Mutual Finance

the second in a series taken from
How to Evaluate and Profit from a Business Opportunity

Going into business for yourself is a big decision, one that requires careful thought and a great deal of planning. Whether you decide to buy a business, or start one from an idea or a patent, you need to know yourself. In order to make the business successful, it has to be one you will like working in and its requirements have to match your skills, and attitude.

First, understand why you want to go in business for yourself. There are lots of reasons. Some people want to build an empire; others have an idea they passionately believe in. Some because they can’t find a job and by owning their own business they will have income to take care of their needs. Still others want control over their lifestyle while many want to pass on something to their heirs.

Knowing why you want to own your own business will help you avoid mistakes and let you focus on what’s right for you. A good match at the beginning will go a long way towards making you a successful business owner. We always do better at what we like.

As you start working on a self-assessment, remember that while it’s important to know what you are, it’s equally important to know what you aren’t. Do you learn new things easily, on your own, or do you find it tough to deal with change? What was the last new thing you learned? What are you looking forward to learning right now?

Can you teach others how to do things? Can you motivate people; are you good at critiquing, negotiating and reprimanding? If so you may want to stay away from a business that employees many people and experiences a high turnover.

How about your personal lifestyle; is being home for dinner with the family important, or spending time with the kids on weekends? If so a retail business might not be right for you. Its time demands could be a conflict which causes many problems.

If you like tinkering with tools and equipment instead of sitting at a desk, you probably should consider some type of light manufacturing or assembly business. Besides being able to help your employees deal with the occasional machine breakdown, you may very well find new ways to do things, maybe even design a new process or tool which you can market.

Are you a detail person or do you always seem to grasp the bigger picture? As the owner you will have to be both, but knowing how a business makes money (a topic for a later article) will let you begin spending more of your time on the activities you like.

Do you enjoy making people happy, bringing a smile to their faces? Maybe you’ve always had an itch to go on the stage. If so perhaps you should look for a restaurant that serves great food but all the people out front add nothing to the fun of the dinning experience. Perhaps the owner/chef really knows how to cook but lacks people skills and would be willing to take in a partner who would be the out-front person. If you know accounting, you can also take over the bookkeeping functions and free the creative genius in the kitchen expand the culinary offerings.

Always remember you don’t have to own it all to be in business for yourself.

At the end of Chapter Two in my book How to Evaluate and Profit from a Business Opportunity - The Entrepreneur’s Guide there is a twenty- nine questions self assessment quiz which will help you learn more about yourself.

www.artconsoli.com

Art Consoli held eight corporate positions with Johnson & Johnson before starting his first business. He went on to build over twenty businesses from patents or ideas or from businesses others couldn’t make successful. These ranged from starting a veterinarian drug company to taking over a steel fabricating company to developing the first manufactured home subdivision to qualify for every private and government assisted mortgage program in Arizona. He also did ten workouts for lenders and owners; the last was a $30 million, 300 employee, precision parts manufacturing plant that made parts for the auto industry. Consoli’s unique background and skills allow him to speak and write about how someone with limited experience can do a self-evaluation which will let him decide which business opportunity is best, how to evaluate opportunities and gain control over the one which offers the greatest potential and then manage that business to success. Readers of his book call and write to tell him how much his book has helped their lives and improved their business.

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the third in a series taken from:

How to Evaluate and Profit from a Business Opportunity - The Entrepreneur’s Guide.

Guess what every not-yet-an-entrepreneur says when they are asked what’s keeping them from owning their own business?

“No money. I don’t have enough money.”

Certainly many may not have enough money, but most people don’t understand how much money they have — or may have access to. They also don’t realize that money is just one resource they will need to get their business up and running, or bought and open for business.

Many people pass up opportunities because they don’t think about the resources they have. Instead, they focus on what they don’t have. A successful business owner is resourceful. Think about that word for a moment. What comes to mind? Someone who can make a fire with a piece of rock and some dry twigs? Maybe somebody who can open a locked car with a coat hanger or who can figure out how to get the computer program to run. That’s what successful business people can do because they can reach back into their experiences and draw out what they need to solve problems.

Most people probably don’t think of themselves as resourceful and many of you reading this probably would say that you aren’t as well. But as with most things in life, we weren’t born being resourceful, we came to it by dealing with problems. The more practice you’ve had the better at it you become. And small business owners are confronted with many problems so they quickly become very resourceful.

The first time I was identified as resourceful came when I was put in charge of the complaint and claims department for Johnson & Johnson. The previous manager sort of let things go and the folks doing the work were way behind. I was told to shape up the department and get every complaint and claim handled within a few days of receipt. We were so far behind that we were getting the second and third inquiry about the same problem. We had no hope of catching up without a serious infusion of additional people.

Rather than ask my boss to approve such a request, I found another way. I went into work one weekend and pulled every file (a complaint or a claim) off every person’s desk and from their work-in- progress temporary files and stacked ‘em in storage boxes in a vacant room — and after making a list of all the customers’ names and order numbers — I locked the room.

On Monday when the adjusters came in they looked around in disbelief. Then I made an announcement. “Every call or letter that comes in today will be answered tomorrow. No exceptions. Find out what happened and resolve the matter. If it’s an old problem, one where the papers are out of the files because you were working on it, bring it to me.”

