Run Your Business Right

Once you have figured out the business you want to start, know who your audience is and where they are, and get things in place to get started, you’ll need to ensure that you are legal and running your business right. To do that, you need the best tools you can afford, and a plan to follow going forward.

Get Legal

It depends on where you live and the type of business you are starting, but in most cases, you’re going to need to get a business license. In some cases, you’ll need more than one. How much the business license costs and the type depend on where you live too.

Check out the potential for needing the following:

• Business license
• Federal and state (or county) tax ID
• Registered business
• Permits
• Licensing
• Business bank account
• Trademarks
• Copyrights
• Patents
• Business structure
• Inspections
• Labels
• Other

Get Support

Like most things, it totally depends on your situation, but you need support as an entrepreneur – people that you can go to who will always tell you the truth and who also support your dreams. You may want to involve a coach, family members, a mentor, or someone else like a professional banker, CPA, or something like that.

Before you hire a coach, be sure to get to know them first. Check out their groups, pages, and websites, and join one of their less expensive options first to make sure you’re a good fit. Any professional you want to bring on your team for support should be vetted to ensure they share your dreams and your values.

Learn from the Experts

Identify three to five movers and shakers in your niche to follow so you can start learning. They may be your competition too. You can learn so much from them as you build out your business idea. They say that the best place to open a successful coffee shop is right across the street from a successful coffee shop. Don’t fear your competition.

Your competition doesn’t have to be someone who is “bad.” The competition is not the enemy. You can learn from them and even team up with them on issues you both care about. But mostly, you can learn from them. Learn what they do well and learn what they do poorly so you can do better.

Find and Get to Know Your Audience

Now that you know who you’ll serve and what you want to do for them, it’s time to find the audience and get to know them. You can use Google Alerts to set up a keyword or term that will then send you emails every day about that topic.

Follow the people your audience follows. Read the news they read. Get to know the gurus they like to follow too, whether you like them or not. There is something about them that your audience likes, and you can help them.

Create Processes and Systems

One thing that is important if you want to be a successful entrepreneur is to set up processes and systems for the business. The more you can automate, the better. For example, if you can automate your inventory process, you will make more money. That’s how Walmart took over the discount department stores.

Set up processes for everything, even things you cannot automate. For example, when you check the mail, you should have a process for that. When you set up processes and times to do tasks, you can turn them into habits and become much more efficient.

Read about the Butterfly Effect

Learn what you can about the butterfly effect and incremental change. When you realize that every little step you do in an orderly manner will get you to the end, it becomes a no-brainer to set up your business that way.

For example, sending out an email to your subscribers automatically every single day is an excellent way to build relationships with them. Even though it’s only one step, the fact that it’s automated will make all the difference because it will free you up to do other things that improve your business.

The thing to remember is that you do not need to reinvent the wheel. You can make a better wheel if needed, but you can use the wheels that exist right now to get started. Running your business “right” simply means that you go about things in a legal and organized manner with a goal in mind, using processes and systems to get things done more efficiently.

Keep in mind that even if you do all these steps and try to account for everything, sometimes issues happen. Many can be avoided, though, so let’s go over some common obstacles to becoming a successful entrepreneur.