There are no limits and there many routes to becoming a businessperson. If you desire to start and run your own business, you have come to a good place. If you wish to acquire knowledge on how to start and operate a business fruitfully, without the cost of a seminar or an adviser, this is the right website for you. You can start and succeed in business no matter where you are and who you are. You do not need a lot of education and a lot of money but you need a vision, a viable idea, and passion. If you have these, leave the rest to us. Let us now look at the basics of what it takes to start and operate a business.
A business is a recurring activity that creates and delivers a valuable thing that consumers need at an affordable price in a manner that meets consumers’ hopes and provides a profit that makes it attractive for the proprietor to continue in the enterprise. An enterprise that does not meet these conditions nor has no prospects of meeting these conditions will shortly die off. To start and run a successful business entails the following six interrelated activities:
Formation activities
This is about defining the business idea and giving your business a format and a unique identity. The factors and activities include:
- Choosing business category such as manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing, services (service is a business activity that involves doing something or assisting a customer in one way or another to do something or to have something done), franchise, or licensing.
- Deciding on the legal format or structure of the business; such as a sole proprietorship, partnership or a limited liability company.
- Selection and registration of name and logo (trademarks) for protection.
- Selection and registration of website domain name and making website hosting arrangements.
- Obtaining necessary licenses/permits, and identification numbers for taxation and any other regulatory levy fees as well as physical and mailing address, telephone and email.
Read “formation” for more details on these.
Organizing and planning
This is about creative thinking to form a vision and make competitive plans around the key interrelated activities of starting and running a business (outlined below), which include:
- Marketing, sales, distribution/delivery, and customer service activities: This is about creating awareness and demand, converting potential customers into buyers, placing products in customers’ hands or locations near them, and offering customer care.
- Operations actions: Defining and providing facilities, systems, processes and procedures to run the operations.
- Administration and management: Creating an office structure and staffing it to have roles to carry out the functions of management, which are planning, organizing, directing, controlling and decision-making in the business. In a small outfit, the owner and a few assistants can perform these roles.
- Financial management: This is about funding the business and controlling the financial performance of the business to ensure it makes a profit.
See “organizing and planning” for more details on these
Start, operate, and grow:
This is about starting running the business, and continuous creation of ideas and strategies of how to sustain and grow the business. See the page (dropdown) headed “start, operate, manage, and grow” for more details on these.
Exiting strategies
This concerns how to incorporate, at planning stages, strategies for the profitable exit of an ongoing business. See the page (dropdown) headed “exit plans-strategies” for more details on these.
