Small businesses are the most difficult industry to break into. If you were a gambling man, you would never in a million years want to get into a small business when the odds of small business success are so bad that 70% of all small businesses fail within the first year. Let me be blunt, if you want to be successful in a small business, just listen to those people who have built a small business in an industry they know nothing about and have been successful. These are the people who seriously know how to build a small business.

I’m just one of those people, I’m not a business coach, I don’t offer small business consulting, just let me share with you my secret to building 4 small businesses with a three thousand dollar credit card.

The first secret in building a small business is to keep the end in mind. When I started in a small company, I was like most entrepreneurs, I was a technician (a bit more than that, but that’s how the E-myth would describe me) in the IT industry with the belief that I could build a better IT training company than the ones around me. One thing I can tell you about this industry, stay out of it. It’s hard and there’s no money in it, well that’s not entirely true, but there are much easier businesses out there to make serious money. In fact, I married my wife and decided that I wanted to experience if all businesses were as difficult as the training industry or if it was just computer training.

My wife and I, after much persuasion, agreed to set up a car detailing and cleaning business, we knew nothing about the business and were just doing it as an experiment. Two years later we have a thriving and successful business and are about to franchise and expand the business to over 10 cities in Australia.

The key to building a successful small business is keeping the end in mind and knowing when you are going out of business. Most people when they start a small business just think they are going to have a business to make money, go home and do better than their boss. If you are going to start a business for this reason, quit now, because your life is doomed.

There is more to business than just doing the technical work and this is what most new small business operators don’t realize. When you first think about starting a small business, imagine what it will look like when you’re done. For example, what image will you have, what logo will you have, what marketing material will you use, where will you operate from, how many stores will you have, how many people will work for you, what kind of profit will you make, and even more so, how will you know that the business is complete?

For example, let’s say you want to start a dog washing business. You saw in a market that there was a great need for dog washing. How will you satisfy the market? How are you going to build your business? How are you going to clean up the dogs? Are you going to build the business like others? When will you know the deal is over?

These are all the questions you should ask yourself. In fact, if you don’t ask yourself, you will find that your business can grow but without any focus. It will go so far and then it will become a huge noose around your neck. By knowing what the bottom line is going to be, then you have a clear goal of what you want to achieve and then you can build the business based on that vision.

Let me give you a very good example of this methodology. If you get the chance, watch the movie, Concierge with Micheal J Fox. Michael plays a concierge who has a vision to build a hotel. He first builds a model of the hotel and then sells the idea to a developer. As he tells himself in the movie, he knows all aspects of the hotel that he has built.

You, as a small business owner, need to do the exact same thing. Before you rush off and start your small business, you need to know exactly what you’re building, every aspect of it, and how to build it. You need to know every job, every role, every procedure, and how it will work within your business.

By building your business this way, you will learn very quickly what will and will not work.

Most people who want to start a small business will say they don’t have enough money. If you have a clearly articulated vision and can show that your vision works, there will always be someone willing to back you up. It may take a while to find someone to support you, but there are people who will. He just remembers that it took Walt Disney over 500 hits for Disneyland before he found a group of people to back him.

If you really want your vision to work, then you must be prepared to be relentless in your pursuit of success. Remember that the first secret to small business success is to build and develop your business with the end in mind.