dream a reality. Unfortunately, dreams go both ways as there are nightmares as well. Without a proper roadmap to reach your ‘vision,’ things can turn sour quite quickly. Not only should you have a business model in place, it is imperative to consider financing. Do you have the funds available to launch your business? If not, what type of financing would you qualify for? There are government grants available to certain industries which would often be money that would not need to be repaid in full, if at all. Your vision will certainly take financial backing to evolve, so don’t forget to include this in your plan.

One Step Never to Omit – Careful Market Analysis

It doesn’t matter how wonderful your product or service may be, if there is no demand, why create a supply? Only after careful market analysis should you even consider building a road to your vision. Take a good long look at which companies in your market have gone bust and what it was that led to their demise. Whilst it is true that poor management could have been a contributing factor, it is also likely that those enterprises were offering a product that has become obsolete. Would you even consider designing and manufacturing a typewriter in today’s high-tech world of voice recognition capable word processors? Probably not! If there is no call for what you have to offer, go back to the drawing board. It’s as simple as that.

Roadmap to Success – An Intriguing Business Plan

Unless you are financially independent and have the wherewithal to fund your own enterprise, you will need funding and/or financing. This step towards a successful small business is vital. You will be presenting your vision to a number of financiers, investors or lenders so make it a sound business model. Take time to develop a strategy that can sell your company before it is born. Whether money is being lent to you or you are offering stakes in the company, no one wants to back a loser. Professional help is available but many entrepreneurs benefit from tools such as the Business Model Canvas which enables them to graphically chart out their model, making it attractive to financiers.

Accounting and Record Keeping  

Many newly formed companies feel that hiring an accountant or bookkeeping service would not be worth the expense in the beginning. Unfortunately, this can be a grave error in judgement. Oftentimes new business owners or directors miss vital reporting dates or fail to keep record of expenses or debts which can greatly impact corporate or sales taxes. The reality is that an incomplete report is just as deadly to your business as a nonexistent report. It is far wiser to utilise a professional bookkeeper or accountant than it is to try to save a few pounds. A tiny error can be extremely costly and that is something which has set many companies on the path to financial ruin.

As more and more big companies go under or send their facilities overseas, the rising role of entrepreneurs is becoming increasingly important. Government recognises that SMEs play a huge role in stabilising the economy which should indicate just how important it is to get off to the right start. Develop a good business model for your product/service, research the market thoroughly, sell the idea to the right financial backers and keep accurate records for the taxman. If you follow this advice, you could have a lucrative endeavour that is built on a solid foundation. Too many entrepreneurs join the ranks of ‘here today – gone tomorrow’ so take the time to do it right and you will have a business that can withstand even the test of time.

Adam writes Articles and News for Real Business Rescue and covers all matters relating to company directors facing business distress.  He has covered many articles relating to corporate insolvency and advice and tips about business related cash flow. 

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How to Get Started with Marketing Planning

In my work with more than 4,000 start-up clients over the past twenty five years I have noticed a recurring pattern – many of these new entrepreneurs have set a financial goal they want to achieve their first year in business, but they haven’t committed to writing a detailed description of how they intend to achieve this result.

The process of doing so is known in the business planning process as “marketing planning”. Technology-oriented businesses often title this work as creating “the business model”.

Marketing planning can be slighted in the start-up planning process because it is not a “lock and load” organizational task such as legal registration or opening the business bank account, where you are given limited options for taking action. Marketing planning demands some careful thought and evaluation.

Here are three steps you can use to help get started in your marketing planning:

Organize Your Knowledge

You must organize the knowledge you have gained from your past work into “bite sized morsels”. I know that this may sound a bit out of date, but I still find index cards to be a very useful tool here – you write one fact, resource, or strategy idea per card. You can then organize them by category, such as “market research”, “pricing”, “competition” et al. I like to use different colored markers to mark the upper right corner of the card to permit quick identification.

I lay the cards out on a large table and sort them by color code. I have my tablet computer at hand while doing this, with a marketing plan outline open on the screen.

Using the plan outline headings as a guide I type in information from the index cards that correspond to each specific category. I often use bullet points initially in order to quickly get text into the outline. You can easily move around, reorganize and elongate text as you go along.

Add In Market Research

Chances are good that no matter how detailed your knowledge is of your chosen business concept, that you may lack statistical data that helps supports your strategy. For example, it can be very useful to determine how many potential customers there are in your chosen marketplace for the product or service you intend to offer. An example is finding out how many registered drivers there are in your metropolitan area when you are going to offer a high end car detailing service. You can often obtain this type of information from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

Check the Web

No matter what product or service you wish to offer, chances are very good that potential customers search for information on your product or service category by using an online search tool, such as Google or Yahoo.

