For 25 years, I have studied entrepreneurs and discovered that what contributed to their incredible success was not what society typically considers assets. People like John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford and Oprah Winfrey didn’t achieve greatness by possessing the traits and following the narrow path recommended by management gurus.

So, don’t believe everything others say about you or how they label you. Maybe your supposed liabilities are really your assets. Here are 12 signs many people might consider a liability, but which can actually be indications that you are meant to be an entrepreneur.

1. Hate the Status Quo – It doesn’t make sense to you that something has been done the time-honored way with no explanation why. You are not someone who wants to just go through the motions or sit by idly. Nor do you like following the pack.

2. Easily Bored – You find yourself easily bored, and others start viewing you as a problem. But nothing is wrong with you except that you are bored with activities that aren’t up to your abilities and aren’t challenging. That’s why you hated most of the classes you ever attended. Think Bill Gates who dropped out of college to become one of the richest men in the world.

3. Fired from Jobs – You’re too creative for your own good when it comes to working for others, and you may have some history, as I do, of losing jobs. Being just a cog in wheel is very difficult for you because you want to create something others can be inspired by and contribute to.

4. Labeled a Rebel – You know that greatness resides outside the lines of conformity and don’t think that policies, laws and regulations apply to you. You have been described as a rebel and rule breaker and would defy gravity if you could.

5. Resist Authority – You have a lifelong record of resisting authority from your parents, teachers and bosses. You don’t go along with the agreed upon norms of the group or community you work and live in.

6. Ready to Improve Everything – You always see how you could do things better. In addition, you are opinionated and freely give your two-cents about your better way of doing things–even when you’re not asked.

7. Bad at Making Small Talk – You have difficulty making the kind of small talk that so many people get comfort from. This social pattern of relationship and rapport building seems like a waste of time to you and makes you uncomfortable.

8. Bullied in Your Youth – You may have been heavily criticized, picked on and even bullied as a child or teenager. This has caused you to be driven to excel and to prove to the world that you are indeed a force to be reckoned with.

9. Obsessive – You may have been labeled obsessive/compulsive because when you get started on something you have difficulty letting go. Don’t let anyone convince you that this is a disease or deficiency. All of the great entrepreneurs become completely immersed in their vision. Howard Schultz stuck with Starbucks even when his family tried to persuade him not to.

10. Scared to Go Solo – The entrepreneur in you is scared of going out on your own—and also terrified of not doing so. This fear is so common in our society because we’ve been conditioned to think that entrepreneurship is much riskier than getting a “good job.” The reality is there is instability in both.

11. Unable to Unwind – You can’t go to sleep at night because you can’t turn your thoughts off. An idea may even manifest itself in your dreams. The next morning you find yourself still consumed with that idea, distracting you from the job you’re supposed to be doing.

12. Don’t Fit the Norm – You have always been a bit uncomfortable in your own skin. Until you get used to the idea that you are in fact different from most people, it could prove to be a problem–or exactly the motivation you need to acknowledge the entrepreneur screaming to get out.

Grant Cardone is the author of The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure (2011), published by John Wiley & Sons Inc.

The relationship between a customer and a business is based on trust. Is your website customer-friendly? Start with the five things that belong on the front page of every business website.

1. Contact information: A recent survey by Chantilly, Va.-based local media and advertising research group BIA/Kelsey indicates that nearly 75 percent of small-business websites don’t have an email link on their homepage. And six out of 10 don’t have a phone number.

Minimally, your site should have a clear email link and a phone number. If you have a physical location, consider including the full address with the state and zip code, as well as a map and directions.

2. Images that represent what you do: If you sell wedding cakes, for instance, the front page of your website should have a picture of one of your cakes. As basic as this sounds, many business sites use irrelevant graphics such as butterflies and family photos, or worse, no graphics at all.

But be mindful of how you display images. Think twice before making them spin or shake or do anything else that can be distracting or irritating.

3. Clear navigation with working links: The front page of your site should have a clear navigation system either across the top or down one side of the page. The buttons should be clearly marked with words that correspond to the content on your site and help customers quickly find what they’re looking for. Also consider including buttons for shipping options, FAQs and background on your company.

It’s also important to click your links on a regular basis to make sure they all work, or use Google Webmaster Tools to identify any 404 errors. Broken links not only prevent shoppers from completing their orders, they can also make it appear as if you don’t care about your business.

