During the last few months in lockdown, we’ve all had a lot to think about. Some people even started new hobbies, such as painting or baking.
If you’re home a lot, you’re bound to start reflecting about your life.
Maybe you’re really done with your 9-to-5 job or baking treats during lockdown brought you more joy than your normal work ever did.
In that case, it might be time for a change – for instance, to open up your own bakery or an online shop!
This might seem scary, but remember that every entrepreneur had to start somewhere!
In this article, we talk about 3 tips you need to know if you’re ready to become an entrepreneur.
Have a solid business plan
Before anything else, it’s important to have a solid business plan. We’re not talking about a plan for the next few weeks, no ideally, you have the next year drawn out.
What are your goals? How much money do you need to make to break even? Why is your business unique? What could go wrong – and how can you deal with it?
If you’ve never made a business plan before, it can help to read business books or google if you can find any business cases about businesses you look up to.
There are also a ton of websites online that give you a step-to-step guide on how to write a business plan.
Don’t forget some time for yourself
If you ask entrepreneurs what their first months were like, chances are they’ll say things like ‘busy’ or ‘working 24/7’.
After all, it’s easy to get lost in all the work. That’s why we recommend you to plan in some time for yourself, no matter what.
Make a list of things you want to do for yourself, such as going to the gym 2 times a week and eating dinner with your family at least 4 times a week.
Believe us: these things will keep you sane! Your mental health is really important, especially as an entrepreneur.
Save time by outsourcing certain services
We know that in the beginning, you’ll probably want to save money and thus do everything that needs to be done yourself.
But at a certain point, you’ll probably have some money to spare.
We recommend investing that in your business by outsourcing certain services.
Outsourcing services might sound scary, but it’s actually a great way to open up time in your schedule and to give tasks to professionals that probably know more about the subject than you.
To give you an example: most people hate paperwork and the paperwork involved for your business’ taxes.
You might struggle through it by working late for weeks … or you could hire an accountant to do your taxes.
Your accountant will take over your paperwork and probably even do it better than you ever could.
And accountants also work with accounting programs that allow them to do the job way faster.
Other services you can outsource are marketing, HR, customer service … and don’t forget to search what the best debt collection agency (Dutch: incassobureau) around is.
Unfortunately, sooner or later every entrepreneur will have a debtor that just won’t pay … and in that case it’s easy to be able to hire a collection agency fast (Dutch: incassobureau inschakelen) that will make sure you get your money back, one way or another.
Good luck with your business, we hope it will thrive!