Starting Your Own Business: A Financial Guide

January 18, 2019

Starting your own business is undoubtedly one of the pivotal moments of your life, and it will shape the way that you work forever. You have to learn to be your own boss, to be the boss of others, to manage multiple things, and to be the person who makes the decisions about some of the hardest things in business. And it is hard work, especially when you’re only used to managing your personal finances, which are a lot more straightforward than business economics. However, there are some financial tips that you just can’t miss out on!
Look into business loans
Funding a business is an expensive affair, and you can’t always do so using your own personal savings. You can look into the business loans on the market if you want to get help with your funding, and there are plenty of ways to go about this. You can, of course, go to the bank if you want to, as they have lots of different types of loans depending upon how much you want to borrow and what type of business you are thinking of starting up. You can also go through private companies if you’re looking for instant approval for emergency business loans, if you don’t want to wait to go through the extensive credit checks in place at most banks.
Use your own savings when you can
Although loans are a good option, especially when you think that you’ll need more money than you have to spend yourself, using your own savings can help you to get on your way to opening your own business. If you do so, you won’t be under so much pressure with loans hanging over your head, but it can be difficult to accrue enough money to go it alone. This is a better option if you’ve had a business in the past, and you’re using the profits from that to start a different company. Saving a bit of money where you can will help you to get a little closer to running your own business, so try your best to have a bit of cash saved before you start off.
Pay out for the important things, like advertising
Things like advertising will always be worth your money, so whatever budget you have, use it wisely towards the costs that really are essential. Most businesses find so much of their success through social media advertising, and paying to have ads on TV and radio channels in their local area. When it comes to things like this, you really can’t afford to cut the costs and put your money into something else, as they will help you to get off the ground with new clients. You need this kind of interest in your first few years of business if you want everything to be a success, so pay out for the important stuff, like advertising campaigns and marketing.
Do what you can yourself
Starting a business is a great time to teach yourself a whole host of new things that you may need to know. If you’ve never been too good at accounts or IT, you should learn everything that you can about them before you start out. If you ever go through any kind of financial hardship, which is pretty likely when you’ve only just begun your endeavours, you may have to cut jobs in these departments and take on some of the work yourself. You don’t want to end up in a position where you don’t really know what you’re doing, and this has a negative effect on your profits and your business as a whole. Anything that you don’t know, learn it now!
So…
If you’re just starting out in your new business, finances can be a difficult field to navigate. You won’t necessarily learn some things until you get out there and try some things out for yourself, so be prepared to make some mistakes, and lose a bit of money along the way. However, you can ensure that you get the best business loan possible, you use your own savings if you can manage to accrue a bit of a nest egg, and you spend the money on things that will get you the new clients that you really need. If it doesn’t go too well, you can always teach yourself the skills that you need to make it work, and this is one of the vital things that you will need to do.
Follow these simple tips, and your business finances will hopefully be a success!

Mark Asquith

That British podcast guy, Mark is co-founder of Captivate.fm, the world's only growth-oriented podcast host. A Harvard, TEDx, Podcast Movement and Podfest speaker (amongst many more!), he's a wildly approachable Brit and Star Wars/DC Comics geek.

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