The Small Business Self-Starter Handbook: How to Manage Pitfalls of a Small Business Start-Up

Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

PREFACE

I have worked for several years with small- and medium-size businesses both in Canada and the Caribbean and have experienced the hardships resulting from poor management skills and money management. I felt indebted to develop a somewhat different operational approach to management in The Small Business Self-Starter Handbook that would meet the needs of aspiring entrepreneurs.

I have stressed the essential ideas underlying entrepreneurship behaviour in simple terms, which I think are sound and well-proven topics, avoiding discussions about numerous management procedures and systems. I have, however, included historical data of other businesses, which I think is an inducement for better operational behaviour.

The Small Business Self-Starter Handbook is an inspiring directive about how people can manage their resources to minimise problems and to enjoy satisfactory results from their businesses. It covers the basic principles of starting a business and provides considerable detail on planning, bookkeeping, marketing, time and money management, and protecting a business from failure because of unwanted creditors’ claims. Entrepreneurs will find these subjects significant and easy to understand, regardless of which stage of development they are currently in with their business or their skills in personal financial management.

I have tried to make this book an easy guide for entrepreneurs, and I hope you will find it so. This book is not intended to render legal, accounting, or professional advice. I would urge all who seek legal or professional guidance to consult someone competent in that field.

I am indebted to a number of people who supported me and reviewed the manuscript during the preparation of this book.

I particularly want to thank Dr Dorothy Wills for her continued support and the various roles she has played during the development of this book. My special thanks goes to Dr Clarence Bayne of Concordia University for his meticulous role in assessment, critique, and suggestions for improvement during the development stages of the book.

John Philip Henderson, B. Comm

Concordia University

INTRODUCTION

Investing in a small- or medium-size business can be very traumatic for someone who lacks managerial skills and competence in strategic planning, cash flow management, accounting and record keeping, marketing, networking, and delegation of routine activities.1 The challenge of obtaining adequate knowledge for investing in a project, even with a working experience and skills in other projects, can be bumpy. Not all of us are equipped with the talent to become successful administrators. Yet it would be an error to compare the skills of an administrator with the skills of the conventional entrepreneur.

The successful entrepreneur has certain inborn entrepreneurial traits and psychological makeup,2 without which he or she is more unlikely to succeed. The conventional entrepreneur often lacks certain character traits such as leadership temperament, a taste for risk, an aptitude for participating and solving problems, self-confidence, and a certain ease in communicating. Control of money, expenditure, and time are usually poorly administered, causing waste of resources and low productivity, which often leads to financial debt and bankruptcy. During the first year, few small businesses will survive, and many shut down within a five-year period after they have started.

Without the appropriate skills and competence in money and time management, the result is quite frequently exposed in poor record keeping, control of inventories, and planning and forecasting, and the inefficiency of management and decision making. Notwithstanding the advancement in technical management, statistical surveys have shown that small- and medium-size businesses have the highest rates of insolvency, which is mostly due to lack of managerial and planning skills.3 Lack of certain character traits can make entrepreneurship unappealing and unrewarding.

The numerous books written to help entrepreneurs develop their skills for sustaining a successful business enterprise have been helpful to only the few who have read them. Many entrepreneurs have followed scientific approaches in providing goods and services. They have met the needs and wants of customers, and at the same time they have built rewarding careers for themselves. Others have chosen to run their business in their own way and have finished unsuccessfully. Still others have started a small business to enjoy the perceived reward of freedom and independence. The reality of small business ownership can be quite different. Many small business owners will tell you that they work relentless hours: more than they would work for someone else.

The entrepreneur must have a clear understanding of the measures required to preserve a successful enterprise. He must focus his aptitude on what is required to manage the organization successfully. He must carry out four fundamental functions in the management of the organization: planning, organizing, decision-making, and control.

Planning provides comprehensive information about the proposed business and the various steps that must be taken to start it. The entrepreneur must decide how best to use the available resources of the organization to carry out the established plans. In doing so, the entrepreneur attempts to make rational choices between alternatives and takes the necessary steps to ensure that every function in the organization is operating smoothly at maximum efficiency.

