Research and Goal Planning for New Businesses

You will have to prepare for your business by doing research, even if it is just a small sideline business that you hope will grow into full-time.

Start by doing research and setting goals. You need to decide if your business is something that can be handled by just you working part-time, or if you will need employees. If you are thinking about selling things at an online store or through an online auction, you will need to look at issues such as how much you can make, what it will cost to ship, and where you will get your products from. You will also need to look at what fees will be charged in association with selling items online.

Once you have all of the facts about how much it will cost you to sell or set up your business, you can begin to make goals for your business. Goals should be attainable and time-line based. Goals can be based on either financial or quantities. For example, if your business is a freelance-based writing business, you can set a goal of $100 per month income. If your business is based on E-Bay auctions, set a goal of how many items you will list per month. Let's say 25 auctions per month as an example.

Now, using the amount of time you have to dedicate to your business and how many days per month you can work on your business, let's calculate how much you will have to complete to meet your goal. If you can work an hour per day writing, you would need to make $3 per day. That is pretty attainable with the going rates for internet-based writing jobs that are available. You will also need to keep in mind such things as marketing and research into your time base. Still, this goal is easily met for a beginning freelance business.

If you are doing the auctions, you would need to list one item per day and would have one day a week free. This would allow you time to pack, ship and to handle billing issues and provide you with time to order in new stock.

In the beginning of your business, set your goals so that you can reach them easily.

There are a number of learning curves you will need to go through to become adept at whatever business you start. After you are comfortable with meeting your daily and monthly goal, increase them to encourage you to expand your horizons and skill set. Instead of $100 per month writing, shoot for a goal of $150 for a month. If this was too easy, increase it to $500.

You want your goal to be both attainable and a stretch for you. If it is too easy, you will become bored. If it is too hard, you will give up. Find a comfortable zone then increase it on a gradual basis.