Zero" Capital Business Start Up?

You have been thinking about starting your very own business one day. However, as we are well aware of, starting your business without zero capital is proof to be extremely tough.

The very first obstacle is where do you find the much needed capital for setup, and stock inventory? These are just the beginning for some other consecutive barriers you'll face. Let's explore together on few ideas that had helped me on my initial venture into business world.

                                                  

1. Re-Sell Other's Services and Products

Go out and find companies that offer complimentary services or products to your own. Work out some sort of reseller deal with them. Yes, it could be tough as you are new to them; you have no prior reputation in negotiating a deal with them. But nothing is impossible. Knock on 100 doors and you shall get 1.

Start with that, and build upon it. You just take care of the customer services part. The beauty of doing this is that you can offer a great service without having to invest a large amount of capital before profits kicks-in.

Your clients might not even know that it's not you providing the actual products or services at the end of the day. But do they really care? NO, they would prefer to have your excellent service even if they find out the actual provider.

                                                 

2. Get Deposits To Help Cover Your Initial Expenses

Crazy as it sound? But it's true; deposits do proof to be a great way to help finance your start up business without ever needs to approach bank or finance company.

Take the example of the service industry, it's a common practice to have a percentage of a job quote as deposit. Do make sure this hard earned initial deposit would be able to cover ALL of your required job costs, and it's paid well before any actual work is being carried out.

Job costs as the phrase said are costs that definitely got to be paid way before hand. For example, materials cost, and contractor engagement needed for the job. However, this might not be practical in some cases because it could be in a large portion of the entire project or purchase amount. Nevertheless, a small amount of deposit in these situations could still very well prove to be much useful.

                                                      

3. Offer Instalment Terms to help your Cash Flow

Take yourself as example, would you appreciate some form of flexible payment terms by vendor when you couldn't afford to put in large amount of capital needed initially? Same principal here, offering different payment methods could also help you in getting more sales as well as improving your business cashflow.

But beware, its up-most important that if you do finally decided in offering such payment terms. You ought to pre-amp and setup an effective Debt-collection strategy to be in place. Get your bookkeeper or company secretary to handle it. They are pretty good at sending effective letters of payment demand. Just try not to be nasty. It could ruin your reputation.

To also cover the expenses incurred in debt collection, it would also prove to be useful to add extra 5% to 10% onto the initial job quote if your client requests such payment terms. This is also a commonly understood and well accepted practice; it shouldn't have hurt your sales nor your business establishment. Don't be shy, you need to feed your stomach and your staffs cost too.

                                         

4. Hire Per-Contract Employee

In another word, get contractual staff. This is another great option in ensuring that you don't have to tie down with monthly payroll cost. It also helps to keep your employees feel motivated to perform what are expected of them and to perform them well. If they don't perform, the job will go to others.

The easiest or simplest way to this is by having some standard contract form pre-drawn before hand. You could change it as needed on different project requirements. Doing this will enable you to end the business relationship with your contractor if they are not performing up to your expectations. Protect your little baby company; you don't want it to get blown up right?

                                            

5. Bridging Capital

When you are facing extreme difficulty in securing initial capital, credit cards could also a good option to help financing a small business. Caution, you'll have to be very cautious in ensuring that you don't end up using them for personal or unnecessary expenses.

As long as you are able to keep them in watch and paid up, you should be able to enjoy following benefits available from this options: - Enjoying up to 30 days interest free period!

- The more credit cards you own, it is much easier to obtain more cards!

- Get points and bonus rewarded by using credit card.

Yes, the biggest problem associates with credit cards are their known high interest rate. However, if you do pay up the full amount used within specified Interest Free period, they're actually a much cheaper option than other financing options! Do your maths carefully.

Getting up a business with low or no capital proof to be hard but it is not wholly a Mission Impossible. Start spinning your brain, use these little ideas to help your business, and watch your new business grows!

Do Your Maths carefully, and you could reach up there too!

Source:James Little