What does it take to be successful in this field? Ambition, personal drive, motivation, desire and perseverance are the forerunners. Without these, all the skills and experience in the world won’t enable you to succeed. However, combine those with your personal skills and experience, and you’ll have what it takes.

Also, take into account the following: Are you ambitious, constantly striving for more fulfillment in life? Are you not fully satisfied until you’ve done your absolute best? If so, working from home is for you. There are no limitations. The more you put into the business, the more you’ll get out of it. You control your paycheck. Only you can determine what follows that dollar sign on your tax return each year.

Are you a self-starter? You alone are the one who will make this business a success or failure. The amount of time and energy you invest will determine just how successful you are with your business. Are you motivated enough to make things happen? In the beginning stages, a business will require a tremendous amount of hard work and long hours, often without immediate results. You need to be willing to invest that time and await the results with confidence.

Are you creative? Can you think of a new idea and within days make it a reality? What a joy it is to tap that inner imagination and create a new idea for your business. Whether it’s an effective advertising piece or a dazzling brochure for your clients, you have the power to make it work.

You should be self-motivated and enjoy working with others. Many of you will come from a 9-5 job and the general tendency is to cut loose with the extra freedom. No Boss-No Time Restraints-What fun! You have to discipline yourself right from the beginning not to get sidetracked watching soaps and sleeping in. After you are established, your workload won’t permit this anyway.

Working with different clients is a part of owning your own business. Remember, a satisfied client will tell other potential clients about your services. You need to possess the ability to make your clients feel confident and secure in your services and comfortable working with you.

You can’t fold under pressure. Owning your own business can be extremely stressful at times. There are no bosses to run to or co-workers to seek advice from. The computers will break, faxes will jam, clients will become too demanding and you must know how to handle the situation and stay calm. NEVER PANIC! Learn to take a deep breath, regain your composure and then solve the problem.

You should be organized and have a good understanding of the business you are going into. Many companies fail because they didn’t do their homework. Read as much as you can on home-based businesses before you get started. Research your area to determine the customers’ needs and the amount of competition.

You need to be able to say NO! Clients will take advantage of you if you don’t. You have to remain in control or you will find yourself working outrageous hours for little profit. Decide what hours you want to work and stick to that schedule.

Owning your own business can be an exciting and rewarding adventure. There is a tremendous feeling of accomplishment when you land your first client or make that first sale. It’s the kind of feeling that you just want to keep getting over and over again.

Excuses, Excuses

Just how badly do you want this? What’s holding you back? People present all kinds of excuses for why they shouldn’t start a home-based business. Fear is the most common. Fear of failure, fear of financial insecurity, fear of responsibility, and fear of change are the most frequently stated. Let’s look at these for a moment and see if they apply to you.

Fear of Failure: Most of us fear failure. It’s natural. Who wants to fail at anything? Besides, if you don’t try, you can’t fail, and you will not have to deal with those negative emotions. Successful entrepreneurs see failure as an opportunity. They believe that there is no such thing as failure, only lessons. You need to be able to learn from your past failures or, as I call them, “tries.” I consider it this way: “I tried it, it didn’t work, so I’ll try something else.” I give failure no power. One of our favorite clichés is, “I would rather regret something I did over something I didn’t do.”

You should learn valuable lessons from each of your mistakes. What did you do wrong that could be corrected next time? Never dwell on your mistakes. Solve the problem and plan a new course of action.

You can also prevent the risk of failure by being aware of why most home-based or small businesses fail and then guard against these things. The following are several reasons many businesses fail:

1.Lack of enthusiasm, motivation, dedication and drive
2.Lack of self-confidence
3.Lack of knowledge and expertise
4.Lack of management skills necessary to run a successful business
5.Lack of providing clients with quality and professional services
6.Lack of a professional attitude
7.Lack of a market for services

Remember that success takes time. Very few businesses are overnight successes. It takes work, rethinking of ideas and carrying out your plans. Think of success as a marathon, not a sprint.