This book is intended to set up a route map to help the conventional entrepreneur with little knowledge of business management. It is meant to be both useful and thought provoking in starting and operating your business and protecting your personal and business assets from creditors. By studying this book, you will discover how to run your business from start, with information on how to protect the business and the competitiveness of products or services (which may or may not lead to a successful business). It will help you to realise your strengths and weaknesses in running the project and help you to employ a good plan for a more effective business. It will motivate you by exposing you to the history of many large businesses, which all started small.

This book deals with financing, pricing, marketing, advertising, retailing, and, most importantly, strategic planning and control of the business plan. It provides a simple study in record keeping of daily transactions up to financial statements. Information on how to manage your cash flow is very useful to make your business successful.

Starting your business is a bold step, but it can offer you the freedom to accomplish the following:

• Use your own ideas

• Be the boss

• Not to be fired

• Earn as much as you want

So don’t put it off.

You want to start a successful business. Yet a good idea is not necessarily a guarantee to success. First, you must be sure that you have the qualities required to be a good entrepreneur. So examine your plans carefully and identify the type of enterprise you want to create by identifying your source of income. Numerous studies show that the entrepreneur who works hard in his business and depends greatly on his personality, training, and preparation of his plan will find it more satisfying and easier to succeed.

This book will help you screen ideas concerning your future, for there is nothing more important to your ultimate success than choosing something you really like that is of great interest to you.

References:

1. Ibrahim B. et al. Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management. Kendall Hunt Publishing Company: (p. 6) 1990.

2. Bakr and Ellis. Figure 1.1 (p. 6).

3. Small Business Quarterly, Q1, 2000.

CHAPTER ONE

STARTING YOUR OWN BUSINESS

I can feel working on my own,

Making my own decision each day,

And having all the money to do so.

Increase your wealth through free enterprise

If you have the determination and drive to own your own business and to pursue your ambition to make it successful, you will be greatly motivated by this book. Perhaps you have often thought of doing something to improve your way of life. Those thoughts could have been inspired by the hope of being your own boss someday. Perhaps you have acquired a great deal of skill and experience in your job, but you feel frustrated and insecure about your future.

Many times we hear the song of a prospective small business humming inside our heads: Should I take the risk to start a business? Do I have complete freedom to do what I want? Do I have unlimited opportunity to realise my dream? But most of the small business owners who ask these questions often do not succeed. Why? What separates those who succeed from those who fail? Knowledge of the business, sufficient capital, good experience, and timing are just some of the features that make a successful business owner. Although there is no possible way to guarantee success, you can greatly improve the odds against you by preparing yourself for the task ahead.

The questions asked by many small business owners raise anxieties and doubts; some are constructive, whereas others bring about some degree of uncertainty. The decision to start your own business will begin with speculation. It may be a good decision that will bring about realistic success, but worry can obstruct you from pursuing your dreams.

Given the high ratio of business failures among small and medium-size businesses, being reluctant to invest everything you own into your business is expected. However, one of the reasons a business fails early is the lack of information that is essential to the operation and management of the business. You will have to decide if you have the qualifications to become an entrepreneur and to determine if your business idea is the right premise upon which to start your business. Before you invest your savings into the small business, do the preparatory work that will improve your chances to succeed.

One of the first steps in acquiring information is to do some research to get to know more about the market for the product or service you want to offer. You might already know that a market exists for your product or service. If you have an idea for starting a business but you are not sure whether a market exists or is big enough to support the business, you must first research whether this is the right business for you.

To those who believe that there is a market but want to know more about the size and shape of the market to determine their chances for success, research is the best way to start. Researching the market to find out more about your customers and your competitors is a critical step for small business owners. If a manufacturer puts a product on the market that does not attract customers and does not sell, they simply introduce another attractive product on the market and dispense with the other one. If you start a business with a product or service that is not acceptable to consumers, you may soon be out of business—unless you reshape the business to satisfy these consumers.

The unpredictability of the market, if not carefully studied, can play a great role in making a wrong decision. It is therefore sensible to begin your study for investing in your own business by examining all the environmental elements that will affect the business progress. When you conduct research on the market to start your business, you will want to find out the following:

• Who will your customers be? For example, if students are your customers, then you may want to be located near schools.

