Becoming an Entrepreneur
How to Start a Contractors' Signs Business
When starting a contractors' signs business, you need all the help you can get. Failure rates are high. These tips give you a jumpstart on success.
Thinking about opening a contractors' signs business? We tell you what you need to know to get started.
Creating a Business Plan for a Contractors' Signs Business
A common mistake for a small business owner is to not create business plan for your startup contractors' signs business.
The key benefit of writing a business plan is that it defines the game plan. The absence of an effective business plan inevitably results in impulsive leadership, limiting your contractors' signs business's ability to succeed long-term.
Before you make another business decision and before you start writing a business plan, you need to create a mission statement. With a carefully crafted mission statement in place, you can begin to build on it with goals, budget estimates, marketing plans and other elements that are typically found in startup business plans.
Assess Competitors
Well in advance of opening a contractors' signs business within your community, it's essential to determine what the competition looks like. We've provided the link below to help you generate a list of competitors in your city. After following the link, enter your city, state and zip code to get a list of contractors' signs businesses in your area.
Gain a knowledge of how existing firms have positioned themselves in the marketplace, and then design your business in a way that sets you apart from the others.
Getting Advice from Experienced Entrepreneurs
After you've evaluated your local competitors, it's essential that you learn from folks who are already in business. It's very unlikely that the local competition will talk to you. Why would they want to educate a future competitor?
But, a person who owns a contractors' signs business outside of your community may be willing to share their entrepreneurial wisdom with you, after they realize you reside far away from them and won't be stealing their local customers. Indeed, many experienced entrepreneurs enjoy offering advice to startup entrepreneurs. In my experience, you may have to call ten business owners in order to find one who is willing to share his wisdom with you.
Where do you find a contractors' signs business entrepreneur on the other side of the country to talk to?
It's easy. Here's a link you can use to find a mentor outside of your area.
Advantages of a Contractors' Signs Business Purchase
On a percentage basis, more entrepreneurs intend to enter contractors' signs business ownership through a startup than through a business purchase. Yet contractors' signs business startups aren't easy - many fail within the first year.
The decision of buying vs. starting a business shouldn't be taken lightly. While other startups are just getting on their feet, a business purchase dramatically improves the odds that your contractors' signs business will be realizing net income from the outset of your ownership engagement.
Don't Rule Out Franchising
Recognize that your chances of doing well in business zoom upwards if you decide to franchise and benefit from the prior work of others and their lessons learned.
Before you get too far along in your plan to open a contractors' signs business, you would be wise to assess whether buying a franchise could make it easy to get started.
The link below gives you access to our franchise directory so you can see if there's a franchise opportunity for you. You might even find something that points you in a completely different direction.
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