So, it makes sense that to understand better the value of your existing knowledge you need to compare what you know with what information and knowledge is being shared by other websites focused on your area of work.

Quite honestly, after you have done particular work for many years you can sometimes feel that you grasp everything important to be known about the subject.

A web search can open your eyes to the fact that there are other very experienced and competent service providers out there – and they’re already available online!

Commit an hour or so to surfing the top ten search results showing for your chosen search phrase. Click the search link to reach each website and pretend that you are a prospective customer as you proceed through the site. Make notes on what you see in each site as you go!

What you learn online will give you a new, more expanded view of what you think you already know.

After you invest a few hours in using these three steps and recording the resulting strategic thinking in a word processing document, you will find a real sense of accomplishment that will give you the confidence to keep moving forward with your marketing planning.

One last note – an effective marketing plan is a dynamic document, which means that you are continually fine-tuning it as your try out various parts of your marketing strategy during your first year in business. This is not like a college term paper where there was a deadline to be done with your writing. So, don’t be too hard on yourself if your marketing plan narrative doesn’t flow as smoothly as you would like on your first try. Just return to your written plan from time to time to add new information and new results.

Jeff Williams is CEO of Bizstarters, a nationally-known provider of business start-up and business growth coaching. He is pleased to offer MyCorporation blog readers his “Marketing Evaluation Checklist” which leads you through a comprehensive evaluation of each part of your marketing system. For your free copy, visit the official Bizstarters site today.

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What Investors Want to Learn From Your Business Plan

Your business concept is awesome and you know it. But you need startup funds and a way to convince investors that they’ll see a return on investing in your business. The thought of putting together a business plan that will effectively “sell” your business concept to seasoned investors is intimidating, but it’s also essential in getting the funding you desire. A well rounded business plan will provide you with valuable insight into your business, its potential for success, and the areas in which you may want to fine-tune your operating model.

Keep It Simple, Shorty

You always hear, “keep it simple, Stupid” or “KISS” and that goes for an effective business plan as well. But don’t be stupid, instead be smart, short, and sweet. Ten pages or less, absolutely. No one wants to read a really long plan.

In fact, ideally I don’t think you need much beyond great financials and an impressive executive summary. Potential investors are going to ask for whatever additional information they’re interested in whether you’ve written ten pages or 100. If you’ve done your homework and put together an impressive, tight little package, then you’re going to be in great shape. No one wants to read a 50 page business plan.

If your motivation is funding, they’re going to ask for the specific additional information they want. Your plan is more likely to be too long (I’ll call it a data dump) than too short. Too short would mean you’re missing critical information.

Do Your Homework, Then Practice Brevity

Just because you’re writing a succinct (and therefore effective) business plan that hits on the critical elements for potential investors doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do copious homework in preparing that nice, little plan. You absolutely should. Especially when it comes to knowing your financials. The easiest and most accurate way to do this is to build the financials from the bottom up. If it’s a new business, then start by determining your addressable market, then what percent of that market you are going to get, how much are they going to spend (lifetime value), and how much is it going to cost you to get them? If you can answer these questions accurately for the first twelve months, year two, and year three, then your financials are going to be in a good, realistic state for potential investors to pick them apart and (hopefully) like what they see.

The Critical Elements of an Effective Business Plan and Pitch

Your plan and pitch to investors should absolutely address each of these topics:

- What market problem you’re solving
- How you’re solving it
- Target market, size, and segmentation
- Your sales channels
- Marketing efforts
- Competitor analysis and your competitive advantage
- Real financial projections
- Key milestones in your business to date and a timeline of expected milestones to come
- Key team members and advisers championing your success

The Pitch: Turn it Into a Narrative

Once you’ve put your business plan together, ensured it’s not too long, and that it covers all of the important bases, then it’s time to start working on your pitch. I won’t go into too much detail here except to say that people (and don’t forget that investors are people too) love a compelling story. If you can find a way to weave the elements of your business plan into a tale that illustrates how your business is going to solve people’s problems, garner their loyalty, and generate revenue then it’s going to be a lot easier for you to pitch to investors. After all, stories engage our emotions and get us to root for the protagonist to win.

Make your business the hero of your story and back that story up with facts and figures to prove your potential for success and investors will appreciate the work you’ve put in and be much more likely to infuse your enterprise with the funds it needs to get up and running.

