The Things I Learned About Small Business Ownership

Several years ago, my husband lost his management job at a large company. The employment market looked rather dim at the time so we decided (talk about dim) that we would purchase a job for him. We looked into several options and then decided to settle on an existing printing establishment because he had been in that industry for a good long time.

Well, the experience taught us many lessons; mostly lessons in what not to do. So, I will briefly give the short list of the most important things we learned so that all of you potential entrepreneurs might save a great deal of money and hardship gleaning from our “venture”. For this, I will not spend time on the Business 101 things like, “write a business plan” but on things that had the biggest impact on us that we should have considered before even a business plan.

· First and foremost, be sure you check the credibility of the person (or people) that you are buying the existing company from. This is the most compelling reason to start your small business from scratch. That way, you know exactly what you are getting.

· Second, do not spend your life savings on the purchase of a business unless you have enough money left over to sustain yourself for at least three years. The best option, again, is to start from scratch and get only what you need at the time.

· Third, Make sure you know how to do every job in the business unless you are a big enough business to have employees that you can trust to do a good job where you lack knowledge.

· Finally, be aware that, just because you worked in an industry, that you can handle or know enough about every aspect to run the whole thing by yourself. Start small and farm-out services that you know that you do not have the expertise or experience to handle yourself.

I hope this brief list has been of some help. There is so much more that we learned along the way and I think that we have probably made just about every mistake known to the business world. These things may seem simplistic but the sad reality is that I know many people who have trod the same path, and a rough one it is. The good news is that we often learn our best lessons by our mistakes!

Till next time……..Pam