• How can you reach your customers? Which marketing option will get the product or service to your customers at the lowest cost?

• How much are your customers willing to pay for the product or service? Are you planning to charge too much for your product or service, or are you planning to charge too little?

• Who are your competitors? You will also have to consider those who are not your direct competitors but might nevertheless compete against you.

• How will you be considered in the marketplace? Will you compete head on with your competitors, or will you try to create a special line of products or services?

There is no standard method for starting a business and making it sustainable. There are, however, several factors that you should observe before making a decision. Among these factors is personality and environmental behaviour, which should play an important role in the entrepreneur’s decision. The environmental behaviour of surrounding businesses can give your business a boost right from the start or eradicate its good performance within a short time. What is more important, however, is your ability to administer the resources at your disposal and to make the business sustainable from the start.

Starting a small business takes a lot of courage, but courage does not pay the bills. To be successful and to stay in business you will need more than courage; you will need a combination of hard work, skill, perseverance, and good old-fashioned luck.

People who start their own business can be grouped into two broad categories. The first group consists of people who know exactly what they want to do and are merely looking for the opportunity or the resources to do it. These people have already developed many of the skills necessary to succeed in their chosen field. They are also likely to be familiar with the industry customs and practices, which can help during the start-up stage of the new business.

The second group consists of people who want to start their own business but do not have any definite idea about what they would like to do. Although these people have developed some skills in the course of their employment or education, they may not be interested in opening a business in the same field of their endeavour.

How you proceed in business will depend in a large part on which group you are really in. For those who know what they want to do, the task will be much easier. There is no need to research the market for more business ideas or new opportunities to decide which option might be most suitable. Instead, they can jump right in and assess their chances for success in the type of business they have selected. Those who merely want a way out of the corporate world must take extra steps in choosing the right small business. They will have to look closely at just how much hard work, skill, and perseverance will be needed to be successful.

To evaluate your own aptitude for small business ownership, you need to understand the strengths and weaknesses you possess and to identify your qualities as an entrepreneur.

• You should have the confidence and ability to start your own business.

• You should be determined to work long hours when necessary.

• You should accept the responsibility to make the best use of all opportunities within your reach for development.

• You should be willing to take calculated risks.

• You should endeavour to be a good problem solver and decision maker.

In the United States, it is estimated that only about 30 per cent of all start-ups are still in business after five years. The better you prepare yourself and understand the challenges ahead of you, the more likely that you will be one of the survivors. The two most common reasons a business does not succeed are that (1) the business is poorly managed because the owner lacks the necessary skills, or (2) the owner underestimates how much capital it will take to start the business.

Responsibilities of ownership

Owning a small business is not just another job. It is a completely different lifestyle. You have to ask yourself whether you are ready for a complete commitment to the success of your business. Just as important, you may have to ask your partner, if you are in a relationship, whether he or she is completely committed to the idea. As a small business owner, you will have less time for your personal life, and you will probably be using much of what you own as collateral to raise money for the business. Determining whether you are willing to make those sacrifices is an important indicator of whether you are truly ready to own your business.

Advantages of owning your business:

• You have the chance to make a lot more money than you would while working for someone else.

• You will be your own boss and make the decisions that are crucial to your business’ success or failure.

• You may be the boss of other people.

• You will have job security, meaning that no one can fire you.

• You will have the chance to put your ideas into practice.

• You will have the chance to work directly with your customers.

• You will have the personal satisfaction of creating and running a successful business.

• You will be able to work in a field or area that you really enjoy.

• You will have the chance to build a real retirement value and to provide a sense of belonging and stability for your family.

• You may have the opportunity to learn new disciplines, such as filing, bookkeeping, inventory control, production planning, advertising and promotion, market research, and general management.

Disadvantages of owning your business:

• You will probably have to work long hours and may have fewer opportunities to take a vacation.

• You may end up spending a lot of time running the business and less time attending to those other things that you really enjoy in real life.

• You may find that your income is not steady or that there are times you do not have much income at all.

• You may have to undertake an unpleasant task, such as firing your best friend or relative or refusing to hire a friend or relative.

