I saw a post recently that said, “It’s easier to start a business than look for a job in a recession,” and it couldn’t be more true! Life still goes on during a recession. People buy new things, have to replace things that break, and still need services for their cars, homes, children, and themselves. Many luxury-type items are leaving shopping lists, but they are replaced with more practical things. And some businesses that provide the products and services that people need are going out of business, suffering from too much debt, poor management, or bad decisions. For every business that closes, an opportunity opens for you to start your business.
Starting a business in a recession provides a number of advantages:
1) If you need to hire employees, the high unemployment rate means that there are quality people available at lower costs than during a boom time.
2) Suppliers of wholesale products and the business services you need are feeling the pinch as well, so there are bargains and good deals to be made.
3) Businesses that close their doors provide opportunities to pick up commercial space and gently used equipment and fixtures at a bargain basement price.
4) Local communities want to increase economic activity, so they are motivated to help out new startups that will contribute to the local economy.
If you’ve been wanting to launch your business idea but haven’t made the decision to take the plunge…now is a great time. Start your business during the recession and join the ranks of over half of the Fortune 500 businesses — they were also started during an economic downturn!
Start Here. Go Far. LaunchX.com
Would-be entrepreneurs email us all the time asking who they should get to write their business plan and how much they should pay to get it done. Our answer is always the same – YOU should plan your business. The whole idea of a written business plan is to formalize everything you know about the business you are trying to start. If you just have an idea and buy a ready-made plan or hire someone else to write one for you, you will be among the high number of startup failures. Seriously.
The reason that all of those free sites tell you to write a business plan and sometimes provide an outline to fill in is that successful entrepreneurs know that you won’t get far without a road map for your startup. They are happy to give out a basic outline for free because it’s like giving out the Table of Contents for a textbook on surgery…you might figure out the order of what you need to know but certainly not the details. A formal business plan, with the executive summary and pretty graphs, is useful for one thing – convincing investors that your idea is viable. The information that goes in a viable business plan can only be accumulated through specific research and knowledge. If you want to start and run a business, guess who needs to conduct that research and gain that knowledge? That would be you!
Allowing someone else to write your business plan or, worse, buying a ready-made plan, means that you will not have enough knowledge of your product, your competition, your target market, or your marketing options to make the choices that determine success or failure. Merely knowing your operations (what you do) is not enough. Any seasoned business owner will tell you that you need to be an expert in every area of your startup to have a chance, including planning, marketing, and financial management.
The LaunchX System was developed specifically to address this problem. Every aspect of what you need to know to succeed is covered, step-by-step, so that any idea can be developed into a legitimate plan for success. Then, whether you need investment for startup or for later expansion, we include software that easily allows you to convert your knowledge of your business into a formal business plan. And, your personal LaunchX Coach will help you through every step of planning and writing to ensure your startup has the best chance of success.
So, if you are wondering who should write your business plan, the answer is YOU…after you have actually planned the business.
Start Here. Go Far. LaunchX.com.
