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Probably the safest and most reliable approach is to go for an established kind of business; one that lots of people have tried and succeeded in before you. Most retail shops and many service businesses fall into this category — for example, bookshops, florists or hairdressers, builders, electricians or plumbers.

One good thing about going into the kind of business that many others have done before you is that you can find out what to expect in terms of sales, profit margins, expenses and more. With this kind of business, success depends not so much on the strength of your original idea, but more on good business sense and your ongoing capacity to differentiate yourself from your competitors. If possible, this difference should capitalise on your skills and resources, so that this difference is hard for competitors to imitate.

Do bear in mind that changes in technology are shaking up even the most traditional kinds of businesses. For example, bookshops used to offer solid business profits, so long as you selected a good location and you knew your trade. However, the changes brought about by ebooks and online distribution mean that, nowadays, opening a bookshop would be a very different proposition indeed. Similarly, a bookkeeping business may have been a safe bet in the past, but cloud technology and new accounting software solutions are rendering many bookkeeping services obsolete.

If you choose to go with an established kind of business, you may prefer to purchase an existing business, rather than starting from scratch. For many kinds of established businesses, franchising is also an option. Skip to Chapter 3 to find out more.