Starting a new business, revitalizing an existing business, or buying an existing small to medium sized business is like embarking on an extended trip.  You would never consider doing  either without planning from start to finish, would you? You have to determine your mode or modes of transportation and the scheduling and cost of each. You don’t want to take a trip to an amusement park only to find it is closed for the off-season. A big part of planning for a trip is knowing how you’ll get to your end destination. Luckily, this part of planning has gotten much easier thanks to GPS devices. These devices allow you to see just where you are on a roadway, or you can use them to guide you to your destination turn-by-turn.

You can enter in your stating point and your destination, and it will map out the best route for you to travel.  It can show a detailed screen showing your entire route on one screen shot, or a local “3D” screen shot which zooms in to show your position as you travel in real time.Your GPS can also estimate the distance to your destination and your arrival time. Some will even monitor your speed and warn you when you are speeding. If you are traveling and missed your turn, or if you simply decided to go a different way, your GPS will “recalculate” a new path for you to follow to your final destination, updating distance and your estimated new time of arrival.

A GPS device is designed to give you helpful information, in advance, to assure your trip will go as smoothly as possible.

Our business program, “Your Easy GPS Guide For Lasting Business Success” is designed to do what a GPS device does for driver. Our end goal is to help you plan your business turn-by-turn, or in this case, step-by-step until you reach success.

Our program, “Your Easy GPS Guide For Lasting Business Success”, helps new or potential business owners as well as business owners struggling with their current business by providing guidance and creating a business plan all while working towards success. The ability to start right where you are and create a detailed business plan using a system with the essential business building tools, is critical.   If detailed planning before you leave on you trip is essential, how much more important is detailed planning for your business? DMGL Consulting Group will tell you that it’s a necessity, especially if you’re looking to succeed.

 

Five Essentials Questions I Wish I Had Asked Before I Started My Business

Has The Turmoil Created By The ”New Economy” Killed The American Dream?

Well not if recent reports are correct!  As a matter of fact, it may have given it new life and vitality!
Fortune Magazine, reported that an estimated 79 million Americans will start-up, or buy, some type of business in the next five years.  That is nearly one-third of all Americans!

With that immense of an interest in business ownership, rest assured, the American Dream, our entrepreneurial spirit, and our determination to survive and thrive in this new economy, is still alive and doing very well!

But Who Would Think Of Starting A Business In This Dismal Economy?

Millions have lost jobs they held for 10, 20, or 30 years, have become “underemployed”, or have faced pay cuts, over the past five years due to economic circumstances far beyond their control. The fallout from the recession and near collapse of the financial system has caused extreme hardships for many good, hardworking, knowledgeable, educated, and talented people.

Many are going on two, three, or even four years without steady employment.   Many are “underemployed”, and forced to take any job paying anything at all.  Many have not found any work, and many more have given up all hope and quit looking for a job.

As a result, many have been forced to find alternative means to support themselves and their families.  Some have found other jobs in their field, some have found other careers, and still others have been forced to take two or more jobs to try and replace formerly high paying positions.

Most lucky enough to find new jobs have found that pay and benefits, if they are even offered, do not meet their former job’s compensation.   Many have had to take significant pay cuts and a lower standard of living.

Facing not finding a job, lower pay, more hours, and lost benefits and pensions, have caused millions to seek alternatives sources of income to pay bills, maintain life styles, prepare for the future, or just survive.  Many have lost all or at least a significant part of their retirement, and face a very uncertain future.  The alternative of choice for many has been starting or buying a business.

A New Era Of Entrepreneurship Has Begun

We are perhaps witnessing the greatest period of entrepreneurship in our history.  For some new entrepreneurs, starting or taking ownership of an enterprise is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream and the economic crisis was just the motivation they needed to get started on their entrepreneurial journey.

Their new business enterprises are springing forth from just a simple idea, a work or life experience, a skill, a talent, a hobby, or a passion, and transforming into a thriving and profitable entity.

Successful individuals from every background are building businesses providing personal satisfaction and fulfillment, professional associations and relationships, personal freedoms, financial benefits, and lifestyle enhancements that are almost exclusively awarded to those who are willing to take on the often extreme levels of commitment, and face the many challenges, required by business ownership.

However, the new reality is that for every entrepreneur who is fulfilling his or her dream by starting a business, there are now a growing number of individuals fighting for economic survival. Their only viable life-line is starting a business.

