What Should be the first steps in building a successful buisness?

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   mdawson17posted 14 years ago

   I see many entrapurners have great ideas and when they put them into an actual buisness is hard and sometimes leads into failure I am wondering what my fellow hubbers think should be the first steps in getting a buisness on solid foundation to be a successful buisness?

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      ledefensetechposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      The first thing you need to do is find out if there is a market for what you're selling.  I, for example, sell self defense products, cameras, alarms, etc.  Right now the market is OK.  But down the road, I believe we're going to see an increase in crime due to the economy.  So now I'm spending my time getting my ducks in a row so when crime does go up, demand for my products will go through the roof and I'll be ready to meet that demand. 
      
      Second, you have to know your product(s) inside and out.  You have to anticipate what sorts of questions your customers are going to ask you and answer them.  That way, when they do ask you, you can fire the answer back and show them you're on top of the ball. 
      
      Next, you need to find someone, or several someones to do the day to day stuff, taking orders, customer service, etc.  Your job is going to always be thinking ahead an planning.  That's why I don't buy into the business plan idea too much because you're always going to be revising it.  All you really need for your plan is to know what you're selling, who you're going to sell it to and how you're going to get the word out about your business.

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      freedomnlifenowposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Once you realize you have a strong desire to begin a new business venture, do the research necessary to understand everything about your product, service, and your target market. Read as many books as possible on the subject of mindset, personal growth, marketing, etc. I have found that the power of mentoring found through books is a great way to obtain wisdom from successful entrepreneurs who have been through many experiences- good and bad- that have taught them valuable lessons that they are willing to share in their writings.
      My favorite authors are Robert Kiyosaki, Paul Zane Pilzer, and Dan Kennedy.  Next, find someone who can train and teach you how to effectively market on the internet, if that is a part of your business plan. Be willing to take the time to build a strong and secure foundation before you ever launch! The largest trees have roots that grow deep into the ground. Get rooted in knowledge and wisdom and you will prosper.

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   kaleshwarposted 14 years ago

   The two most important things are market research and the Business Plan.
   The plan should have as many details as possible including but not limited to: the idea/ideas, ways of implementation of those ideas, the desired results, ways of getting those results, things that might go wrong, ways of solving those things, things that cannot go wrong but could (example: all three load balanced servers failing at one), ways to solve those things.. and so on.
   As someone said "In the business world, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

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      alekhouseposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I must agree with everything said here. I am in business for myself, and I have found that my skills in organization, planning and problem solving have been my greatest assets.

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         livewithrichardposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with this too.  And I'd add that you have to have passion for what you are attempting to start.  Start it for the right reasons because in the beginning there will be plenty of challenges that can kill an idea before it really gets off the ground.

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   Dale Mazurekposted 14 years ago

   belief and the wanting.  There is no sense even attempting if you dont have those

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   kashly1posted 14 years ago

   The really big thing is keep a consistant daily basic action. Whatever it's write article to email marketing to PPC to video marketing...To be successful if its not everyday you work on it it will be hard (2-5 hours per day its enough). And plus you gotta rock with the top company in the world because they will keep you in a straight line and you'll build a strong mind-state. Do not always forget this:
   
   PERSISTANT + MOTIVATION = SUCCESS
   
   My twitter name is kashly1

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5. 56

   prasannasutraveposted 14 years ago

   Follow your passion very honestly, you will become a successful enterprenuer.

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6. 79

   earnestshubposted 14 years ago

   I have owned and managed many businesses. The only thing I know that works all the time is motivation. If you have enough of it you can conquer the market. I have seen businesses with great plans fall in a heap for want of real drive. If you are driven to provide more and better service, it is just a matter of how driven are you? I have even seen bad business ideas change direction and succeed anyway, simply because the owner was driven by a love of what he was doing.
   Find your heart's work and do that, you will always succeed.

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      anime_nanetposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      True, true!
      
      I recently adquired a domain and started a wordpress blog with a friend of mine. It's about humor and funny videos and such.
      
      Mind you, not me or him know a d*** about blogs, wordpress, cpanels, php, mysqls, css and all of that... We are still clueless in many senses and we scratch our heads constantly.
      
      But we have an idea, you see. We have the drive. We want to provide good content in innovative ways to our users. We like the challenge of starting something we don't know nothing about. Are we gonna do mistakes along the road? YES! Are we gonna give up because of that? NO! We'll just correct them and move on.
      
      This is THE DRIVE!
      
      We are discovering how to create a site and we're having fun!We also want to make money of it eventually. But we don't know a lot about marketing. So I did some reading on the subject and wrote a 12 page startup content and marketing plan. A boring document for sure, but I HAD FUN DOING IT! Never did anything similar (I'm a nurse) but it went smoothly because I was motivated.
      
      The plan gives the strategic idea of what we want to do and some tactical guidelines. It's nothing fancy, as I said I am not experiencied in the field. But, most important, with the plan we established goals and timelines. We will try to achieve X by the end of two months, Y in the end of the year and Z in 2010.
      
      We will do our best to achieve it! We'll support each other and we'll make the site grow!
      
      That's way better than just play pc games all the time or something. It's a legacy, you create something yours. In the end we will be remembered by what we did in this world...
      
      I stop now, I'm excited again eheh... Anyway, just wanted to share my views of what "the drive" is.

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         earnestshubposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I wish you well. I believe nothing will stop you then!

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