How many are held back from becoming successful entrepreneurs simply because of the mistaken belief that they could never afford to start their own business? The truth of the matter is startlingly simple: you don’t need loads of cash to start a business! What you do need is the drive to get started, the enthusiasm to find artful solutions to problems that will present themselves early on, and the commitment to not let problems that others throw money at the stop you from living your dream.
For example, if you want to become a dog groomer, you don’t need loads of cash to start that business. You need to know how to groom dogs. Without this skill, no amount of money will allow you to make any headway into the dog grooming market. In a very real sense, you need to become a ‘guru’ — a person to whom others come to answers to their dog grooming questions.
Once you have found your niche and educated yourself — via classes, books, the Internet, or just personal hands-on training — it is time to figure out where to conduct your dog grooming. Normally you would need to have a lot of money to rent a shop and equip it, but since commercial real estate leases are out of this world, you will want to do without it, at least until you have earned enough money to comfortably buy or lease a space of your choice. Proving that you do not need loads of cash to start a business, consider that you can work out of the back of your van, SUV, or at the client’s home. You will own the tools of the trade, but the client will furnish the water, the bathing facilities, the electricity, and you do not even need specialized insurance!
Now that you have the what, how, and where it worked out, advertisement is the final major expenditure for new businesses. Fortunately, there are several cheap or freeways of getting targeted advertising without having to dip into your nest egg. Build a great relationship with those who deal with dogs every day. This includes the vet, the humane society, the pet store, and any other place dogs and dog owners will congregate. Ask to place nicely done color brochures — you can do them for next to nothing on your computer — in their offices, and in return promise, you will place their names and phone numbers on your ads. Do some community events for free, such as the yearly humane society fund-raisers where you can be highly visible turning little matted hounds into stylish pets anyone is eager to take home.
As you can see, from this example of a dog groomer you can quite easily extrapolate that you don’t need loads of cash to start a business, and whether you want to be a dog groomer, typist, writer, copying service, or dry cleaner, there is a way unique to any profession that will lead you to entrepreneurship on a shoestring budget — if you only have the will!