4. An email signup box: One effective way to encourage customer loyalty is with a regular newsletter. Put a signup box on the front page of your website and offer rewards, such as a discount on a future order to anyone who submits his or her email address. Services such as Mailchimp offer simple ways of doing this.

5. Social media links: Help customers stay in touch by providing links to your social media accounts right on your front page. Use recognizable icons linked to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn. You can also use feed widgets to encourage instant follow-up as well as social media sharing.

Cynthia Boris is a freelance writer based in Orange County, Calif. Covering all things tech and TV, her work has appeared on websites such as Tecca, MarketingPilgrim, SheKnows and io9.

Entrepreneurs are not born, they are made. Children born into entrepreneurial families tend to toe that path naturally, but there is a point they made that choice to follow family tradition. Before the industrial age, most families had a small business. Before money became a legal tender, people traded for goods and services through trade by barter. Everyone has something unique to offer the marketplace. Only kings and royals had slaves (present day equivalent of employees. Children inherited the family business as the patriarchs passed on, and followed in the foot steps of their fore fathers.

With the advent of the industrial age, focus shifted from agriculture and small businesses to big factories which created jobs and new economies. Then began the rural urban migration whereby folks abandoned their farms to go look for work in the cities. The culture of entrepreneurship and self reliance gave way to working hard for salaries, gratuity and pensions. With the dawning of the information age in the early 90s, The world has changed yet again. Entrepreneurship is on the rise again. University drop puts are making it big and showing up on Forbes rich list while highly educated employees now work for not so educated entrepreneurs.

Once upon a time, we were all entrepreneurs. We seemed to have come round a full circle as the information age if giving birth to entrepreneurship. Companies no longer carry the burden of gratuity and pensions, having passed that over to pension fund managers who invest the funds. Job security is gone with the wind while unemployment has risen to all time highs. Getting a job is no longer a guarantee after graduation. The government seems helpless in the face of an increasing number of unemployed. The best answer seems to be a return to our roots – entrepreneurship.

There is a drop of entrepreneurship in every man. With a new mindset, we can turn our passion, skills, hobby etc and turn it into a profitable business. One does not have to start big. You don’t even need an office at the beginning. You can start a part time business in your free time, right from your sitting room, and grow it until you have sufficient income to rent an office and hire staff. By starting small, your risks are much lower while you learn on the job. As you gain confidence, you can up your game and grow your business.

With the end of the industrial age and rise of globalization, there is no alternative to entrepreneurship. We have to make up our minds and embrace it. Depending solely on your salary is a risky place to be financially. Everyone needs multiple streams of income. Starting a business is the fastest way to grow wealth. With a business, you are in full control. In the face of difficulties, when you are prepared to learn, you will always pull through. Starting a business offers freedom and fun – doing what you love and loving what you do.

The future belongs to entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs create jobs, revive economies and cities and enable dreams come true. The businesses of tomorrow are created by entrepreneurs of today. Reach inside yourself an connect with the entrepreneur in you. Stop procrastinating and start that business today.

Life is too short to spend it following someone else’s dream or living someone else’s life. Since most of your life will be spent working, you better do what you are passionate about. The best place to be is where what you love, what you are good at and what you are passionate about meet. This is a match made in heaven. It is a place of rich fulfillment. This is where work seems like play. You get paid for having fun. You are in your natural elements, like fish back in water. It is your duty to find that place for yourself. No one can do it for you.

If you are in business to stay, you will experience up and downs. If you are not passionate about your work, or have a sense of mission and contribution, you suffer burnout and give up easily. When you focus on yourself and what you can get, you will get easily discouraged when the going gets tough. When you focus on what you have to give, you can easily rise above challenges, run without getting tired and build an institution that will outlive you. Building an enduring business is not a hundred meter dash. It is a marathon. You cannot go the distance unless you have the fuel of passion to propel you forward, especially when progress is not apparent.

It is possible to succeed in business without having a passion for the product. You can go in to exploit an opportunity and put a team together to run with the vision. It takes skill and passion in building businesses to pull this off. That is how you can have someone own 15 businesses and still counting. The founder does not run the business himself – he builds a business and puts together a winning team to manage it. It takes passion and skill to recognize the right opportunity and put the right team together to make it succeed.

If you are in it for the long haul, to be able to maintain focus and momentum in a sustainable basis, you need to follow your passion, so that you will be able to stick with it come rain and high water. If you love what you do, and do what you love, then you can be your best and give your best. When you play in the domain of your strength, you stand a better chance to succeed rather than stick with it for what you can get, while your soul yearns for something else. The best way to succeed is to be yourself. Follow your passion.

