Monday comes again, this time a holiday! If you’re off today, why not go and talk to some small business owners, if they’re looking slow.

I spoke about the 7 reasons not to start your own business last week. Today I’ll offer some advice on 7 good reasons to move on from what you are doing.

If you are clear of the 7 reasons against entrepreneurship, you could be moving on to your own gig in 30 days or less. Before diving in, though, you’ll want to consider a few things honestly, and see if you’re truly ready.

Consider these things, honestly:

1. Savings — Can you live for up to 6 months with no income?
2. Accounting — Do you have a reasonable accountant who can help you at a reasonable rate?
3. Adventure — Are you ready for a heckuva roller coaster? Are you free of any vacation/travel desires?
4. Education assistance — If you’re recently out of school, does your school have any assitance programs for starting your own business?
5. Schedule — Are you on a consistent daily schedule?
6. Marketing — Have you built any business relationships that can help you promote your services or products?
7. Take a day off and think.

Having a reasonable savings is mandatory, even if you’re living with the parents or a significant other who has a consistent income. I recommend ignoring every other form of income that might be coming into your household and focus on having 6 months saved up. If you’re bad about securing your savings from impulse buys, do what I like to do: pay your utilities off 6 months in advance, and if you have any reasonable long term debt, work with the bank to prepay 6 months so you can ignore the payments. Don’t assume you’ll have money coming in, in fact it is better to assume you won’t. For the first 6 months you will also want to keep a cap on any spending — impulse or otherwise. I’ll have future articles on items you’ll want to invest in (software, hardware, clothing, business paperwork, etc). For now, hide the credit cards and the bank books.

Running a business can be a paperwork nightmare. I highly recommend finding an entry-level accountant near your home or business. If you find someone new, you can generally get a good rate for advice and paper filing. A small business can require up to 100 forms filed annually with governing bodies, not just considering following your bank account and bills that will be coming as often as your personal ones do. Tell your accountant what your expectations are, and set a payment schedule so that they can be paid properly but you can budget for them. I will have an article regarding how to deal with accountants, and how to keep them accountable while they do the same for you. I’ve lost businesses over misfiled forms, costing me 6 figures. Don’t make the same mistake!

If you’re feeling the itch to travel, don’t start your business yet. Go off on your vacation adventures now — once you get it out of your system you’ll find that business might prevent you from doing anything of the sort for a few years. I feel that starting a new business is the best adventure one can go on, but it might keep you in close quarters to your home for many years until it is self sufficient.

If you recently finished high school or college, you might be surprised to find very good utilities available to you through the school. One kid I mentored to found out that his high school offered him free photocopying, proofreading of business letters and help in network marketing with previous alumni. Don’t hesitate to ask, for every 1 person who uses these services there are 100 who never heard of them.

Scheduling yourself daily is one of the most important parts of being a responsible business owner. If you tend to get up late, go to bed late, or don’t have a consistent daily schedule, get on one. I’ll have an article this week with advice on forcing yourself into a daily routine — once you get the basics out of your head, you’ll find yourself with much more time than you’d ever believe. If you don’t make a habit out of a schedule, you’ll be amazed at how many hours you’ve wasted in your life. I’m the least obsessive compulsive person you’ll meet, but making a schedule and sticking to it helps me keep my eyes on the prize.

Have you talked to friends and family about their need for your services? Even if they can’t use you, pursue them to give you the names of friends, previous employers and even current employers. If you’ve worked with them to make yourself a better more responsible person, they’ll be happy to give you some leads. Take advantage of every single lead you generate. I’ll talk more about turning 1 lead into 20 — you’ll be amazed at how many people you can turn away when you get busy and offer a good service or product. The best part about being a good entrepreneur is when you have to turn work away.

If you’ve past the 7 reasons not to be a business owner and you’ve considered the 6 I just spoke about, go ahead and take a day off of your regular life. Make it a sick day, a vacation day, whatever it is. Wake up at the usual time, unplug the TV, the computer, the telephone and hide the car keys. Have a seat on your couch or in a favorite chair, and see how you handle a day of nothing.

