A question was posted at Project Senso Forum asking how to start a business and how to be financially free.

So I am going to tell you the truth. 

To start a BUSINESS is EASY but to RUN a BUSINESS is not because you have to understand a lot of things to get it going. 

Well firstly you must understand, “Why am I starting this Business?”. Is it to solve a problem? There’s a demand for such and such service that is why you go in.

Oh because I saw this problem which nobody is acting on and so I act on it and when research was done, there was the same problem with many others. So there’s demand!

Once you understand those things clearly, you should also know what products/services you are going to sell. Then find your customers! Without customers you are as good as having no business. So its important to find your customers.

Systemising the Business..

Now you need to identify the various component & tasks needed to systemise your business.

So let’s list it down.

1) Marketing & Publicity
2) Operations
3) Logistics (if required) 
4) Administration & Customer Service
5) Accounting & Finance

and so on..

You need to ask yourself at all times,  ”How can you do this better and do you have the finances to run the different components“. This will differ from business to business. Its important to identify the tasks ahead and plan for that.

For example.. 

Marketing & Publicity
- The only way that I personally know how to automise this process is to develop a REFERRAL Network or ADVERTISE.  

A referral network may cost you time to build as you may need to get other Business Networks to refer you their clients or people referring people. So here you can developed a referral program where you pay your referral certain fees. 

Advertising may costs you a lot of money and the effects may not be what you wish for but this components get you free from doing it all by yourself. Furthermore you are leveraging on another network. Its best to combine both strategies referral & advertising.

Once you get this flow going and there’s good cashflow. Repeat the steps and perhaps by now you can hire someone to do the marketing for you. So slowly you can step out of being a marketeer. 

So then what’s next? 

Perhaps administration and accounting will come next.

When I started out, I used a normal Excel spreadsheet to help chart down all the expenses and income. Usually it does get into a mess. So with today’s technology you can buy softwares like MYOB .

The software helps to cut down your time to input various data. So basicly all you have to do is generate the invoice, input the various fields, the rest is done by the software. It will generate your monthly cash sheet and balance sheet automatically. 

The idea is to leverage on as much TOOLS, PEOPLE and the media as much as you can.

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