Fear of Financial Insecurity: This is a valid concern for those leaving the security of a full-time job with a regular paycheck every week. There is no guarantee that every week you will make a certain amount of money. However, you can take steps that will enable you to make it through the slow times until your business is up and running. Don’t let your paycheck addiction seriously interfere with your dream of entrepreneurship. Keep in mind that you could be downsized, fired, laid off, let go, given the pink slip (you get my point) tomorrow, so take control of your future now!

Have two or three months of money in reserve to help you through the first few months. This alleviates the stress of having to make money NOW! Many start a business on a part-time basis and continue working their full-time jobs to keep money coming in and to build their client base. However, let this stop you from starting a business. After being in business now for 20 years and seeing so many businesses succeed, I know many who have made it without this extra money.

Fear of Responsibility: Many are frightened by the role of sole responsibility. They like the option of going to someone else when a crisis hits and having that person solve the problem. With everything falling on their shoulders, they fear they can’t handle the stress. Advance planning is the key here. When you start your business, have a good back-up plan in effect. Then when a crisis hits, you immediately know what to do. After the first few crisis situations, you learn to remain calm and solve problems with little effort.

Diana Ennen
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/homebased-business-is-it-right-for-you-100428.html

Many first time entrepreneurs over the years have stopped to ask themselves, “Should I get more business experience at a big company before going out on my own?”

This is true of recent college graduates who are deciding between regular job offers and a startup. This is also true of people who have been in industry for twenty years.

So how much business experience do you really need before going to work for yourself? The answer of course, is that it depends.

On the one hand, there is a lot to be said for getting a “real job”. This is what I did after college, and it ultimately helped me start working for myself because it gave me the confidence to know what I really wanted.

Here are some advantages to getting more business experience:

1. It made me realize that I actually could get a job with a good salary. This might sound silly, but I guess you can think of it as a safety net. In the back of my mind, I knew that if I gave entrepreneurship my best shot and it didn’t work, I could always get another job. I knew that if I was about to be so broke that I couldn’t pay my rent, I’d have a backup plan.

2. Somewhere deep down I had a fear of what other people would think about me being an entrepreneur. It took me a long time to admit this to myself, but I didn’t want anyone to think “he is an entrepreneur because he couldn’t get a real job”. The brain works in funny ways, but at least if I was quitting a good job to go out on my own, it would somehow have more credibility.

3. Seeing what I didn’t want helped me discover what I did want. If I had never found out how much I hated working for someone else (the long hours, no sleep, boring work, etc) then being my own boss wouldn’t seem so great! I wake up excited every morning because I know what the alternative is.

Notice that I didn’t put “I got more business experience that helped me start a business” as one of the advantages. I learned a lot in my time working for other people, but I can’t think of a specific skill that really helped me as an entrepreneur. It was entirely different. Of course, since I was always learning it helped me in indirect ways. I met other intelligent people, my writing got better, I networked…but you don’t have to have a big corporate job to do this. I continue to do those things today just as much while working for myself.

So let’s look at the other side: how could “getting more business experience” prevent you from accomplishing your ultimate goal of starting a business?

1. It’s perhaps the biggest excuse in the book. “I don’t have enough experience” is used by so many people for why they CAN’T start a business, and it really is just that: an excuse. In reality, the time will never be perfect to go out on your own, but entrepreneurs make it work. They realize that they’ll have to learn things along the way, and probably fail at times, but that they will get it done no matter what. Quitting my job was probably one of the hardest decisions I ever made, because I was downright scared of what would happen. I was scared of failure, what people would think, etc…and “I don’t have enough business experience” is a very convenient excuse in that type of situation.

2. People get stuck at their corporate jobs. The real danger of “getting more business experience” is that once you get there you won’t be able to leave due to financial reasons! Often times when we are earning a good salary, and getting raises, it’s easy to spend that money. You might buy a new car, and get some swanky new condo, and before you know it you’ve taken on debt(mortgage and car payments). The problem is that now you can’t leave your job working for someone else because you’ve over extended yourself and can’t afford to miss a single car or house payment! This is known as getting caught in the rat race, and can quickly make you a slave to your corporate job.

