Grassroots Ways To Fund Your Business

FUND YOUR BUSINESS WITH MULTIPLE STREAMS OF INCOME

By LM Preston, Author of Building Your Empowered Steps and Homeschooling While Shaping Amazing Learners www.EmpoweredSteps.com

I have started many businesses in my lifetime. I know the process to get the work side up and running, but finding ways to fund larger scoped business ideas caused for creativity and the art of selling the idea before it was fully developed.

Pitching your business is a skill that works best when thought out. Giving your business and idea a ‘catch phrase’ will allow you to use that catch phrase for every facet of your business platform. It also helps when finding and recruiting funding sources for your business.

There were several ways I have funded new businesses and observed friends fund their business with much success, here are some below.

Family and friends investing in each other’s businesses. This is the way many families help each other achieve their business goals. Investing in each other first. It is a first stop option for many small businesses. My family used to have a family relief and business fund where all of my grandmother’s sisters and brothers would pay $500 every quarter into and the family member in need would get the loan or payout, then pay back into it the next quarter so that another family member would get the loan or payout.

Grants, State Funded Programs or utilize credit lines if you are sure your business could benefit from these options.

I personally, seek businesses with the least amount of capital needed upfront. I consistently reinvest in my business and when needed have investors that are willing to step in after I pitch a viable expansion idea. However, when publishing books, games, or selling specialized products, crowd funding can pay off in a major way by allowing you to find investors.

All businesses require initial capital of some sort, think of ways to create a business with multiple streams of income and sells potential.

My business Empowered Steps has a focus on coaching. I started with mentorship coaching, then expanded to include coaching parents, college students, career candidates, publishing, course creation and now recently added a financial investment and trading aspect to my coaching. All facets of the business fits nicely under the business focus and allows growth with the least amount of capital needed for startup or expansion.

Be creative in funding your business, and you will be shocked at the amount of resources you have acquired to get you off to the best start possible.

By LM Preston, www.EmpoweredSteps.com

A BUSINESS IN ANY ECONOMIC SEASON

Businesses that are fluid last through the many changes in the Economy and lifestyles of their customer by being flexible and reinventing themselves when needed.

When I was younger my mother told me, she wanted to be a Mortician – because she would always have work. However, after working in a funeral home for a year, she realized that it wasn’t something she would want to do for her emotional well being.

Even so, that was one business, that no matter what, people would always needed.

EVALUATE YOUR ENVIRONMENT FOR NEEDS

The first step is to observe and research needs of customers that aren’t necessarily based on an economic abundance, but something that people will get done or a service they would need regardless of the financial state of the country.

Some to consider are:

Car Services, plumbing, electrical services, home care services, micro-businesses, moving company, handyman business, nursing home, midwife, doula for births or deaths and other business services with very little overhead cost.

TIME IS MONEY

Sometimes as business owners you find you may be giving away a lot of your services and products for free in order to lure customers in. Find ways to avoid having to downplay your products and services, but draw in and retain your customers.

MAKE YOUR BUSINESS VIRTUAL

If your business is an in-person business, find ways to capitalize off of your knowledge by writing a book on the area of your business, creating a course on your business form or doing a subscription box service. As long as you can mail someone your product, communicate with them online, on the phone, or in person – you can create a virtual compliment to your businesses.

EXPAND IN WAYS THAT DON’T COST MUCH BUT COMPLIMENT

When you are building your business, troubleshoot and brainstorm how many ways you can offer the same services. Then list the compliments to your business services. After you know numerous ways you can branch your business into other areas, research the price of expansion.

SCALING UP AND DOWN

Have a plan to scale your business to what your customer base needs. Hiring consultants, or contract workers for specific task can provide quality as well as allow an easy scale back or scale up for certain surges in your business.

By: LM Preston author of Building Your Empowered Steps and Homeschooling While Raising Amazing Learners, www.EmpoweredSteps.com

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MANAGE A BUSINESS AND HOMESCHOOLING IN CRISIS

MANAGE A BUSINESS AND HOMESCHOOLING IN CRISIS

by LM Preston

Business owners have a survivor nature. They are adventurous, take risk and think outside the box more so than most anyone. An entrepreneur knows about risk. However, knowing how to plan for challenges and crisis isn’t always a priority until it is too late.

PUT PRIDE ASIDE

The main issue most run into that have the ability to work at doing something they love, is to start to do something they don’t like – in order to make enough money to survive. This means, possibly doing things you originally considered out of scope of not a focus for your household or business.

There was a time when we were launching our real estate business that we needed to find money to advertise, my husband took a paper route delivering newspapers and started delivering pizzas on the slow days to put that money aside for our advertising. He fell back on those jobs throughout our marriage when we needed money fast and wanted the flexibility to make it. I also, took on babysitting other people’s kids overnight that worked night jobs to supplement. We did what we needed to do – not what we liked to do – to reach our goals.

ALL HANDS-ON DECK

If you live with others or others are invested with your business, everyone should do their part. Setting expectations for sharing the financial load of maintaining a home, a business is important. There will always -always, be a weak link. That is the case even among stars. However, identify the person, resource, or issue and mold it into the best representation of itself.

INCOME AND JUGGLING BUDGET OBLIGATIONS

Any household, business, or person, should strive to have multiple streams of income. Even if one parent decides to stay home, finding another source of income for the family that takes little effort to cultivate is important in relieving stress.

For a business owner, they need to have methods their business can create and funnel in income without it being as time or energy dependent. Some quick tips on how to do this:

-Compress resources: for example, instead of purchasing or doing a long term lease for an office space, do a Day-Office instead where you rent an office for the day or times you need it. This works well for micro-businesses.

-Don’t be the only source of income for your business: For micro-businesses it’s great that you can run everything yourself to make money, but what if you get sick? Fine other sources of income besides your time/body. For instance, I am a career re-imagination coach, education coach and writing coach – but there isn’t enough hours in the day for me to service everyone. I created online courses to support my readers, clients and students.

-Barter and Trades: If your business doesn’t have the funds or your household doesn’t, fine ways to trade your skills, time, efforts with others that will be able to do the same for you.

HOMESCHOOL DOWN TO BASICS

Now with many being forced to homeschool their kids, try to work from home, and deal with the stress of crisis, taking things bare bones can relieve stress. When homeschooling and working, own your flexibility. Have a schedule of work your kids can do independently based on their learning styles, attention span, educational gaps. Then assess how much one-on-one time you can spend with them each day. Only focus one on one time on Reading, Reading Comprehension, Writing and Building Math Skills. Make all other subjects secondary. Homeschooling is MUCH easier when you do it without state oversight by withdrawing your child from school and stating that you are officially a homeschooler. Doing so, reduces the amount of work required for your child to do and allows you to customize their education. Please see the HSLDA (Homeschool Defense) for the laws in your state: https://hslda.org/content/laws/

By LM Preston, Author of Building Your Empowered Steps and Homeschooling and WorkingWhile Raising Amazing Learners. Purchase her books Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Website: www.EmpoweredSteps.com  Blog: http://homeschoolandwork.blogspot.com/