GoFaxer Blog

There are many technological advances these days, like fax to email, that make starting a small business very feasible. But this doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s still a big risk.

The chances for success are very unlikely. It’s for this reason that very few entrepreneurs quit their day job, wanting to keep the benefits and the security. But ironically, the most successful small business ventures tend to have full time owners making it work.

It’s a huge limitation to small business owners to remain working at an 8 to 5 job. You have to pretend like your focused at your job during the day, while working long hours at night and weekends. Success at both can be unlikely.

So how do you quit your day job when you’ve got a mortgage to pay? Well, you might want to prepare yourself financially before starting the small business. Save extra money to live on. Sell your house and move into some place realty cheap. No one said that starting your own business wasn’t going to require some sacrifices.

Besides, there may be some real value in laying everything on the line for your business. By quitting your job and doing it full time you’re committing to succeed at any price. And it may require that kind of commitment to make it.

Every business is looking for that edge on their competitors. When faced with obvious choices like whether to switch to a fax to email service, the choices are simple. But there are other more complicated and difficult choices.

One of the most important choices that every small business faces in it’s conception is what kind of business they’ll be in. It’s easy to choose a business that you’re well versed in. But smart entrepreneurs go where the opportunity is, not where their experience is.

One key element of success to keep in mind as you choose your industry is this. You’ll have a greater chance at success if you choose to sell to businesses rather than individual consumers. Why is this?

Well, businesses are looking to buy. According to Scott Shane, author of the The Illusions of Entrepreneurs, “Most startups sell products or services to individual consumers, even though 90% of the fastest growing private companies in this country sell to businesses.”

It makes sense that you’re odds for success will increase dramatically if you choose a business that sells to businesses. You can usually secure bigger contracts with bigger revenues. Whereas with individual consumers, you’ve got to sell to a lot of them to make the same amount of revenue. This increases the number of exposures that you must have to those customers. The odds are clear. Sell to businesses if that’s at all possible.

We live in a day and an age where there’s nothing sexier than creating a smart startup business. Grandmothers, who once told their grandkids to get an education so they could become doctors, now encourage their posterity to start a startup.

And we live in a business society that has never been more favorable to the little guys. Yes, big corporations are getting bigger and bigger, buying up other businesses and synergizing. But the fact of the matter is that there are so many technologies like email fax that are just as accessible to small businesses as to large businesses. In addition, small businesses don’t have huge bureaucracy to deal with. An efficient small business can, in many cases, if it’s managed well, respond much quicker to the needs of their customers than their larger competitors.

What about synergy? No problem. There’s no rule that says you must be owned by the same parent company to create a cross promotion or joint venture that benefits both of you. You can still partner with other companies, taking full advantage of mutually beneficial business relationships.

So don’t be afraid of becoming an entrepreneur. Your grandmother is rooting for you.

Studies show that startups that do it as a team rather than individually are much more likely to be successful. Let’s face it, you might be smart, but a team full of great ideas is going to be smarter. Chances are, if you use fax to email, it was suggested by one of your smartest team members.

Yesterday’s I emphasized the importance of championing great ideas. And a great team will always be the source of these ideas. If you work for a big corporation you probably notice how many great ideas get tossed away because they don’t seem important to the manager. But in your small business, you can avoid that by managing your team effectively.

The great CEO Jack Welch emphasizes over and over again in his books and training that business is simply creating a winning team You should always be networking, recruiting, and keeping the best business people you can possibly find. The strength of your team will really define your small business’s success.

Spend all of the effort to put your employees first. Even above your customers. It’s far worse to lose a great employee than it is to lose a customer. You can always find new customers, especially if your business concept is solid. But you never want to let that great team member go.

In the business world, especially when starting your own small business, you must hold to one very strong principle—Ideas are king!

Many entrepreneurs think they can assemble a top notch team that can make any business idea work. But there’s too much at stake when you’ve put everything on the line for your new small business. You can’t afford to be spending all of your time, talent, and heart on a mediocre and bad idea. You’re idea must be great. Your concept must be solid. And then, with a very talented team you’re set for success. But don’t fool yourself into thinking you can win on sheer brilliance alone. To do so would be an act of sure stupidity.

And a small business is more than just one good idea. It must be the conglomeration of a lot of smart and savvy business ideas. Every marketing opportunity and business expense should be a good idea. The numbers should add up. If you have a strong set of values that you look to in making all decesions, the decisions will really make themselves. Should you switch to fax to email? Should you invest in that advertising option? Should you rent or buy your own property? All of these decisions must be smart.

So remember the rule. Ideas are king. If they’re good ideas, you’ll need to champion them.

A recent article at Businessweek.com by John Tozzi addresses the issues of starting your own business rather than retiring. He says:

“While starting a business is a challenge at any age, a first-timer starting a business later in life will encounter different obstacles than younger entrepreneurs, particularly when it comes to funding the business, securing health insurance, managing personal finance, and succession planning.”

The rule of thumb that I took away from the article is this: If you’ve got extra time, money, and energy to invest in a small business go for it. But don’t do it if you’re going to rely on the income from a business venture. It’s just too risky.

When you’re young, if the venture doesn’t work out, you can go back into the general work force and be caught up by retirement. But when you’re older you’ve got less time to make up for a failed business.

My other bit of advice is that you may be getting up there in age, but don’t run your business old-school. Make your company young and modern, taking advantage of all of the latest technology advances like Internet fax. You’ve got to use these modern advancements if your company has a chance at succeeding.

When you start a new business, you’re going to want to make all of the right choices. You’ll want to make your business up-to-date and streamlined, taking advantage of email and Internet fax technology.

But there are other fundamental elements to a successful startup. One of those essential choices is to make sure that you choose the right industry to be involved in. You might have years of experience in the food industry, but statistics shows that you’re far more likely to be successful in the computer industry as a startup.

Maybe working in the industry that you have the most experience in is going to be the best decision. But it may not. Having a product in an industry where there’s minimal competition is going to be far more important than experience or talent in that industry.

This may require you to learn new skills. It may require new knowledge. With a constantly changing business world, with a constant shift in technologies, it’s becoming even more important than ever to be flexible about your business and responsibilities. The best employees are able to take on pretty much any role in the organization and excel. And the same must said for your startup. You must assemble a team that is truly flexible, and then choose the industry that gives you the best chance for success.

Do you ever wish you didn’t have to go into the office the next morning? Do you ever dream of financial freedom from your nine to five job? Do you ever feel a little cramped in your cubicle?

I think everyone who works for a large corporation dreams of independence every once in a while. You look at your company owner’s multi-million-dollar mansion and you say to yourself, “I don’t think he works harder than me. Yet he’s making a lot more than me.” This common sentiment inspires thousands of Americans every year to try their hand at their own startup business.

But the odds are stacked against you. Over the last 20 years, only 4% of the startups in the computer and office equipment industries made the Inc. 500. In the hotel industry it’s only .005%. In the eating and drinking industries it’s only .007%. These are not good odds my friends.

Every small business should be using fax to email and other cost efficient tactics for running a low cost office and business. But there are many other elements to your business that will bring success.

For the next two weeks I’m going to be running a series of articles about how to start your own business. I will be basing my advice on an article written by John Tozzi at BusinessWeek.com titled Playbook: A Better Way to Start a Business.