If you are going to go work for someone else, make a conscious effort to save your money rather than spend it. Put 25% of it away every month before you can even see that money. Build up your cash reserves, because starting a business becomes much easier when you have six months of cash in the bank to get started with.

The bottom line is this: Go to work for someone else (or stay there) for a while if you have to. I don’t blame anyone who goes this route because it is exactly what I did. It will let you know if the corporate world is the right place or not, and give you the confidence to know you have a backup plan in case you should ever need to get one of those “real” jobs again. Realizing you don’t like having a boss may be the only “business experience” you ever need.

But take an honest look at yourself and make sure you aren’t using “I need more business experience” as an excuse not to start your company. And for goodness sake, don’t start spending all the money you make there on expensive cars and houses! You could easily get stuck in a job you dislike just because you can’t afford to miss a payment!

I know you’ll make the right decision.

Steve A
http://www.articlesbase.com/careers-articles/business-experience-how-much-is-enough-before-going-out-on-your-own-124527.html

 The Small Business Recession Plan “B”: How to Create the Six-Part Contingency Plan That Will Help You Guide Your Business Through the Storm

If you’re a small business owner, your list of worries seems never-ending. For starters, consumer confidence is down and your sales are starting to reflect that reality. And as experts predict a deep recession, it’s doubtful things will start looking up anytime soon. Yes, you’ve been wringing your hands and obsessing over the financial news for months, while simultaneously scrambling to keep your customers happy and your business strong. But action is the best antidote for agonizing—and now is the perfect time to create a recession contingency plan that will help you guide your business through any future rough patches.

Too often, when the economy goes south, a small business owner is paralyzed by anxiety and isn’t able to act quickly enough to save his or her company. Having a well conceived contingency plan in place gives you peace of mind when trouble hits and enables you to act quickly.

For small business owners, contingency planning is one of the best and most effective preventive actions you can take in a down economy.

Contingency planning will allow you to make the best possible decisions for your business if things continue to get worse before they get better. Even if you are an eternal optimist—after all, many of us entrepreneurs are—you’ll be wise to have a contingency plan in place if, say, one of your biggest clients succumbs to the bad economy, or if you have to face the difficult decision of whether or not to lay off an employee.
If you’re unsure where to start when it comes to crafting your contingency plan, here is an explanation of the critical elements you’ll want to include:

A People Plan. For small business owners, employees are often like family. That means the most difficult decisions you’ll have to make will probably pertain to them. That said, it’s important that you remain objective when creating the “People” section of your contingency plan:

1. What people assets are critical for you to keep? Why?

2. Who can “afford” a salary cut?

3. Who could undertake more responsibility?

4. Who are your definite keepers?

5. If you had to cut 10 percent of your workforce, what would your severance policy be?

6. How would you treat departing people so as to engender trust, respect, and loyalty of those remaining?

7. How would you implement a people “cut”?

By answering these questions truthfully and thoroughly, it will be much easier for you to make decisions concerning what to do with your workforce during the slow economy. Sometimes cutting back on your workforce, at least temporarily, is a necessary evil. Knowing that when you do so you are simply following a plan will help you manage some of the guilt that will come if you have to let someone go or reduce employee pay.

A Key Customer Plan. It’s likely that your customers are feeling just as much anxiety as you are right now, so it’s best to handle them with kid gloves. Fail to do so and you risk damaging a relationship that will not only help get you through these hard times but which could prove very profitable when things pick back up. Here are a few things to consider when developing the customer section of your contingency plan:

1. Who are your most profitable customers?

2. Who are the most loyal?

3. Who must you keep long-term at all costs?

4. How is the downturn affecting each of your customers?

5. How can you get closer to them?

6. Which customers have pressures of their own that will force them to ask you to cut prices? And how should you respond? Should you extend credit, put them on an agreed-upon payment plan, etc.?

7. What can you do to attract new customers?

You and your customers are in the same boat. They face the same struggles as you. In your dealings with them, it’s important that you strike a safe balance between managing their best interests and managing your own. The contingency plan will help you do that and help you make decisions that will allow you to strengthen your customer relationships now. When things pick back up, your customers will remember the way you treated them and will want to do even more business with you.

