About Choosing a Business for You

Deciding to start your own business is one thing, choosing a business to start is another.

Sometimes the idea for a business to start is presented to you, no effort, other times one has to work hard to come up with an idea or ideas and then decide on what is right for you.

Going into the right business is pretty vital to you, so spend some time on selection and then on your final decision. Getting into the right business will make your new business life a whole lot easier.

Before we continue, let me tell you how I got into my own business. Being a 20 year brewery corporate employee I had decided that it was make or break time for me to start my own business.

I had decided to start my own business a couple of years before I left the corporate world, but was not convinced of the type of business I would enjoy and still have a high profit potential.

Well, it finally got down to me and my wife searching the ‘business for sale’ advertisements in the newspapers. After looking at several small businesses for sale, we spotted a small advertisement for a tubular steel furniture manufacturing business and made an appointment to see the owner.

The business was very basic, in rented space and with only 5 employees. The machinery was even more basic. However the furniture produced was not bad and I suddenly though I saw the potential.

Although neither my wife nor I knew anything about furniture manufacture, we both had a good feeling about it and knew we would enjoy the challenge. Choosing a business, for us, was done.

To cut a long story short, we ended up buying the business for less than $100,000 and selling it 11 years later for more than $15,000,000. This business had been right for us!

Which goes to show that you can spot something with potential that can turn out to be the ideal business for you? Don’t ignore your feelings.

Hopefully here I can help with some suggestions and small business ideas that might be of use.

Okay, so let’s get back to looking for your ideal business idea!

Number one to remember is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You don’t have to come up with brand new ideas for business.

• What you do have to do is to find a way to do something better, faster or differently.
• What you do have to do is look around you for opportunities. You do not have to always start a new business; you can often buy out an existing business and turn it around.
• Look for what is missing in your environment or what would make your life easier.
• Look at what you know already and decide if other people would pay to learn from you?

Some explanations for the above will help give you ideas for choosing a business.

What to look for.

• If you have come up with a business idea that is unique, exploit it, the sooner the better and you might also become the next Bill Gates!

Get right on it, now, patent and protect it now. Don’t wait, because if you do you will be telling everyone about the idea that you had 6 months ago that is now someone else’s!

• Look at all the goods and services now available and if you can come up with an idea of how to improve any of them, you have finished with choosing a business. The people who make the money are not usually the inventors but the people who take the invention and better it
• Opportunities for new businesses are all around us, both from within our own knowledge and from our business lives. Look at yourself first, what do you know? You can know a lot or a little, depending on your age and experience, but everyone knows something that others will pay for if it is presented in a unique or different way.

Make a list of your likes, of the things you can do well or are good at.

• For example, you might be good at any one of the many sports or hobbies. You might be good with computers or with people, kids, animals, at banking, etc. If you sit down and list everything that you have ever done or learnt you will be amazed at the possibilities.
• Think of and list all of the frustrations in your life, even simple ones like “I wish there was a bookstore closer to my home”! What would make your life or your friend’s lives easier? Making the lives of people easier or more interesting is the quickest way to make money.
• Listen to gossip and rumors; they can lead you to potential opportunities for new businesses.

• What have you learned that could become your future business? Is there potential that is not being exploited by your employers?

Remember however, not to steal your employer’s ideas or secrets, only trouble for you can come of it.

• Are your employers dissatisfied with some of their suppliers? Is there potential for choosing a business there?
• Look for opportunities for business in what you read, both for enjoyment and knowledge.
• Also remember that any new area of business development needs all the traditional types of businesses, ice cream, dry cleaning, bakery, gasoline, etc. More possible business potential for you.
• And finally don’t be frightened of competition when choosing a business. That pizza take away, or ice cream shop that is always jam packed is telling you that they need competition, an opportunity for you.

Where ever you see a line you have an opportunity! Where people have to wait to be served, there is demand that is not being serviced adequately.

Note it, note it!

Keep a notebook on you at all times and jot down your observations and thoughts. Don’t rely on your memory. A note made today might become a new business for you in 2 or 3 years time!

Take time to observe, think it through and you will soon come up with more than one idea for choosing a business.

Got it, got it!

Now that you have completed choosing a business, all that is needed is perseverance, to see it through to opening the doors! You have that already don’t you?

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