Just like launching a rocket, starting a small business can be disastrous, unless you do this…

What if I suggested that 99% of people starting a small business suffer all manner of problems because of fundamental errors they made at the very beginning of their business?

Those errors may be very small, but the effect later in the life of the business can be monumental.

It’s like that rocket puzzle from school which asked whether a rocket could still reach the moon if its angle of takeoff was out by just a thousandth of a degree …well, the answer was it would miss by miles!

Now we don’t want that happening to your business!

Like a rocket, accuracy is everything when starting a small business

The launch of a rocket is a very precise affair; the allowable tolerances on any rocket part are minuscule, effectively leaving zero room for error. And I would suggest starting a small business is not that different.

To explain where I’m coming from, let me tell you about those businesses which “missed the moon by miles” (in some cases, thousands of mile!!)…

Starting a small business the wrong way

As a consultant, coach and trainer with many years of experience I’ve worked with all manner of businesses from multinationals to one-man-bands. In my time I have witnessed some peculiar yet strangely common problems, one of the classics being the business owner who has been in business for many years but has completely lost sight of why they are in business …or what they were actually trying to achieve.

Sure, they started off with big goals and dreams, but quickly and all too easily became distracted by the day-to-day workings of business. The result… one day they wake from a coma having sleepwalked for several years down a road which had little to do with what they actually wanted out of the business. For some that awakening happens in a few years, but I had one client who only came to her senses after 17 years in business!

Regrettably, in the early days of your business that comatose state is very easy to fall into as you eagerly chase sales and attempt to be everything to everyone. You become lost in your own little world focussing on the day-to-day nonsense of your business …and in time your business suffers, your family suffers, you suffer.

And yes, this is VERY common – so don’t go all complacent on me and say it won’t happen to you because you supposedly know better!

(Remember I mentioned the businesswoman with a 17 year coma? Well, once we had her back on her feet and her business was kicking ass better than ever before, we had a celebratory drink (or two…) and she made a very revealing statement: “I never thought it would happen to me, I thought I had it covered when starting a small business …oh how I was wrong!”)

Now the good news is when starting a small business and wishing to avoid that comatose state, there’s only three very simple ideas to keep in mind…

Starting a small business the right way

Let’s get back to our rocket analogy…

Essentially a rocket is going on a journey. It starts at a certain point on earth, shoots through the atmosphere and eventually reaches the moon.

But rocket scientists are never that vague!

The starting point of the rocket’s journey is the launch site, and such sites are very carefully chosen …Cape Canaveral wasn’t chosen just because the space engineers fancied some Florida sun! Nope, the Cape was chosen specifically to take advantage of the Earth’s rotation and to avoid any risks to civilian populations ‘downwind’ of a launch.

We then have the planned destination of the rocket, in our example, the moon. But in 1969 it wasn’t just any point on the moon, it was specifically the Sea of Tranquillity, chosen for its relatively smooth and level surface.

And finally we have the route – As we discussed earlier, the trajectory of the rocket has to be exceptionally accurate, within less than one thousandth of a degree tolerance. After all, the moon is on average 375,000km away, and even that distance changes through the year. Then we have to take into account the rotation of the Earth …and the moon too!

So clearly the planning of that route is very important if we want our rocket to reach its desired goal.

Now you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out the three ideas I have been highlighting…

When starting a small business you first need to know 3 crucial pieces of information

Your business is just like that rocket, it has a journey to make and the only way it’ll be successful is if you answer with ‘one thousandth of a degree’ accuracy three very simple questions:

• Where are you now? – Where is your launch site?

• Where are you heading? – To simply say “I wanna be rich” is far too vague, you want to detail exactly what constitutes your Sea of Tranquillity

• What is the best route to get there? – What is the correct trajectory of your rocket and how will you stay on course?

I know, they’re such simple questions, but don’t let that fool you! You can’t go on a journey without knowing these three things, otherwise you too could risk meandering on a never-ending sleepwalk.

So to help you answer these questions I’ve put together five FREE business videos for you to enjoy – simply click HERE to access them now.

And it doesn’t matter if you are starting your business now or you’ve just realized you’ve been in a coma for a few years and so want to reset things… Because it’s never too late to be starting a small business the right way!