But unfortunately entrepreneurs, regardless of which category they fall into, who build and sustain successful and profitable businesses will be in the minority.
It is a fact that many more business fail than succeed.  To their owner’s dismay, businesses fail every single day.  Sadly, some will close their doors TODAY, never to open for business again.  Even more tragic, is that many of those failures COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED!

Business Failure, Not Success, Is The Norm For Start-Ups
Statistics on survival rates, or conversely failure rates, of businesses may surprise you.  Data presented below is from a special tabulation by the Bureau of the Census produced for the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration. These data look at the ten year survival rates for single-establishment businesses starting new in 1992. These are the average year one through year ten survival rates of new firms for that ten year period.
Percentage of New Businesses Established in 1992 That Were Viable In 2002.

Graph1-GPSThese survival rates are the averages. There are notable differences across industry sectors in business failure rates.  However, historically the majority of new businesses, approximately 60%, fail by the fifth year.  Even more alarming, is the rapid rate of failure during the first two years.  More than a staggering 33% of businesses fail during this most critical and pivotal period.
The data shows that by year ten only 29% of businesses remain.   The data show a ten year failure rate of more than 70%.  This data excluded businesses that closed for reasons other than financial failure, i.e. dissolution of partnerships, retirement, etc.
You can be certain, with the economic downturn that began in 2006-2007, businesses of today’s entrepreneurs are suffering failure at rates far greater than those reported above, and the failure rates don’t even include the estimated 97% failure rate of home based business like MLM, direct marketing, and affiliate marketing.
Businesses are having an even harder time hanging on today, enduring the longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression. Also not considered in the data are the increasing burdens and hostile attitude of federal and state governments, handing down suffocating regulations, and increasing taxation of business.   But that hasn’t stopped many determined entrepreneurs from forging ahead!

“OPEN FOR BUSINESS” – Whoa! Not So Fast!

With so much at risk, gone are the days when “mom and pop’ simply put the “OPEN” for business sign in the storefront window, and with a little common sense and a lot of hard work and determination, their business had a good chance of success.
Although nothing can replace common sense, hard work, and determination, any businesses starting in today’s stormy economic climate, businesses will have to have owners who possess the savvy, skills, knowledge, and advantages of today’s top entrepreneurs.  It is the only way to have a realistic chance of navigating the treacherous over crowded roads, high speed highways, un-charted byways, and blaze new trails to beat the ever increasing odds against business profitability and success.
Without the proper cutting edge business building tools, including the skills and knowledge to implement them, the greater the chance that your business will not celebrate its first anniversary, yet alone its tenth.

A Trail Of Destruction and Devastation

The failure of a business often leaves behind much more in its wake than a just a failed enterprise.  The business owner, who risked virtually everything on his or her dream, often looses so much more. Trails of destruction and devastation, strewn with the remnants of people’s lives, are evidence of the high cost of failure.  Under stress of failure, marriages crumble, family members drift apart, lifelong friends become bitter enemies, cherished relationships are severed, and finances, health, mental stability, and the overall enjoyment and quality of lives are often destroyed or severely damaged. Regretfully, people who fail in their business often look back at their experience and say “I wish somebody would have told me, or made me truly understand what was at risk, that it was going to be this hard, and that I was going to loose so much.”  Maybe they would have made different choices in getting help and resources for planning their business before they started, or maybe wouldn’t have gone into business at all.

What most who fail say is that they now wish that there had been a comprehensive system to would take them through the all the steps from the inception of their business, to writing a business plan, to implementing the plan, to placing controls policies and procedures in place, to tracking their profitability, to having an exit strategy from the business.

Just Don’t Do It!

Well, what we are going to do in this presentation is what most owners of failed businesses, or businesses in trouble wish somebody had told them, and made them truly understand, “JUST DON’T DO IT!   DON’T GO IN TO BUSINESS FOR YOURSELF!  SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE, FAMILY, RELATIONSHIPS, MONEY, HEALTH, SANITY, AND QUALITY OF LIFE.  DO NOT START, OR BUY YOURSELF A BUSINESS!

Not only are we going to tell you not to do it, we are going to show you the reasons most business fail…And the most important reasons might just surprise you.
This Too Might Surprise You?

