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20 Small Business Tips, For Success
These are just some general tips to keep in mind as you design/operate your small business: 1. Take the time out to explore and understand whether or not you are compatible with running our own business. Some people are just plain happier...

How to Choose a Bank for your Small Business
You should thoroughly consider your business needs when selecting a financial institution for your small/home business. You may want to consider the following points: - The types of products and services that are offered. - The bank's criteria for...

Persistence: A Key Ingredient in the Recipe for a Successful Small Business
It has been said that success is rarely easy or quick and that it is only the product of consistent effort which is repetitively applied. This is definitely the case for the small-business owner when trying to become successful in the cutthroat...

Should you use an LLC for your small business? Probably--and here's why.
Accountants and attorneys love limited liability companies. But do limited liability companies--LLCs for short--really make sense for small business owners. Probably. And for two almost unknown reasons. The Big Legal Benefit of an LLC:...

Website advice for small businesses
Why have a website for your business? Owning a website is seen as the thing to do these days. Why? "Every other small business has one" is the most common phrase I hear. There is an element of this and it's one of the main reasons people...

 
3 Essential Tools for Starting and Maintaining a Small Business

We believe that there are 3 factors that drive the success of small businesses.

1) Acquiring start-up capital

2) Finding customers

3) Accounting for, budgeting and controlling sales and expenses

The following resources will help your small business achieve these success factors.

Acquiring Start-Up Capital

An adequate supply of capital is essential as many profitable businesses fail because they don't have enough cash to pay their employees and suppliers. But what is an adequate supply of capital? The only way to tell is by doing a significant amount of research on your potential market and formally documenting this in a business plan. I'm sure you know that a business plan is a very important document that is crucial to convincing your banker to lend you money.

There are two ways to obtain a business plan.


1) Do it yourself by amending a business plan template, or

2) Hire a professional to do it for you.


Obviously obtain 1) will be a great deal cheaper.

Our research led to a website that has over 60 high quality and free business plan templates. We also found a directory that you can use to easily find a business plan writer in your city – where ever you live in the world.

Finding Customers

Finding customers is a difficult and expensive task for service business owners such as accountants, lawyers and plumbers. We believe that a cost effective marketing strategy for service business owners is to simply give all their personal contacts a few business cards.

Our research led to a few websites that have pre-designed business card templates. We felt that the diversity and quality of these designs was outstanding. In addition, we found that you can obtain a significant saving by finding a printing service on the Internet. We found that you could get 2,000 full color business cards for as little as US $150.

Accounting For, Budgeting and Controlling Revenue and Expenses

Accurate accounting is very important for small business owners. It's essential that you have timely access to information that could make or break your business. If stocks are running low – you need to know about it. If a large proportion of your debtors haven't paid – you need to know about it. If you do not react to these situations quickly you may have a situation where you don't have enough money to pay your employees – or worse still someone is stealing cash out the till.

Our research led to a website that compares and reviews top accounting software for small businesses. The cheapest software cost US $89.99 and the most expensive software cost US $1,499. It was interesting to note that the top 3 ranked websites were not the most expensive and cost between US $250 - US $300.


Hopefully you now have an idea of some of the tools that you can use to grow and maintain your small business. If you would like to benefit from our research please visit our website. We do not charge for this research and offer the content freely on our website.

About the Author
Best Quality Small Business Resources

Ryan Hough is the webmaster of best quality small business resources.com, who's aim is to help you save time and money by finding reviews and case studies that will enable you to choose the best resources at the right price.