About Sabrina Parsons

Heir to a business planning kingdom and CEO of the world leader in business plan and management software (flagship products include LivePlan and Business Plan Pro) Sabrina knows more than a little something about planning, pitching, and managing a startup to success. Sabrina took over Palo Alto Software in 2007 (her father was founder and business planning icon, Tim Berry) and went on to not only beat the odds (approximately 70% of family-owned businesses don’t survive succession) but to successfully expand the company’s offering from a shrink-wrapped software company (Business Plan Pro) to a booming SaaS corporation, hosting business planning, pitching, and financial management in the cloud (for more than 60,000 small and mid-sized businesses and counting) via LivePlan (www.liveplan.com).
Sabrina is a graduate of Princeton University and president of the Princeton Entrepreneurs Network. She is also a mother of 3 young boys; involved in multiple business planning competitions; blogs for Forbes Women; and is a passionate advocate for evolving the workplace for today’s modern parents, including instituting and personally taking advantage of Palo Alto Software’s baby-friendly office policy.

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You’re Too Savvy to Make These 5 Rookie Entrepreneur Mistakes – Or Are You?

You’re bound to make more than five mistakes as a neo-entrepreneur (young and fresh entrepreneurs who are less experienced than their older, more established counterparts), especially during the startup years. Entrepreneurship means going through a lot of uncharted territory and interestingly enough, many of these mistakes stem from characteristics that make a person an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs who succeed tend to share the following traits:

  • Flying solo – Many entrepreneurs like to work alone or be completely in charge. This sometimes conflicts with research showing that entrepreneurs are highly social people. A successful entrepreneur is one who learns to balance these factors well.
  • Highly motivated – A good entrepreneur is highly self-motivated and passionate about his or her ideas. They must also be good at motivating others to push themselves in order to meet goals.
  • Constantly creative – Successful entrepreneurs keep on coming up with new ideas and don’t rest on their laurels. Instead, they are constantly conducting market research, analyzing consumer reactions and coming up with new ways to improve the business.
  • Eager to learn – Coming up with new ideas all the time means keeping on top of trends, industry developments and market shifts. To be successful, an entrepreneur needs to undergo continuing education, attend workshops and conferences, and have the self-confidence to admit mistakes and learn from others.
  • Ethical – Entrepreneurs eschew get-rich-quick schemes, understand the value of regulations and adhere to ethical business practices.
  • Resilient – They aren’t afraid to fail and understand that risks are part of starting a business. They’re willing to take the risk and if it doesn’t pan out, learn from the mistakes and start over again.

However, mistakes can and still happen. Here are 5 of the major ones that come up over and over in articles, studies and analyses of entrepreneurial activity.

Continue reading

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5 Reasons Why Your Company’s Resolutions Will Fail But Your Goals Will Succeed!

With 2013 quickly approaching, how many resolutions will you imagine compiling for your business over this next month? And exactly how many of them will have fallen off the radar by February 1st? Resolutions have a low success rate, and there’s a good reason for that, they are nothing but ideas.  Refurbish your resolutions so they won’t fail – turn them into actionable goals!

Here are 5 reasons why your company’s resolutions may fail unless you turn them into goals:

1) Resolutions are usually not written down

Resolutions tend to be objectives in our head and we usually don’t write them down, or share them with others. But, there is a huge benefit to gain by writing down a goal.  A study conducted by Gail Matthews, Ph.D., at the Dominican University, found that when we write down a goal, our chance of achieving it goes up by about 50%!

Try turning that idea in your head into a written goal.

2) Resolutions do not have “key activities” tied to them (no action plan)

Resolutions may arise from a sudden motivation, possibly brought on by the beginning of the New Year, and the feeling of having a “fresh start.”  But motivation is difficult to maintain. It is much easier and, as the research shows, far more effective to simply follow a written action plan consisting of “Key Activities”.

For example, have you heard of the story of the three frogs on the log? There were three frogs sitting on a log. One resolved to jump off. How many were left sitting on the log? The answer is three. To decide to jump off is very different than actually taking the leap.

Your likelihood of success is much greater if you implement “Key Activities,” rather than if you simply intend to accomplish a New Year’s Resolution.

Goals are meant to be achieved; all you have to do is work on your key activities.

3) Resolutions aren’t closely linked to our organization’s most important values

New Year’s Resolutions can be a great way to come up with new ideas to grow our businesses. However, they tend to be quick, in the moment decisions, based on something we intend to improve.