To start with, an employee seeks for security while and entrepreneur seeks freedom. A typical employee thanks about what is in it for him – pay package, bonuses, time off and vacations, sick leave with pay, vacation pay, pension and gratuity etc. On the other hand, the entrepreneur thinks about what is unique that he can bring to the marketplace to create enough value to build a company around it and hopefully a huge pay day.

An employee will hardly work for free while an entrepreneur gladly does. An employee has fixed working hours while an entrepreneur will gladly work 16 hours a day including weekends without batting an eyelid. An employee wants his reward immediately while and entrepreneur is ready to wait.

Due to opposing mindsets, the transition period for an employee making the crossing to the world of entrepreneurship is quite challenging. It is recommended it should not drag out longer than 5 years if it can be helped. For one, there is the conflict of mindsets which tend to pull one in opposite directions. During transition, you are neither an employee nor an entrepreneur. With employees, your entrepreneurs mindset makes you sound strange among your colleagues.

As an employee, you may belong to a Union and fight your management to a standstill. Within, you have an internal conflict, as you would not allow a Union to operate in your company. With entrepreneurs, you are still looked at as part employee. You don’t fully belong. You cannot attend events during working hours, as you are still strapped to your day job. In effect, you are neither here nor there. You are a hybrid – part employee, part entrepreneur. If you have no one in the same situation to relate with, you feel lonely. Your employee colleagues do not understand why you want to leave while your entrepreneur friends do not understand why you are clinging to your day job.

In this place of internal conflict, especially with regards your final exit date, there are no easy answers. You need to set goals, work towards them and when you achieve your exit parameters, gather up your courage, close your eyes and jump. You are walking a well worn path. You are not alone. Be true to yourself, follow your dreams, prepare for the worst, hope for the best and go for it. The future belongs to risk takers

Many entrepreneurs know that if the profits are up, they make more money. If low, they make less money. Everything the entrepreneur does therefore is always in the direction of keeping profits up. When she is watching closely and limiting the cost of doing business, it is because of profits. When she does everything to woo and retain customers, the motive is profit. When she innovates and perpetually finds cheaper and better ways to do business, profit is the motive. When she works harder and puts in many more hours into running the business, profit is the motive. This is because without profits she works in vain. In many civilized countries of the world, that is called slavery. No one willingly becomes a slave no matter the circumstance. For that reason, an entrepreneur who wants to make money keeps a close watch on profits accruing from her business instead of the regular stipend a paycheck guarantees.

To start and run a small business requires a process, a proven and repeatable process. Expected results are always projected well into the future and profit-takings form a major yard-stick for measuring success. Everything being done when the process commences is always in the direction of making a profit. When the focus is on a paycheck, whether the business makes a profit or not, the paycheck is expected on schedule. That is why paychecks have limits and are highly predictable with some measure of accuracy. Paychecks merely keep the earners only at sustenance level. People hardly expect to make plenty of money from earning a paycheck no matter how hard they work. Working harder rarely changes the value of a paycheck. Whereas, working harder and keeping costs lower greatly increases the profits of an enterprise. This is what smart entrepreneurs know that enables them to make more money than paycheck-earners. They perpetually keep their eyes on the profits accruing to the business and they do everything they do in the direction of keeping profits up. They have some measure of control over their earnings whereas paycheck earners have no control over what they earn. It is that control which gives entrepreneurs the power they are at liberty to use as they please. It is the discretionary use of that power that largely determines how well entrepreneurs do in their various enterprises. That is why some make it more than others. It is for same reason that some do not make it at all.

Profit mind-set is what propels entrepreneurs to keep sales high and overheads low. That is because they know that the margin between both is where they get their benefits. These benefits could be stupendous depending how good the business year was. In many cases, such benefits are always over and above the cumulative total of paycheck earnings over the same period of time. Focusing on how these benefits come about therefore is always a major preoccupation of many smart entrepreneurs. That is how they get to make the money they make from their chosen businesses.

Sule Yesufu, a Certified Speaking Professional, is a Strategic Partner in S D Y Management Consult, a firm of Investment, Small Business and Entrepreneurial Consultants. An expert in Small Business and Personal Development, he focuses on communicating his ideas and thoughts mostly through his training seminars and popular free blog. He offers useful tips on Self-Improvement, Personal Finance, Entrepreneurship, Current News, Politics and Business in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa.
For more tips visit: http://www.sdymanagers.com/apps/blog/

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Culled from Stanford News

It doesn’t matter what home-based business you are planning, it could be a nail salon, pet grooming service, language tutor, physiotherapist, landscape gardener, affiliate marketer or eBay seller. Before you take another step, you need to decide what kind of legal structure will be most suitable for your venture.