The role you are expected to play in your business

If you are currently employed, you have first-hand experience of what it takes to be an employee. When you think of owning a business, you may think of working the same way you do as an employee. You will be in for a big surprise. Small business owners are responsible for the entire business, which involves a lot more than just providing services to customers. It is very likely that the administrative work and management duties currently performed by your employers will become a part of your task.

We have heard of the stressed executives who are doing two to three times their share of the company’s work and allege to be overworked. Most small business owners would be happy if that was their share of the work. Sales tax, payroll deductions, or self-employment taxes have to be collected and paid. Providing customer service, keeping appropriate stocks of goods and supplies on hand, maintaining inventory and equipment, and supervising personnel are all vital in the operation of the business. As a new business owner, you may be the only one available to perform these activities and at the same time to provide goods or services to your customers.

Even if you have hired an accountant, you will have to know something about accounting; you will have to know which records to keep and how to keep them. If you do not have an accountant, you will have to prepare and pay the payroll deductions yourself and learn how to prepare and interpret your cash flow and financial statement.

These activities are important responsibilities in running the business. Much of your time will be spent on complying with the legal requirements imposed on you as the business owner. If you are going to succeed, you will have to do so in the time that you have. Do not make the mistake of underestimating the cost, in hours, of being in business for yourself.

Feasibility assessment for starting a new business

The result of making the new business you have created work profitably in your favour is the return on your investment in the business. Growth and development is the result of efficient management, and the desire to fulfil a dream in something that you believe in. The lesson to be learned from many small business failures is that you need to be extremely careful when determining how much money you need to start the business. One of the most common reasons small businesses fail is because owners underestimate how much money they will need to start the business. It always seems to cost more than they estimated.

Do not fall into the trap of optimistically predicting a healthy sale in the first year, and, as a result, when there is not enough sales money coming in, the cash flow to pay the expenses dries up. When you estimate how much you will need to start the business, either build some cushion by padding the amount or revise your estimate every time something costs more than you thought.

Perhaps the most crucial problem you will face will be determining the feasibility of your idea. Get into the right business at the right time is a simple advice, but that advice can be extremely difficult to implement. The high failure rate of new businesses indicates that few ideas result in a successful business venture, even when used to purchase a well-established existing business. Too many entrepreneurs strike out a business venture as being good. Being so thoroughly convinced of its merits, they fail to evaluate its potential.

A checklist should be useful in evaluating your business potential. It is intended to help you screen out ideas that are likely to fail before you invest extensive time, money, and effort in the business. These few questions will ask you to reflect on your personal characteristics and on the strain of business ownership. Answering these questions will produce a preliminary assessment of both yourself and the project.

These questions will emphasize areas for your personal consideration:

• Do you know which skills and areas of expertise are critical to the success of your project?

• Do you have these skills?

• Does your idea effectively use your own skills and abilities?

• Can you find personnel who have the expertise you are lacking?

• Do you know why you are considering this project?

• Will the project effectively meet your aspirations?

• Do you like to make your own decisions?

• Do you enjoy competition?

• Do you have the willpower and self-discipline to start a business?

• Can you take advice from others?

• Are you adaptable to changing conditions?

These questions will emphasize the physical and financial strain of the new business:

• Do you understand that owning your own business may entail working twelve to sixteen hours a day, probably seven days a week, and maybe no holidays?

• Do you have the physical endurance to handle a business?

• Do you have the emotional strength to withstand the risks?

• Are you prepared to commit to a lower standard of living for several months or years?

• What financial investment will be required for the business?

• Do you know what your operating costs—such as rent, wages, insurance, utilities, advertising, and interest—will be?

• Are you prepared to lose your investment?

The following questions will remind you that you must seek both a return on investment in your business as well as a reasonable salary for the time you will spend in operating the business:

• What minimum income do you desire?

• How much could you earn by investing in your own business?

• How much could you earn by working for someone else?

• Are you prepared to earn less income in the first, second, or third year?

Conclusion

To be a successful entrepreneur, you should have a strong passion for working long hours. You must have the determination to work hard and make the business profitable. You must have a good knowledge of the type of business you have chosen. You should be a risk taker and capable of making sensible decisions to achieve satisfactory results. You should identify your strengths and weaknesses for managing your affairs and have a need for independence and creativity. You should have a high tolerance for uncertainty. Such a person will be in a better position to succeed from the very beginning.

