Is Starting A Business Right For You?

Is starting a business right for you?  This is a very personal question, and the answer can often depend on your appetite for risk, your sense of adventure, your approach to uncertainty and your current financial situation along with other factors.

Several studies have been conducted to find the qualities and traits of entrepreneurs. Many of the most common traits that exist in successful entrepreneurs are that they tend to be driven to succeed (a self-starter), goal-oriented, confident, passionate, charismatic, self-reliant, resilient, focused, knowledgeable about their industry and business, good at marketing, creative, a visionary, good at customer relations, good at organization and management skills, leadership skills, intelligent, and often they has a positive attitude or are optimistic.

Do you need to have all of the qualities listed above to be a successful entrepreneur?  We don’t think so, but we believe you should possess some of the attributes above, especially the knowledge or acumen of your chosen industry or business.  Many successful entrepreneurs are willing to work long hours early on to either overcome their lack of experience in running a business or improve their deficiencies and weaknesses. Others make sure they obtain these skills and qualities in some other capacity. Often an entrepreneur will augment their skill set by adding a partner, hire key employees or hire an outside firm to perform aspects of their business that are outside their circle of competence.

As a tax firm we help hundreds of companies with their accounting and taxes (finances) but we also get direct knowledge and insight into their business through the numbers which allows us to become more like consultants instead of just their tax professional.

Two of the biggest hurdles we see start-up companies face is that they have a great idea or product, but they can’t sell it. Most of the time this is because they are the analytical type instead of sales type. We have found from experience that it is usually difficult for the quiet analytical types to get “comfortable” selling their service or product in the market. However, we have also found that if you can’t get comfortable selling your service or product in the market then the company will not meet its full potential and often fails regardless of how great the product or service is.

Another challenging aspects we see many business owners struggle with is not “charging what they are worth”. Often early entrepreneurs starting out charge much less than they are worth to try and capture a sale. This can quickly becomes a high volume low cost business model that you can’t sustain, because you don’t have enough manpower to support this business model you accidently created.  Though it might initially sounds counter intuitive, we believe you should spend a significant amount of time in the early stages of your startup researching the market. You should invest a lot of hours figuring out a very precise plan for pricing your products or services. Many questions arise in the market place when you are discussing your product or service with potential customers. Often a prospective customers will only want one service out of a group of services you offer in a bundled plan. Or, a prospective customer only wants to buy the peripheral products that accompany your core product you offer for sale. You will need to know on the spot if you should sell a variation of your service or product or if you lose money unbundling a service or product you offer. Landing every customer sometimes just does not make good business sense.  Doing this research early and coming up with a precise pricing model early will help you quickly decide on the spot if you should pivot and make a deal or tell the prospective customer it only comes in a bundled service (or product).

Most tax preparers, focus on putting the “right” numbers in the “right” boxes on the “right” forms. They do a great job of telling you how much you owe — but very few provide you a plan to pay less. We will help you develop a tax plan to save money.

“There is nothing wrong with a strategy to avoid the payment of taxes. The Internal Revenue Code doesn’t prevent that.”  William H. Rehnquist

Love Myles Group LLC