Are you tired of your boss? Or are you getting ready for greener pastures? Setting up your own business can be very exciting. However, before you even take the first step, save yourself time and money by being aware of what’s involved in running a business. Investing time and money into proper planning is paramount when it comes to turning your dreams into reality. The idea of operating a small business is not just about working for yourself or from home, it’s also about having necessary management skills, technical skills, industry expertise, finance and, of course, a long-term vision to grow and succeed.

Whether you will choose to be an entrepreneur, buy a franchise, or start an existing business, the business planning resources are the same. The only things that will be different are the business strategies, business opportunities, upfront cost and step by step instructions to start various businesses.

The following are some of the immediate goals of starting a business:

Have Self Confidence

The foundation of success is self-confidence. Ask yourself, do I have the confidence to stand alone and be my own boss? If yes, then you are on the right track. People with self-confidence achieve success much faster than those without. Venturing into a new business means you are willing to risk. Confidence also helps you to understand your colleagues, employees and even customers. Without confidence, you cannot challenge solid issues that affect the business or even the tide the business comes with.

Choose the Right Business

If you want to start a business, you should have the right business idea in mind. What business do you wish to venture into? Do you have an interest in that business? Choosing the right business that you feel you can easily handle and manage is one of the ways to tackle this section. Will the business reap enough? Does it have competitors? If so, is the market competition tight? A market survey can help you in determining the right business.

Identify Your Market Niche

This is a factor to consider when starting a new business or changing your old location to somewhere better. You might have the right product, but you are selling it at the wrong location. For a new business to survive and beat the competition of the similar products it has to have a better location. This means available amenities, parking space, potential customers of the product and few competitors.

What are Your Goals?

What is driving you to do that type of business that you have chosen? Goals will help you achieve several milestones that you have put in place. With proper objectives, you will be able to invest the available starting capital wisely and plan your work schedule. Of cause you are not just going to germinate in one day, you need to set attainable goals and learn to be patient.

Have a Business Plan

Your business goals can only be achieved if you have a proper business plan. In case you don’t know how to prepare a plan, get advice or help from service consultants or a friend who is successful in business. A proper plan will help prepare for that little capital you have and adopt survival techniques to obtain loans on higher interests.

Always Promote Your Business

Sell your ideas and let people know what services or products you are providing. Confidence and vitality to what you are planning to invest on are what will bring customers to your door. Most entrepreneurs forget that the reason they are in business is to attract customers. If you use your finances wisely to market yourself, you will boost your business in a faster way. Some of the ways to advertise include; newspapers, websites, flyers, brochures and even enlightening people personally.

A serious entrepreneur will always be concerned of the following:

• Product – what am I going to sell or service?
• Finance – Where the capital coming from, where the money will be spent and cost estimates.
• Receipts – any money you have spent so far and the current financial records (accountability)
• Organization – what form is your business going to take and how will it be managed.
• Adverts and marketing – new ideas on how to market yourself and generate revenue apart from what your competitors are doing.
• Government permits, new business tax information’s and required business license.
• Strategy – what do you plan to do to succeed within the shortest time possible?

When all the immediate goals have been achieved, get into the detail and the challenges that the business comes with. How you handle issues and tackle problems that arise in your business can make or break your business. Learn to persevere and be patient. Grab opportunities and market your product or services always. With creativity and great intelligence in your business, you can reap great benefits that you never expected.

According to the American Express Global Business Traveller Survey 2013 if you are a business traveller and you sat next to me on your next flight there is a one percent chance that you would engage me in conversation, so much for business going social! Whether you would want to engage me in conversation is another matter but this article is not about me it’s about the developing trends in business travel from a healthy flier perspective.

The survey was conducted by American Express in the summer of 2013 with participants from the US, UK and Australia. Approximately 500 randomly sampled business travellers were surveyed in each country.

The standout headlines are

(1) As the global workforce goes through change the Millennials are beginning to make up a larger portion of it.

(2) As a group the Millennials value a better work life balance and are savvy about it while on the road.

(3) There is an added focus on relieving travel related stress.

