The tense economic situation in our country and throughout the world does not give reason for optimism. Therefore, many people who wanted to start their own business began to doubt whether they should open their own business in 2018? Let's try to find the answer to this question.
If you're on the fence about starting a business in 2018, there's one simple truth to understand - you need to act here and now, otherwise you may miss out. precious time and, accordingly, your chance for a comfortable life happy life. When you feel with all your heart that you are ready to become a successful and wealthy person, you need to get down to business right away.
Of course, a crisis is a big obstacle to the development of your business. In addition, this is a huge risk, but as we know, those who do not take risks will never achieve success. According to experts, starting your own business in a difficult economic environment has its advantages:
People take risks always and everywhere, even in everyday life. When doing business, and especially in complex economic conditions, everything must be done to minimize risks.
Analyzing the situation in the economy of our country, we can safely say that the crisis will not end so quickly. Let's try to understand what awaits small businesses in 2018?
Experts believe that opening a new business in such unstable conditions is quite risky, but quite possible. The most important thing is to choose one of the win-win business ideas during the crisis in 2018, which have proven their effectiveness in practice. You should also remember about sanctions and the rise in the dollar exchange rate. In such conditions, it is most profitable to focus on import substitution.
If we talk about what kind of business is now relevant in the context of the crisis in Russia, the following should be highlighted: promising directions activities:
What awaits businesses that already exist in 2018? In many industries, the demand for products and services has decreased significantly, so some enterprises will be forced to completely close or partially curtail their activities due to lack of sales. According to analysts, the same fate awaits many financial institutions. Since lending volumes will decline significantly, they will not be able to stay afloat.
Those firms that purchase raw materials for the production of products for foreign currency are also doomed to bankruptcy. In such a difficult situation, business ideas that are based on the production of products from domestic raw materials will work effectively in Russia during the 2018 crisis.
For our country, the most terrible period was the crisis period of 1991–1998. The economy had never experienced such a decline before. Many citizens were left without work, and, accordingly, without a means of subsistence, the birth rate dropped sharply, and the death rate, on the contrary, began to rise. At that time, the socially vulnerable segments of the population came under the heaviest blow and were no longer paid any benefits. But despite this, a large number of private enterprises began to appear in the country. Many of today's billion-dollar companies began their operations in 1990.
Therefore, if you are still wondering whether to open a business during a crisis, cast aside all doubts. A company that entered the market in difficult economic conditions, with a competent approach, will become ultra-competitive and withstand any storms that periodically arise in the economy.
It should be noted that the growth of the dollar exchange rate does not directly affect the purchasing power of the population, especially when it comes to small purchases. Ordinary consumers do not conduct a thorough market analysis before purchasing food or an accessory for their gadget. Of course, during a crisis people try to save, but this usually concerns leisure, recreation or luxury goods. If you have not yet decided what business to start during the crisis in 2018, first conduct market research to identify which product or services are in greatest demand. Based on the information received, you will be able to make an informed decision.
This is far from full list ideas that have proven to be effective in times of crisis. Think about what you can do best, use your imagination and creativity, and you will definitely find the option that will help you earn good money.
To choose the right direction of activity, you must first understand what is profitable to sell during a crisis? The most important thing is to ensure an effective approach, driven by a new value system. Before the crisis, many entrepreneurs built a business that was costly for consumers, based on advertising, fashion trends, etc. Buyers were often offered absolutely unnecessary, low-quality goods. In addition, manufacturers artificially reduced the quality of their products, such as auto parts, so that consumers were forced to buy them more often.
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During a crisis, such schemes do not work, because people start saving and therefore want to get products of decent quality for their money. The time has come for new technologies that can reduce fuel costs or purchase spare parts, so it is advisable that your business be based on such innovative ideas. Only then can you achieve success.
A crisis is a time of great opportunity. If you can take advantage of them and don't miss your chance, over time your small business will turn into a thriving, highly profitable enterprise.
