Your wages, your name and your marketing

I’VE BEEN WRITING about some of the 20-or-so questions I always think you should ask before you start a business. Some of them we cover in our Small Business Management Courses, and others may require you to do a little research for yourself. Either way, you should make sure you’re able to answer each one of them before you start your business.

Remember that if you have some questions of your own you can Ask Us and we’ll do our best to answer you in a blog post or making contact with you for a free consultation or guidance to get you in the right direction.

4. Can I Afford To Pay Myself?

That question should more correctly be, “Can I afford to pay myself a living wage?” This is important, because though there may be lean times in the early days of your business, it shouldn’t always be that way. If you can afford to pay yourself a wage, comparable to what you would earn as an employee, you may need to rethink a core component of your business. Don’t forget that when you’re self-employed, you’re also responsible for your own superannuation and leave contributions.

5. What Should I Call My Business?

Think long and hard about this one because you’re going to be stuck with it. Few rebrands or name changes are completely successful – and they usually take along time to take root with your customers. Before you settle on a name, check it’s not being used by other businesses and make sure it works as a domain name.

Register for our free digital business course if you don’t understand all of these new age Internet things.

6. How Will I Get My Name Out There?

If someone starts a business but no one hears about it, does the business really exist? Marketing your business is crucial to its success, and contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a big marketing budget to do so. Start by creating a LinkedIn profile and connect with other professionals in your industry, including your existing contacts and former colleagues. LinkedIn doubles as both your online resume and website, so if you haven’t had time to create a website for your business, use your domain name to point to your LinkedIn profile. And don’t forget to network. Go to networking events in your local area and connect with other professionals face-to-face.

In our next post, we look at the next few questions you need to ask yourself before starting your own business.

Ready to start your own business now?

If you’re serious about starting your own business, but need a little help getting your ducks in a row, enrol in our Business StartUp Online Training Course, our step-by-step guide to starting and operating a small business. This course now includes a Microsoft Excel Template Business Plan filled with data for a bookkeeping business and includes a special BONUS if you enrol now.

You can also access our Business StartUp Online Training Course as part of our made-for-small-business start ups package: The StartUp Academy Cloud Package — find out more details about this exciting new offering.