Questions Every Small Business Entrepreneur Must Ask

by Jane Chin, Ph.D.

For all small business owners and entrepreneurs starting out – before you get lost in the “how do I do it” question – here are even more important “foundational” questions to answer and be very clear on!

1. Know exactly why you are going into business, or engage in a specific business-related activity.

“I need to make a bit of money on the side” (for example, if you are a freelancer) and similar statements are not specific or exact enough.

I describe one of my business-related activity – my participation on the Outright.com entrepreneur community – as “I want to be known as THE no-nonsense, go-to, truth-telling, based on hard-earned and hard-learned experience small business adviser on Outright.com.”

2. Know exactly how you are going to make your money.

In other words, the revenue model. You don’t need to know all the details right now, but at least have an idea of short term (this month, next month) – mid term ( next 6 months) – and long term (2nd year of business). My time-line runs shorter because of the nature of small businesses, our “long term projections” do not run 5-10 years like big biz. We need to be agile!

3. Know how much you are willing to pay for mistakes, and how much you are willing to pay avoid making them.

I keep saying “coaches, mentors, advisers”, and I mean it, because I have seen how important it had been for me when I first started out with zero knowledge of starting a business or any experience. It was one of the key reasons why I went from bootstrap to 6 figures in less than 2 years.

Many see coaches and advisers as expensive, but I see the years I need to spend learning what they already know and the mistakes I would make as the type of expenses I would rather pay someone else to make, then teach me how not to make them.

4. Know where your business fits into your life, not the other way around.

This is the toughest but most important for the long term. We can get consumed by our businesses especially if we love what we do – and this is usually the case – then we forget why we are in business for ourselves and we end up building ourselves a miserable job that we no longer look forward to do.

I am still learning this one :)

What about you? What types of foundational questions do you ask yourself, to stay aligned on purpose and true to course?

  • Maryann Cynthia

    Great questions to ask. I like your straightforward style… makes you come across as a very genuin person.

    I would like to add one more bullet:
    – Am i doing this business to prove something to myself or to the world? I should do the business because i have an inclination towards it and not to prove a point that ‘i can also do it’.

  • Allison

    Hi Jane,

    Great article! I’m just starting out in my business and you mention how important coaches have been to you at certain points. Can you recommend any good coaches or resources you used to locate them?

    Thanks,
    Allison

  • http://microbusinessmentor.com/ Jane Chin, Ph.D.

    Allison: I found SCORE.org very useful – many of them have been entrepreneurs and the organization is large enough where you may find someone in your specific niche. I’ve worked with Alan Weiss (author of Million Dollar Consulting) when I was first starting out – this can be an expensive option, and this mentor’s personality isn’t for everybody (just like every other coach out there – chemistry and “fit” will depend on the individual), so I’d recommend that you check out his books first. What was most useful for me was actually a “sales training program” that was offered by a local consulting group that I met through a strategy association. It was (the late) David Sandler’s “President’s Club” program, and a 6-month to year long commitment on my part when I signed up; this option was even more expensive than other mentoring options I’d taken, but gave me the best return on investment. This was why I signed up for the 1 year program instead of only the 6 month program. I went through that “submarine” model many, many times. And David Sandler’s “Not Guts No Gain” program is awesome for new entrepreneurs even though he targets it for sales people. The consulting group I worked with had tailored the program specifically to small businesses, so we were a targeted group and understood the types of challenges we’d face as small business owners.

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