If you are planning to start your own business in the near future, you already know that it can be a difficult and expensive process. You may be worried about how you will find a location, fund your start-up costs, buy inventory, get the office equipment you need, and market your business to potential customers. All of these start-up necessities require money, and if you don’t have the money on hand to get started, you may think you will never own your own business. The good news is that you don’t have to have a lot of money to start your business. You may qualify for government grants.
Before you start the application process to get government grants, you need to make sure you have a business plan in place. If you haven’t started creating a business plan yet, start now because you’ll need one in order to apply for the grant money. Your business plan should be the outline for how you plan to start and run your business, how much money you will need to run, how your business will suit the needs of your customers, how you will market to your customers, and how much revenue you think your business can generate. Government grants are more likely to be given to business owners who have clear and realistic business plans. Business owners who can prove they have done their research are more likely to get government grants.
Once your business plan is ready, you can start researching which types of government grants are available to you. You will find government grants that are specifically available for women, minorities, small business owners, or even veterans who want to start their own businesses. You will need to read the list of qualifications carefully to make sure that you qualify to apply for specific grants.
Once you find government grants that meet your needs, you will need to fill out the application forms as accurately and thoroughly as you possibly can. Applications that are incomplete and applications that contain errors will usually be thrown out and not even considered. You have to make your application stand apart from all of the rest. It is your job to make sure your application is perfect in every way. Double check your application before you send it in to make sure you have no errors. Do not leave any field empty even if you have to conduct further research or call the government agency to get clarification. If you are unsure of how to answer a question, it is always best to ask than to fill out the form incorrectly.
You must be careful to observe the grant deadline. If you can’t get your application in on time, no one will bother to read it, and you will miss out on the opportunity to get the grant. Make sure you read through the application process thoroughly, so you know all of the possible ways an application can be submitted. You can earn government grants to get free money.
Attend almost any dinner party, and you will find a group of people conversing about how bad their 401k Retirement Funds are doing, and the extra little “side work” they are doing to supplement their income. While you may not know many of these people, you listen carefully because you are in the “same boat”, and you too are looking for a little “something extra”.
Listen long enough and invariably some will mention Multi-Level Network Marketing or MLM for short. Now that conversation may take many turns with people expressing, sometimes very vocally, a very ugly opinion of Network Marketers. If you were looking for some good advice, hopefully the host and hostess called everyone to the table and the conversation change to another subject.
You see my father considered MLM as a dirty three letter word. In his eyes Network Marketers were a step above or maybe even a set below a snake oil salesmen.
Back then there may have been some validity to Dad’s views, but even Dad knew things do change, and as we are now in the 21st century, so did Network Marketers. While they may not be viewed by today’s society as being in the same “class” with a doctor or lawyer, their training and professionalism certainly has come a long way with the “coming of age” of the internet.
If you’ve have had the opportunity to hear Dr Charles W. King speak, you understand what I mean. Dr King is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Texas, a doctorate in business administration from Harvard University, and is very outspoken about the professionalism within the industry.
All of that withstanding, you may be still asking the question, “is Network Marketing right for me”? In order to answer that question, let’s look at some facts about the Network Marketing Business from the point of, “is Network Marketing a fit for me?’ You can buy a $10,000 set of designer clothes to go to that dinner party, and if they don’t fit correctly you may as well be wearing rags.
Here are 9 statements associated with MLM, and after each you should ask yourself. “Do I like that?”
o You are the boss.
o You set your own hours and schedule.
o There is (in most cases) very little physical excretion
o You are working form home, with very little overhead.
o You almost never actually see the customer, but you are conversing with him/her via the phone and (in many cases) the internet.
o You leverage modern technology help you succeed.
o Your advertising can start of as “word of mouth” and grow from there
o Most reputable MLM companies require some capital to start up, but for many it may be as little as $300 – $500. o While you’re starting at the bottom, your positive efforts will reveal a positive result.
If you haven’t been scared away yet, then I would say you are on course to give it a try, but now comes that big decision… which company to choose?