In our age of progressive consumption, literally from every refrigerator you are bombarded with a ton of information that you must, simply must, live richly. But “working for an uncle,” even a very wealthy and large corporate uncle, cannot bring real wealth. We are taught this, so to speak, from the cradle.
Is it really that simple, and anyone can become a successful businessman, start their own profitable business, get rich quickly and prosper all their lives? What business should I start?
Unfortunately, there are objective character qualities, personality traits that can interfere not only with opening your own business, but also ruin all your independent business successes in the bud, no matter what kind of business you decide to do
Firstly, not every person is ready to develop throughout their life, to learn something new. Having started your own business, you will have to understand the basics of Russian legislation, the basics of accounting, and the basics of sales and marketing. Do you think you’ll hire a specialist and everything will work out for you? No matter how it is, remember how strong your personal desire was to work “for the boss,” for example, on Friday evening or Sunday morning. That's it, it's not very strong. In Russia, unfortunately, there is no cult of career and quality of work; many workers simply “serve” their allotted time at the workplace, where is the guarantee that you will not hire just such people?
Secondly, you simply must be a sociable person, be able to make new contacts and maintain them every day. If you are a shy, uptight person, there is no place for you in business; every day of working “for yourself” will turn into psychological torture for you.
Thirdly, you are not ready to take responsibility for your own decisions solely on yourself. Perhaps in words we are all ready to take responsibility, but in reality this is not the case. A true sense of responsibility has nothing to do with feeling guilty and punishing yourself for mistakes you have made. Responsibility means that you will not jeopardize your family's lifestyle.
By the way, about family. Be prepared that your children will see you even less often than during periods of “working at work for a salary.” Get ready for the fact that your own business takes up 24 hours of your time and is spinning in your mind even when you sleep. Everything else is theory from American textbooks on positive thinking. At the first stage, at the stage of opening your own business, you will work in emergency mode.
Fourthly, you will most likely have to give up your usual hobbies and “lower” your family’s standard of living. Business requires investment and it is not always possible to get by with the amounts you plan. If you are not financially ready to invest only during the first year, do not start a business.
Fifthly, you must be a gambling person, be able to take risks and not become depressed over every wrong decision. Business in general and money in particular love players.
Sixthly, it completely contradicts the previous point, at first glance. A successful businessman is prone to introspection. Only if you are prone to self-accusation and worry - this is different. Self-analysis assumes that you will extract positive skills even from negative experiences and not get too hung up on the experience itself.
Well, seventhly, you must be mentally prepared to sell. Some entrepreneurs swear that sales are a top priority in their business. Don't believe it! At the first stage of small business, you will be selling yourself, your product, your services almost every minute. And if you have some kind of internal prejudice towards sales, work for yourself at work, it will be calmer for you and more profitable for your family.
If you are interested in the advantages and disadvantages of running your own business, the right attitude towards it and its development, then this article is for you.
Many of us understand that working for an uncle has its downsides. These include low earnings, limited freedom of action and decision making. While many company owners spend no more than 5 hours a day on work, they have financial wealth and are left to their own devices. This is how the situation looks from the outside. But the fact is that we are looking at already successful businessmen who have won the fight “for a place in the sun” against dozens of their competitors.
Is it worth doing business? What is the cost of a “place in the sun”.
Many successful businessmen whom we take as examples were once young and not rich. Some of them were in the same situation as us, while others had a worse situation. And they all faced a choice: to work calmly, with a stable wages, work schedule and vacations, or risking your own property, savings and nerves to try to realize your idea. The probability of a positive outcome, depending on the market situation and the chosen industry, ranges from 5 to 40%. This means that out of 100 startupers, from 5 to 40 people implemented the idea. But even of them, the majority earn pennies and work “round the clock.” The rest, more than 60 people who took a risk, lost money, time and nerves. And most likely, they abandoned the idea of realizing it in business forever. This is the entrance ticket and the path you choose to take is up to you.
Is it worth doing business? Wrong attitude towards business of startups.
