Many people slaving away in a reasonably paid job realize that they could be doing far better for themselves and will at this moment be thinking of breaking free of the corporate shackles and discovering the freedom of having their own business. Looking back now, I can categorically state that I owe my directors a huge debt of gratitude because it was due to their lack of urgency in taking care of my career needs that decided me to take my future into my own hands. Corporate career employees often need a severe reality check to jolt them out of their comfort zones, however they may still shy away from breaking into their own businesses for various reasons including lack of funding and personal debt. Well if this sounds like you, this is how you can start a business with a low capital investment. The biggest risk you take will be giving up your corporate job, if this is in fact deemed a risk at all, and your reputation. The model my business was structured on was based on utilizing a variable resource, limited investment in fixed overhead and employing the appropriate resources for a particular position or demand. Expanding on the above, these are the keys to the perfect business model. 1. Your first task and the most important part of ensuring the long term sustainability of your business is identifying and recruiting the most competent capabilities to fill your business key positions, for example, general management, operations, finance and sales & marketing. Giving your key personnel a stake in the organization would ensure their commitment and loyalty and ultimately their contribution to the long term objective of the business, ie success and profits. It is also important to agree in writing the exact functions each person will perform and with as little overlap as possible. 2. The next step is for an overall strategy and action plan to be formalized and agreed upon in conjunction with the resource requirements. The resources that are to be used in the business need to be recruited based on service and cost. These resources, which will be your core business service providers, will only be used when required and hence the variable cost. This also means that when there is zero activity there will be zero cost to you and as far as service goes your hand picked contractors will be highly customer driven. Not only will you not have staff, vehicles and equipment idle and costing money when you arent busy but these assets will not need investment in management and maintenance. 3. The only fixed overhead you should have to invest in, remembering that your main business activities would be carried out by contractors with their own vehicles and equipment, should be office furniture. Expensive office equipment could be employed on a hire-maintenance contract or such like. This could even be extended to office staff which could be hired from agencies so you arent landed with employee hassles and absenteeism. A significantly important aspect to the success of this model is not investing in assets which always require managing, servicing or replacement. If this model is applied correctly it should leave the key personnel time to manage the business without being distracted by less important issues as well as leaving the business with unlimited growth prospects without being restricted by funding constraints. This business model was responsible for my bank overdraft being transformed to millionaire status and can enable anyone to start out with low capital investment, low risk but with a real opportunity at huge success. |