For example, in a moment of sudden excitement you decide that your company should increase prices to immediately impact cash flow. However, if your business’s core values include always providing high value to the customer, this resolution would be in conflict with an important value.

It is extremely important to be aware of a few of your company’s most important values. These key values always need to be reflected in your efforts, your decisions, and your business plan.

If you are looking to make important improvements to your business, be sure to have written goals and key activities that are tied to your organization’s values.

4) Resolutions tend to put the burden of change on YOU

Do you really need one more commitment, task or issue? If a resolution resides in YOUR head, then of course, the responsibility falls on YOU as well! You already have enough on your plate.

With a written goal, the accountability can be assigned to one or many of your employees. Your job as the owner or leader of your company may simply be to keep track of the progress others have made. Are they implementing their key activities?

Accomplish your business growth and manage others by introducing and advancing a disciplined goal process that you work on as a team.

5) Resolutions often lack a set timeframe

Resolutions tend to float and have no urgency. This is a major reason why they are so easy to push aside or to forget. I am a much bigger fan of setting clear business goals for the New Year that have specific deadlines.

Don’t just resolve to accomplish something great in 2013.You now have the tools to transform a resolution into something actionable, a goal!

Are you ready to work with your team to identify the right goals for your business, get into action, and enjoy your successes?

Leave us a comment and share how you and your business turned resolutions into goals. Have a Happy New Year! It’s going to be a great one!

Ed Kelly, is the founder of Summit Journey Coaching, Goal Achievement & Success Coach, and proud entrepreneur.

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Finding the Right Financing for Your Startup in 2013

Most entrepreneurs use one or many forms of small business financing to start a business.

Here are a few helpful ideas for what you can do to set yourself up for success:

  • Decide What Type of Business You’ll Open

In addition to an entrepreneur’s personal financials, the kind of investment they make influences the type of financing they can secure. Franchises and existing businesses have different funding options than more traditional entrepreneurial startups. Unless they go for venture capital, entrepreneurs (the more classic definition) may need to explore other alternatives like unsecured loans, rollovers for business startups or crowd funding. All businesses (and their owners) will need a phenomenal personal financial record; rock-solid financial model; and business plan.

  • Get Pre-Qualified

Once you have a handle on realistic funding expectations, you can begin setting your plan into motion. You’ll also get direction on what documents to collect which include two full years of tax returns, your last two bank statements, your personal net worth statement and your credit report.

  • Make Good Credit Decisions

You’ll really want to be careful about your personal credit actions as you’re searching for business funding. For instance, avoid big purchases at this time, unless you need to buy a home. You also shouldn’t carry a credit utilization rate of more than 40% on any of your credit lines and you shouldn’t apply with multiple financing sources. Credit inquiries can affect your score and jeopardize your chances of getting funded.

  • Build Your Team

Don’t do this alone—now is the time to find a smart CPA, an experienced attorney and a franchise or business transaction expert. And of course, a financial firm.

David Nilssen is the CEO & Co-Founder of Guidant Financial. Read more tips about becoming a successful entrepreneur in his book, Making the Jump into Small Business Ownership.

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Guest Post: Can Your Small Biz Use Crowdsourcing With the JOBS Act?

Recently, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) passed amid much hoopla about how this legislation would be the stimulus that jumpstarts the economy and enables people like you and me to invest in all of these startups without becoming accredited investors, as was previously required by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Now if you’re a small business owner, the floodgates will open, and you’ll be able to raise tons of money to accelerate your business, right? Probably not. While the SEC is still in its evaluation stage and the actual regulations have not been written, some things are already clear from the text of the JOBS Act bill itself. First, you will only be able to raise a total of $1 million in the course of 12 months, and individual investors will only be able to contribute the greater of $2,000 or 5% of net income if they make less than $100,000 per year or have a net worth of less than $100,000, and they will only be able to contribute the greater of 10% of the net income or net worth of the investor if the investor makes or is worth more than $100,000 and not to exceed $100,000 (see Section 302(a) of the text of the bill for details). So, raising $1,000,000 will require either at least 10 high income/net worth investors or at least 500 lower net worth investors, and probably many more than that.

Furthermore, the SEC will only allow you to raise money if you raise it through an approved platform. Given that sites like Kiva.org, Lendingclub.com, and Kickstarter.com are already available on the market for fundraising purposes, I would expect a similar platform to be created for the small business crowdfunding market.