Narrowing in on the US market the travel stress theme is specifically in evidence.

74% of travellers said they drank extra water to stay hydrated.

48% stretched on the plane.

44% use a hotel gym.

20% avoid alcohol.

The majority use a combination of diet and exercise to stay healthy while on the road and 41% supplement their diets with vitamins.

Even if it is only implied these figures show that more business travellers are beginning to recognise and value the correlation between flying healthily to arrive well, be productive and successful in business.

This can only mean good news for the healthy flying niche. If the influence of the Millennials as a demographic block is brought to bear the way the baby boomers have done for the last few economic boom cycles the healthy flying niche and other industries will be better for it. This period in time is all the more important because we have the makings of a perfect storm. We have an influential demographic that fliers and values health. We have challenged or non existing healthcare provisions which mean staying healthy and out of the healthcare system is at a premium. We have an epidemic of Autoimmune disease and we have Globalisation and Technology which play the roles of saint sinner and saviour all at the same time. There are more people taking to the sky that before, journeys are more stressful than before and the frequent flier has to negotiate all of this while still performing at the top of their game.

Globalisation is forcing the pace of change we are experiencing. The good about it is more nations are coming online as it were, the bad is it becomes an even more crowded marketplace to negotiate. The same applies with Technology it forces change but also brings an always on and in view aspect to our lives. How we are able to harness both of these forces to enable a better flying experience for health inclined frequent fliers is a million dollar question in more ways than one.

Some strides in this direction are already being made, I would expect efforts to continue in this direction with some seriously useful kit to be available to fliers. At the moment we have a few notable players. The Napwell sleep mask, the Re-Timer sleep glasses and Valkee LED earbuds are a few aimed strictly at jet lag or sleep trouble often accompanying jet lag. On the other hand there are technologies that have a native use which can be adopted by fliers for relief of some jet lag symptoms. Brainwave Apps and Barefoot Earthing Technology products are some of these second category technologies. The Photon shower revealed at a TED talk in 2013 sounded promising but is only a concept with no firm plans for production. The explosion of fitness gadget that work with the latest smartphones or stand-alone is a curve you can expect travel related gadgets to follow. There are actually some such gadgets already in the marketplace. The AirPlus Traveller Productivity White Paper on how to manage traveller productivity used such a product.

As I mentioned earlier the most potent indictment of the times we live in is to be found in the strong currents of change caused by Globalisation and Technology. I would argue that Globalisation is increasing global collaborative work where people travel and come together on a project for the short-term. This trend is already prevalent in show business, journalism and the fashion world and even in the technology industry. As it continues to develop the need for people to arrive on form and ready for business becomes more obvious. Even without going that far the multinationals who spend large sums of money to recruit the best they can find want them to maintain their performance edge when they are sent half way around the world on the company’s business. It is common knowledge that it is no longer enough to just book a business class seat and expect the employee to arrive well.

As the travel industry players and the corporate world become more cognizant of the costs of travel related stress and jet lag, quantifying it in terms of the bottom line becomes a useful yardstick. The aforementioned AirPlus Traveller Productivity White Paper and the Carlson Wagonlit Solutions Stress Triggers for Business Travelers White Paper (which includes the Travel Stress Index tool) are two attempts to put a perspective on the scale of the problem. How the data in both of these tools is put to use is a question for the corporations individual fliers as well as the airlines and the travel industry intermediaries. For airlines at least it seems the battle lines are drawn, with the rollout of the latest offerings from Boeing and Airbus creeping into the stocks of most major players the focus is moving away from the hardware (the planes) to the software (customer service and deliverable product enhancements) this last category could potentially include any number of health initiatives to make sure business frequent fliers arrive well.

Cited Works

“American Express Survey Finds Majority of Global Business Travelers Balancing Work and Play While on the Road” – The Plane Facts (Infographic)

AirPlus. Traveller Productivity: How to tailor your travel policy to improve traveller performance (White Paper) PDF File.

Carlson Wagonlit Solutions – Stress Triggers for Business Travelers: Traveler Survey Analysis (White Paper) PDF File.