Starting a new business can be a very exciting time, you are going to be your own boss, decide what and when you do things, manage the purse strings, and in fact you are in control of everything. Are you really in control of the situation though, you have to deal with everything yourself so you have to stay focused on what you want to do and why. All business startups need advice; sometimes they need advice on where to get advice, so the budding entrepreneur has to be able to listen as there is more to running a business than understanding, or loving, the subject.

Like a chess game, success in small business starts with decisive and correct opening moves. And, although initial mistakes are not fatal, it takes skill, discipline and hard work to regain the advantage.

When you plan to start a business you do not plan to fail but statistics show that 70% of business startups fail within the first 3 years of trading. This is for a variety of reasons but they mainly hinge around business and financial planning. Basic mistakes like starting the business with insufficient financial backing or working capital to taking too much of the profits to remunerate the owners are often the downfall of the business.

A way to increase your chances of success, take the time up front to explore and evaluate your business and personal goals. This information will be useful to help you build a comprehensive and well ¬thought¬ out business plan, the blueprint for you business.

Every business needs a business plan, for business startups the first part of the business plan might be where to find out how to write a business plan and what it should include. The process of developing a business plan will help you think through some important issues that you may not have considered yet. Your plan will become a valuable tool as you set out to raise money for your business, no investor will even look at you if you have not got a business plan. It should also provide milestones to gauge your success.

There are a lot of agencies who can advise you on some, or all, aspects of starting a business. Some of these will charge you for their advice whilst others offer them free of charge.

Business link is one of the agencies and advice is free and assistance with funding might be available in the right circumstances. They have a large database that will help you find a grant or subsidy that suits your business and let you know what makes a business eligible to receive one. Interactive tools help you identify the capital and incentive allowances that your business can claim and identifies online transactions available to your business and explains how to register and enrol.

They can even help with introductions to reputable suppliers. A bad supplier speeds the downfall of a lot of business startups who really need to rely on good stock and reliable delivery dates.

There are a lot of schemes that are interested in funding business startups, for example Option 2 funding offers 50% matched funding for projects to expand business. Other funding schemes are often available based on regional location and industry type. These include grants to help with business development, and they are available from a variety of sources, such as the government, the European Union, Regional Development Agencies, Business Links and some charitable organisations.

So if you do not want to be a an addition to the failure statistic investigate all the funding opportunities available to you, whether you go to a commercial organisation or go for free advice from an agency such as Business Link. Be sure to listen to their advice, they have been dealing with business startups for years; this is your first time.

Search terms:

A business builder envisions what they want their business to become. The vision eventually becomes a plan based on analysis of personal and competition strengths and weakness, the marketplace, and strategies of ways and means to materialize the vision.

Opportunity chasing is an invitation to under achieve because time is spent looking for and trying out the best deal on the hottest trend instead of building business with strategy focused on product line congruent with personal values, business growth, and the customer base that drives it. While all these characteristics may be present in any opportunity, analysis of how your time and money converts to Return On Investment (ROI) may not be clear.

With no other test but whether or not it can make some money as soon as possible, opportunists chase the elusive get rich quick easy promotions. Although sales and network matrix building are important business assets, what opportunists tend to overlook are basic long-term strategic plans.

Instead of chasing opportunities, business builders tend to analyze and develop them. Business building whether on or off the internet requires a variety of skills that must be developed for any specialized but profitable segment of a market or niche. Therefore, one main difference between business building and opportunity chasing is how leverage is used.

Opportunity seekers tend to choose offers that appear to be do-able from their personal effort as part of a team or network of affiliates which begs the question, who is leveraging whom? Conversely, the business builder tends to select only product and service opportunities that support a scalable business where personal time and ROI can be leveraged for profit.

Network or matrix marketing is geared to out-task work up and down the lines of the network. While this certainly generates a flow of money for products and services, any real or perceived long term benefit to participants may be significantly less than expected.

In theory, ROI compels many opportunity seekers to do the same thing as everyone else. In practice, they end up trying to do it longer, faster, and smarter than everyone else with a net result of diminishing returns or lower ROI and their expectations shattered by apparent under achievement.

On the other hand, business builders out-source instead of out-task to quite simply continue to add value to their time instead of having it fixed or decreased by matrix limits. The measurable difference between out-sourcing and out-tasking is whether your time produces an increase or decrease of your return on investment. The h4h.biz site was set up to teach business building by involving participants as co-authors in ebook projects.

In theory, ROI should produce a win-win outcome. Unfortunately in practice, it differs more often for opportunity chasers than business builders. Opportunity choosing and business building are both important activities, but one without the other is like a car without gas, a nice ride but doesn’t go very far.