Do Business Well

• You can start your business career at any age. Karel Bos began manufacturing exhaust systems for motor cars in Bosman Street, Pretoria, when he was 23. His business was called Bosal and has grown into a multinational exhaust system manufacturer.

Astrid and John Sinclair were 17 and 20 respectively when they opened their first antique shop. Today they own the very successful Sinclair Interiors.

Ray Kroc was 52 years old when he started McDonald’s, the most successful fast-food franchise in history. Continue Reading »

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• You may want to donate a portion of the proceeds of your business to a good cause like the church, medical research, a university or a charity. Money and knowledge are the same. They mean little if you simply collect them, but mean everything when you employ them, share them and put them to work.

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You start a business to find fulfilment and greater peace of mind.

It gives you the freedom to become wealthy and famous.

Why would you want to start a business, what would fulfil you? Are you being forced to do it? Have you been fired or don’t you enjoy your job? What would make you happy, what would give you peace of mind? Some of the following may be applicable to you: Continue Reading »

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If you ask around, you’ll find that most of your friends, family, and even office colleagues would like to run their own businesses. If you then ask them why they aren’t currently self-employed, or why they haven’t even begun to plan their venture, you’ll probably uncover a litany of excuses, from a lack of time to a chronically overdrawn checking account to simply not knowing what to do first. Continue Reading »

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Each manager’s routine was different, reflecting his or her unique style. Nonetheless, hidden within this diversity we found four characteristics common to the “performance management” routines of great managers.

First, the routine is simple. Great managers dislike the complexity of most company-sponsored performance appraisal schemes. They don’t want to waste their time trying to decipher the alien terms and to fill out bureaucratic forms. Instead they prefer a simple format that allows them to concentrate on the truly difficult work: what to say to each employee and how to say it. Continue Reading »

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Before you even start working from home, it is vital to consider exactly where you will be working and to ensure that you have one space that is always used for your work. The setting up of a home office is considered fun, but some basic points are worth bearing in mind:

Having a space of your own makes it much easier to separate your work life from your home life.’ I tried working in the front room, but it meant that when I sat down to watch the TV, I couldn’t help seeing all my papers and all the things I was meant to be doing the next day,’ says May a medical secretary. ‘It became very hard not to take them up and just have a quick browse through. Once I transformed the back room into an office, I could at least shut the door on my work and walk away.’ Continue Reading »

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Who are your subordinates? Your co-workers of yesterday. They are likely to find your changed position an adjustment too. They may show approval and pride, or resentment and scepticism.

But whichever way you look at it, sound relationships with all your subordinates are essential if you are to get your new job done. They, in turn, are dependent on you to satisfy their needs and to help them grow.

Here are some strategies to build a winning team from the start:

Get to know your team

Get to know your team members, their strengths and their weaknesses. Spend time individually with the people who work for you. Ask them about their jobs. Get them to show you what they do. Find out what motivates them. Continue Reading »

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The one thing that every person has in common is the amount of time they have in an hour — sixty minutes. Depending on individual priorities, the manner in which these same periods are spent is infinite in choice. Amazingly though, and despite efficient management of time, the majority of our achievement and happiness takes place in a short space of time. Using the unit of one hour as a reference point, ten minutes is utilised in channelling our energy proactively, while fifty minutes is wasted in using our energy reactively. With the majority of our energy absorbed through involvement with such draining elements, it is no surprise that there is so much fatigue and depression.

Every waking hour takes you either towards fulfilling your particular speciality, or away from it. There is no neutral, only forwards or backwards. Channelling your energy has nothing to do with keeping in balance, which is more to do with restoring energy that has been drained. Continue Reading »

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A variation of outdoor advertising would be your own signsand window displays. If you expect to attract traffic because of your store’s location, buy the biggest, boldest sign you can afford (and that the law will allow). If you have a window display, spend some real time and effort making it attractive and interesting. Don’t be afraid to make your window display a bit weird. You want to attract attention! Otherwise, why spend the extra money on that greatlocation?

Mailings. Among the least expensive ways (even in the daysof ever-increasing postal rates) of reaching your specific customer with a very specific message is the mail. You can buy lists of prospects broken out by almost any criterion you can imagine. It may seem farfetched, but you should be able to buy a list of all the single folks between the ages of twenty and forty, with above-average incomes, in the five closest zip codes to your business. Look for sellers of such lists in the Yellow Pages under “Mailing Lists.” Continue Reading »

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You’ll need to decide before opening the business what form your business will take. In the United States there are four approaches available. In other countries it will be necessary to check with local resources to determine the choices offered.

Sole proprietorship. Most very small businesses use this enterprise type. It is the simplest from a tax and legal standpoint. In many cases part-time businesses using the sole proprietor approach will not even segregate their personal financial affairs from their Continue Reading »

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