The six Cs of starting up a business: Common sense
The six Cs you need to successfully start up a new business are:
- Creativity
- Common sense
- Courage
- Commitment/resilience
- adaptability to Change
- Communication.
I have already dealt with the first C on the list, Creativity, in a previous article in Gippsland Business Connect.
The second C is:
Common sense
When planning to start a new business, you need a common sense approach.
If you’re thinking about starting a new business, make sure the goods or services you want to sell are things that you’re interested in, enjoy or are even passionate about. If you love what you do and understand your product, you’ll be more dedicated during that first difficult year of running any business, and your business is far more likely to succeed.
The first sensible thing to do when planning your business is to do some research to work out whether there’s a gap in the market for the goods or services you want to sell. If other businesses are already offering what you want to sell, you will need to look at the difference between your product and all the rest. If it’s no different, that’s a problem because your ability to break into that market will partly depend on that point of difference, so you’ll need to tweak your product (price, quality, branding or your own ‘add-ons’ to the product) until you’ve made your product different enough that it will stand out from the rest.
The next common sense step is to work out what it will cost to set up and then run your business. Look at the hours of work and earnings targets you’ll have to meet in order to cover your costs and start to make a profit, and whether those targets are realistic. If you work out all these practical things before starting up your business, you’re far more likely to succeed.
A lot of small businesses founder during their first year. So the common sense approach when starting up a business is to make sure you’ve got a ‘Plan B’ on the sidelines, just in case ‘Plan A’ doesn’t work out.
Your ‘Plan B’ might be not quitting your full time job but, rather, taking leave without pay from your job, just in case you discover you don’t like running your own business or that it’s too hard to make ends meet. Your ‘Plan B’ might be knowing that you can fall back on your partner’s income during that first year or so when your business may not be making enough to live on. As long as you have a practical ‘Plan B’ in place, if your business does stumble or even fall, you will be able to survive the loss, and move on.
To read about the ‘first C’, Creativity, go to: The six Cs of starting up a business: Creativity
Image: Pixabay Creative Commons licence (no attribution required)
Sally-Anne Watson Kane
Writer, editor, proofreader, owner/operator - On Time Typing, Editing and Proofreading
Sally-Anne Watson Kane owns and operates On Time Typing, Editing and Proofreading (established as 'On Time Typing' in 2002) and Peewee Press (since 2003). Sally-Anne is a professional editor and full member of Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd) Australia, based in Moe, Gippsland.
Our services: typing, scribing, report writing, minute-taking, transcription, copy writing, editing, proofreading, graphic design, and self-publishing.
Sally-Anne manages an Australian-based team of eleven typists, scribes, transcriptionists, writers and editors (all subcontractors) including typists in Gippsland as well as typists, editors and scribes in Melbourne, Central Victoria and interstate.
Sally-Anne is a professional member of Institute of Professional Editors and Editors Victoria, and a full member of Life Stories Australia.
Sally-Anne regularly writes articles about sole trader and small business management, writing and editing, self-publishing, and contemporary issues in Australia, across a variety of platforms.
Sally-Anne has 25 years' experience in:
- editing and proofreading publications, websites, policies and reports.
- audio transcription (dictation, transcripts of interviews, focus groups, investigations, hearings).
- recording, transcribing, compiling and self-publishing oral histories and anthologies.
- writing articles, websites, reports and publications
- scribing and writing selection, procurement and referee reports
- scribing, writing and editing self-published memoirs and life stories
- providing self-publishing services to authors, businesses and organisations from handwritten manuscript through to printed book stage, including: project planning, budget, typing, editing, proofreading, graphic design, printer quotes and liaison. We specialise in producing memoirs and life stories, local histories, and minority voices.