How to Start a Small Business of Your Own
Businesses are not easy pursuits. And there can be conflicting guides and resources which makes wanting to start a small business of your own harder. Nonetheless, here is a consolidated guide for you to get some inspiration about starting your own small business.
Below is a part-guide part-personal anecdote about starting a business so that you can have a realistic and a formal idea and more inspiration to fuel your process and get it going!
Conduct Market Research
Market research is an important component of any business. Survey your surroundings, figure out your industry, and check out what your competitors are doing to stay on top, grow in popularity, and get sales. This is what will inspire your ideas and to make sense of how to go about starting your own business.
For Five Star Beauty Supply NY Inc., my family’s business in the wholesale beauty industry, my mother actually worked in the same industry for a different company when she first started out. She was working for a similar company which sold goods to beauty stores around the tri-state area in the East Coast. Because of her experience, she was able to understand how she wanted to run her business, the parts of that business she found beneficial, the parts of that business she found unsuccessful, and even some clientele from the earlier business. This gave her a huge headstart and helped her strategize how to run her business a lot more. In addition, she also knew that she was passionate about this business, and wanted to be in this industry for the longer term.
Write Your Business Plan
Writing a business plan helps in many ways. This is important so that you get all of your ideas in one place and keeps everything well-organized and put-together. A business plan can also assist you in keeping track of what you’ve done, what you’re doing, and what you need to do in the future. Keeping things organized and consistent is the best way to start a small business because there will always be unanticipated problems that arise, making it all the more important to have some sort of clear understanding and foundation to build off of.
In Five Star Beauty Supply NY Inc.’s case, my mother had drawn out a business plan and retained some of her clientele and network from her previous role. She knew that she wanted to only sell to New York City and New Jersey’s beauty salons, and knew that her demographic would mainly be Asian beauty salon owners. She also knew that she would need to find a place to source her goods, so she contacted a variety of places all around the world to see who would provide her the products to sell.
Funding
It’s always a sore subject to talk about because everybody knows that funding a small business is not easy. You have to have massive drive and consistency in order to be successful. And even in the face of hardship, you need to be strong and face it head-on. Your business plan will help you in deciding how much funding you will need to start your business, and if you don’t have that amount, then you will need to come up with another plan to raise or borrow that amount in order to hit the ground running.
Funding was also not easy for Five Star Beauty Supply NY Inc. My mother had saved up funds from her roles and previous jobs, but she notes:
“When you start a small business, there are amounts and things that you didn’t plan for, so you need to have cushion to prepare for those unanticipated amounts.”
Clearly, it is not easy, especially when you have bills that you need to pay and didn’t account for it in your budgeting. Many things can go wrong, as my mother notes, so it is important that you have cushion for unanticipated amounts. This way, the company will run more smoothly and you will have more control.
Pick an Appropriate Business Location
This may not seem like an important thing to think about, but it is. Where your business is located will determine legal matters, like insurance, taxes, and revenue. Pick a place where your industry is in demand, decide whether it’s best to do a brick-and-mortar vs. online store, and choose wisely as per your target audience, and your industry.
For Five Star Beauty Supply NY Inc., my mother knew that she wanted to be in New York City and working in New York, but office space and renting out warehouses in the city would be too expensive especially for the early stages when she was just starting out. That’s when she decided to make rent a storage unit to store all of the products before they were shipped out. This helped her cut costs, and made it efficient for her to grow her business from the ground up.
ID a Need and Fulfill It
Finding a need for something in the industry is extremely important because that directly determines how much sales you’ll make. It is vital to check whether the industry you’re trying to build a small business out of is saturated and potent, because this will show you that it will be harder to stand out from long-term competitors in this field.
In the earlier days, besides the old company that my mother worked for, there really wasn’t a store like Five Star Beauty Supply NY Inc. She was a trailblazer for her time, because currently, the beauty industry and the wholesale beauty industry are all pretty saturated and it would be hard to get newer clients. It is also important to know aspects of your industry. Many people, who are already in this industry will not have new clients or work with new wholesale companies. They like to stick with what they know works, because if people coming into a beauty salon for facials likes the particular mask that they use at that salon, and that salon changes up the mask, then it might break the clients out, or it might not give the clients the desired result. Accordingly, the client will stop visiting this beauty salon, and the beauty salon will lose a client. This is all a chain reaction, because now that my mother is aware of this, she needs to make sure that where she gets her products and everything is as consistent as possible. The formulas, the machines used, the material of the bed paper, and everything needs to be as coherent and consistent as can be.
Look Into Insurance, Keep You and Your Business Covered
Especially if you are client-facing, it is important that you get the proper insurance needed for your specific industry. This way, you don’t end up losing clients and losing funds that otherwise could’ve been put elsewhere. Need more help with finding the correct insurance types for your industry? Check out this article.
Because Five Star Beauty Supply NY Inc. is not completely client-facing, the insurance procedures are still necessary, but not make-or-break. As the business develops more, it is important to reassess the types of insurance needed in order to protect liability and other unwanted trouble with legality issues.
Starting a business (albeit small) is no easy feat, but it is extremely rewarding. Overplanning is always better than underplanning. Be sure to do more research as you search for the best fit and next steps in guiding your small business journey.
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