Expert help can help

While the statistics overwhelmingly list the primary reasons for failure as "industry weakness" and "insufficient profits", they tend to obscure what I believe is an important factor: that many businesses are doomed to failure because the entrepreneurs refused to bring in the right resources to help them succeed.

Over the years, I've seen many enthusiastic entrepreneurs who I know will inevitably fail because they underestimated the difficulty in achieving business success and overestimated their ability to take the proper steps to increase their odds of success. So who do you really need to get involved right from the start?

First, you need a good business consultant. This person should be able to help you develop your business plan, including your marketing, financial, and operational strategy. Ideally, this person should have a good background in marketing, finance, accounting, and law so that he or she can handle your basic needs and questions. He or she should also be able to advise you on other specialized resources you might need, and have experience in dealing with businesses similar to yours.

Second, plan on hiring an accountant to help you get your accounting system properly established. You will want to do this not only for tax reporting reasons, but also to help you be able to easily generate reports to understand your financial situation, including where your revenues and expenses are coming from. Once your accounting system is established, you may choose to handle your own bookkeeping, use your accountant, or hire a separate person to do this.

Third, bring in an attorney anytime you are putting your signature on an important legal document, such as a purchase agreement to buy an existing business or lease. A good attorney can also help you make important business startup decisions such as whether to incorporate, how to protect yourself against future lawsuits, or how to negotiate a contract with favorable terms.

True, expert help will not come free. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe they can learn it all and do it all themselves, thereby saving themselves the cost of hiring experts. This is not to say that they lack the intelligence to do this - oftentimes they simply lack the time. If it takes an expert one hour to do something it would take the entrepreneur 40 hours to do themselves, it is certainly well worth hiring the expert. Time is money. Too often it is too late before many entrepreneurs realize this.