For Women Ready to Start Their Business@Home!

Small Business Hurry Up

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times "When my business gets big enough, I'll worry about that. Right now I just need to ..." you fill in the blank. It our hurry to get our business up and running, we ignore the obvious steps of learning about business and sketching out some basic plans.

I'm guilty of being in too much of a hurry to get my unique, wonderful, can't lose small business idea up and running now. I'll clean up the mess later.

Yet, when you talk to people who've made it down the road a ways, most of them will tell you they would of spend less time, money and stress if they'd just learned and planned a bit more.

My sense of things is that the "Hurry Up" mentality is moving in the direction of "Fill In the Blanks" as you go. It's becoming "OK" to Learn as You Go and Make Plansto guide you as you create and launch your small business.

I'm not suggesting you slow down, keep up a brisk pace, but save yourself some time and energy now so you're not worn out and out of cash later.

Small Business Success "Some Assembly Required"

Small business success is really quite predictable because there are certain things you can and must do if you want to be successful. Most of us know when we're doing something that isn't working. This Tweet popped into my head when I read on a pickup truck "Some Assembly Required Handyman".

Small Business Success "Some Assembly Required" to Start-Up

The Profit Puzzle Checklist is useful if you're ready to work on your small business start up using a set of instructions to ensure proper assembly. Tweet me @ProfitPuzzle for more small business assembly help. Here's the rest of My Tweets from the same day:

• "Does your small business at home office put you in the mood for making money?"
• "If your small business product is a solution who is the customer with the problem you're solving?"
• "Positive cash flow is the blood supply of small business start up success!"
• "Which piece of your small business idea puzzle are you sitting at home putting in place right now?"
• "If your business idea is too small a start-up to invest your own time & money in don't ask anyone to invest in you!"

Optimize Your Small Business Start-Up?

No, let me just get started. Once my idea takes off, I'll be able to spend some time on some real planning. All to often we put off quick and easy steps that create small business at home start-up success and profit.

Call it excitement overwhelming reason. I call it short-sightness overtaking long-term success and profit. But, I understand. My "wisdom" came at the same price you'll pay for not optimizing your start up success and profit from the get-go.

Although I created this Free Checklist out of my personal experience, it does give you a quick way (I promise it won't curb your excitement) to assess 8 small business basics and 32 key component actions steps you could take to optimize your small business start-up. Just a thought, hope you don't pass it by - give it a try!

Small Business Start-Up Success Story Telling

Many small business at home start-up success stories are surprisingly similar. Yet, they are all uniquely different. What makes them unique is the actual person involved in telling their story is an individual who treasures the idea of becoming a successful small business owner for reasons that are deeply personal to them.

Small business success comes from learning and applying a number of basic principles or functions to a start-up business idea. What should be unique about business is its owner, not how it operates. Certain practices must be in place for a small business to become successful and profitable.

The Start-Up Success Story of Sam & Judy exemplifies the concept of how uniquely different business owners can be while, at the same time, being surprising similar.

Small Business Start Up in Down Times

Is now the right time to start up that small business idea you've had on your mind forever? It just might be as long as you're willing to make some good decisions.

In boom times, many people jump into a business of their own because they know they can jump back into a regular 9-to-5 job or return to their old career. In down times, people are afraid to start their own business because, if they fail, they won't have a job to fall back on.

In either case, the reality is without some solid research, a candid appraisal of your skills and resources, you'll likely fail in good or bad times. The answer to the question lies in making good decisions based on facts, figures and having the stamina and commitment to work through the start up phase of your small business idea.

Lessons Learned - Small Business Profit

Over their first 15 months in business, Sam & Judy had learned a lot of small business start up lessons. Some were learned through the proverbial "school of hard knocks" others from small business owners, vendors and consultants. All of the lessons learned lead to a successful start up business and a modest level of small business profit.

During one of their weekend business planning sessions, they decided to organize the lessons they'd learned around a framework of business basics. Each of the eight business basics formed the foundation of the business plan they had consistently updated over their first 15 months in business.

For starters, they published a presentation "32 Ways - Small Business Profit" to share with the people who had helped them during their first 15 months. They used an on-line service, SlideShare, to make their presentation readily available for viewing and comment.

Ultimately, they planned to publish a workbook they could use to review each of the 32 lessons they had determined had been most helpful to their small business start up success. On a scheduled basis they would note their current actions related to each small business lesson and what they would do going forward to grow their small business profit.

Too Shy 2 Share

Sam wasn't one to toot his own horn. But Stan and Ruth insisted. They were proud of what their kids had accomplished with their small business idea. Judy, Ruth's daughter and Sam, Stan's son, had come up with a business idea and made it work. Their start up business, after 15 months, had grown from it's kitchen table start to a small retail space. And, it was making a profit.

A family friend had been impressed with what Sam and Judy had accomplished. As a writer, he had taken it upon himself to chronicled their start up to success story in the form of a power point presentation.

At Stan and Ruth's insistence, the friend had posted his Sam & Judy story on a website specifically designed to share slide presentations. Now, everybody was calling, emailing and sending notes about how much they enjoyed the "Sam & Judy" Small Business @ Home Start Up to Success Story Power Point.

As a new business owner, Judy had learned a lot about marketing and PR. She knew, even if both she and Sam were the shy type, they weren't too shy to share their story. If nothing else, it was good for business.

Sam & Judy Start a Business - How About You?

According to a survey by Yahoo! Small Business and Harris Interactive, 66 percent of American adults say they've considered starting a business. Maybe your situation is similar to Sam’s or Judy’s.

You’d like to start some sort of small business, probably home based at first. You’re not a huge risk taker but with the proper knowledge, step by step guidance and support you’d get started on developing a simple business plan to test out your start up idea before taking a full time leap into small business ownership.

Your motivation to start up a small business of your own maybe grounded in creating more time and money to spend with family and pursing those things which you value most in your life. In your mind, successful small business ownership offers those types of rewards.

An investment in your personal copy of The Profit Puzzle, one you can mark up and make notes on and learn from the mistakes and rewards of Sam & Judy’s story, is a smart place to start.

Start Up Match Up

Do you have what it takes to be a successful small business owner? Start up ideas and motivations can cloud the reality of whether or not your skills, talents and basic personality traits are a good match up for a successful start up.

The SBA - Small Business Administration offers an assessment tool "to help you better understand your readiness for starting a small business". There's no question drive and determination are critical to small business start up success, but it takes more than that to move a start up business into a profitable, self-sustaining business. Quoting from the SBA's assessment tool web page, here's what you can expect:

"The tool will prompt you with questions and assist you in evaluating skills, characteristics and experience – as they relate to your preparedness for starting a business. Your responses will be scored automatically and an assessment profile provided, when you click the submit button.  You will also receive, based on your score, a statement of Suggested Next Steps, directing you to the most appropriate SBA resources to help improve your business preparedness.  Such next steps may include free SBA online courses, direct access to online counseling and/or targeted links to appropriate resources."

As important as the time and money you could lose if you're not a good match up for what it takes to have a successful small business start up, it's equally important to not skip the match up assessment step just because it might interject some realistic decision making into the start up assessment process. 

It Pays Off to Be a Start Up Dummy

The dream of small business ownership is alive. Will it pay off for you? Moving your start up idea from a dream to reality takes a depth of knowledge most don't have. The key to success lies in your willingness to dummy up and learn.

The Small Business Kit for Dummies by Richard Harroch is just what an admitted small business dummy needs to make "the transition from a great idea to a great business".

This six part book with 20 chapters and a CD-ROM is something you'll use to make your small business dream pay off. You just have to be "dumb" enough to use it.