When somebody brought me a second or third inquiry on an old problem I told them to make the adjustment in the customer’s favor - and I made a note which I then attached to the documents in the locked room and put them back in the files.

After a week or so of grumbling about how difficult it was to get the answers and resolve the problem in a day, things began working smoothly. In a month all but a handful of the problems in the locked room were back in the files.

How does this help you in your quest to own your own business? First, realize that the most important resource you need is people. Good people make good things happen. Be sure you know who you are going to count on to help you run the business. Second, understand that everything else you will need are just things; vehicles, facilities, equipment, inventory, supplies - - whatever. These will either come with what you buy or be acquired, as you need them as you build your business.

What you buy will have value and can be financed. Maybe you won’t like the terms, but the money is available. And if you can show that the business you are buying or are going to build — is a good bet. It too can be financed. Maybe you won’t find a lender so easy, but you may be able to find a partner, maybe the seller might like to be your partner.

As you become successful you will quickly learn there is always money available for a good idea and for a person who knows how to build successful businesses.

Your most important resource is — YOU! And you will become more valuable, more important as you deal with and solve problems.

Check out the chapters in my book on Resources and Leverage; learn how many you have without even knowing it.

By Art Consoli

www.artconsoli.com

Art Consoli held eight corporate positions with Johnson & Johnson before starting his first business. He went on to build over twenty businesses from patents or ideas or from businesses others couldn’t make successful. These ranged from starting a veterinarian drug company to taking over a steel fabricating company to developing the first manufactured home subdivision to qualify for every private and government assisted mortgage program in Arizona. He also did ten workouts for lenders and owners; the last was a $30 million, 300 employee, precision parts manufacturing plant that made parts for the auto industry. Consoli’s unique background and skills allow him to speak and write about how someone with limited experience can do a self-evaluation which will let him decide which business opportunity is best, how to evaluate opportunities and gain control over the one which offers the greatest potential and then manage that business to success. Readers of his book call and write to tell him how much his book has helped their lives and improved their business.

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the first in a series

Besides being a car made by General Motors, Cadillac was once an adjective used to describe the best. Times change, people change, things change; now maybe more than any other time in history we have to deal with more important, future impacting changes than we can possibly imagine.

Our security is being threatened on all fronts. Corporations look at employees as checkers to be moved around on a checkerboard until they are no longer of any value. Decisions about our money, either to help us grow or to fund retirement are made mostly by people who are motivated by how much money they can put in their pockets. Often it seems that everyone is focused on the transaction, not the relationship; that they have to get theirs as fast and as much as they can before anybody else.

How do you protect yourself in such an environment?

You need to get control over your future. You need to make informed decisions and you need to use your resources, your skills, your experience, your desire — to make whatever it is you want — happen.

You need to consider going into business for yourself.

I remember when I did. I was located in Phoenix and was the Vice President in charge of the western states for a company based in New York. One pay day back in 1973 a couple of employees came back from lunch and told me that the bank wouldn’t cash their checks, there was no money in the account. I called the accounting department and was told that the company had filed bankruptcy that morning, that all the accounts were frozen. I was also told that most of the checks cashed in the last five or so days would bounce. This was a big problem for me. I had recently received and deposited a bonus check, my salary, several months of expense reimbursement checks (totaling about $50,000 in 2006 money) and had spent it. When I told my wife, she asked, “Where are you going to get a job?”

I said. “I don’t have time to get a job, I have to make some money — now.”

Most of us think that our security comes from who we work for. It doesn’t. Our security is what we have in our brains, what we are willing to do with our time, and our ability to make decisions.

Anybody can go into business for themselves. If you decided what courses were the best to take. If you bought a car, decided where to live, or bought a house, you learned how to make decisions.

Understand yourself, start letting everyone you know that you want to be in business for yourself. Start looking at every opportunity that interests you and learn how to analyze what you see and hear. Then identify your resources, understand the different ways you can get started like buying a percentage of a business, taking an option on a business, or trading your service for ownership and get started.

Certainly you will need help and information. Continue to look here for more articles taken from my book, How to Evaluate and Profit from a Business Opportunity — The Entrepreneur’s Guide. And check my web site for more information.

The rate of change isn’t going to slow down. There’s no sense worrying about something you can’t fix — like Social Security, or if GM will file bankruptcy, or if the people who run your company will outsource your job. Instead concentrate on how to get more people to buy the products and services you provide from your business.

www.artconsoli.com

Art Consoli held eight corporate postions with Johnson & Johnson before starting his first business. He went on to build over twenty businesses from patents or ideas or from businesses others couldn’t make successful. These ranged from starting a veterinarian drug company to taking over a steel fabricating company to developing the first manufactured home subdivision to qualify for every private and government assisted mortgage program in Arizona. He also did ten workouts for lenders and owners, the last was a $30 million, 300 employee, precision parts manufacturing plant that made parts for the auto industry. Consoli’s unique background and skills allow him to speak and write about how someone with limited experience can do a self-evaluation which will let thim decide which business opportunity is best, how to evaluate opportunities and gain control over the one which offers the greatest potential and then manage that business to success. Readers of his book call and write to tell him how much his book has helped their lives and improved their business.

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