If you are still willing to take risks, act and fight, then you should know what mistakes beginners make. Wrong attitude towards business of startupers:
1) Incorrect: you have to try, maybe you’ll get lucky. That's right: I know that I will grow this business, with the appropriate investment of money, time and effort.
2) Incorrect: I’ll try to do the same business as my neighbor, because he earns a lot. That's right: I will do this business because I only want to do this business. I have long dreamed of doing it, it is my favorite thing.
3) Incorrect: today I will register a company, and tomorrow we will see what to do next. That's right: I've been dreaming about this business for a long time. I planned a lot, collected information, looked for a place and found out the weak and strengths competitors.
4) Incorrect: tomorrow they will give me a loan, with which I will open a business and develop it. That's right: I will never take out a loan for new business. In the best case, I will think about a loan when I already have successful business and I will need money to expand it.
5) Incorrect: I am opening a business with friends (relatives), and my other friends (relatives) will work for me. That's right: I will open a business alone and will never hire or share with friends and relatives.
6) Incorrect: all my money goes to opening a business, and then it will bring me money. That's right: after the costs of starting a business, I have funds left for at least six months of its unprofitable operation, in the worst case scenario.
7) Incorrect: I will open a business, and when it gets on its feet, I will hire a manager, and I will only mind my own business. That's right: I will devote my entire life to my business. I won’t give it to anyone and I’m ready to deal with it 24 hours a day.
8) Incorrect: I will open a business and run it quietly. That's right: I know that in business, difficulties come out of nowhere. In any number and scale, especially at first. There may not be quiet periods. But I’m ready for this, I love difficulties and understand that they make me stronger.
Is it worth doing business? A successful example.
A successful business develops as follows: A mechanic works in a car repair shop. Madly loves his job. He doesn’t care how much he earns and how much time he spends on car repairs. He enjoys the process. Clients see this and prefer to contact him rather than his colleagues. Because a person who loves his job does better work and strives for new knowledge in his field. Gradually, our mechanic is gaining a huge customer base. His superiors begin to appreciate him more and promote him wages. The mechanic starts saving. After a few years, he accumulates enough money to buy his own instrument and rent a garage. By renting a garage, he easily lures away his clients. Revenues are starting to grow faster. After a few more years, he rents more space, buys the necessary tools and hires staff. Your car service is ready. Moreover, this car service is run by a professional in his field. The lack of driving experience is easily compensated by professionalism in car repair. And soon he leaves completely. Then you can develop the network.
Is it worth doing business? Conclusions.
Business has its advantages and disadvantages. Under no circumstances should you start a business for the purpose of making money. Such goal setting is a failure and leads to a number of actions that are destructive for business. You should do business if it is something you love. This is the main criterion for success. Loans, friends and relatives are contraindicated for a new business. They can sink even successful endeavors. Business does not like haste. He matures over the years, like a child. A successful business loves mature, sensible and experienced people. Therefore, dear friends, if you spontaneously have an idea to open a business, it’s better not to rush. Prepare to conduct it, collect information. Better business opening a year later is too early. Good luck to you in any endeavor!
Let's start with the fact that over the past 5-6 years in Russia such media phenomena as business trainings, business coaching, business seminars, business webinars and other words tied to the word “business” have noticeably gained popularity. This is due to the oversaturation of society with content and other entertainment materials. In the late 90s and early 2000s, such content was the era of total glamor and entertainment, after which the era of esotericism, training, achieving success began, and at this stage it is at the stage of “be free, develop, engage in self-knowledge, don’t work for your uncle.” , do business."
This massive trend seeped into Russia from the West, where such representatives of humanity as Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump or Richard Branson back in the 80s of the 20th century saw a highly profitable niche associated with teaching people how to how to become a businessman , gain freedom, change the world, don’t work for your uncle, don’t be a pathetic salary earner and other inspiring slogans for mere mortals. Yes, of course, these are unconditional business practices and their programs contained a lot of valuable things, however, for the most part, the entire industry was reduced to wild populism and, as a result, to a complete simplification of the business model. At the same time, people willingly paid money, attended such seminars, bought thousands of books about how to become an entrepreneur and this implicit market has grown noticeably.