To evaluate your own aptitude for small business ownership, you need to understand the responsibilities—what is involved in owning a business and what roles you will have to play if you own one. This is a good place to start if you are considering starting a business. You need to set your goals as to what you want from your business. If you desire to succeed, how will you know if you get there? Knowing what you want from your business motivates all of the other decisions you will have to make to start your business. It will have an effect on which business you are in, how you evaluate your chances for success, and how you determine if you have the right skills.

Evaluating your own skills and making judgements about whether you are ready to own your business is a good place to start if you want to own your business. Also, evaluate the impact on your everyday life and how your life will change after becoming a business owner.

A self-evaluation test can help you to determine whether you have the qualities to succeed in business. If you do not have the qualities, find someone with the required qualities with whom you can work together as partners, or simply give up your plans to start a business. This book will support your decision to start your business. You will be taken through the process of starting a new business—from the planning stage to making it a reality.

CHAPTER TWO

SETTING YOUR GOALS FOR INVESTMENT

You cannot set the course for where you are going,

until you know where you are.

Planning your goals and objectives

Goal setting is all about determining your goals, which includes your time frame for reaching them and setting up the resources to successfully implement those goals. We all know that the time to prepare for rainy days is when the sun is shining. All of us have objectives, some more elaborate than others. Some objectives might include retiring at age fifty-five, writing a good novel, or taking a trip around the world. Yet daydreaming about something that you would like to do someday is not the same as aiming for a clear-cut result at a specific time.

Before you can come up with an investment strategy that will help you achieve your goals, you must figure out your objectives and match them to a specific time frame. For example, saying that you want to quit work while you are still young does not target a clear-cut result. The term young may mean different things to different people. Do you want to change your career, get a part-time job, start your own business, or simply stop working all together?

Figuring out your specific objective is only half of the goal setting process. The other half requires determining a time frame for reaching these goals. Take, for example, your dream of living in a big house near the beach. Do you want this to happen when you retire or when all your children are finally in college? If it is when you retire, what would be your ideal retirement age, and how much will you have to put aside for a comfortable living? Is it when you have reached a certain income bracket or career? Will the beach house be located in Florida or somewhere in the Caribbean? It would be important to arrange a time frame for implementing your dream.

Because goal setting is so important, it must be done correctly. Hastily constructed or ill-thought-out goals may do more harm than good. If the goals take the wrong direction or are simply too easy to achieve, meeting them will not help you much. If the goals are so difficult that they are almost impossible to reach, you are setting yourself up for failure. Many people start a small business to enjoy the rewards of freedom and independence. Owning your own business can offer you the freedom to do the following:

• Use your own ideas in your business

• Be your own boss and not being employed by someone

• Have job security

• Manage your business successfully and earn as much as you want

To direct your determination to where it will best help you achieve your freedom, you must first identify what you have now as the first step for setting your objectives. An investment plan can never be right if you do not know what your specific objectives are and when you intend to reach them.

We have heard the saying: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. But a more realistic saying about attaining financial success might be: Be careful what you wish for and how you plan to get it, or you won’t get it. This may sound negative but it is true. The reality of small business ownership can be quite different from the dream. You can succeed in reaching your goal for building wealth and passing it along to your heirs, but you will need to do things differently from most people, who rarely create a workable financial plan, or, if they do, they do not follow through the plan long enough to see the benefit it entails.

If you have evaluated the qualities it takes to be a good business starter and you have what it takes and if you have a good understanding of the basic principles of financial planning and money management, you are on your way to achieving your goals. But even though you wish to have no involvement in your investment strategy, turning it over to a financial planner will not enable them to make the right decision for you if they do not know what you are trying to achieve. They must know much more about you. Although some generalisations do exist in the investment world, every plan must be modified for an individual program. Otherwise, everyone would be investing in exactly the same things.

If you ask some people how wealthy people get where they are, you may hear several reasons: They inherited their fortunes, They were very lucky, They were financially gifted. Although all these answers could be true, they will not help those of us who are not that lucky, that fortunate in picking relationships, or maybe that intelligent. These people omit one of the most important factors in increasing wealth: They were determined to meet their financial goals.