The 3 Most Common Types Of Business Structure

While there are a number of different types of business structure, there only three main types that you need to explore when operating a home-based business: Sole Trader, Partnership or Private Limited Company.* Below is a breakdown of each type of business structure, together with their advantages and disadvantages, what you have to do to set them up and finally what the costs are likely to be.

*There are others such as Public Limited Companies, Private Unlimited Companies and Right-to-Manage Companies, but there’s no need to worry about them. If your business takes off and your empire expands, just get your lawyers to sort it out.

1. Sole Trader

Setting up as a sole trade is by far the simplest and most straightforward way of starting a business. You can start up at any time simply by registering your business and there is no fee! The good news is that, after tax, any profits go straight into your pocket. The bad news is that if your business fails you are personally liable for any debts, which means that your house and any other assets can be seized.

The Advantages:

• Fast start-up with no registration fee
• Minimal records and accounting
• Greater flexibility as you can control when and where you work
• Greater privacy as you don’t have to answer to anyone else
• Any profit after taxes is yours and yours alone

The Disadvantages:

• You are personally liable for any debts
• You are solely responsible for all the legal requirements and paperwork that come with submitting your yearly tax bill and paying your own National Insurance Contributions (NICs)
• Premiums for insurances such as life, home and car are generally higher

How To Become A Sole Trader

All you need to do is register with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), which you can do online by going to HMRC.You will be asked some basic information about yourself and your business, HMRC will gladly set up tax records for you and you are ready to go! Once registered, you’ll receive a self-assessment tax return that you have to complete every tax year (6th April to 5th April) and the kind people at HMRC will calculate how much you owe. NB: Even if you already fill in an annual tax return, you need to inform HMRC as soon as possible or you may be fined!

The Records You Have To Keep

• General bookkeeping of expenditure and income of all business-related costs
• If you are employing people you need to either contract them as a supplier and keep a note of costs or, if you employ them full-time, calculate their monthly Income Tax and NICs with Pay As You Earn (PAYE)

What It Will Cost You

• Income tax on any profit
• Class 2 National Insurance at the fixed rate
• Class 4 National Insurance on any profits
• PAYE if you are employing people

2. Partnership

If you don’t want to go it alone, a business partnership is the next natural progression. In essence, a partnership is two or more self-employed people working together and sharing the workload and any resultant profits. While it’s not a legal requirement to have a formal agreement in place, I strongly advise it! Like any relationship it all starts out with good intentions and a shared vision, but things go wrong, circumstances change and it can all too easily end up in tears. I once set up a partnership with two of my best friends and it all went swimmingly for nearly three years until the cracks started to appear. The result was a long drawn-out court battle to ‘divorce’ our partnership, resulting in two fewer names on my Christmas card list.

The Advantages:

• Fast start-up with no registration fee
• No formal agreement required (although recommended)
• Minimal records and accounting
• Someone to bounce ideas off and share the workload
• Shared cost and risk
• Any profit after taxes is shared between the partners

The Disadvantages:

• With a simple partnership you are not only liable for the overall partnership’s debts but also any debts incurred by other partners regardless of whether you agreed to the expenditure or not.
• Profits are generally shared in equal proportions regardless of the actual working contribution made
• You are jointly responsible for all the legal requirements and paperwork that come with submitting your yearly tax bill and paying your own National Insurance
• Premiums for insurances such as life, home and car are generally higher.

 How To Form A Partnership

Each partner must register individually with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) (even if any of the partners already fills in an annual tax return, you all must inform them as soon as possible or you may be fined!) Optional: a deed of partnership outlining how the business will be run and duties and responsibilities of each partner. You don’t have to go to a lawyer to draw up a partnership, simply draw up and sign a mutually agreeable division of profits and, most importantly, what happens in the event of the partnership breaking down.