In Russia, this trend developed at the beginning of the 2000s, reaching an extreme in the second half of the 2000s with the popularization lover of the American business system Oleg Tinkov, who wanted to become a kind of Russian Branson. Just like in the West, our “business teachers” describe all the delights of a businessman’s life, motivate with beautiful success stories (without going into details), sell books with completely banal and well-worn content, etc. The bottom line is that every second youth begins to imagine himself as a businessman, especially if, after reading the content of the “business teacher”, he begins to sell cheap watches through the page in social network, having 1-2 clients per week and a profit of minus 10%. And some people simply sit at home and continue to consume such banalities, becoming a businessman in their fantasies.
But let's get serious. In those distant times at the end of the 80s, when the USSR allowed the creation of cooperatives (that is, they actually legalized small businesses), the first entrepreneurs, like their followers until the beginning of the 2000s, operated in conditions of low supply and gigantic demand. You understand, in this situation, doing enough profitable business it was possible in no time, especially if at the same time paying for the roof of the bandits who valiantly defended their businessmen from each other. Since that time, almost all now famous Russian businessmen have appeared, starting from the same Tinkov, ending with Prokhorov, Potanin and Chichvarkin.
Today the situation is such that all the largest and most profitable areas of business were occupied . At the same time, small and medium business suffers from an oversaturation of the market with supply, which gives rise to the highest competition. Suppose you decide to sell clothes, open your first retail store. Very serious difficulties immediately arise here:
Of course, you can try franchising here (if you want open a franchise business?), that is, to become a regional representative of a brand, working on its terms, but the fact remains that it makes sense to start typical business quite low due to the above factors. It’s another matter to try something unusual, new, or get into the sphere of online trading, but that’s a completely different story.
Doing business in Russia is still dangerous and inconvenient, and recently, in addition, it is also unprofitable, says business ombudsman Boris Titov. He stated this in an interview with Vesti during the Gaidar Forum. Titov noted that with falling demand, costs are rising: taxes remain high, they are planned to be increased, tariffs on the products of natural monopolies are rising, interest rates remain high.
Mark Lerner, general manager Petropol company:
Inconvenient, dangerous and unprofitable? I'm just not sure about the convenience. Just recently, certain positive infrastructural and technical changes have been taking place. For example, the possibility of filing on electronic media, the “one-stop shop” principle for officials, reducing the registration time. There is more system in everything, everything has become somewhat more modern. The growth in ratings like Doing Business is due precisely to this, which is fair.
But this is only one part of the picture. Doing business in Russia is now unsafe. If your business is small or low-profit, you will not come to the attention of dishonest officials and businessmen close to them. But if you are successful and there is a tendency for further growth, then you begin to arouse their interest.
As for profitability, it is indeed extremely difficult to make a business successful and growing now. In the last year or two, economic entities have not had a rate of profit, but a rate of loss. On the one hand, there are the above-mentioned dangers, on the other hand, there is no understanding of the prospects, no one knows what economic policy will be. This limits demand and costs rise.
You cannot raise prices - and you are forced to first go to zero profitability, and then, in order to save the business, work for some time in the red. Let's say, for builders, production costs increased by 30-40%, but prices did not increase at all, and as soon as someone tries to increase them, demand stops. We are following the path of eating up what we have previously earned and accumulated - both in the sense of material assets and in the sense of achievements and reputations.
Entrepreneurs do not understand what will happen next. No one is starting new projects; they are afraid to invest money. Stand for a day, hold out for the night, and then we’ll see. What does business need first? Certainty. Those of the participants in our market who have survived are flexible and tenacious; they only need an understanding of which direction the state is going to move in the coming years.
Another thing is that words about economic policy should not remain just a declaration, the state must convince, they must believe it. Our entrepreneurs do not trust the state, the state does not believe entrepreneurs. Mistrust is the key reason current state our economy.