A Cost-Cutting Plan. When deciding where you could cut expenses, it’s important to consider what you could do to cut costs immediately by 10-15 percent. You should also go through your expenses line by line and consider which expenses are not necessary for your survival. Be sure to involve your employees when creating this section of the plan. Because they are on the front lines every day, they may have a better idea of what can be cut. For example, maybe they’ve noticed that you have an incoming paper supply that could be reduced. You should also include in your plan what to do if the amount you pay to lease office or warehouse space becomes unmanageable.

Naturally the decision to cut certain expenses will be easier to make than others. Just remember that now is the time to get back to the basics. You don’t need lots of bells and whistles to run a successful business, and taking a look at your expenses will help you separate the necessities from the frills.

A Cash Flow Plan. Cash flow is key to running any small business, and managing yours is never more important than in a tough economic period. That’s why you should include cash flow management in your contingency plan. There are two specific groups to consider: your customers and your vendors. First, think about how you can get delinquent customers to pay up. Talk with your customers and help them set up a payment plan with you so that you know you will be getting paid when you need it most. Also, consider giving a discount to those customers who agree to pay in cash. You should also think about how you can defer your cash outflows such as payments to vendors. Ask if you can go to a 60- or 90-day payment cycle.

Keeping up a healthy cash flow is vital during a slow economy. You might have to have tough conversations with customers who need to pay up or a vendor who you’d like to defer a payment to, but if these conversations help you keep cash in your business when you need it most, they will be worth it.

A Financial Safety Net Plan. So what do you do when all of your customers have paid up and you’ve extended your payments to vendors, and you are still having cash flow problems? Quite simply, you consider more drastic ways of putting cash into your business. It’s time to fall back on the financial safety net that you’ve created for your company. What will your safety net be? Will you draw on your home equity? Stop taking a salary? Ask friends or family for a cash infusion? Sell off some of the company’s assets? Reduce employee salaries? Apply for a small business loan?

You don’t want to be making these decisions when you are already in desperate need of cash. While you are still in good shape, plan out the first three ways you could immediately increase your cash flow. And do everything to ensure that you are protecting your credit so that if you do need a small business loan you can get one. Make certain to pay your bills on time. Don’t let anything fall through the cracks. If you are having trouble making a payment, let the company or bank know why. If there is a dispute on a payment, get something in writing that says you aren’t to blame. Being turned in to a collection agency will tank your credit score. You absolutely can’t risk it.

An Exit Plan. There are some situations you simply can’t plan for. You can’t know for sure how your industry will be affected by the down economy. It’s possible that no matter what you do the slow economy will make it too difficult for you to keep your doors open or too difficult for you to navigate on your own.

The exit plan is the hardest for any small business owner to put together. No entrepreneur wants to give up on a venture, but sometimes you have to face reality. So, think about what lengths you are willing to go to in order to keep your doors open. If you are open to taking on a partner, what kind of person is going to add the necessary skills to the business to help you keep the doors open? Or if you decide to sell the business, would you want to stay on and keep working for the company or would you want to go your separate ways?

Of course, keep in mind how long these transitions will take to make. As a small business owner you naturally have a strong attachment to your business. When you put so much blood, sweat, and tears into your business, it can be difficult to pull the plug at the right time. If you decide what your exit strategy will be before you are experiencing serious problems, you can take your emotions out of the decision-making process and come up with a clear-headed solution that protects your best interests.

Creating a contingency plan will help you minimize the risk of any surprises that pop up—and they will!—during a slow economy. But keep in mind there are some basic things that you absolutely can’t lose focus on during a recession.

You should be aggressively going after new customers, marketing your business nonstop, and giving your customers world-class service. Yes, these are trying times for small business owners, but the obstacles are not insurmountable. With the right plan in place, you can create strong, long-lasting relationships with your customers and a business that can weather any storm.