Many of us dream of financial success: increasing what we possess will fulfil our dreams for a better future. It is our desire to increase our financial resources by aiming for a higher return on our investment. But our existing financial state of affairs may be meant to satisfy our normal physiological needs for living. These are the needs for survival, which all living creatures seek. But our deeper feelings persuade us to expand our needs for better security, belonging, self-esteem, and self-recognition. These needs can be satisfied with a better understanding of ourselves. Your desire to set your specific objectives may be motivated by a desire to work for yourself. To fulfil this desire, however, you must understand your own behaviour and the behaviour of other people who may work with you.

The self-concept theory for fulfilling your objectives

Because behaviour is a common denominator in fulfilling any of your objectives, to successfully achieve any goal, you may benefit from understanding the self-concept theory developed by behavioural scientists, which seems to be the best explanation of human behaviour. The theory consists of four important stages for understanding oneself and the relationship with others who may work with you:

• The real self

• The ideal self

• The real other

• The ideal other

The real self is how you really see yourself and what you think of others. It is your ability, personality, and other factors that meet your needs of self-esteem. By discovering your aptitude and capabilities together with your skills and resources, you may discover some traits that will challenge a successful start to an undertaking of becoming your own boss. It is an imagination of what you would do in your life if you had the opportunity. Even if the idea seems unrealistic, do not exclude it from your plan. By understanding the goals that really matter to you, you will be able to stick with the investment.

The ideal self, on the other hand, is how you would like to think of yourself. It is that one personal goal that matters most. Perhaps your thoughts drifted for months, or even years, searching for ideas to start your own business. Should you start a restaurant, a travel agency, or a bookstore? Your thoughts may have concentrated on how to start an undertaking that will be fully satisfying. Your ideal self sets the objective to achieve financial success. This behaviour coincides with the real self, which proclaims that you are an average player who may not fully succeed in your goals. Your ideal self drives you to obtain the required skills to be fully successful.

The real other is concerned with how you feel other people really see you—what they think about your ability and personality. You may have many years of experience with a company and good management skills; don’t be afraid to put them into good use. Your ability to start a business may have been restrained by fear of failure. You constantly worry about what other people will think of you if you are not successful. You may believe that other people see you as a failure, whereas, in reality, they think of you as an inspirational person.

The ideal other is how you want other people to think of you. You are aiming at success; let them think of you as a leader and not a failure. If you lack the skills in certain areas, team up with someone who will provide the necessary skills or delay your project until you are better equipped. Meeting your objectives is not always easy. It sometimes requires good behavioural control and financial planning. It means implementing a program to attain your objectives.

The entire self-concept theory is based on how the individual perceives himself and what he thinks others think of him. Though money represents the goals we want to achieve, it is only the means to an end. That is why defining your actual goals are so important. Everyone has a different value system, and what is important to you may mean very little to someone else. Determining what you are truly trying to achieve also makes it easier to invest for your goal because you can formulate a clear-cut strategy to spell out the amount of money needed and the time frame required to make your goals a reality.

The three Ds for successful goal setting

Determination to meet your investment goals is the most powerful tool for successfully implementing your investment plan, but it will also require desire and drive. Without these three Ds, your plan will go nowhere. But with them, you will discover that you possess the ability to make a good start with your investment goals.

Your skill and experience will be useful to start the business, but your determination to work hard is essential. Many small business owners will tell you that they have worked longer hours than they did when they worked for someone else. Success in all business undertakings is acquired through hard work. Do you have the determination to work hard?

The desire to own your business is dependent on the knowledge you have acquired through research of the product or services you are about to offer. When you have selected your goals, you will need a good financial plan to make it function effectively. Although competition and other obstacles can upset your goal, without the desire to implement your goal, your plan will not be effective. Do you have the desire to implement your goal?

Although we are fully committed to working hard, we sometimes lack the willpower needed to remain motivated to completely achieve our plan. Without that driving force behind you, your project will not get off the ground. Thus failure will take possession of your financial dreams. Your determination to implement you goals will need your desire, drive, and determination to make it successful. Do you have the drive to proceed?

Notwithstanding your strong determination, desire, and drive, your quest for a profitable goal will depend on a suitable market for