Checklist for Starting a Leaf Raking Business: Essential Ingredients for Success
If you are thinking about going into business, it is imperative that you watch this video first! it will take you by the hand and walk you through each and every phase of starting a business. It features all the essential aspects you must consider BEFORE you start a Leaf Raking business. This will allow you to predict problems before they happen and keep you from losing your shirt on dog business ideas. Ignore it at your own peril!
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A Step by Step
Guide to Starting a Small Business
This is a
practical manual in a PDF format, that will walk you step by step through all the
essential phases of starting your Leaf Raking business. The book is packed with
guides, worksheets and checklists. These strategies are
absolutely crucial to your business' success yet are simple and
easy to apply.
Copy the following link to your browser and save the file to your PC:
https://www.bizmove.com/free-pdf-download/how-to-start-a-business.pdf
Sometimes getting started can be the toughest part of
the day, especially on Mondays! What's worse, a bad start can
make for a bad day and even a bad week. Here are ten ways to
ensure that you get moving quickly and effectively on Monday or
any other day!
1. Take time to get organized.
How's your work space? Is it crowded, sloppy, piled
high with yesterday's business, surrounded by memorabilia from
family outings and favorite leisure activities? Remember: every
item within range or your eyes or ears impacts upon you--if only
subconsciously--and splits your focus. Get rid of everything
that is extraneous in your work place or office and have an
assigned place for EVERYTHING. It takes time to get organized
but, once accomplished, it pays off in less wasted moments.
2. Begin the night before.
Don't wait until Monday morning to decide what you're
going to do for the day or week. Set aside time on Sunday to:
(a) decide what you want to do and accomplish for the week, and
(b) schedule your next day (Monday). And here's a tip: select a
time when you are relaxed, not rushed, and give yourself a
chance to muse about what you want to achieve during the week.
3. Prioritize your plan.
If your plan is actually a TO DO list, you probably
have far more items on it than you can hope to accomplish in any
reasonable time. That's where prioritizing comes in. I don't
have any problems with TO DO lists as long as they're
prioritized. In fact, putting items on the list that need to be
done, but are of low priority has the effect of removing them
from my mind--I can check back now and then, but I don't worry
about them. And, guess what: when I DO check back, I often find
that the need to get them done has simply evaporated. But, back
to prioritizing. A simple system is: A equals Very important, B
equals Important, C equals Not very important. If you have a D
in your system, drop it and all the items under it!
4. Honor your personal work styles.
When you are most creative? When is the best time to:
do routine chores? exercise? study? nap? (yes, nap! - see below)
communicate? Each person has an ideal work style that operates
as a function of being a certain body and personality type.
Understand and honor that style and you will be more effective;
ignore it, and you will work at less than optimum capacity. My
style is to do creative work (writing, speculative thinking,
planning) in the morning (sometimes very early at 0400 or so,
even while in bed). Everyone is different and you have to
determine what is right for you.
5. Cat nap.
If you're a Type A, you may have trouble with this one!
The fact is, nearly everyone encounters a low point in energy,
usually about 1:00 PM every day depending, of course, on what
time they've gotten up and how much sleep they've had the night
before. You can train yourself, using a simple 1 to 10
count-down method, to sleep for 5, 10, or 15 minutes. With
practice, you'll wake up within a few seconds of the time you've
chosen, AND you'll be more refreshed by this kind of meditative
sleep which is more beneficial than normal sleep by a ratio of
roughly 4:1. No, your nap won't keep you from getting to sleep
at night. If anything, you will drift off more easily and gain
greater benefits, because your nap sleeps help alleviate deep
set and subtly building stress. I've trained myself to nap
almost anywhere for period from five to thirty minutes. Even
with minimum time, I wake up refreshed and ready to go.
6. Schedule time by blocks rather than tasks.
Have you ever allotted an hour to complete a task and
then found that it took two hours thereby screwing up the rest
of your day and schedule? It's a common occurrence and, when it
happens, the result is greatly increased stress. The most common
examples are tasks such as expense-keeping, writing or research
projects, and phone calls. One way to alleviate the stress of
these objective-oriented tasks is to simply allot a given amount
of time to them, say an hour, and then move on to the next task.