If you find yourself comfortable in doing nothing, you’re not ready. If you find yourself wanting to turn on the TV, make a phone call, or something else you’d do out of boredom, you’re not ready.

If you find yourself ready to get into action and actually do something with the free time you’re wasting, congrats! You can take the first steps needed to becoming a business owner.

This week I’ll address how to truly pick a service or product to sell, and cover some of the steps in this article in greater detail.

Franchises were all the rage for many years — we watched small name businesses start franchise opportunities, and we watched those franchises pop up everywhere. I see Krispy Kreme and Culver’s burgers all over the Midwest. I have friends who run franchise retail stores. They seem like good ways to take advantage of a big marketing campaign and a big name. Franchies aren’t for me, though.

Franchising sounds like a good idea until you see that you’re not your own boss. Even though you own an independent corporation, you’re contractually obligated to follow the rules of the franchising company. In the long run, many franchisees find out they can’t print their own signs, make their own ad campaigns, buy products from other suppliers or even move their business if the area they picked is underperforming. A franchise is basically a pretend way to be your own boss — you still have people above you who can command you around without any cost to them.

On top of really high franchise fees, you’ll also be paying a percentage of your sales — whether or not you make a profit. Some franchises require up to 11% of your gross sales, which can be more than you’re paying yourself. Other franchises are contractually allowed to raise the prices of your goods, but demand that you sell those goods at the price level they set. Some franchises can buy back the franchise at a preset price — and do so once they see you profiting.

I receive a few questions a week regarding one franchise or another. I’ll be happy to do the research, and some franchises are actually great ways to get experience (they build the facility for you and you pay it back over a period of years). Some are set up with a profit guarantee or a performance guarantee (where they’ll buy it back if it doesn’t perform at a certain level). These are rare though. You can do some research into franchises (I actually recommend looking around online at the various franchise opportunities), but read the fine print! You’ll often be shocked at what you read.

If you’re thinking about a franchise opportunity, drop me a link with the franchise’s website. I’ll see if I can spot some of the tricks of the trade for you. Don’t believe the hype, the highlights and the blinking “Profit!” captions — very few franchise owners stay in the business long. If you want franchise experience, go work for one and talk to the owner. You’ll be surprised how many of them wish they could strike out on their own away from the franchise — sounds like a typical employee when I’ve spoken with many.

If you’re thinking of getting into your business to earn a little extra cash, don’t do it. A real business, even a part time one, requires a long term commitment and a daily focus.

This does not mean that you can’t run a business part time (even as a side job to your regular job). If you’re going to start a business, you have to set some time commitment goals in advance. I recommend planning a full year in advance — if you can set aside 10 hours a week, get a calendar and make sure you’re doing it.

Are there ways to make extra cash on the side, separate from a business? Absolutely! I’ve seen kids in my neighborhood go to garage sales, buy junk, and resell it on eBay. They make decent extra cash, but if they committed to it as a business, they’d make much more. This is the reality of any small job you do for extra cash — it CAN be a business in the future.

If you’re looking to do a little extra work on the side, I recommend spending a little time seeing if whatever side jobs you take would appeal to you to do as a business in the future. There are many side job opportunities I’ve seen that can make a very good income as a business. Talking to neighbors, friends and family can find you many needs — right in your area. Are you good with computers? Ask your neighbors if they need some help cleaning up their desktops. You can make an easy $20 for a two hour job. Are you good with painting? Hit up the older people in your area — they always need something coated with a few gallons of paint.

But are these things you are good at also things you’d want to do for possibly the rest of your life? Maybe not. Businesses can RUIN fun hobbies (I know, I started some businesses in areas I loved, and quickly grew to hate it). This is why I recommend spending time thinking about what you’re considering for a side job. If you love it, don’t do it for money, period.

If you’re stuck in a rut on how to earn a little extra income, consider learning a trade that you’re unfamiliar with. Many local small businesses would be happy to bring on an intern in exchange for learning the business. I’ve seen numerous friends gain valuable future-business experience by talking to sign shops (vinyl cutters), gardenscapers (and garden pond builders), wedding photographers and even car detailing shops. Just because you feel you’re smarter than taking on one of these internships, you may be surprised to see how profitable they can be as businesses, and how little they’ll trample on the things you love to do.

