First Thing To Do Before Starting A Business

One of the mistakes new entrepreneurs do as soon as they catch an idea is to jump right into starting the business. The result is the high number of businesses that fail within their first few years. Starting a business requires much more than having an idea and capital to start. It requires another factor which is probably the most important after the business idea. This important factor is yourself. 

To determine this, you will need to carry out an objective assessment of yourself. This is important because your business will require you for it to be successful. The success or failure of the business is largely dependent on you as the business owner. 

A portion of the bible captures this vividly.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it? (Luke 14:28 – NKJV)

Why Is This Important?

Taking out time to assess yourself before starting any business will help achieve the following for you:

Save you a lot of time and resources 

Help you measure your chances of success – a carefully done self-assessment will help you understand and become more aware of the personal qualities, attitudes and abilities you possess already that will count in your business success. With such information, you can effectively measure your chances of success and you can tell yourself whether or not the business you want to venture into is what you should be venturing into. 

Help you understand the things you need that you do not possess currently

What To Assess 

There are two important things you need to assess yourself on. These are your strengths and weaknesses. Every individual has a significant amount of strengths and weaknesses. Knowing these will help you greatly in the business you wish to start. 

Strengths

Your strength refers to the total of the abilities you possess that are relevant to the business you want to do. They also involve the attitudes, knowledge, and experience that you have. You may need to ask yourself the following questions:

• What do I know already about this business?
• What knowledge do I have that will be useful in running this business?
• What experience do I have that will benefit me in this business?
• If I run into a challenge tomorrow, who do I know that can be of help in this business? 

Weaknesses

Your weaknesses are the opposites of your strengths and they refer to the abilities, knowledge, experience or attitudes you lack that are important in the business you wish to start.

For instance, you have an idea to start a consultancy business that will provide consultation to businesses. But, you realize that you do not have any practical experience or knowledge on ways to do business profitably. That is a weakness that you cannot afford to carry into your new business.

Just like you did in the case of the strengths, you will need to ask yourself the following:

• What is it about this business that I do not yet know?
• What knowledge or experience relating to this business don’t I currently have?
• What personal qualities, attitudes or abilities do I lack but are important in this business?

Here is a note of warning, the reason for assessing your weaknesses is not to give yourself reasons to not implement your business idea but to help you carefully determine these other things that you do not have so you can make a final decision whether to go on with the business.

If you decide to go on with the business, the information you have will help you in working on putting in place the things that are lacking. 

Closing Thoughts 

If you have read through this post, you would have understood why launching into the business you have in mind is not the first thing to be done but a carefully done assessment of yourself. This is because you are the most important entity to your business growth and success.