Читать книгу Start & Run a Coffee Bar - Tom Matzen - Страница 47

Eighty percent of all businesses fail in their first five years. To ensure that you don’t become just another statistic, you need to examine all the risks associated with your venture.

Spend a few minutes now to brainstorm anything and everything that could go wrong in your business. Ask yourself how you will overcome these challenges should you encounter them. To help you get started, we’ve included several sets of questions for you to answer.

(a) Should you own your own business?

• Are you prepared to put in the time and effort necessary to build your business?

• Are you prepared for the sacrifices you will need to be successful?

• Are you prepared to learn the skills you will need?

• Are you prepared to implement the strategies successful businesses use?

• Building a wholesale business involves knocking on doors and selling your service — are you comfortable with this?

(b) Are you familiar with the market you are choosing to get into?

• What are the current trends?

• What are the trends of the future?

• How will these influence you and your concept?

• Are you well positioned to meet these trends?

(c) Is your concept suitable?

• How strong is your concept?

• How focused is it?

• How vulnerable is it to competition?

(d) Are you offering the right products?

• Will your products appeal to your specific target market?

• Is your product line focused or are you trying to sell all things to all people?

(e) Are you offering the right services?

• Will your services appeal to your target market?

(f) Are you financially set?

• Do you have enough start-up capital to fund your concept properly? (We discuss this in detail in Chapter 2.)

• Have you considered how negative cash flow will affect you?

As you continue through this book, you will see that there are many other potential risks. They include —

• Poor site

• Too high rent

• Poorly designed coffee bar

• Unaccounted-for cost overruns during construction

• Poor staff hiring and training practices

• Poor business, product, staff, facilities, and financial management practices

• Inferior quality products

• Poor customer service

• Failure to market the business

• Lack of funds to market the business

• Poor marketing strategies

• Lack of willingness on the business owner’s part to build wholesale business