# # #

About the Authors:

Ed Hess lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and spent most of his business life advising entrepreneurs and financing their business ventures. He went to college at the University of Florida and to law school at the University of Virginia and graduate law school at New York University. Ed’s professional career was spent with firms like Atlantic Richfield Company, Warburg Paribus Becker, Boettcher and Company, The Robert M. Bass Group, and Andersen Corporate Finance, and he has built three service businesses.

In 1999, Ed began teaching business students part-time at Goizueta Business School, Emory University, during which time he created and taught the entrepreneurship course. In 2002, Ed joined the faculty at Goizueta full-time as an Adjunct Professor where he became the Founder and Executive Director of both the Center for Entrepreneurship and Corporate Growth and the Values-Based Leadership Institute.

Ed has written five other books:

• Hess, Edward D. Make It Happen! 6 Tools for Success (EDHLTD, 2001).

• Hess, Edward. The Successful Family Business: Proactively Managing Both the Family and the Business (Praeger: Westport, Connecticut, 2005).

• Hess and Kazanjian, eds. The Search for Organic Growth (Cambridge University Press: New York, 2006).

• Hess and Cameron, eds. Leading with Values: Positivity, Virtue and High Performance (Cambridge University Press: New York, 2006).

• Hess, Edward. The Road to Organic Growth: How Great Companies Consistently Grow Marketshare from Within (McGraw-Hill: New York, 2007).

In July 2007, Ed joined the Faculty of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia as a Professor of Business Administration and Batten Executive-in-Residence where he teaches courses on building small businesses and organic growth.

Charlie Goetz earned his college degree at Emory University and holds an MBA from the University of Texas. Charlie is a successful serial entrepreneur. He built several successful businesses, which in total employed over 1,500 people. He sold most of his businesses and made substantial amounts of money their sales. Charlie then began teaching entrepreneurship at Emory University in the Goizueta Business School where he was again successful. His courses are always oversubscribed, and he has earned multiple teaching awards.

Today, Charlie lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and is an investor in several new businesses and consults with people starting businesses. His specialties are marketing, customer acquisition, and product development.

About the Book:

So, You Want to Start a Business? 8 Steps to Take Before Making the Leap (FT Press, September 2008, ISBN: 978-0-13-712667-5, $18.99) is available in bookstores nationwide and from all major online booksellers.

For more information, please visit http://www.edhltd.com or http://www.ftpress.com.

C. Hand
http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/the-small-business-recession-plan-b-how-to-create-the-sixpart-contingency-plan-that-will-help-you-guide-your-business-through-the-storm-681539.html

Hi

I love case studies , in this article I am explain what is entrepreneurship

If u are very interested to know much detailed on entrepreneurship go through the site http://www.ibscdc.org so let we start

Entrepreneurs: people who create and grow enterprises

Entrepreneurship: the process through which entrepreneurs create and grow enterprises: Entrepreneurship development…the infrastructure of public and private policies and practices that foster and support entrepreneurship.

Some of the entrepreneurs are:

Survival entrepreneurs: who resort to creating enterprises to supplement their incomes because there are few other options available. Sometimes called “entrepreneurs by necessity”

“Lifestyle entrepreneurs” are people who chose self-employment because they no longer want to work for someone else, or because it provides a better way of balancing work and home demands, or because it enables them to stay in communities to which they have great attachment. The focus is usually on providing a living for the entrepreneur and her or his family. They are often called “Mom and Pop” businesses,

“Growth entrepreneurs” are those who are motivated to grow their businesses so that they can create wealth and jobs in their community.

“Serial entrepreneurs” are people who enjoy the process of business creation and over their lifetimes will create several businesses, often selling their ventures in the process.