There was an article in Slate not too long ago written from a failed business owner who got involved in something he loved: the coffee business. The article is very important because he seems to have failed the basics I’ve talked about here. He did something he loved, he didn’t plan for it properly, and he got in over his head too quickly. He’s an educated guy — the first thing he should have done is talked to another coffee shop owner about their experiences, and then offered to intern for a few weekends to see if it was something he’d like to do. He shouldn’t have gotten involved in something he loved, and he shouldn’t have dove in feet first.

Remember, if you’re planning on replacing your serf-employment with self-employment, you’re wanting to do something for life. How hard is it to take a step back for 6 months and do some honest research?

The same is true for your side job. If you’re desperate for extra cash, the side job isn’t going to cut it. Get a real part time job (or two) and pay off your bills before you even take little side jobs for pocket change. Once you’re on top of your debt, you can spend some time seeing if the side job bringing in a little extra cash might turn into a future business, or if it is just a waste of time exchanged for a little cash.

The end goal of business is to utilize your time better: for profit, for pleasure, and for family. Time for family and time for pleasure come after you’ve made a profit and found a consistent return, so profit must be the primary goal to meet.

Profit comes from getting more money out of an action than you had put in. It is a pretty basic word to define. Yet what is money?

Money has been debated for thousands of years by people with many more degrees than I would ever want, yet the basic definition of money is simple, and it is not complicated by any means. You’ll often hear it defined simply that “time is money.” This is completely wrong, though.

Money is a way to store productive labor. In essence, money is time (not the other way around). When you get paid to mow a lawn, the person with the money is paying you to mow the lawn so that they can save the time to do something more productive. They can’t give you their saved labor though, so they give you money that equates to less than the value of the time they saved. You, on the other hand, performed the work because it was the most valuable way to spend your time — you gained money worth more than the time you worked!

If your fee for mowing the lawn was more than the person would save doing it themselves, they won’t hire you. If they offered to pay you less money than you could have made elsewhere with your time, you wouldn’t accept the job. This is the basic exchange of trade — both people in any trade must profit in some way (money, time saved, etc).

To explain it in a more simple fashion, you can look at money as such: the price of any service or product is directly related to how much time it saves a person or how much pleasure the person gains. That’s it.

In any exchange of goods or services, both parties in a trade have secrets. This is the way it has to be. The person with the money won’t tell you how much money they have, and they won’t tell you how much money they’re saving by buying your service or product. The person with the product or service won’t tell the person with money how much profit they’re making by selling the product or performing the service.

These secrets are good things — they allow each party to walk away from the transaction ahead. Mutual profits are the only way we make any barter or exchange.

When you go to price your product or your service, you need to do so by thinking about what the other person might gain from it. If they are saving money, you have to try to figure out how much they’re saving. If they’re gaining happiness, you have to think about what other things can make them happy at a similar price. As a businessman, you learn these things naturally from competition and from time preference. If you sell a T-shirt for $20 that can be bought at the mall for $15, are you more expensive or cheaper? You can only discover that fact by also looking into the time needed to drive to the mall, the gas spent, and the time spent wandering around looking for the T-shirt. Prices do not have to be the same unless everything else is equal: time driving, gas, frustration levels, etc.

Money is time. Don’t look at it any other way. When you have more money, you can afford to spend your time in the best way possible by paying others to take care of tasks that you wouldn’t do yourself at that price. When you have more money, you can afford to purchase products that can make your life easier to handle, allowing you to gain even more time in the future.

When you deal with businesses now and give them money, consider if the money you’re spending is gaining you time or gaining you pleasure (making your time more valuable). If it isn’t, don’t make the purchase.

Tuesday is going to be my focus on the youth — pre-teens, teens and young adults. When I was a teen, my most profitable mini-business was the “make your own t-shirts” business. For less than $50, anyone can get started.

This business is best suited for the youth because it is highly labor-oriented, requires a steady hand (ruined by my caffeine addiction), and also requires a lot of socializing with new people. I believe I could still earn a good living even in my 30s, but I’ve moved on.

