While this is not an exhaustive guide by any means — there are several very thick books on the subject — our hope is that we can give you a place to start, some ideas you can start implementing, and some strategies to get you started.
Starting a business, whether it’s a part-time home-based business, or a full-time business with its own location, has risks and rewards.
How to Decide What Business to Start
Starting a business, whether it’s a part-time home-based business, or a full-time business with its own location, has risks and rewards. But do the rewards outweigh the risks? How do you know whether the business is one you want to start? Are you following the crowd, or setting the trends?
Here are six tips to help you figure out what kind of business you want to start:
4 Examples of Interesting Businesses
As we talk to small business owners and entrepreneurs, we hear about all kinds of interesting businesses people have started because they have a passion for the work, they are able to fill a need, or they’re able to use past experience and knowledge. These are some of the interesting businesses we have found over the years.
4 Social Media Marketing Strategies to Promote Your Business
Social media marketing is one of the most effective and far-reaching marketing channels available to the 21st century. We want to give you a basic rundown of some tools you can use to start marketing your business, whether it’s online or a brick-and-mortar location.
4 Things You Can Do To Establish Your Business’ Online Presence
In the last section, we mentioned blogging, Twitter, and Facebook Pages as some of the best tools you can use for social media marketing. But we didn’t tell you how to use them. So here are four simple ways — some for the beginner, some for advanced users — to establish your business’ online presence.
4 More Secrets to Promoting Business Online
We’ve already shared four secrets with promoting your business online. And the world is filled with enough books on the subject, you could start a library, so those four tips are like that tiny first bite of an appetizer at the world’s largest buffet. We wanted to give you a few more secrets so you can continue to promote your business online. These tips are a little more advanced, but can have a great effect on your growth.
About the author: Duncan Alney is the president and founder of Firebelly Marketing. He is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, and photographer, and he’s working on his first social media marketing book, which will be out in late 2012. Duncan has lived on 3 continents and in 5 countries, but is proud to call Indianapolis home.
Waseem Sindhu said on May 14, 2012
As an entrepreneur, these would serve as guidelines to get the business started. Thanks for sharing.
Duncan Alney said on May 14, 2012
That’s right, Waseem. While there is a lot more to starting a business, I wanted to provide a starting framework! – Duncan
Bonita Telford said on May 17, 2012
For a small start-up business a real estate firm whose $$$ are very few, it is quite expensive to pay for setup of a website. Do you have any suggestions or tools for a typical lay person to do this?
Duncan Alney said on May 17, 2012
Bonita, there are lots of opportunities for getting the word out there. If you’re with a firm – they will probably give you a page on their site. If you’re independent, you can get a pay-as-you-go site (Web.com has options, for example) and it’s affordable with very low start-up fees.
You can also use Facebook as your base – there are scores of realtors who get their friends and families involved and then use ads to attract friends of friends.
You could also use tumblr to set up your site yourself.
Bottom line – there are lots of very affordable options.
- Duncan