[eBook Code] Small Business for Dummies (eBook Code, 6th)

· 제목 : [eBook Code] Small Business for Dummies (eBook Code, 6th) 
· 분류 : 외국도서 > 경제경영 > 창업/사업
· ISBN : 9780730384861
· 쪽수 : 368쪽
· 출판일 : 2021-04-16

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 2

Where to Go from Here 3

Part 1: Getting Started 5

Chapter 1: Is Small Business for You? 7

Working for Yourself — A Dream Come True? 8

Doing what you love to do 8

Earning pots of money (here’s hoping) 8

Being your own boss 9

Staying home 9

Working for Yourself — Reality Strikes 10

Teetering on the edge 11

Working night and day for little pay 11

Weathering feast and famine 12

Getting the Timing Right 12

Timing it right for your idea 12

Timing it right for you 13

Timing it right for the economy 14

Staying Safe or Inventing the Wheel? 16

Playing it safe 16

Finding your own niche 16

Going out on a limb 17

Assessing your chances of survival 17

Getting the Government to Help You 21

Setting Yourself Up for Success 22

Chapter 2: Figuring Out What’s So Special about You (And Your Business) 23

Understanding Strategic Advantage 24

Identifying your secret weapon 24

Focusing on real-life examples 25

Justifying Why You Can Succeed 27

Uncovering your inner mojo 27

Asking three key questions 27

Growing your advantages over time 28

Making sure a demand really exists 29

Understanding How Risk Relates to Gain 29

Figuring Out Who Your Competitors Really Are 30

Understanding why you need to do this 31

Grouping competitors 32

Profiling your competitors 33

Thinking about future competitors 33

Choosing Your Competitive Strategy 35

Pick one, and only one, competitive strategy 35

Connecting your competitive strategy to your strategic advantage 37

Chapter 3: Starting from Scratch, Buying a Business, or Joining a Franchise 39

Weighing Up the Good and the Bad of Buying a Business 40

Buying an existing business — the upside 40

Buying an existing business — the downside 41

Asking the Right Questions 42

Finding out who owns the intellectual property 42

Analysing sales trends, profit and break-even 43

Clarifying what the purchase price includes 43

Calculating the ‘True’ Earnings of a Business 45

Valuing an Existing Business 47

The times earnings method 48

The capitalised earnings method 49

The strategic advantage method 50

Dotting Your I’s, Crossing Your T’s 50

Buying a Franchise 53

Considering the positives 53

Weighing up the negatives 54

Exercising Due Diligence 55

Wising up 55

Putting a franchise through the griller 56

Doing your sums 58

Part 2: Finding Your Entrepreneurial Spirit 61

Chapter 4: Separating Yourself from Your Business 63

Deciding What Path You Want to Take 64

Doing the thing you love to do 64

Getting help and delegating what you can 65

Building a business that’s separate from you 67

Creating a way of doing business 68

Wearing Different Hats 69

Building a Business with a Life of its Own 71

Defining your difference 71

Documenting and building systems 72

Setting goals for you and your business 74

Planning for a graceful exit 75

Appreciating the Limitations of Your Business 75

Chapter 5: Staying One Step Ahead 79

Taking an Eagle-Eye View 80

Looking at what’s happening in your industry 80

Being realistic about industry decline 83

Riding the wave of opportunity 83

Rating Your Capabilities 84

Putting yourself through the griller 84

Prioritising where you need to do better 86

Identifying Opportunities and Threats 86

Doing a SWOT Analysis 89

Putting theory into practice 89

Translating your SWOT analysis into action 90

Creating a Plan for Change 91

Chapter 6: Creating a Business Plan 93

Getting Started with Your Plan 94

Charting a True Course 95

Setting off on your mission 96

Saying what you’re about 97

Matching goals to your mission 97

Assessing the Environment 98

Analysing outside influences 99

Checking out the competition 99

Justifying market demand 99

Declaring Your Battle Plan 100

Building your SWOT analysis 100

Choosing a strategy 100

Expressing your competitive advantage 101

Outlining Your Marketing Plan 101

Developing your marketing plan 101

Defining your customers 102

Articulating your online business strategy 103

Describing Your Dream Team 103

Presenting Financials 104

Balancing dreams against reality 104

Building on history to create a picture of the future 105

Staying real with benchmarks 106

Chapter 7: Getting the Legals Right 107

Picking a Business Structure 108

Independent and single 109

Tea for two 109

We’ve got company 110

Matching the Name to the Game 111

