Business Head - Can I save money and do it myself?

Stange title to a post, right? All will become clear in the fullness of time.

I'm talking about paying people to do things instead of doing those things yourself. Which is the best option?

Things like designing a logo for your business, you could do it yourself, but if you're like me, it would look like a blind, one-armed pygmie drew it instead of being the professional message that you had in mind. By the way, no offence intended to blind onearmed pygmies!

What about your books? You could put all your receipts in a bad, then give them to the accountant and hope that they will end up all being okay. Well, that's not likely, you're unlikely to get the tax credits that you might do if you were a little organised. There's also the problems of sorting through the receipts and throwing away all the pizza boxes and beer cans too. You got the wrong bag, again!
One thing that is a great thing to be across, is what money you are making, and how you could make more of that money. Probably when you first start out, your fiscal affairs are going to be fairly straight forward, but once you start to make a bit of money, it is a good idea to at the very least pay the accountant to print out and check your accounts for you. It means that you're a lot less likely to get unexpected visitors in the future, and I didn't mean mice or cockroaches.
It's good to get the stamp of approval on the books, and also to know that a professional has had a look at what you're doing, and hopefully advised you if you can save money by re-arranging how you do things in the future. Accounts are like the log book for the car, good to always get it stamped after having had a the service.

So what about marketing and sales? Can you do that yourself? Well, it really depends on the business that you're in. Regardless of that information, you're more likely to know about the business than anyone else, unless of course you have a business partner, or resident ninja spies. That means that you will need to convey exactly what you want to the paid professional to make sure that you get what you're really after. That can be really difficult in the begining, as you probably are a little unsure of where the business is heading. It is good to take a look at your business plan from time to time, and figure out if you're still on the same track, or you need to refine where you're at. If all is in order, then you can use the business plan to give to the paid professionals.

But, I don't have the time? You have choices, you can get someone in as an employee to organise things for you, they'll also come in handy for other stuff too, and they can organise whatever it is for you, perhaps. You could get your camp bed under the desk, and work some insane hours, or you pay someone. Could you do it for a cheaper price if you did it yourself? Quite possibly, but would it be as good a job, or lose you more sales than you would have had you paid someone for the work?

Finally, am I good at? Acting like an idiot? Harsh but fair. What I mean by that is, are you really good in one area, and so can concentrate on that area whilst paying people to do the other stuff? It might cost you a little more initially, but is the end result going to be that much more impressive for having the proper job done?

Business Head - Cashflow

Hi,

Okay, so you have identified competitors, a market or markets, and some ideas of how to sell whatever it is that you're selling.

Okay, so assuming that you've come up with a great idea, you'd expect people to start buying what you have straight away, wouldn't you? Seriously, I don't know you, why would I pay for something from a person or company that I have never heard of? That's an entirely plausible scenario, so what can you do? How about coming up with another idea or two, some other areas that you might be able to depend upon to keep the food on the table, and the wolf from the door.

That's a nice easy thing to say, but not that easy to dream up. I spend years thinking of this idea, and now I'm finally doing it, you're saying that I should start that process again? Well, you don't have to, but imagine how much easier it could be if you have two things that could make money, and you can fine tune to make them more profitable. It gives you a lot more chance at success doesn't it?

You are much less likely to feel pressure if you have a sure fire way to make money as well as your "little baby" or an idea. It may be that the alternative cashflow idea makes more money in the long run, that the other idea. That's great, you're making money. So long as it lives up to your benchmark, you should develop that.

The extra cashflow also gives you extra money so that you can develop marketing and sales tactics, without having to mortgage your house, and take a massive risk, on something that might be a huge flop. That said, you did all your research, people like it, they like the price, the time is right, everything is right. How could you ever fail?

Business Head - I feel I have something special to sell

Hi!

You have an idea that you feel is special, will sell. But will it really? Will people really be interested in self-warming socks? How do you know? The thing is, it's one thing for you to think that your idea is good, and a completely different one for others to agree.

So what can you do? Well, you need to ask people. You need to find a forum, and use it as a sounding board. That could easily be an actual forum on the internet, or alternatively it could be a case of asking your family (poor buggers!)

Presumably you already have a market in mind? Maybe you could run the idea past a select few from that market, and see what feedback you get? This is a useful phase, since you may get ideas to add to your original idea, or fine tune it. The idea may not be feasible, so aren't you glad you asked, instead of wasting all that time and money?

You also need to find your unique selling point. What is it that sets what you sell apart from others? Price alone can be a reason, but it makes the business a lot more likely to fail, as you immediately will find yourself in price wars. Unless you have some special place from which you can obtain your product or raw materials (that's legal) you might want to think through what you're trying to do.

What if what you have is completely new? A new eyebrow curling gadget? Great! Now, you still need to find out if people would buy that product. You also need to look if there's something similar to what you do, and see how they sell things. You need to be different, but to start off with you could have a similar approach, with a slightly different product.