Your can make your own t-shirts in your basement or bedroom with only a few square feet. It requires no major equipment, and the only thing you’ll plug in is a bright lamp. If you live in any major metropolitan area, you can buy everything you need today!

Silk screening is the primary way to make your own t-shirts, but there are also inkjet print kits and iron-on kits. I don’t like the inkjet print kits or the iron-on kits as they require a LOT more work and they just don’t look good. Silk screening gives you a nice feel, lasts nearly forever, and gives you a VERY fast process. At my quickest I was kicking out 40-60 t-shirts per hour! My best day ever was over $500 in profit and 2 hours of work.

When you make your own t-shirts, you have to first fine a subject matter that is important and that appeals to the people you’ll sell to (normally in person, although you could try a website). I forced myself to social gatherings (as a young geek, this was a job in its own) to meet other teens. I’d wear a funny shirt that was topical, and I’d offer the shirt to others. $2 in cost, $10 sale price, $8 profit. At the end of the night I’d dump what I had at $5 a pop (I told people they were blemished, even though they weren’t) — still a $3 profit.

How do you make your own t-shirts? First you need a silk screening starter kit. A local art supply store near me called Michaels sells these kits cheaply. The kit comes with one silk screen, a start kit of chemicals, and the tools needed to get started. You’ll also need a cheap lamp reflector base (the clamping type) from the hardware store, and a super bright photo bulb from a photography store. Most photography stores will know the type used for silk screening — it is called a photo flood light and runs between 150 watts and 200 watts. I’ll get into the actual screening process next Tuesday.

Before you organize and purchase these items, make sure you have something to sell. Over recent years I had thought of funny news clips that would have made me money on T-shirts: Janet Jackson’s nipple scandal, parodies of popular band logos and even political T-shirts with mockeries of political figures. Never copy a logo or a t-shirt as its illegal. You also want something different, something that could be a quick sell at parties and the local hangout (pizza shops, etc). Your first silk screen will probably come out better if it is drawn by hand instead of through the computer — the computer is a real trial and error situation (I’d spent almost $100 perfecting mine 15 years ago when PCs were not very easy to work with). If you’re not good at art, find a friend who can draw something simple.

If you’re young, outgoing and don’t mind a few hours of labor near a really hot lamp, the silk screening business is for you. You can make your own t-shirts for less than $3 a piece, knock out 40-60 in a good hour, and sell them for $2 to $7 profit each — earning you over $200 an hour of you work hard and find a market. If you’re in a school band or on a sports team, if you spend time at parties or at basement concerts, if you hang out at the teen center or have a good grasp of what is funny to your peers, you can make a good income with very little long term work. This is not a business for everyone, though. If you’re lazy, there is a 90% failure rate in this business for those who are lazy and give up early.

It’s Monday. Don’t forget to prepare yourself to act the part of being your own boss.

People ask me if it is possible to go from serf-employment to self-employment in 30 days. I think it is, but you need experience before you can dive in so quickly. I recommend at lesat 3-6 months of research and marketing to find your niche.

There are other reasons to stay out of self-employment, too:

1. High debt
2. Mortgage
3. Children
4. Education goals
5. Significant other who isn’t supportive
6. Laziness
7. Burnt bridges in the industry

If your debt is way out of control, I recommend making the biggest and hardest decision to make: spend 1 year tripling your efforts and paying it all off. One year of hardship: no extraneous spending, no vacations, no dinners out, no $3 lattes, no movies, no CDs, no new clothes. If you have a job, get 2 more part time ones. Send every extra dollar to your creditors and pay it all off, starting with the smallest credit card. Debt is a killer, it will cloud your mind constantly. The benefit of this “hardship” is that you will learn that hard work pays off. If you are young (under 25), I recommend doing this regardless of debt.

If you have a mortgage, consider downsizing. I believe the housing market is in a big bubble, and recently sold my condos and home. I currently am working on buying up a trailer park, where prices are very low and quality of life is very high. I publish a newsletter (Mobile Home Millionaire) and nearly everyone I know in my park are worth close to a million. Don’t look at trailer trash, look at wealth. Homes are overpriced for sure, consider moving from a $300,000 home where you have $50,000 equity into a $30,000 trailer which gives you $20,000 in cash. Work hard at your business for 3 years, and go back and buy your old house for cash!

