If you were the boss, you’d do things differently. Perhaps, but did you ever think about why your boss does things the way he does them. Often, the priorities of the business and the owner clash with the priorities of an individual employee. While you may think that his decisions are unwise, they may make perfect sense in the overall corporate mission. When you are the boss, and especially when you are the owner, you think about the overall organization goals, not just the specific situation in a particular job. If she can be successful, you can too. Well, maybe. Unless you have the same skills as her and an idea that’s just as good and a plan that’s just a well executed, then maybe not. What other people do is largely irrelevant in your world. You can always go back to your old job. Can you really? Most people really can’t physically go back to where they were before, in the same job or situation. While you were gone, you were replaced and they’ve moved on. Even more importantly, you don’t have the same mental state about working for somebody else as you did prior to starting your own business. It’s best to stay where you are as you start your business and then quit after your new venture is successful. You’ve been successful in your career; you’ll do great running your own business. The skills required to perform well in a job do not necessarily translate to another job. If your job is managing the accounts payable for a professional baseball team, that doesn’t mean you can play second base. Job skills tend to be compartmentalized within a company. The skills required to manage the accounts payable are not the same skills required to manage the marketing communications department or the quality control department. Running a small business requires you to perform well at ALL the job functions until you grow the company large enough to hire employees to handle the different functions. Don’t worry about the cash, just sell, sell, sell. In the small business environment, cash is king. If you’re having cash flow difficulties, then growing the sales will likely exacerbate the problem. Long-term, businesses need profits and cash flow to survive. However, in the short-term, you can survive without profits as long as cash flow is good, but you can’t survive without cash. The minute you run out of cash, you’re out of business. And a bonus: Don’t worry, if you fail, you can just walk away. This is extremely unlikely. Small businesses can rarely do business on their own. That is, they need the financial backing of the owner to get started. If you do business with a bank or major vendors, they’ll likely require the owner to personally guarantee any loan or account until the business has established its own creditworthiness. In addition, you’ll probably be investing your own money to help get the business started. Sure, you can walk away from the business, but your investment will be gone and the debts will likely follow you personally.

When you fisrt start a business it is vital that you havea good idea about the legal obligations and restrictions that you will need to adhere to. Probably the most important thing you will need to think about when you first start your business is what type of company it will be. The usual options are; a sole trader, a partnership or a limited company. The very structure of your company will vary depending on which option you choose.

If you decide that your company will operate as a sole trader there will not be any legal responsibilities to adhere to. As it is the simplest form of business model and is appropriate if the business that you plan on starting is small. Operating as a sole trader will mean that you will carry the responsibility for anything that could go wrong. Say for instance, your business ends up getting into a lot of debt you will be personally responsible to make sure that the debts get paid off. Your personal savings, assets and property will all become liable to be used as payment if you are unable to pay back your debts. You need to keep records of your income and outgoings to give to the tax office. You should also inform the tax office of your plans to start up a sole trading company as it will change your tax status and mean that you would get taxed as a self employed person.

Your company will function as a partnership if you start a business with another person. You will be governed by the Partnership Act 1896 which may not be what you would like. To avoid being caught out by this, you should have your solicitor write up a Partnership Deed which should detail how your partnership will work, what you wish to get out of the business and what will happen if the business comes to an end.

You may decide you want to run your company as a limited company. Running a limited company would mean your personal assets are usually safe if things go wrong. The downside to this is there are fees for starting up a limited company.

When you go to register your company name you should try and makes sure that your name is different to any others trading in your area or you may be liable to be sued as ‘passing off’ which is the act of getting trade by using someone else’s name. If the name that you are registering is for a limited company it is important to make sure that the name is not already registered.

If your business will involve some kind of trading you should ensure that you research into trading standards and what your rights and responsibilities are as a business and what your customers rights and responsibilities are. You should also ensure that you write up your own terms of business which should detail things like your terms of payment and returns. You should consider getting your terms looked over by a commercial solicitor to ensure that they are fair to both you and your customers.