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| Business |
 Starting
a New Business...How Will Your Business Fit Your Life?By Amy Robillard of Little Miss Gelato One of the toughest questions facing new entrepreneurs is: How will my business fit into my life? Personal issues are often the biggest challenges that an entrepreneur will have to overcome. To really evaluate if starting a business or expanding a business is in your best interest, you need to look at three important questions: 1) WHY? As a young entrepreneur, I wrote a stellar business plan based on crunching numbers and evaluating current market trends. Thankfully, someone asked me why I wanted to start a business. After providing the usual answer of wanting to be my own boss and make money, I started to ask myself that question over and over. I quickly realized that if I wanted my business to fit in with my lifestyle, I would have to critically answer that question. As I began my small business, I wanted to ensure that what I was doing in my business would be a step towards where I wanted to be in my life. To do this I made a list of the things (tangible, non-tangible and personal) that I wanted to achieve within the first five years. This list has been a valuable tool that I regularly review to ensure I am heading in a direction that I am happy with. Amy’s List: Physical: - $60,000 a year personal income Non-tangible/lifestyle/personal: - Flexible working hours - One month of vacation per year - Able to tolerate what I do every day in terms of daily tasks. I didn’t need to be doing what I was most passionate about as a career, instead I wanted my job to give me flexibility to do what I was most passionate about after my work day ended. - I want to be challenged in my venture. - I want recognition for a job well done. - I don’t want to answer to any one person except for myself. - I want what I do to demonstrate my appreciation for community, the environment and social sustainability. HOW? Now that you have established WHY you want to start a business, you need to evaluate HOW your proposed business or business expansion will help you achieve your objectives? As an example, I will provide one of my most personal objectives: Objective: Flexible Working Hours - When I was in the initial phase of deciding what my business would be, I had to decide whether I wanted to open a retail outlet (ice cream store), or provide bulk ice cream to other outlets. I decided on the second option, which was to establish and operate a manufacturing company. I did this because I didn’t want to work regular 9 to 5 hours in a retail setting and wait for my customers to walk through the door. I wanted to have complete control over my own time. I now make gelato at any time of the day or night as long as I can meet my customer’s orders. However, as a result of this decision, I have sacrificed the retail mark-up of selling gelato by the cone. This is an outcome I am comfortable with because it provides me with the day-to-day flexibility in my work hours that I desire. WHAT? Now that you have established how your business will give you what you want to achieve in life, it is imperative that you can tolerate WHAT it is you will be doing everyday. In most cases, you will wake up every day and spend the majority of your time working on your business, so make sure you can at least tolerate what it is that you do! Break down your day in hourly increments, and be as detailed as possible. Once you do this, you might find that your business will require you to work in isolation for 10 hours a day, or deal with customers or employees 10 hours a day. How do you feel about this? Will you have to depend on employees representing you? What will you enjoy most or least about your day? Many entrepreneurs love the many hats they get to wear, but it is also important to realize you will wear one hat most of the time. Make sure that hat is going to be comfortable! What if it all goes down the tubes? Now that you have visualized the why, how and what of your business plans, the next and possibly most important step is to ask yourself: What if your plan doesn’t work? When starting a business, people typically invest a huge amount of time, money and resources. Unfortunately, the statistics on successful business start-ups are dismal. It is therefore extremely important to consider and evaluate the risks associated with your business plans. For example, can you handle the emotional, physical and financial stresses associated with your investments and personal risks? What if everything that could go wrong, goes wrong? What if your business fails and you lose all your investments? What are the risks and are you in a position to handle those risks? Questions to consider when assessing your risks should include: Are you taking on debt to start this business? What if you can’t pay it back? Do you have dependents; can you start a business and also give them the attention they need after a long and stressful day? Realizing the risks that are involved with starting a business can help you plan, deter and deal with everything that comes your way. Everything in life comes with risks; it is how you deal with the risks that help you overcome them. Have a back-up plan for the worst case scenario! Don’t view a business venture as something completely separate from your personal life, since the two are inextricably intertwined. If after going through the above process, it seems like your future business may hinder you from achieving your personal goals, consider altering what you are planning to bring you closer to them. By critically and realistically evaluating the WHY, HOW and WHAT, you are on your way to creating a business plan that will give you the results you need in both your business and personal life. Amy Robillard is a 30 year-old entrepreneur & business owner in Nelson, BC. In 2004, she established & continues to grow a gelato manufacturing company called “Little Miss Gelato”. Amy can be reached at 250.354.7388, and via email at: littlemissgelato@netidea.com |