Children are a joy (I’ve been told). They can also be very expensive. If you don’t not have $1000 in the bank for every year old your child is (or combined), don’t strike out on your own. Children need time, patience and money. If you have a 6 years old and a 9 year old (total age combined: 15), you’ll want $15,000 in the bank before heading out. This is non-negotiable, unless your significant other is working a stable job.

If you have college goals, get it done. I am 100% against college for 90% of college students. I never went, and it gave me 5 years of work experience and saved me nearly $100,000 over my friends. Of my friends who went, only 10 to 20% are ahead of where I am, but they are so burdened with debt and headaches that I’m not sure they are ahead. College seems to be more for community and family than for success nowadays. If you’re in the middle of college, you might as well finish it — take more classes, take summer school, finish it up and get going!

If your husband, wife, girlfriend or boyfriend is not supportive of you being your own boss, talk to them and find out why. As I have said before, friends and family can tell you where your weaknesses are. If the relationship is serious, don’t be a jerk — make the decision together.

If you are currently in the industry you expect to be self-employed in, don’t enter that business if you have ANY burnt bridges. One of my failures was from a previously burnt bridge years earlier in another town. Suppliers talk, customers talk. Go and find your burnt bridge and work it out. This is not a twelve-step program, this is business. You don’t want any enemies going into the business, they can quickly become the biggest mountain you will never climb.

It is a common title on many blogs and websites — how you can make money at home — or own your business. I’m a big fan of using the home as the way to start your business, but I believe strongly that the make money at home sites generally don’t give the best advice. There are a few “make money at home” sites online that actually DO work, but the majority of them forget some simple business knowledge.

When you mix work and home, the work part generally falls apart and fails. The only way to mix work and home is to truly separate the work part from the home part. Over the next few weeks I’ll be writing an article a week about how to make an office in your home that truly separates your work and your home life. My office is a tiny room in my house (with a LOT of sunshine and quiet), with very little traffic. Pets, kids and significant others need to be uncomfortable in this room — so you can focus on actually making money, finishing jobs and bringing new ones in.

If you have questions about the “make money at home” websites out there, feel free to ask me. I’ll be happy to give you my advice. If you have questions on the “home office” office, let me know and I’ll add it to my ongoing series.

When I was a young businessman (we’re talking in my teens) I had one major problem: lack of confidence! I couldn’t look a customer in the eyes, I’d slouch and I didn’t feel like I was able to always perform the job (even though I knew I could). Around the age of 17 everything changed: an older businessman who was one of my first customers told me that even if I didn’t feel confident, I should at least act confident. He was right: every time I acted more confident than I felt, I ended up being confident. A year later and confidence was not a problem: I realized that the difference between acting and being was merely a matter of time. I’ll write more about this key to closing deals in the future.

For now, even if you’re not a business owner, you should start preparing to act like one. This post will be more important to the brick and mortar and the local business than an online business.

Sometimes I’ve been able to win contracts in situations where I had the same price, the same talent and the same goals as my competition. In the end, the person deciding who to award a contract in a tight bid will consider non-business issues in making the final decision. What separated me from the competition? Hygiene.

It sounds odd, especially if you know me in person. I have long hair and sometimes a fairly thick beard growth. My corporate customers will catch me in jeans and a T-shirt as often as a tie and a collar. Clothing does make the (business)man in many settings, but before all that is scene, there is something more important — how do you smell and how do you look other than clothing? It sounds odd, but I’ve met competitors with foul breath, body odor, unkempt hair and nails and even dirty teeth.

If you’re still uncertain about becoming your own boss, get in the groove of good hygiene. Many of us THINK we’re ok, but you become insensitive to your own failures when it comes to how you look (and smell) to others. At around the age of 21 I found a few good solutions to getting a true rating of your hygiene rating when it comes to others: the bartender. Yes, the guy (or girl) who seems thousands of drunken idiots a week is the perfect person to rate your hygiene. After giving this advice to nearly 100 people in an e-mail a few years back, many were shocked that they failed the test.