Although some might not see it this way, the BEST result of this presentation will be for individuals, just simply not suited to go into business for themselves, to come to that conclusion on their own….And that is a very good thing!

That is at least not go into business at this time.  Instead, taking the time to do some serious soul searching and analyze their own aptitudes, skills, knowledge, motivations, and level of commitment to starting business.  Taking time to plan and map out a course for both themselves and their enterprise would be a wise choice.

If at the end of this self-evaluation, you determine that you are not suited, or ready for business ownership, eliminating or postponing the option of starting a business, at least for now, should give you a great sense freedom to really explore options that build on your current strengths with great confidence.  Business ownership is just simply not for everyone at every point of their lives.

Thankfully, some of the nations best and brightest currently work for someone else.  Many are thriving and achieving great accomplishments in their various fields of endeavor.

Imagine a world without many of our public and private corporations, small business, the medical community, the educational establishment, churches and social organizations, and yes, even a limited government.

The vast majority of the innovations and advances in medicine, technology, agriculture, science would not have been made without these businesses and organizations. People truly in need of help and assistance would be left without important resources.  We would lead very different lives.

In addition, most of us feel reassured, and are thankful, that extremely talented and dedicated people, I would say THE VERY BEST AND BRIGHTEST, are protecting our country both at home and abroad, that there are top notch educators preparing the youth of our country to meet the challenges of the future, and that those in active ministry and service to others are sacrificing much to lead and serve others.  These are true heroes of our society.

Maybe after making the determination that at least for now business ownership is not right for you, you can check out your options for becoming more satisfied with employment.  Maybe upgrade or update your skills by seeking additional education or training.  Maybe just seek a different position, start a new job, or find a new career.  Consider relocating!

You Have Been Warned!

That may sound bit harsh, or even arrogant, but the world of business is harsh, and the results of a personal business failure can be even harsher still!

The intent is that after going though the exercises, and hearing the real life experiences of actual entrepreneurs in their own words, you won’t have any excuse to say “No one told me that it was going to be this hard, and that I could lose so much!”.

You have been warned not to go into business.  However, if you continue on with this presentation you will be exposed to the business planning and building system, with the advice and tools, use by top entrepreneurs in building highly successful and profitable businesses. 

This presentation contains critical exercises that are designed to help you navigate your way through the process of determining your level of commitment to, and experience, knowledge, skills for starting a business.  Complete the exercises in this presentation and you will have a better chance of making that right decision.

By assessing your true motivations and level of skills needed for success, your decision to, or not to go into business will be based on the analysis of the most critical and relevant considerations, presented in an organized and logical sequence.

You’ll have the opportunity to make the right choice for you based a real impartial and objective self-evaluation.

For most going into business is a very high risk venture with many uncertainties, and huge downside potential that is increased if the proper system, including cutting edge business building tools, including the skills and knowledge to implement them, are not used.   In short, what we are giving you is the business building system that will greatly improve your chances of success.

The System That Gives You The Power To Succeed & Prosper!

If by the end of this presentation we haven’t scared the very life out your dream of going into business, you will see that we will be able to provide you with essential resources and business planning and building tools that will give the competitive advantages needed for a much greater chance of success and profitability.

Business success is a matter of having access to, and being able to acquire the proper skills and knowledge of running a successful and profitable business.  You will find that a successful business and a profitable business may be related, but are often two very different things.

Perhaps you already own a business and find yourself on the brink of failure, struggling to stay afloat, or at best your business is woefully under performing with your personal and financial resources stretched to the breaking point.  Some may be too far gone, but thank goodness there is hope for the majority of businesses to fully recover and thrive
with the proper system and analytical tool.

Follow the Five essential steps in the Easy GPS Guide for Business Success used by the most successful entrepreneurs and business owners to improve your odds of success.

The purpose of this program is:

  1. Help you, the entrepreneur, to better define your strengths and weaknesses
  2. Better establish the specific areas where you may require more guidance (see the Success Topics ).
  3. Urges you, the want-to-be entrepreneur, to carefully think about the risks of starting a business.
  4. Stresses the need for further education and careful planning to reduce and manage risks of business ownership.
  5. Help you to decide whether to keep your day job in order to better afford the new business venture.
  6. Helps you to understand that a failure can be an opportunity to learn, improve and re-start.

Begin the Easy GPS Guide Program

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Do some pre-reading about starting a business before starting the course.