How to start your own trade business
Coming up with a business idea and starting a business can seem overwhelming and complicated. There are so many things you have to consider from coming up with an excellent idea to registering a company , all the way to business planning, fundraising and much more. That is why we have put together this in-depth guide to take you by step by step through how you can start a business. It covers every conceivable thing you could want to know when setting up a business, including:. This guide is designed for UK entrepreneurs but most of it relates to entrepreneurs starting a business anywhere, only the financial and legal sections will differ significantly.
Trading As A Business – My Step By Step Guide
International trade is one of the hot industries of the new millennium. But it's not new. Think Marco Polo. Think the great caravans of the biblical age with their cargoes of silks and spices. Think even further back to prehistoric man trading shells and salt with distant tribes. Trade exists because one group or country has a supply of some commodity or merchandise that is in demand by another. And as the world becomes more and more technologically advanced, as we shift in subtle and not so subtle ways toward one-world modes of thought, international trade becomes more and more rewarding, both in terms of profit and personal satisfaction.
Importing is not just for those lone footloose adventurer types who survive by their wits and the skin of their teeth. Department of Commerce. Exporting is just as big. Everything from beverages to commodes--and a staggering list of other products you might never imagine as global merchandise--are fair game for the savvy trader.
And these products are bought, sold, represented and distributed somewhere in the world on a daily basis. Department of Commerce, the big guys make up only about 4 percent of all exporters. Which means that the other 96 percent of exporters--the lion's share are small outfits like yours wil be--when you're new, at least. Why are imports such big business in the United States and around the world? There are lots of reasons, but the three main ones boil down to:.
Aside from cachet items, countries typically export goods and services that they can produce inexpensively and import those that are produced more efficiently somewhere else.
What makes one product less expensive for a nation to manufacture than another? Two factors: resources and technology. A country with extensive oil resources and the technology of a refinery, for example, will export oil but may need to import clothing.
First off, let's take a look at the players. While you've got your importers and your exporters, there are many variations on the main theme:. Now that you're familiar with the players, you'll need to take a swim in the trade channel, the means by which the merchandise travels from manufacturer to end user. A manufacturer who uses a middleman who resells to the consumer is paddling around in a three-level channel of distribution. The middleman can be a merchant who purchases the goods and then resells them, or he can be an agent who acts as a broker but doesn't take title to the stuff.
Who your fellow swimmers are will depend on how you configure your trade channel, but they could include any of the following:. Not everybody is cut out to be an international trader. This is not, for example, a career for the sales-phobic. This is also not a career for the organizationally challenged.
If you're one of those let-the-devil-handle-the-details types whose idea of follow-up is waiting to see what happens next, you should think twice about international trading. If, on the other hand, you're an enthusiastic salesperson, a dynamo at tracking things like invoices and shipping receipts, and your idea of heaven is seeing where new ideas and new products will take you, and if, to top it off, you love the excitement of dealing with people from different cultures, then this is the career for you.
Most of the traders we talked with were well-versed in the industry before launching their own businesses. Peter P. I took Russian as a minor in college, initially as an easy grade. Little did I know when I graduated back in '89 that Russia would open up to the West shortly thereafter.
According to the U. Census Bureau, the top 10 countries with which America trades in order of largest import and export dollars to smallest are:.
You needn't, of course, confine yourself to trade deals with importers and exporters in these countries--there are scads of other intriguing possibilities available, including the member countries of the Caribbean Basin and Andean pacts and the new kids on the Eastern Bloc, the former Soviet Union countries.
But as a newbie on the international scene, you should familiarize yourself with our biggest trading partners and see what they have to offer. Then take your best shot, with them or with another country. Every business needs consumers for its products and services to, as the Vulcans so eloquently put it, live long and prosper.
This is a very important phase in the mega-trader building project. The proper market research can help boost your trading company into a true profit center, and the more research you do, the better prepared you are before you officially open your doors, the less floundering you're likely to do. Any manufacturer, supplier, crafter, artisan, importer, exporter or retailer is fair game.
You can go after companies that deal in heavy construction equipment or delicate jewelry, gourmet goodies or pet food, telecommunications or toys. The only essential requirement is that they want to sell their merchandise or buy someone else's. This doesn't mean, however, that your best technique is standing at manufacturers' gates, tripping them as they walk to their cars after work each evening.
Targeting by definition means homing in on a specific group. If you have previous experience in a particular field, for example, you should seriously consider targeting that market first. You'll feel comfortable with the jargon and procedures so your sales pitch--and your initial sales--will go smoother and easier. As an added bonus, you may already have contacts in the field who can either become your first clients or steer you to colleagues in that area.
Dan S. He knows the field and feels comfortable in it. Wahib W. You've narrowed the list of products you'll target. Now you'll want to find your niche, the unique angle that will set your business apart from--and above--the competition. This is where you can really let your creativity shine through. You may decide to start as an export management company EMC, remember? In Florida, Lloyd D. Under its ETC hat, Lloyd says, "[my company] performs in a fashion similar to that previously described, except for a diminished principal relationship, and business is typically conducted on a case-by-case or ad-hoc basis.
It is more a sourcing function for the buyer and the seller. In Germany, Michael R. Here's a rapid-fire overview of your market research tasks. You'll want to do some in-depth investigation into each of these areas:.
One of the catchs of being in business for yourself is that you need money to make money--in other words, you need startup funds.
You can start out homebased, which means you won't need to worry about leasing office space. You don't need to purchase a lot of inventory, and you probably won't need employees. Your basic necessities will be a computer, printer, fax machine and modem. If you already have these items, then you're off and running. Several of the traders we talked with started from ground zero. What they did have was a carefully built relationship with suppliers, and this valuable asset the company was able to get up and running.