Using your own name 111

Thinking about how others will find you 112

Making sure you’re not on someone else’s patch 112

Checking for trademarks 112

Registering your business name 113

Avoiding trouble 114

Protecting Your Brand 115

Registering trademarks 115

Protecting other kinds of intellectual property 116

Registering with the Powers That Be 117

Getting that baby’s number 117

Signing up for taxes (unavoidable, I’m afraid) 117

Checking out what else you need 118

Working with Contracts 119

Understanding when you’re legally bound 119

Dealing with standard form contracts 120

Knowing what to look for in a contract 121

Signing on the dotted line 122

Negotiating Lease Contracts 123

Part 3: Planning for Profit 127

Chapter 8: Figuring Out Prices and Predicting Sales 129

Choosing a Pricing Strategy 130

Setting prices based on costs 130

Setting prices based on competitors 130

Setting prices based on perceived value 131

Building a Hybrid-Pricing Plan 132

Offering a premium product or service 132

Cutting back the frills 134

Getting creative with packages 134

Charging different prices for the same thing 135

Forming Your Final Plan of Attack 136

Monitoring and Changing Your Price 137

Building Your Sales Forecast 138

Calculating hours in a working week 138

Increasing sales with extra labour 140

Predicting sales for a new business 141

Predicting sales for an established business 142

Creating Your Month-by-Month Forecast 144

Chapter 9: Building Profit Projections 147

Understanding the Cost of Your Sales 148

Costing your service 148

Costing items that you buy and sell 149

Costing items that you make 150

Forecasting Expenses 152

Forecasting monthly expenses 152

Forecasting expenses for the year ahead 154

Allowing for loan repayments and interest 155

Allowing for personal and company tax 156

Building Profit Projections 157

Step one: Starting with sales 157

Step two: Adding variable costs 158

Step three: Showing gross profit 160

Step four: Adding expenses and revealing the bottom line 160

Understanding the Whole Deal 161

Factoring Personal Expenses into the Equation 162

Chapter 10: Calculating Your Break-Even Point 165

Identifying Your Tipping Point 165

Understanding the concept of break-even 167

Factoring personal expenses into the equation 167

Putting theory into practice 168

Changing Your Break-Even Point 171

Looking at Things from a Cash Perspective 173

Chapter 11: Creating Your Marketing Plan 175

Laying Down the Elements of Your Plan 176

Going to the heart of the matter 176

Expressing your difference 177

Defining Who Your Customers Are 178

Analysing your customers 179

Understanding what it is your customers really want 179

Thinking creatively about channels 180

Researching the market 181

Analysing Your Competitors 182

Setting Sales Targets 183

Expressing sales targets in dollars and cents 184

Expressing sales targets in other ways 184

Building Sales Strategies 186

Growing a brand that people want 186

Pricing things right 187

Defining your social media strategy 188

Engaging customers and building trust 189

Expanding Your Reach Offline 191

Networking (yes, actually in person) 191

Investing in public relations 192

Creating marketing alliances 193

Keeping Yourself Honest 193

Comparing targets against actuals 193

Measuring conversion rates 194

Part 4: People Power 197

Chapter 12: Making Service Your Business 199

Creating a customer service culture 200

Asking for feedback at every touchpoint 200

Being prepared to listen 201

Cultivating a positive workplace 202

Going the Extra Mile 203

Delivering on your promises, and more 203

Understanding how to build trust 206

Brainstorming how you can do better 206

Appreciating the need for speed 207

Continuing service after the sale is made 208

Evaluating Your Performance 208

Designing surveys 208

Measuring your speed 209

Reflecting on other service benchmarks 209

Showing That You Care 211

‘I appreciate how you feel’ 211

‘I’ve done that sometimes!’ 212

‘Let me confirm what you just said’ 212

Can I help you with anything else? 213

Dealing with Complaints 214

Why complaints are serious 214

How to respond to complaints 214

Chapter 13: Becoming an Employer 217

Becoming an Employer: The First Steps 217

Getting employees to fulfil their part of the deal 218

Covering employees for accidents 219

Ensuring your software is up to speed 220

Subscribing to super 220

Meeting Minimum Pay and Conditions 222

Understanding what laws apply 222

Choosing between part-time, full-time or casual 224