Find a random bar or nightclub. Dress as you would if you were going to see a customer. Perform your usual daily hygiene ritual a few hours before going out. Buy a drink, and offer an extra $5 tip if the bartender would rate you. I prefer the opposite sex to give me their rating, but even the same sex will do. You’ll be surprised how honest someone will be for a mere $5. Ask them point blank: what about me is bad — my breath, hair, skin, nails? You’ll get an honest answer in minutes. After you get the answer, have your drink and head out. It is time to make some changes!

My daily ritual is so basic, so simple and so ignored that it shocks me that other business people don’t do it. They couldn’t be — I can see their issues!

1. Always always always floss after a meal. I carry those mini plastic floss pics — you can buy 100 of them for $6 or so. Even if you floss every morning or night, you’d be surprised what a little onion from your burger at lunch can do at your 2pm meeting. Make this part of your after-a-meal habit.

2. Always wash your hands before and after a meal. I’m not a bug-freak by any means, I could probably go 10 years without washing my hands. Hand washing before a meal is VERY appealing to customers when you take them to lunch — you care about your body, so you’ll care about their product. Washing your hands after a meal is important because your hands can pick up some nasty food scents that you wouldn’t be sensitive to. I eat a lot of Indian food, which can be a killer if you don’t scrub down after the meal.

3. Get a hair cut every 2-3 weeks, even if you don’t need it. Split ends and uneven hair lengths are very detrimental to your overall appearance. I wear my hair past my collar and past my eyes, but my hair is always trimmed so it looks fresh and stylish. Ask your barber if they see any problems (they’ll point out dandruff and bald spots that you may not even notice). Ask for their advice if they do find problems.

4. Don’t use mouthwash if you’re uncertain about your breath. Mouthwash combined with halitosis is terrible — it is like covering a dog’s droppings with sugar. Yuck. Conquering chronic bad breath might require a few visits to the dentist, but if you don’t do it now, you might lose some great opportunities over a foul stink. The bartender test will let you know immediately if you have this problem — it seems to affect 1 out of 3 business owners I know.

5. Pick up a tongue brush even if your breath is fine. A tongue cleaner will keep your tongue from looking green when you’re ill and it will also give you a fresher breath. Except to take 2-3 weeks to get used to it (gag reflex can be really scary the first week).

6. Go to a good nail salon that follows proper tool cleansing procedures. Get a very basic manicure (no polishing, no painting, nothing outrageous). Note what they do with your cuticles and your nail bed and try to follow this once a week. Bad nails are not noticed directly, but it can make you look dirty. I’m not saying go for the complete metrosexual queer-eye finish, just get them trimmed nice and stay on top of it weekly.

7. Don’t over shampoo or overcondition when you shower. I actually shampoo my hair only once a week — the natural hair oils really add a stylish look. Too much conditioner will make your hair greasy and stinky quick (I’ll never use conditioner myself).

8. When it comes to deodorant, get a doctor’s advice. The stuff that smells great can be similar to the mouthwash issue: combining a bad stink with a good one leaves you with a bad stink. On top of deodorant, don’t overdo the body spray or the cologne. The bartender test can tell you if you’re overdoing the cologne. I tend not to wear any, but there are guys who overdo it so often that I’ve just made it habit to stay away.

9. Wash your clothes after you use them. I’m a dry cleaning type of guy, because I hate ruining nice threads. Like I said earlier, I sometimes wear t-shirts and jeans to customers (my business allows it), but they’re always clean. If you’re a guy and don’t have a lady in your life, ask someone about clothing you’re uncertain about. Don’t keep faded pants or shirts, and forget the elbow pads on jackets. There are so many discount clothing stores everywhere, there is no excuse to wear old clothing. When I was completely single, I actually wrote the date I purchased an item in the collar and dumped the item before a year was up.

