Make your new business a success

By Steve Marsten

Here at the UHY Haines Norton Gladstone office – we get excited when we hear about someone looking at jumping on the entrepreneurship wagon and opening new businesses. Their journey though - comes with its gains and losses. The numerous problems that a business faces in its infancy are big enough to make it fail.

However, the hardships shouldn’t stop you from building your dream business and to providing the best possible service or product on the market.

Starting a business venture is easy, considering you know and understand the processes that you need to go through. What makes a good businessman, however, is figuring out a way to budget when money is tight and how you will compete against big enterprises. It’s inevitable to face challenges while running any type of business, but small business owners seem to have it the toughest in Australia.

Small business ventures face considerable obstacles, some of which are easy to deal with, others harder to tackle, but all of them demand time and resources. Preparing is important and if you have a glimpse of what the most common issues are, you may be able to prepare beforehand for the messes that you and your business might face one day.

Often overlooked by first-time business owners, a good business plan can make a crucial difference. The majority of businesses in Australia are small, meaning they don’t have employees or employ fewer than 20 people. Making up to 97% of all businesses, last year small businesses contributed more than 19% of the Gross National Product. Yet still we have a massive failure rate. It’s a fair bet that it’s because most of them lack mid- and long-term business planning.

Not everyone is good at managing money. The problem is that this is an area you have to be GREAT at! Small businesses often operate with tight budgets, which demands perfect cash flow management. Of course, if you have a good cash flow plan, you will be able to notice any potential cash pits and make sure you don’t waste the majority of your budget.

                                                                           

If cash flow is one of the things that is hurting your business, then you can invest in a good software product or a good professional in the field if you can afford it.

There are other areas which we will touch on in the near future as well including Marketing, Setting targets, people and fatigue. We are keen on helping small business power up so if you have any queries call the UHY Haines Norton team on 0749 721300.