Playing Safe and Playing Fair 226

Being practical, not pedantic 226

Blonde jokes are over 228

Chapter 14: The Art of Management 229

Drawing Up a Position Description 230

Playing the Recruitment Game 231

Reaching the best applicants 232

Selling the position 232

Picking the Best 233

Asking the right questions 234

Avoiding the wrong questions 234

Matching people and positions 235

Offering Someone a Job 236

Sending an offer of employment 236

Setting a probationary period 237

Learning to Lead 238

Daring to delegate 239

Building a positive workplace 239

Communicating every way you can 240

Don’t Worry, Be Happy 241

Rewarding with more than money 241

Reviewing performance regularly 242

Managing change 243

Managing Difficult Employees 243

Figuring out whether the problem is actually you 244

Knowing when to draw the line 244

Giving an employee a warning 245

Terminating an employee 246

Part 5: High Finance 249

Chapter 15: Financing Your Business 251

Budgeting Enough for Start-Up 251

Creating a start-up budget 252

Adding enough to live on 253

Assessing how much you really need 253

Separating Start-up Expenses from Operating Expenses 254

Dealing with initial start-up expenses 254

Putting theory into practice 255

Sizing Up Your Finance Options 257

Taking out a business loan 258

Finding a new lease of life 260

Getting hitched with chattel mortgage or hire purchase 261

Canoodling with credit cards 262

Seeking equity partners 262

Choosing Your Lender 263

Compare interest rates and loan fees 263

Consider other interest(ing) factors 264

Watch out for honeymoon periods and interest-free credit 264

Chapter 16: Cooking the Books 267

Figuring How Often to Do the Deed 268

Doing your books just once in a while 268

Doing your books regularly 269

Choosing Software that Fits 270

Creating Recordkeeping Systems 272

Keeping track of income 272

Tracking expenses 273

Storing your business records 273

Doing the bare basics 274

Keeping Track of How Much You’re Owed 276

Asking nicely 276

Getting drastic 277

Meeting Bookkeeping Deadlines 278

Chapter 17: Understanding Financial Statements 281

Discovering What Reports You Need (and When) 282

Telling a Story with Your Profit & Loss Report 283

Understanding how it all works 283

Looking at sales 285

Counting the costs 285

Weighing up your expenses 286

Taking a Snapshot with Your Balance Sheet 287

Understanding the fine print 288

Building documentation to support each figure 289

Appreciating your net worth (someone has to, after all) 291

Why Profit Doesn’t Always Mean Cash 291

Gazing into the deep, black hole 292

Looking through rose-coloured spectacles 292

Doing the sums for sustainable growth 293

Budgeting As If You Mean It 294

Creating your first budget 294

Recognising relationships 295

Understanding the psychology of budgets 297

Developing your budget in tune with your business plan 298

Looking at Cashflow 299

Chapter 18: Taming the Tax Tyrant 303

Getting a Grip on GST 303

Deciding whether to register or not 304

Choosing your cashflow destiny 304

Reporting for duty — how often? 305

Coughing up 306

Staying out of trouble 306

Growing Some Recordkeeping Smarts 307

Treating receipts with respect 307

Cultivating your obsessive-compulsive streak 307

Riding that (t)rusty chariot 308

Declaring home office expenses 309

Planning Ahead 310

Getting an instant deduction 311

Managing stock valuations 311

Salting funds away into super 312

Staying Out of Trouble 312

Don’t claim what you can’t 312

Be able to back up your story 313

Avoid Personal Services rulings, if you can 314

Monitor shareholder or director loans closely 314

Don’t kid yourself about the cash economy 315

Budgeting for Tax 315

Planning for that difficult second year 316

Putting funds aside 316

Budgeting for GST and PAYG 317

Fessing up if you’re short on cash 318

Part 6: The Part of Tens 321

Chapter 19: Ten Things to Do If You Hit Hard Times 323

Work Out How Bad Things Really Are 324

Get Breathing Space 325

Innovate! 325

Slash Those Expenses 326

Pull Back Personal Spending 327

Get Rid of Dead Weight 327

Chase Up Overdue Accounts 328

Run Special Offers 328

Re-Jig Your Margins 329

Don’t Be a Shag on a Rock 330

Chapter 20: Ten Tips for Selling Your Business 331

Start with a Game Plan 332

Prepare Well in Advance 332

Give Your Financials a Make-Over 333

Get a Professional Valuation 334

Go for the Max 334

Plan for a Few Bills 335

Woo the Buyer 336

Do Due Diligence in Advance 337

Be Straight Up with Employees 339

Spread the Word 339

Index 341