The Records You Have To Keep

• One partner should be appointed the nominated officer, responsible for submitting the annual partnership tax return
• General bookkeeping of expenditure and income of all business-related costs accrued by each partner
• A partnership statement showing how profits (or losses) have been divided amongst the partners
• In the majority of cases, each partner is responsible for paying their individual Income Tax or National Insurance Contributions based on the above
• If you are employing people you need to either contract them as a supplier and keep a note of costs or if, you employ them full-time, calculate PAYE

What It Will Cost Each Partner

• Income tax on any apportioned profit
• Class 2 National Insurance at the fixed rate
• Class 4 National Insurance on any apportioned profits
• PAYE if the partnership is employing people

2b. Limited Liability Partnership

The main difference between an LLP and a standard partnership is that the business is liable for the business’ debts and not the individual partners. This protects partners from personal bankruptcy and debts incurred by other partners, but offers exactly the same tax advantages as a normal partnership. All the other details for forming and running an LLP partnership are as above, except that accounts will most likely have to be audited and filed at Companies House.

3. Private Limited Liability Company

If you really want to protect yourself from any potential business failure, then it may be wise to choose a Private Limited Liability Company. The company is owned by its shareholders, yet it is an entirely separate legal entity and the structure of the company limits the shareholders’ liability to the value of the shares issued. Which basically means that if the business goes bust, your personal assets can’t be touched (unless you have been acting illegally… ). There is no minimum share capital requirement, but shares cannot be offered to the public and any profit is paid to shareholders in the form of a dividend.

The Advantages:

• Keeps business and personal finances completely separate
• If the business goes bankrupt, you don’t
• Generally regarded as a safer business trading partner than a sole trader or partnership

The Disadvantages:

• Lots of paperwork and lots more rules

Before you can start trading you need a certificate of incorporation issued by the Registrar of Companies. While Companies House will automatically pass on your details HMRC, you also need to contact your local HMRC office to advise them of your company’s existence.

The Records You Have To Keep

• Your company’s name, place of registration, registered number and registered office address must be displayed clearly on everything from your letterheads to invoices, websites to emails
• Detailed bookkeeping of all business-related expenditure
• All payments to salaried directors, employees and contracted services
• Self-assessment of the level of corporation tax to be paid

What It Will Cost

• Corporation tax on all profits
• PAYE to collect monthly Income Tax and National Insurance Contributions from all employees and directors

Value Added Tax (VAT)

Finally, regardless of the business structure you choose, by law you must register for VAT if your business is going to turn over more than the current figure of £77,000 per year. If you genuinely don’t believe that your business will exceed this figure then you can wait, but keep a careful eye on your monthly figures! HM Customs and Excise has more power than the police and can enter your home at any time, without a warrant, and seize anything they believe is related to their enquiry. I remember getting two hours’ notice about a visit from an inappropriately named Mr Pratt from the VAT office, who proceeded to audit my returns with uncanny insight. As a result, by the time he had left my office, he or rather HMRC was several thousand pounds richer.

Moral: don’t mess with the VAT office!

Visit HomeforBusiness for more work from home business tips and ideas.

Daughter, Sister, Wife, Mother of three, PR Consultant and Entrepreneur

Like many women on most days I seem to have to juggle all my roles. On other days just three or four. This is why I founded Homeforbusiness. I recognise what it takes to be a working Mum and how to set up an online business from home with all ‘pulls’ of everyday family life and work.

I have always been entrepreneurial and set up by first corporate communications company, EMA Productions, in my 30s working with big corporate clients such as Texaco, Rank and Boots. Whilst it was challenging and hard work, it was quickly successful. I could focus solely on winning contracts and meeting the clients needs without family distractions and with the support of a fantastic team and office.

I feel very passionate about HomeforBusiness as I believe that lots of people want to create a better work/life balance and work from home, either setting up a new business or working as a freelancer. There are hundreds of genuine opportunities for people but often people do not know how to start. I want HomeforBusiness to empower anyone who wants to work from home profitably. With a panel of guest experts I will share share genuine business opportunities, business ideas, advice on running a business, online marketing, and health and wellbeing tips. I have also put together my favourite free online resources.

By Elizabeth W Conley - http://www.homeforbusiness.co.uk/

However, you have to be the one to decide now: to change your destiny, to live your dreams, to dream big and to live without limits. If you decide to become successful, you will because you’ve made the decision and you are planning to continue forward until you succeed. You have the drive to make a new beginning in your life regardless of what the naysayers are telling you-Dream big and live life without limits.

You need to make changes: in the right direction, for the better in your life situation in order to achieve your dreams. If you’d like to make a change in your life for the better and make a difference in your financial situation, the choice is all yours. You need to make a decision to take a leap of faith and sometimes risk it all for the end goal. What is that end goal? It’s finding that pot of gold under the rainbow.

