It’s time to move up to a new level in your finances. You and I must develop money making skills, especially the skills for owning and running a business. To be a successful business owner you must have certain qualities. The good news is that they are qualities you and I can develop.
You must have vision: the abilities to see the future before it happens. All of these happen in your imagination. You must be someone who loves innovation, someone who loves to try new ideas. If you are coming to the market to sell what somebody else is already selling successfully, you may not be able to make a lot of money. You must be able to innovate, find the cheaper way to do the same thing or a faster way to do it.
Also you must have passion: you must really be passionate about the product you want to sell or the service you want to offer. If you going into the fashion designing business, you must be passionate about beauty, about the way people look. If you are going to offer services may be in a restaurant you must be passionate about the issue of hunger. If you are going to offer educational services, you must be passionate about eradicating ignorance, you must have passion and if you don’t, the person who does will always be ahead of you in that line of business.
You must also have flexibility for your goal, even though it’s always fixed the process must always be flexible and then you must have persistence, you must be someone who doesn’t give up just because of a failure. As you strike out this year, as you make that move unseen forces will come to your aid; things will work out for you better than you have imagined.
The first thing you must find a business to start and it’s easier than we think; we must identify people’s needs. People need food, if you supply the food you will make money. People need clothes if you supply those clothes you will make money. People need accommodation if you supply housing you will make money; there is need for transportation if you supply that you will make money. People need information, people need education, people need furniture they need comfort; they need writing materials, people need love, kindness there are so many products, so many services we can offer. The starting point is you must identify people’s need around you for which they are willing to pay.
Secondly, do a little research, find out who is already selling that kind of product or offering that kind of service. Find out why people are buying their products, find out how much they are selling and find out what special part of that problem that is being solved that you will like to solve in a way nobody else has solved before. Do a little calculation of your cost, how much will it take for you to offer those products or to offer those services. How much will you be willing to sell in order to make some fair profit?
And write down who is going to buy from you and why they are going to buy; source some funds the starting point is your own savings. You must have some savings if you have been working for sometime and then you can get help from friends and relations. You may also be able to dispose of some assets and by the way there are suppliers who will give you some goods and you do what we called sales on return. All you need is integrity, you must be trustworthy. Make a move today; God is waiting to surprise you with a miracle.
The primary way you source funds is for you to save. If you earn an income, you must discipline your appetite to save 10 per cent or 20 per cent or even more depending on your vision of starting a business. When you have saving on your own you are likely to get the assistance of friends and relations around who will put down their own money. If you don’t have a dime having working 5 years or 10 years people will not be able to trust you to manage their funds better than you have managed your own.
Then you can dispose of some assets which you will buy again later when your business is flourishing; you can approach a bank, you can approach your supplier and then you decide the kind of a business you want to register. Is it a sole proprietorship where you are the only sole owner of the business, will it be a partnership where you will join with somebody else, will it be a limited liability company? Talk to a lawyer and get some advice and register your business.
After all these, advertise let people know you are there, let people know what your products and services are. Someone said that the man who refuses to advertise is like a man who winks in the dark, he knows what he’s doing but nobody else does. People need to know that you are there. And finally, start, take off, get those goods, move them to the people who will buy, sell, talk to people persuade them to buy from you, give them reasons to buy from you, treat people good, make the customer king; let people enjoy buying from you, be a problem solver that’s what you are as a business person. Let the upper most things on your mind be adding value to people’s lives, not getting money from them. That’s the wrong way to put it, the priority has to be adding value to people’s lives. When you give, you will always receive.
Let’s talk about selling: The Principles of Selling when you are in business, you must always realise that goods are sold, not bought. You cannot sit down and wait for people to come meet you for your goods and services, because they have options, the initiative must come from you. You must present your products, present your services and do the persuasion, the convincing to the point where people actually buy from you. Also you must know your product, you must know what you are selling, when people ask you questions about what you are selling if you are unable to answer satisfactorily and dissolve their doubts they are not likely to buy your product. And you must specifically ask people to buy. You can spend a whole hour describing the features of a product without asking the customer to buy. When you ask you will receive; always remember to ask people to buy.
And don’t forget that 80 per centof sales are made after the fifth call unfortunately only 10 per cent of sales people make those 80 per cent of sales. Most sales people run away after been told no the first time; exceptional sales people know if you keep trying with the same person at least five times you are likely to make a sale. And you must be clear about the needs that you want to meet in people’s life we called that the Red Button everybody is interested in improving his or her life. When you meet people quickly identify what it is that they need and explain how your product or service will help to meet that need in their lives. I am sure you will succeed, you will make it, and things are going to get better for you.