Are you starting your business from scratch or are you buying or taking over an existing business or franchise? If you are like most entrepreneurs, you will probably have to build your business from the ground up.
Is there something that you like doing that you think you can make profitable? Do you think people will use your services or buy your product? Do you have the time and the resources to make a business work?
Do you know who your competition is and how those who are successful are doing things? Remember, appearances are deceiving! There are many businesses that look successful but are really struggling to stay afloat.
Are you in a position financially to open a store front or lease an office space or are you thinking about working out of your home or garage?
Many entrepreneurs are starting up and working their businesses out of their homes. With the ease of using the internet, learning computer skills, and with emails, fax machines, scanners and other business software, home based businesses are booming.
Have you explored your market and done your financial research? Some businesses can thrive on physical labor and may not need a continual cash infusion, but other ventures may need to be financed.
Unless you are building your business without the aid of loans from banks and other lending institutions, your credit is going to be your most valuable asset. Have you looked at your credit report?
All businesses, big and small, are started from an idea in someone's head and then the idea makes it's way into reality, or as business people say it, into the business world.
Starting a business from scratch takes guts. It takes a lot of hard work, long hours, and sleepless nights. But that is the beauty of starting your own business. You get to see it start as an idea and bloom into a viable enterprise.
Once started, it is yours and when you throw yourself into it and see it grow and prosper before your eyes, the rewards, when they come, are sweet.
Some entrepreneurs want their businesses to have a small town feel or atmosphere. They want to groom a personal relationship with their clientele while providing products or services to their community.
As long as they make enough of a profit to make ends meet and keep their doors open, they are satisfied and don't necessarily look to expand their company.
Then there are those whose main reason for starting a business is to become high powered Wall Street players with lots of money and all the trimmings that go with it.
They want to see their company name in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, O Magazine, Business Week, Money, and other business publications or to hear their company being discussed on national television.
Every entrepreneur has his own reasons for wanting to go into business for himself, but no matter what you want your business to become, the main thing is to get it started and to make it a profitable venture.