The Next Step As all humans living on this earth, we go through a multitude of ‘steps’ in life. We start out as a baby making silly/cute ‘goo-goo, gaa-gaa’ noises and then after a while being able to communicate in a language that is understandable. From there we grow into children, teenagers and then into adults. We go to school, go to college, get a girl/boyfriend, buy a car, get a job, break-up with the girl/boyfriend, find a new one, buy a house, get married (or not), have kids (or not), get divorced (hopefully not), find another partner and then, retire and gradually grow old (or in some cases, grow old and then retire). So as you can see, we generally go through life taking the exact same steps and in the exact same order.
percent by the end of the second year and seventy five percent by the fifth. This should come as no surprise when you consider that only a small number of businesses prepare a ‘Business Plan’ before they commence, in fact, only three to five percent of existing small Australian businesses prepare one.
Many of these ‘steps in life’ can’t be planned; they just happen as they are, part of life, but when it comes to having your own business, you can decide on your own path and the way you want it to take. For this to happen, it is imperative to have something in mind, or something in place for the direction your business should head in as it could determine the success or failure of your business.
An important bit of advice though is to do it in an order that is achievable. You can add or swap the list around at any stage as things can change throughout the course of being in business.
It is estimated that thirty percent of new small businesses fail in their first year of operation, fifty
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A ‘Business Plan’ will help keep you on track. It is a simple process of making a list of items you need to undertake during the building of your business. It doesn’t matter if you’re content in just working by yourself, or if you want a larger business with many employees, in either case you need to know the ‘steps’ to take to achieve the goal you have in mind.
Having been in the painting industry myself for over 50 years and self-employed for 37 of those years, I have personally seen many businesses attempt to go too big too fast and after a short period of time, have found themselves in financial trouble. This can easily happen to anyone.