This practice ensures that you will make measurable progress on
each task without getting bogged down.
7. Make the first touch the deciding one.
You've heard the standard advice: handle everything
only once. Unfortunately, that's not always possible or prudent,
and here's where the organization achieved through step one
above comes in. Your first task with respect to new materials
coming in to you (letters, assignments, calls, etc.) is to
DECIDE what to do about them. In each case, your organization
should support your decision. For example, in opening your mail
(and e-mail), there will be some letters that you will want to
answer immediately (probably very few), others you will want to
answer within a specified period of time, others you will want
to put on hold until you get more information, and still others
that will be immediately destined for the circular file. The
important thing here is to have identified the possible
categories before hand and then be ruthless about adhering to
them. In the case of correspondence, you may want to have a
separate file for each category AND a procedure for periodically
reviewing each file to ensure that you act on it. This same
principle works with tasks you are assigned or jobs that pop up.
Your first action is to determine the category in which they
fall: do, delegate, defer, or drop.
8. Follow the WIFO principle, selectively.
WIFO stands for worst in, first out. Have you ever kept
postponing a project because you just didn't want to do it?
Chances are, if you look back at the experience, you'll find
that you spend nearly as much time worry and rescheduling it as
you did actually DOING it! There's a way around this one.
Simply, DO IT-- either on a task or time basis. I've found this
to be a powerful tool, because invariably those tasks that I've
put off are easier and less time consuming than I expected, WHEN
I simply get on with them.
9. Schedule a clean-up day or half-day at least
weekly.
No matter how good you are at scheduling, there will
always be times when your desk is piled high, your files
over-stuffed, and your plan/schedule crowded with extra added
tasks. You may find it helpful to pick a time each week (maybe
Saturday morning) as a clean-up period, a time when you dispose
of all those little things that have built up during the week
and when you mentally review your priorities.
10. Become fully present-focused.
One of the virtues of scheduling activities by time
blocks rather than by objective benchmarks is that it allows you
to become totally absorbed for a set period of time in what
you're doing. Believe it or not, total absorption is relaxing.
It's splitting your attention--between what you're currently
doing and what you have to do next--that is exhausting. When you
become totally focused on what you are doing at the moment, a
free-flowing momentum and pace occur, and you get the job done
faster, easier, and time flies. The steps leading to total
absorption in the task are: (a) Organize and task and set aside
the time, (b) Remove all that is extraneous from your work
space, (c) Rehearse the task mentally.
Business Financial management from the
small firm is characterized, in many distinct instances, by the
necessity to confront a
somewhat different set of problems
and opportunities than those confronted by a large corporation.
1 immediate and obvious
difference is that a majority of
smaller firms do not normally have the opportunity to openly
sell issues of bonds or stocks so as
to raise funds. The
owner-manager of a smaller company must rely primarily on trade
credit, bank financing, lease financing, and
private equity
to fund the company. One, therefore faces a much more severely
restricted set of financing choices than those faced
by the
monetary vice president or treasurer of a large corporation.
On the other Hand, if small business financial management is
concern, many financial problems facing the small firm are very
like
those of larger businesses. For instance, the analysis
required for a long-term investment choice like the purchase of
heavy
machines or the test of lease-buy options, is
essentially the exact same whatever the size of their company.
When the choice is
made, the financing alternatives available
to the firm may be radically different, but the decision process
will be generally
comparable.
1 area of Particular
concern for the smaller business owner lies in the successful
management of working capital. Net working
capital is defined
as the gap between current assets and current liabilities and is
frequently thought of as the"circulating
capital" of the
enterprise. Lack of control in this crucial area is a primary
source of business failure in both small and large
businesses.
The business Manager must continually be
alert to changes in working capital accounts, the reason behind
those changes and the
consequences of those changes for the
fiscal health of the company. One convenient and effective
system to highlight the key
managerial demands in this area
is to view working capital in terms of its major components:
Cash and Equivalents. This most liquid form of present
assets, cash and cash equivalents (usually marketable securities
or
short-term certification of deposit) requires continuous
oversight. A well planned and maintained cash budgeting process
is
imperative to answer crucial questions like: Is your money
level sufficient to meet current expenses as they come due? What
are
the time connections between cash inflows and outflows?
