| When starting out in business many people have no | | | | tricky thing to achieve and balance as is the decision |
| idea what they are taking on. Many people just think | | | | as to whether to advertise online or offline and how to |
| about the thing they are going to be doing such as | | | | spread the money as well as how much to spend on |
| selling books or freelance writing but give no thought to | | | | advertising. Often new businesses do not have an |
| the other aspects of running a business. There is | | | | advertising budget and this means that it is even more |
| obviously the financial side and you need to be able to | | | | important to understand about marketing as you are |
| keep your accounts, know what paperwork to keep | | | | likely to be doing it yourself. |
| and know how to calculate whether you are making a | | | | It is also important to know about customer service |
| profit. By employing an accountant to do this for you at | | | | and how to make it as good as you can. This is |
| the end of the year then you will have no idea | | | | especially important if you want repeat business from |
| whether you are making a profit or loss and you could | | | | customers as well as recommendations from |
| have a shock at the end of the year either because | | | | customers. It is also important to think about how you |
| you are not doing as well as you had hoped or | | | | will deal with complaints and returns and to write your |
| because you have a large tax bill which you have not | | | | own returns policy if this is relevant to you. It is |
| saved up for. | | | | important to think about all of these issues before you |
| There is also the issue of marketing. It can be hard | | | | consider starting a business or perhaps before you |
| knowing what techniques to use and even if you know | | | | invest very much money and time into it because if |
| something about marketing, you may not be familiar | | | | those parts of the job are not something you think you |
| with eCommerce marketing which chance are you will | | | | could do then you are probably better off working for |
| need to know about. It is worth finding out about it as | | | | someone else rather than for yourself. If you do not |
| well as conversion marketing because you may | | | | know much about them then it may be worth doing a |
| otherwise end up with a lovely website but no visitors | | | | course or educating yourself before you start. |
| or lots of visitors but no one buying anything. It is a | | | | |