10. Moisturize. Dry hands are terrible to shake hands with. I’m a big fan of the cheapest cream out there — nothing stinky or glittery or with big claims to taking years off your skin. Just a simple hand cream that softens your hands. Apply this after hand washing, at least a half hour before you expect to shake hands. Less is more. I also recommend a face cream for those of us feeling our ages, but it is very easy to fall into the metrosexual queer-eye mentality if you overdo it.

These tips sound crazy, but if you do follow them I guarantee they’ll make the difference in those rare occasions when you’re competing with someone for the same customer. Most business owners are so involved with doing the job they forget to take care of the most important aspect of getting new work: how people judge you the first time they see you and every time after that. If you’re not a business owner yet, get in the habit of doing all these things on your regular schedule.

Every time I’ve been worried about entering a new business or market, I found that the best way to address my value was to talk with friends and family members. The big problem with calling up a good friend or a close family member is that they are not always the most honest — they don’t want to hurt your feelings. After learning the hard way that friends and family don’t always tell the truth, I found that the missing puzzle piece was talking to my foes — competition and people who I didn’t necessarily get along with.

Why ask anyone about a future business? To see if you’re in over your head, or if they think it is a good idea. Coming up with the questions is something that has taken me 10 years to do properly, I might as well share those secrets here. I tend to ask friends first, family second, and then approach my foes last.

Some basic questions to ask:

1. Would you mind answering some questions for me regarding my idea to start my own business?
2. Will you be as honest as you can be and ignore what you think I want to hear?
3. Do you think I am responsible enough to run my own business?
4. Do you think my appearance would be proper in the business I’m thinking of starting?
5. If you didn’t know me, is there anything about my demeanor or attitude that would make you not want to think about doing business with me?

Some market questions to ask:

1. Do you have a need for the business I’m thinking about? Do you know anyone who has a need for the business I’m thinking about?
2. Are you currently using the product or service I’m thinking of providing? Are you happy with your current provider?
3. Have you had any really good or really bad experiences in dealing with others in the industry I’m considering?

After your friends and family have given you their (hopefully) most honest replies, head out of your market region and find yourself “foes.” If you’re looking at retail or service, I generally recommend finding someone in the same business at least 1-2 hours away. Be honest, let them know you’re considering the business they’re in, and ask if they have any opinions they can give you. I find that these “foes” can be more honest than my own friends and family! Usually you’ll hear the WORST case scenarios — these competitors generally don’t even want someone a few hours away getting in the business, but hearing the worst situations can be a huge benefit to you in the long run.

You don’t see yourself as other people see you. Your level of honesty, trustworthiness and responsibility are generally ingrained in your persona, but all of these can be changed if you have a tendency to fall towards the bad side of any of the three. I would not recommend starting your own venture until you’ve addressed any issues people have with you. If you are not responsible, starting your own business will not fix that. If you are dishonest, starting your own business will make it worse. If you are quick to break a trust, you’ll find yourself broke and jobless quickly. I’ll try to address how to fix these issues over the next few weeks, from my own experiences in my own shortcomings and those of others I’ve helped over the years.

Before you can even enter a market (whether in your area or online) it is wise to figure out who you’d be competing against. For a local business, I use Google more than anything in finding who my competition is, even after I’m in business.

Using Google’s homepage, you can find local “hits” just by entering a topic followed by your city and state. If I was thinking about entering the PC repair business in my home town, I could enter PC repair, Gurnee, IL into Google and see who pops up. I usually recommend trying 10-20 different phrases and seeing what you get.

I try to keep a list of the competition, especially to find out what they’re charging and if they’re still in business.

Don’t be afraid if your area seems to have a high number of competitors. One thing I’ve learned in some of my businesses is that more competitors actually create a bigger customer base in the area. Entering what seems to be a saturated market can be a quicker way to making a profit than entering a market that doesn’t exist yet.

The Yellow Pages is another decent way to find out who is out there, but as Switchboard.com, Google.com and Yahoo.com expand, the Yellow Pages seems to be falling into the trash before it makes it through the front door. I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on Yellow Pages advertisements and received very little response — I think Chinese and Pizza Restaurants and Plumbers are the top topics for that guide, and if that’s the business you want to enter, you may want to consider it. For everyone else, the Yellow Pages will likely not be a great way to track down who you’re up against.