The process of entrepreneurship is something to which Cathy Ashmore at the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education has given much thought over several years.

 some of the case studies available in ibscdc.org are:

1.Dean Kamen’s Technological Entrepreneurship
2.Robert E. Rubin: Executive Entrepreneur
3.Social Entrepreneurship: Serving the ‘Niche’ Business
4.Aravind Eye Hospitals: A Case in Social Entrepreneurship
5.Matrix Laboratories – Road to Success
6.Patrick J. McGovern’s International Data Group: Growth Strategies in Asia
7.Vijay Mallya, the Indian Business Baron: A ‘Bon Vivant’ Entrepreneur?
8.Technology and Business Incubation in India-Challenges and Opportunities
9.Global Hospitals – Where Life Gets a Second Chance

casestudylover
http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/entrepreneurship-case-studiesentrepreneurship-737880.html

Depending upon the way in which we choose to view it, the strengths or weaknesses of the concept of social entrepreneurship lie in the fact that most of its applications are in the form of a hybrid between private, non-profit and public sectors. As described, one such hybrid is found in non-profit organisations with an entrepreneurial offshoot that generates revenue for the organisation’s social objectives. With greater emphasis on the private, for-profit sector, a hybrid model is emerging whereby businesses lend money and expertise to non-profits. Increasingly, this latter model is linked to public pressure for businesses to demonstrate a measure of social responsibility.

The most realistic and desirable way for any business to be socially responsible is through what is called ‘‘strategic philanthropy’’ – selected giving in areas tied directly to the company’s interests and in arenas that the company can justly claim to have knowledge and a direct stake. The use of the term clearly suggests an indirect financial return on the philanthropic investment. Indeed, the exercise of traditional philanthropy does not make good business sense as it does not provide a tangible return. In a more refined consideration of types of philanthropy today, the notion of strategic philanthropy yet emphasises that highly motivated and visionary business leaders can bring together networks of organizations in new community ventures.

Like the term ‘‘strategic philanthropy’’, ‘‘social entrepreneurship’’ is an articulation, a combination of two concepts that do not naturally fit together and yet which seeks acceptance as common sense. It is the lack of a natural fit that renders the term open to resistance and challenge. Challenges, implicit or explicit, range from different interpretations of how the terms might justifiably be joined to denial that they should be used together at all.

Language is a key component in the shift towards rationalization of the concept of social entrepreneurship. This is because discourse acceptance precedes or runs in parallel with material acceptance. Thus we see the emergence of terms that were previously restricted to the business sector, such as ‘‘social venture capital’’, ‘‘social return on investment’’, ‘‘invest’’

rather than ‘‘donate’’, ‘‘revenue streams’’ and ‘‘client groups’’ applied to the social and public sectors.

If the colonisation of the social and public sectors by the language of business is accepted, the breakdown of barriers between the sectors becomes normalised. However, the terms cited are in contrast to the distinction between entrepreneurs who create social or artistic capital rather than financial capital, with social capital referring to that which is valuable to communities.

On the other hand, opposition could arise from the close association of the term ‘‘entrepreneur’’ with the creative and destructive aspects of capitalism. Those who are concerned about the negative aspects of business will be resistant to the blurring of the boundaries between public, private and civil society suggested by social entrepreneurship with the potential for increased influence of business beyond the private sector. The non-profit sector has long been associated with the creation and maintenance of a strong civil society. Marketing of that sector then calls that association into question with concerns for the viability of an independent civil society.

Furthermore, if business has the power to choose which non-profits are to benefit materially through socially entrepreneurial partnerships, what happens to those that are not chosen and therefore are marginalised?

A parallel can be drawn between the concept of social entrepreneurship and that of sustainability because sustainability is equally open to broad interpretation. Like social entrepreneurship, sustainability can favour either the social and environmental or the economic sectors, depending upon which model is adopted. Strong sustainability favours the social and environmental over economic development, upholding the social values of a truly civil society based social entrepreneurialism. Interpretations are derived from the beliefs and experiences of individuals. Social entrepreneurs and their work should ultimately be judged by the quality of the social outcomes, and that assessment should be made independently of the private interests of those entrepreneurs.

With concepts and movements such as social entrepreneurship, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility, it is crucial that we pay close attention to the persuasive uses of the terms as well as to their practical implication. All of them are contested, value-laden labels that can be used to reference a wide variety of interests, motives, activities and outcomes.

Thanaseelan
http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/social-entrepreneurship-today-129823.html