3 pieces of advice for new business owners
by Pace on July 16th, 2008 @ 12:26 pm in
Ethical Entrepreneurs
Tags: advice, c-corp, Ethical Entrepreneurs, goals, pay yourself first
I met a woman named Valerie Wynn at a party last night, and we were
talking about business. (She’s started and sold 3 businesses in
the past dozen years, and is now on her 4th.) I asked her what advice
she would give to a new business owner, and she said:
- Set reasonable goals
- Pay yourself first
- Incorporate as a C-Corp
As for #1, we plan to set unreasonable goals, so that’s out. But
if she means achievable goals, then that’s cool.
As for #2, I read about that in Rich Dad Poor Dad. I think
it’s a very important concept. Most people pay themselves last.
They have bills and expenses and discretionary income, and whatever’s
left over goes to them. If you’re a small business owner, especially
a hobby-turned-business owner, often your business is funded by
whatever’s left over after every other piece of the pie has been
sliced out. This is insane. If your business is really
important to you, pay yourself first. Set aside the amount of money
you need for your business, and only then pay the things that are
lower priority.
As for #3, I haven’t had a chance to research all the options yet,
but we’ll be setting up The Usual Error as an official business soon,
so I’ll post about it again once I’ve done my homework. (: [link]
- Related posts:
- What Kind of Revolutionary Are You?
#1 Posted by
vworkforce on July 16th, 2008 1:18 pm | link
Valerie gave you some good advice. I run a small business with my wife, and we have found that setting reasonable goals can be very helpful. I like to use goal setting as a way to drive our business forward. We tend to set two types of goals for our business. The first are the short term goals. These goals are typically two or three months out. They are important for a couple of reasons. First, they should be small progress markers for your business. For example, a short term goal may be to increase the traffic to your website by a given amount. Second, they give you a reason to feel good. Even though they are small, you should still pat yourself on the back. The other type of goal we set are long term goals. We try to set these out at one year and more. Long term goals are obviously bigger and need to be directly supported by your short term goals. For example if you set a long term goal of being able to expand your business from 1 to 5 employees, that goal had better be supported by a series of short term goals that will make it possible. This was a very interesting post. I wish you luck in whatever you do.
Jason Grass
Virtual Workforce LLC
“Let Us Lighten the Load”
Newmarket, NH 03857
Phone: (603)292-5716
Fax: (603) 292-5914
E-mail: jgrass@vworkforcellc.com
Website: http://www.vworkforcellc.com