One of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to starting a new business is that they quit their full time jobs too early. These people tend to have a vague idea about what it is that they want to do, but they have not done a lot of research on the various parts of running a business. Nor have they put much time into researching their business idea. Many people make this mistake because of how appealing starting a new business is.

If you plan on quitting your job to start a new business there are five things that you must have or do before making that leap. Here are the five things that you need to have or do before you start a new business:

Number one: Customers
The most important thing that you have to have to start a new business before you quit your old job is customers. The reason for this is that customers are vital to running a successful business. Without customers, you will not be able to make a profit, and without a profit, you are not going to be a successful business. How you attract these customers is going to depend on your marketing plan. For example, your grand opening is going to need to be advertised to attract potential customers. This can be done through direct mail campaigns or it can be done through an email campaign depending on where your business is going to be located, online or in a physical location. The most important step in getting customers is doing your market research to find your target group. By identifying your target group, you can attract customers that will benefit from your business, which will ensure that they will continue doing business with you so that your business can be considered successful.

Number two: Business name
One thing that you are going to want to do before you quit your job to start a new business is to make sure that you have a business name. When choosing a business name you are going to want to make sure that it does not violate any existing trademarks. To find out if it does violate existing trademarks the best thing that you can do is to do a search on the U.S. Trademark Electronic Search System. By performing this search you can make sure that your business name will be a good one, which will allow you to create your marketing materials, business cards, websites, etc up and running so that you can start contacting customers.

Number three: Business plan
You also must have a business plan. This is something that you are going to want to have completed and in the process of using before you even begin to think about quitting your job. Your business plan is designed to cover everything about your business, including your business name and your financial statements. There is nothing too minor that you should not include. For example, if you plan to run your business out of your home for a year and then plan on renting out a location you need to include that. The reason that your business plan is so important is because it is your guideline for how you plan to run your business. Here are some things to keep in mind when it comes to writing your business plan:

• Your executive summary is the most important part of your business plan because it sums up all of the important aspects of your business. This is where you are going to want to include what your company plans on doing, how you are going to finance your business, how much money you will need to borrow to finance your business, how much capital you plan on contributing, and how the money is going to be spent. You need to include your company's vision statement, which explains where you want your company to go and how you plan to take it there.
• You want to include information on the customer groups that you have targeted, other groups that you plan on targeting in the future and how you plan on marketing your product or service to the targeted groups. Explain what research you did to determine your target market. For example, surveys in malls or cold calling potential customers.
• Include information on any market testing that you have done. Highlight the information that you have obtained about your competitors and what kind of plans you have to compete with them. For example, how your going to offer the same product as ABC store, but you plan on offering your customers a 100% money back guarantee, which ABC store does not offer.
• Include information that is related to your product or service. This includes information on what the product or service is that you plan on offering, but also includes how you plan on selling and promoting your product. You want to include information on how much you are going to charge, what kind of warranty you are going to offer, and how you are going to reach your customers. Also, include information on the type of public relations that you plan on using and whether you will do the public relations yourself or if you plan to hire a public relations firm.
• Profits and losses. This should include cash flow projections, profit and loss statements, balance sheets, income statements, and any other kind of financial statements that your company will prepare. All of the statements should be prepared using traditional accounting formats, whether it is cash accounting or accrual based accounting. Also should include how you plan on making money and how you plan on spending that money, along with what you plan on doing with any profit that the company makes each year.

Number four: Finances
You need to make sure that your finances are in order. You want to make sure that you have some kind of savings. You want to have about a years worth of money saved up so that you can pay your personal expenses until your business is making a profit. Not to mention that having this kind of savings will help protect your family if things do go wrong. Another aspect of getting your finances in order is obtaining credit for your business. This is easier to do when you have a steady paycheck so you want to do it before you quit your job. You will be able to get a better deal if you access the equity in your home or apply to increase your spending limits on your credit cards if you do that before you quit your job. This is because institutions are more likely to lend you money if you have a steady income to prove that you can pay it back. This is also a great time to improve your credit rating if you have poor credit. You want to fix this before you quit your job because your credit rating is going to make a huge difference in the costs of small business loans, equipment leases, credit card processing services, and much more.

Number five: Health insurance
You want to research your health insurance options before you quit your job. The reason that you must do this before you quit your current job is because you want to make sure that you are not going to be left without health insurance for you and your family. You want to make sure that you take a second look at your company's current insurance policy, but you also want to look around at other options that you can purchase yourself. What you are looking for is which plan is going to work out the best for you. Under federal law, if you work for a company that has more than 20 employees you can stay on their health insurance plan for 18 months as long as you pay the entire cost of coverage. You want to see if this will be cheaper than buying your own policy. This is also a god time to look at how much you will be paying in the future once the 18 months is up if you stay on your previous employer's health insurance.

The one thing that you really want to keep in mind is that there are no guarantees in the business world. What this means is that you can do plan everything down to the last minute and then quit your job and still something could go wrong. Therefore, your best bet is that when going into business for yourself that you make sure you have some kind of back up plan that you can fall back on if things do not go as planned. The best thing to do to help minimize the risk and increase your chances of being successful in starting a new business is to only invest as much as you can afford to lose, also do not borrow more than you can afford to pay back.