I love talking with entrepreneurs, because I can actually feel the excitement that comes with starting your own business. As someone who is familiar with that route though, I know there are countless factors to consider as you make decisions. Here are three things we’ve been doing from the beginning to ensure a healthy business:
1. Invest in good software to track your income and expenses. Waiting until the tax deadline to go through a full year of income and expenses is a recipe for disaster. You will likely be so consumed with growth, especially in the early stages, that you won’t have paid much attention to how well you tracked the previous year expenses. Start out with good software to make sure you’re organized.
2. Escrow for expenses. Just like we encourage you to have emergency money in your personal finance portfolio, we believe you should have emergency money for your business. Besides taxes, various unexpected business related costs will come up, and you want to be prepared for them.
3. Keep a weekly scorecard. Determine 7 to 15 key performance indicators you can track weekly and keep it at your fingertips, like in a Google sheet. This will give you easy access to metrics that actually measure your business, giving you real data to understand your success and how to continue moving the needle.
There is so much to know about starting and running a business. Reach out to us if you have questions. We would love to help you reach your dreams of business ownership.