New Jersey Enterpreneur - Small Business, Entrepreneurs and Venture Capital

Many people as they go through life will identify opportunities to make money, but only a small percentage will to start an enterprise to pursue this opportunity. Whether the enterprise eventually becomes a Fortune 500 company or a local mom and pop store, they have in common the first steps of moving from idea to action. This preparatory process may take weeks, months or even years depending upon the enterprise, the time needed and available to devote and other resources, financial and otherwise.

There are many steps a prospective entrepreneur can take prior to formally and legally establishing an enterprise and also leaving a good job. By taking well placed preparatory steps in evaluating potential business opportunities and establishing some foundation before leaving a position, the possibility of success will increase while optimizing time and saving money. Below are some self assessment tools and recommendations to assist the prospective entrepreneur through this preparatory phase.

There are a number of tools to assist the prospective entrepreneur and the business owner as they go through a preparatory phase or are in the early stages of building their company.

Personal Skill Assesstment
There is no pre-qualification test for being an entrepreneur, as well as there being no clear predictor of what makes one individual successful as opposed to another. However, it is recommended that the individual contemplating a new business enterprise do some self assessment that will provide guidance and feedback on their skill base for the entrepreneurial area they are contemplating entering.

Business Plans
One of the most important tools for starting and managing a business is the Business Plan. The Business Plan, as its name suggests, creates a framework for establishing and building a business through various stages by identifying critical steps and areas to focus on and follow. There are numerous templates available to assist the entrepreneur in the creation of a Business Plan. One should resist the temptation to by pass this process, which many owners do, as it assists the individual to stay on track and confront needs in a systematic and timely way.

As mentioned in the financing section of this site, the Business Plan is also an excellent document for bringing in third parties to the venture such as banks, outside investors, and potential partners. A good plan will summarize the critical information needed to assess the venture?s potential for success and the resources that will be required along the way to support the endeavor.

Marketing Plan
The Marketing Plan is found within the Business Plan, but it needs to be given special focus since it is a very important factor in building a business and it is often misunderstood. Many people confuse marketing and advertising, as advertising is just one smalll component of marketing.

Marketing is a very broad description of the steps needed to bring a product or service to market. Steps may include research, strategy, product design, promotion, advertising, communication, budgeting and more. The Marketing Plan is a comprehensive approach that details all of the steps associated with those areas that systematically puts promotion of the business, product or service into motion.

Financial Assessment
As part of the Business Plan, understanding both the individual?s and the business?s financial health and standing is important. Many entrepreneurs and business owners often are unfamiliar with the basics of financing such as understanding an income statement and balance sheet.

Prior to starting a business it is strongly recommended that the prospective owner take a basic accounting and finance class to understand the fundamentals. From this foundation, the owner may grow in knowledge through experience or rely upon other individuals to build financial and accounting reporting tools that will assist them as their business grows. These other tools include projections, cash flow management and financial analysis and others that become important as the business becomes more complex.

In addition, it is important that the business owner understand their own personal finances which will be heavily relied upon during the start up phase and early stages of the new business. Sufficient cash must exist to provide the greatest amount of time to the new business owner to achieve the milestone of the business generating revenue and profit to eventually support the owner.

Personal Attributes
Entrepreneur is one business title that probably makes the most multi-faceted demands on the individual. The entrepreneur is continually pressing forward to achieve new results that often have been forsaken by others. There are many personality types and personal styles that individuals utilize to achieve their success. Now there are tests that are fairly insightful to the individual to assist them in understanding their strengths and weaknesses and their personal methods of operating. Taking a test of one?s personal attributes is worthwhile feedback to the business owner as they encounter varying points of stress and challenge as they move forward. It provides the individual with some perspective for judging their successes and failures and the actions they can take to achieve different and better results.

Overview
As an individual embarks on business ownership, they will be forever confronted with new challenges. The economy, their industry and even their partners and employees will continually being changing in response to on going day to day demands. There is a lot of conjecture as to why certain individuals such as Bill Gates of Microsoft or Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic are successful entrepreneurs, while others are not. But there has not been much consensus on those factors for success.

In the broadest terms, entrepreneurism is having both the Vision and the Resolve in their endeavor that is supported by a substantive amount of Talent. Talent of the individual is key, but it must be complemented with foresight and the will to build on that talent. Talent does not have to be comprehensive, it may be one very good talent such as sales or innovation or communication or others. However, that talent must be supported by other resources, possibly employees, partners, lawyers, accountants and others that enables that individual to build off of that talent to achieve an onging business.