I believe that there are 3 factors that drive the success of small businesses. I will also post information twice a week on things I find that might be helpful to those of you out there that are thinking of starting a business.


1) Acquiring start-up capital
2) Finding customers
3) Accounting for, budgeting and controlling sales and expenses



The following resources will help your small business achieve these success factors.

Acquiring Start-Up Capital 


An adequate supply of capital is essential as many profitable businesses fail because they don’t have enough cash to pay their employees and suppliers. But what is an adequate supply of capital? The only way to tell is by doing a significant amount of research on your potential market and formally documenting this in a business plan. I’m sure you know that a business plan is a very important document that is crucial to convincing your banker to lend you money.


The two ways to obtain a business plan

1) Do it yourself by amending a business plan template, or
2) Hire a professional to do it for you.


Obviously option 1 will be a great deal cheaper.


There are a few websites with high quality and free business plan templates. You can also find a directories that you can use to easily find a business plan writer in your city – where ever you live in the world.


Finding Customers 


Finding customers is a difficult and expensive task for service business owners such as accountants, lawyers and plumbers. I believe that a cost effective marketing strategy for servicing business owners is to simply give all their personal contacts a few business cards.


You can find a few websites that have pre-designed business card templates. The diversity and quality of these designs are outstanding. In addition, you can obtain a significant saving by finding a printing service on the Internet. I found that you could get 2,000 full color business cards for as little as US $150.


Accounting For, Budgeting and Controlling Revenue and Expenses 


Accurate accounting is very important for small business owners. It’s essential that you have timely access to information that could make or break your business. If stocks are running low – you need to know about it. If a large proportion of your debtors haven’t paid – you need to know about it. If you do not react to these situations quickly you may have a situation where you don’t have enough money to pay your employees – or worse still someone is stealing cash out the till.


People say "get the top this", and or "buy the best that", but what I have found is if you find the product that is tailored to your business type and needs you can never go wrong. The cheapest software cost is about US $89.99 and the most expensive software could run you US $1,499+.

Hopefully you now have an idea of some of the tools that you can use to grow and maintain your small business. Next week we will look into 7 Things to Consider Before Buying Small Business Accounting Software.