Are you driven to succeed, to make a change, to be your best you and to change someone else’s life?

The best thing in life is to make someone else’s life better. It’s the best feeling in the world to know that you’ve made a difference for the better in someone’s life. Wouldn’t you like to make a difference for someone today? There are little things you can do for others. However, if you want to make a big difference for someone, then you usually need money. By becoming and entrepreneur, you can make the money you need to make and achieve that goal and help others in the process.

Focus on Success: to succeed, to win, to make a change in your life and to become an entrepreneur.

Winning is an option if you are the type of person who knows how to prepare, plan and persevere during difficulty. Winners are the ones who plan to succeed and don’t plan to fail. They plan to take the necessary steps, even the difficult ones, in order to make a success and win the races in life.

Winning is feasible: when you work hard, when you make a plan, when you believe and when you try hard to make it. The only person who is never going to win the race in life is the one who only sits on the sidelines and never wants to jump into the game of life and play. Now you need to follow rules as you go along this journey towards becoming a true entrepreneur, but you won’t have any success at all if you never even step up to the plate to bat.

Joanne Troppello is an author of romantic suspense novels http://joannetroppello.weebly.com/blog.html. She is married and loves spending time with her husband and family. Joanne and her husband, John own and operate Mustard Seed Marketing Group, LLC http://www.mustardseedmarketinggroup.com, they are Ind. Distributors with Shaklee and they are Empower Network affiliate members. They are network marketing coaches who teach that you don’t have to be an SEO guru or a social media specialist to make their system work for you.

7 Qualities which make up an entrepreneur profile our:-
Why, Mindset, Attitude, Persistence, Passion, SBQ, Belief

1. Why:-

“Try not to be a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” – Albert Einstein

The foremost important reason for any start up business has to be the WHY. If the fundamental reason for doing the business is just making more money one is bound to fail.

The reason has to have an EQ (emotional quotient) without which the need to do it, when the going gets tough, will disappear and the failure is assured. The reason has to have a strong emotional connect that helps you stay on course in this journey which will test your Mental, physical and social abilities in all ways possible.

2. Mindset:-

“We all talk to ourselves. A major key to success exists in what we say to ourselves, which helps to shape our attitude and mindset.”- Darren L. Johnson

The entrepreneur should be a Visionary and accustomed to delayed gratification.

Starting a business does not mean 1-2 yrs but at least a 5-10 yrs of hard work & 100 % commitment of mind, body and soul. The mind has to prepared for the long haul and not for instant gratification like one is normally used to in a JOB… i.e like getting the salary on 1st of every month.

3. Attitude:-

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”-Thomas Jefferson

The attitude is one of the prime factors for the success of an entrepreneur and it has to be positive at all times.

Whatever the circumstances, and there will be more negative than positives ones, one has to remain positive with the mind focused only on the end goal to overcome the failures and defeats and turn the lessons learned from them into tools of success.

4. Persistence:- The entrepreneur has to persistent in their approach to the business.

“The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail. Napoleon Hill.”

Persistence helps to keep the entrepreneurial journey on the right path and the goal in sight thus exponentially increasing the chance of success.

5. Passion:-

“It’s hard to tell with these Internet start ups if they’re really interested in building companies or if they’re just interested in the money. I can tell you, though: If they don’t really want to build a company, they won’t luck into it. That’s because it’s so hard that if you don’t have a passion, you’ll give up.”

Steve Jobs

Passion is the fuel of the entrepreneur and without it success can’t be achieved. passion is the sum total of all the belief one has in their venture and drives the entrepreneur forward with high energy.

6. SBQ:- Social Benefactor Quotient .

“While it may be true that the best advertising is word-of-mouth, never lose sight of the fact it also be the worst advertising.”

Jeff I. Richards

In today’s world where social networking like Facebook and twitter play a major role in a billion lives. The product or service your business provides, unless and until, it does not have a social impact on the person buying it, it will not have a long shelf life.

Your product or service should make a difference, in the life of your customer and make them refer it to their circle of influence. It should help the consumer in enhancing their as well as the lives of people around them.

7. Belief:-

“Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture.” Lydia M. Child

The belief in oneself has to unconditional and 100 %. it the greatest investment one can make in themselves when embarking on an entrepreneurial journey.

By Samrat Sabharwal - http://samratsabharwal.wordpress.com/