You definitely want a company with a good product or service, and a good training plan. The compensation plan is always important, but it is NOT the top spot on the list.
The top spot on the list belongs to the company that you feel you can be the most enthusiastic about. If you can be more enthusiastic about you product or service than you prospect, you will win every time. Enthusiasm comes with confidence, confidence comes with knowledge, and knowledge comes from training.
Yes you will be going back to school. This “job” requires some product knowledge and training from the company, and then you will need a while new skill set in Network Marketing. Your ultimate success depends on the quality of training you get.
So my advice is, if you have gotten this far, is to get information about various MLM companies and as much training as possible BEFORE you go sign up, Talk to as many people as you can, especially those who have been in the trenches, and always qualify what they say by the success they have had. Many people can talk the big talk, but have no track record to support their position.
And when you are looking for that training, remember there were no shortcuts back in grade school, and there aren’t any out here in the business world either. Reputation and longevity should play a big part in the selection of your education system, as well as the success rate of the systems graduates.
A literature review of 23 papers, which have been published from 1958 to 2002, revealed an inconsistency regarding both characterization and definition of small business. The variety of definition used in these papers unable to set an agreeable format for small business definition. The current article objective is to suggest some guidelines that can help reduce the level of ambiguity. The method to reach that objective is through the analysis of five significant parameters that have been used by different scholars to define small business. Each of these parameters is being characterized and analyze in order to clarify the existing status and for suggesting the less ambiguous alternative for using that parameter.
First, the business must be independent: For that matter, a subsidiary or a branch can’t be considering as independent business.
Second, the business is not dominant in the industry it’s operating in: Part of ‘Monopolistic Competition’ definition can be used to characterize the parameter – There are many sellers and they believe that their actions will not materially affect their competitors.
Third, firm size (number of employees): This parameter is obviously the most popular among scholars for defining small business; nonetheless its use varies dramatically. If you’re in U.S. then an employer of up to 500 employees will still be consider as small business, contrary to U.S. in Europe most countries use the limit of 50 employees to define business as small. Taking into account that across the world ninety percent of the operating businesses are employing less then 20 employees, it seems that 50 employees is a more suitable limit. Moreover, business with more than 50 employees is employing operational and managerial techniques, which become more and more similar to those of large businesses. Characterize the upper limit brings us half way; in order for us to go all the way, lower limit should be characterize as well. A rule of thumb in that regard is that business with less then five-to-ten employees don’t even have the minimum operational and managerial structure, which can be treated as small business, any business with less then five employees is inadequate for any analysis, and should be named micro-business.
Fourth, firm age: The use of firm age by scholars meant to characterize the minimal period of time needed for a business in order to form some operational and managerial backbone, otherwise, there was a risk that data collected for statistical analysis wont be suitable. Biggadike (1979), supported by Miller and Camp (1985), conclude that a new venture needs in average eight years for achieving profitability. The barrier of eight years should be analyzed depending on several factors, such as the industry that the firm operates in or the initial capital raise for starting the new venture. Moreover, Biggadike based his definition on the basis of the period needed to generate profitability, which is only one among numerous measures of performance. Taking all into account, a conservative estimation will be that business can be still considering as new if the period from establishment is two-to-five years.
Fifth, annual revenue: What can be considering as acceptable annual revenue for small business? In order to be able to characterize this parameter, a preliminary step of defining the industry that the business relates to must be taken. There is a substantial difference regarding the revenue in different industries. For example – Annual sales of five million dollars generate by a car dealer must be treated entirely different then when this same revenue produces by any type of consulting firm. The source of revenue is of great importance; revenue from selling goods can’t be treated as revenue from selling knowledge or labor. Subject to that remark, and for the vast majority of small businesses that operates in either manufacturing or trade (retail, wholesale) industries, annual revenue of ten million dollars can be used as proximity for characterize the upper limit. This annual revenue correlate with the upper limit of 50 employees used as characteristic for firm size.