You have the advantage of homebased-ability, which cuts office lease expenses down to nothing. Unless you're starting as a distributor, you can get away with purchasing no inventory, which means no outlay of funds for pretty doodads to grace display spaces you have no display spaces!
Your major financial outlay will go toward office equipment and market research expenses--and if you're like many moderns, you already have the most expensive piece of office equipment: a computer system. But let's take it from the top. The following is a breakdown of everything--from heavy investment pieces to flyweight items--you'll need to get up and running:.
You can add all kinds of goodies of varying degrees of necessity to this list. For example, a copier is a plus. It's also nice to have bona fide office furniture: a tweedy upholstered chair with lumbar support that swivels and rolls, gleaming file cabinets that really lock, real oak bookshelves.
But let's consider that you're starting from scratch. You can always set up your computer on your kitchen table or on a card table in a corner of the bedroom.
You can stash files in cardboard boxes. It's not glamorous, but it'll suffice until you get your business steaming ahead. What can you expect to make as an international trader? The amount's entirely up to you, depending only on how serious you are and how willing you are to expand.
Some traders work from home, supplementing 9-to-5 incomes with their trading expertise. Others have launched thriving full-time businesses that demand constant care and feeding. As an international trader, you're an intermediary in the buying and selling, or importing and exporting, transaction. Therefore, you have to determine not just the price of the product, but the price of your services as well. These two figures are separate yet interactive. Because you're a swimmer in the trade channel, the price of your services has to be added on to the product price, and that can affect its competitiveness in the marketplace.
Since the fee for your services will impact the success of the product, you may ultimately decide to change your pricing structure. You don't want to undercharge your client so that you can't cover your expenses and make a profit, but you don't want to overcharge and reduce the competitiveness of your company and the merchandise you represent.
Normally, you choose one method or the other based on how salable you feel the product is. If you think it's an easy sell, you'll want to work on the commission method.
If you feel it's going to be an upstream swim, difficult to sell and require a lot of market research, you'll ask for a retainer. A third method is to purchase the product outright and sell it abroad. This is a common scenario when you're dealing with manufacturers who would rather use you as a distributor than as a representative. You'll still market the product under the manufacturer's name, but your income will come from the profit generated by sales rather than by commission.
Take the plunge. With that sorted, it is time to get on with the more exciting operational stuff.
Marketing software to increase traffic and leads. Free and premium plans. Sales software for closing more deals, faster. Software for providing first-class customer service.
Talk to any entrepreneur or small business owner and you'll quickly learn that starting a business requires a lot of work. An idea doesn't become a business without effort.
For a lot of tradies, once they finish their apprenticeship one of the first things they think about is going out on their own. This may be as a subcontractor, possibly still working with the same company, or out there on your own as a small business owner. No matter which way you go, there are a few decisions to make when making the switch from wages to self-employed.
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You have all probably heard that you need to treat trading as a business if you want to be successful. But what does this actually mean? The business, hopefully, knows everything there is to know about their products, where it is from, how it is built, what the benefits are, what the potential struggles are, how to keep improving their product, what their customers want, and how to use it in the best possible way. The business must be the 1 expert in what they are offering. As a trader, your setups and your strategies are your products. Your setups are a set of rules and triggers to help you find potentially profitable trades.
15 Steps to start a business from scratch with (almost) no money
Setting up a trade business comes with its own challenges. Benjamin Dyer of Powered Now suggests six ways to ensure your business gets off to a flying start. Many tradespeople dream of starting their own business. It can be immensely rewarding but it's also hard work and many new businesses fail. Here are six tips to help you start off on the right foot and maximise your chances of success. This might be hard, but before you consider starting a business you need to ask yourself how good you are at the job. Being fired from previous jobs for bad work is the worst possible reason to start up. If you do, your experience on your own will be even worse. The truth is, being good at the job is a pre-requisite to everything else.
International trade is one of the hot industries of the new millennium. But it's not new.
By Samuel Williamson. Laying the groundwork is simple if you have a solid plan and stick to it.
So you want to start a trades business?
This week we've got Angela from Lifestyle Tradies talking about the number 1 challenge facing new trade businesses — figuring out where to begin. Before you can seriously start your business, it needs to exist! Unfortunately waking up one day, picking a business name and booking in jobs, does not constitute existing. This could get you in some serious trouble. There are 5 business admin activities you should complete before booking in your first job as a business owner. You should ensure you have an…. Once your business is legitimised, you need to start prioritising your business activities. There are a million and one potential activities you could be doing, and with so much to do and so few hours in the week, new trade business owners are often:. Completely overwhelmed They dabble in bits of everything but not enough of anything. In avoidance They complete preferable activities rather than important ones. Were you motivated to start your business because you knew could do better than other tradies out there? Have you taken the time to reflect on what "better" actually looks like for your customers? To get repeat customers, you need to make them seriously happy which can only be done if you understand them. In order to understand your customer, you need to:.
How to Start an Import/Export Business
Life begins with an apprenticeship, which is followed up by gaining experience by either being employed by a business directly or working as a subcontractor. After that, the next logical step for most tradies is to take it to the next level with your own outfit — and that means starting a business. What do you need to get going? Most importantly, is the life of a business manager really for you? With an apprenticeship under their belt, people who work in trades can be employed in a variety of ways and each will have pros and cons. He advocates any tradesperson to have experience subcontracting before setting up a more complex business model. On the other hand, accredited tradespeople can also consider taking on life as an independent contractor, which will require them to bid for tenders — a situation that may have greater rewards, but comes with less support. Having gained experience as a sole trader either as an independent contractor or a subcontractor, the next phase most people consider is setting up their own business. An arborist by trade, Aaron Littlepage is the founder of Treescene, a growing company that has developed from subcontracting specialist work.
