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Before You Jump Ship: Four Responsibilities to Consider Before Starting Your Own Business

Written by: Bill Tamminga

Article Overview: You've heard it before: starting a business can be one of the most difficult yet rewarding things you will ever do. Considering these four responsibilities before you start a company will help minimize the difficulty and enhance the rewards.

Before You Jump Ship: Four Responsibilities to Consider Before Starting Your Own Business

You've heard it before: starting a business can be one of the most difficult yet rewarding things you will ever do. Considering these four responsibilities before you start a company will help minimize the difficulty and enhance the rewards.

Product or Service Development. Every business starts with a core offering and builds the company around it. What is it that you want to present to the market? How long will it take to produce these goods or services? Will you need a manufacturer to help with production? Do you have the expertise to create whatever it is that you want to sell? If you produce a service, do you need a legal contract specifying the roles of your business and your clients?

Sales and Marketing. Once you have established your offering, you will need to price it for a profit and get the word out to your target market. How will you price your items? Do you want to differentiate your company by price or are there other ways to set yourself apart? Who will you sell to? How will you draw the attention of those consumers? Once they have expressed interest, how will you keep it? How will you develop relationships with clients?

Accounting. When clients begin paying you, you will need to keep records of each transaction. Do you have at least a minimal amount of knowledge related to spreadsheets and financial statements? How will you record your earnings and losses? How do you plan on filing and paying for taxes?

Customer Service. How will you handle customer complaints or service requests? Will you proactively reach out to customers from time to time to make sure they are satisfied with their purchases?

It takes a large amount of time to develop and perfect these functions. In his new book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell explains the theory that it takes 10,000 hours of immersion to become an expert in a given field, unless you are a genius in which case it will only take you 9,000 hours. I tend to agree with his point. That boils down to about 3.5 years of 8 hour days, 365 days a year. But, as an entrepreneur you will be working more than 8 hours a day, probably averaging around 12. That reduces the number of years to 2.28 - lets call it 2.75 with days off, etc. Interestingly, that is about the same amount of time it takes many entrepreneurs to start making money.

Before jumping ship from your current job, get a head start by considering these responsibilities. You'll thank me for it.

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Article Tags: amount of time, consumers, customer complaints, customer service, earnings, financial statements, genius, immersion, legal contract, losses, malcolm gladwell, relationships, rewards, sales and marketing, service requests, spreadsheets, target market



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