Before you decide to raise money through crowdfunding, consider the following things first:

1) It’s better if you can give rewards rather than equity. While equity is cheap, if you achieve the success you envision through the raising of capital, then it will be expensive in the future. Let’s say that you give away 10% of your company in exchange for graphic design services or getting a website up and running. These exchanges won’t cost you any cash out of your pocket, but if you sell your company for $2 million later, that’s $200,000 which is not in your hands. You’ll lose out on the upside from the equity you gave away. It’s better to give credit and make these clients VIP customers or do something special which rewards their contribution but allows you to keep ownership.

2) Do you have a compelling story? I expect the requestors of funds to outnumber the sources of funds, at least in the beginning. For every 5 people with a dream, there will only be one person who can fund the dream. Therefore, your story has to REALLY stand out to get funding. One good way to create participation desire is to have original and interactive rewards. Take a look at these projects and see what sort of nifty rewards the founders offered their backers.

3) Don’t use this source of funds to pay off bills or to cash out. The money you’re raising has to go to something which is going to dramatically improve both top line and bottom line results in your business.

4) Do you have a track record of success? Are you making a profit yet and have clients and sales established? If you said yes, and you can make for the case that crowdfunding will only accelerate the process that you would have taken anyway, you probably have a chance of receiving funding.

5) Is there a perception of overnight success in what you’re offering? A lot of people will throw $10 or $20 at projects that they think will be the next Facebook which often causes them to disregard the fundamentals in the process. There has to be just as much sizzle as steak for your small business, as many of the investors will be, by and large, uninformed and uneducated ones who are hoping to be able to tell their friends that they invested in the next Google or Facebook despite their lack of knowledge about how to properly judge a business plan.

Overall, the criteria for successful fundraising through crowdfunding will be the same as what is used to raise money through venture capital and private equity markets now – do you have a sustainable model which projects a high level of growth without an unrealistic hockey stick profit projection? If so, then crowdfunding might be a very viable alternative because of the paucity of VCs and the high cost of going to them if you are successful later.

If you want a great guide for how to launch a successful crowdfunding project, check out Natalie Sisson’s great study on it. These projects succeeded because, as I mentioned above, they told compelling stories, were moving and impactful projects as a whole, and had founders that were able to reach and connect with a large audience.

About the Author: Jason Hull is a candidate for CFP Board’s certification and passed the CFP(R) exam in March 2012. He is a Series 65 securities license holder. He is the owner of Hull Financial Planning.

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Make Your New Year's Small Biz Resolution Count!

It’s that time of year again. Time to make your New Year’s resolution, or resolutions. Most of us make the usual resolutions, to lose weight, save money or go to church more frequently. Personal growth goals are certainly a great idea. However, what about resolutions you can make for your business? Taking a step back and evaluating your 2011 performance can help you move successfully forward into 2012. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Start up!
If you have been thinking about starting a business, or starting another business, now is a great time to do so! Business typically picks up a great deal during the first of the year. Use this momentum to help you realize your dream of owning a small business. Take time during your holiday vacation to create a business plan. Talk to friends and other entrepreneurs who have gone through the process to help you get started. When you’re ready, give MyCorporation a call. We can help you incorporate your business making your entrepreneurial dream a reality!

Go back to your business plan
When you first created your business, no doubt you had a business plan outlining company policies and goals you hoped to achieve. Take a minute and go back over your plan in the New Year. Have you accomplished the things you set out to accomplish? Is your business operating on a day-to-day basis in the way in which you intended it to? Your business plan is really the skeleton, the bones, of your business. If you have broken, or missing parts, you can’t hope you function successfully. Give your business a thorough once over to ensure things are functioning properly.

Focus
After reviewing your business plan, take a moment to focus. Think back over the past year. Ask yourself what worked and what didn’t? Are there certain policies that have become outdated? Are all of your employees performing to company standards? Is your business fulfilling its purpose? Are you doing everything you can in your role, whether it is owner or employee, to contribute to the success of the business? Focus on the other pieces of the business, outside of the business plan, and assess what is working and what isn’t. Staying in tune with the day-to-day happenings of the company will help you stay on track.

Look Ahead
Now that you have reviewed the inner workings of your business, take time to create new goals. How do you want your firm to grow this year? What new accounting or billing strategies are on the market that can help your business? What are your new hiring needs? Make a list of goals you hope to achieve each quarter, and by this time next year. Think of the business as a train, always moving forward.

This year, consider making a new years resolution for your small business. Whether it be starting your first business, or maintaining a current one, give your start up some love! Happy New Year from all of us here at MyCorporation!

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