When will summit cash needs occur? What will be the size of bank
borrowing
needed to fulfill any cash shortfalls? When will
this borrowing be required and if may repayment be expected?
Accounts Receivable.
Almost all businesses must extend
credit to their clients. Crucial issues in this field include:
Is the number of accounts
receivable reasonable in relation
to sales? On the average, how rapidly are accounts receivable
being accumulated? Which customers
are"slow payers?" What
action ought to be taken to speed sets where
required?Inventories.Inventories often make up 50 percent or
even more of a firm's current assets and so, are worthy of close
scrutiny. Key
questions which must be considered in this area
include: Why is your degree of inventory reasonable in relation
to sales and the
operating characteristics of the small
business? How rapidly is stock turned over compared to other
businesses in the same
industry? Isn't any capital invested
in dead or slow moving inventory? Are earnings being dropped due
to inadequate inventory
levels? If appropriate, what action
ought to be taken to increase or decrease inventory?
Accounts Payable and Trade Notes Payable. In a business, trade
credit often provides a significant source of funding for the
company. Key issues to investigate in this category include: Is
the amount of money owed to suppliers reasonable in relation to
purchases? Is the firm's payment policy such it will improve or
detract from the firm's credit rating? If available, are
reductions being taken? What will be the timing relationships
between payments on accounts payable and set accounts
receivable?
Notes Payable. Notes payable to banks or other
lenders are another significant source of funding for the
company. Important
questions in this course include: What is
the amount of bank borrowing employed? Is this debt amount fair
in relation to the
equity funding of the firm? When will
principal and interest payments fall due? Will funds be
available to meet those payments in
time?
Accrued
Expenses and Taxes Payable. Accrued expenses and taxes payable
represent obligations of the company as of the date of
balance sheet preparation. Accrued expenses represent such items
as wages payable, interest payable on bank notes, insurance
premiums payable, and related items. Of main concern in this
area, particularly with regard to taxes payable, is the
magnitude,
timing, and availability of funds for payment.
Careful planning is required to insure that these duties are met
on time.
As a final Notice, it is very important to
realize that even though the working capital accounts above are
listed individually,
they need to also be viewed in total and
from the point of view of their connection to one another: What
is the overall trend in
net operating capital? Is this a
healthy trend? Which person accounts are liable for this trend?
How does the firm's working
capital position relate to
similar sized firms in the business? What can be done to correct
the trend, if necessary?
Obviously, the Questions posed
are much easier to ask than to answer and there are
several"general" answers to the issues raised.
The guides
that follow provide hints, techniques, and guidelines for
successful management which, when combined with the expertise
of the person owner-manager along with the unique demands of the
particular sector, might be expected to enhance the ability to
handle efficiently the fiscal resources of a company enterprise.
There's one Simple reason to understand and detect
company financial planning in your business - to avoid failure.
Eight of ten
new businesses fail primarily due to the dearth
of good fiscal planning.
Company Financial planning
impacts how and on what conditions you'll have the ability to
pull the funding required to establish,
preserve, and expand
your company.
Financial Planning determines the raw
materials you'll be able to afford to purchase, the products
you'll have the ability to
create, and whether you will have
the ability to sell them economically. It affects the physical
and human tools you will be able
to get to operate your
business. It will be a significant determinant of whether you
will have the ability to produce your hard
work rewarding.
This segment Provides an overview of the essential
elements of financial management and planning. Used sensibly, it
is going to
produce the reader - the small business
owner/manager - familiar enough with the fundamentals to have a
fighting chance of
succeeding in today's highly competitive
business environment.
A clearly Conceived, well
documented financial plan, establishing objectives and including
the Use of Pro Forma Statements and
Budgets to ensure
financial management, will Demonstrate not only that you
understand exactly what you want to do, but you
understand
how To achieve it. This demonstration is essential to attract
the funds Required by your business from lenders and
investors.
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