The First Year In Your New Business

Well you’ve done it – you’ve started your new business.  You’ve managed to get a great business loan, your marketing seems to be working and your products and services are starting to sell.  So what else should you expect?

The realisation that you don’t just have a business but a new life style.  Your business now should be encased in every part of your life.  You find yourself continually networking and telling people what you now do for a living.  You find that you don’t “clock off” at 5pm any more.  Thoughts come into your mind at night and you just have to write this idea down before you forget them.

You don’t have big company back up anymore! You learn that you have to be the one that fixes the photocopier, make the tea/coffee and greet the clients.  If you are organised you will already have got yourself some virtual or technology help such as a virtual assistant, voicemail and support contracts.  Maybe you don’t have that kind of income as yet?  It’s something to aspire to as the less time you spend on non income earning work the more time you can spend on earning.

That getting customers takes a lot longer than you thought.   You might have started your business because you had a few customers already.  You quickly find that getting the next few customers is hard work.  If you have a difficult customer then you also find that keeping a customer is hard work as well.  Marketing is hard work, marketing whilst also looking after customers and fulfilling their orders is really hard work.  The trick to learn is to set up some automated marketing – such as article marketing, PR etc that will go away and sell your business automatically.  The problem is that this kind of marketing needs to be regularly and consistently renewed at very short intervals.  At the end of your first year you should have learnt that marketing takes up at at least 50% of your time.

You didn’t make as much money as you thought you would.  Setting up a business is expensive and hard work!  You should by now be at least meeting your normal bills and maybe saving a bit for those bigger one off bills.  It’s important that you plan not to be in too much profit in the first year.  Only spend on items that will bring revenue and keep control of your expenses,  Maximise your profits and your should survive.

Good luck.