The threat of new entrants is a constant and consistent one. You have the advantage in that your business is established, but that\'s no guarantee that a serious threat will not rise up to compete with you. In fact, it\'s pretty much assured that eventually somebody will either improve on your product, or they will find some new product that will supersede yours. There are two ways to combat this threat. The first is to keep innovating. Don\'t sit on your laurels, no matter how good your business is doing. Continue to search out new ideas and new talent and take risks, or risk your business. Secondly, establish a customer base. Keeping customer loyalty will be your best protection against the threat of new competitors. Always act in the interests of providing a quality product or service and you\'ll have a good, solid base when somebody eventually tries to woo them away from you.

The first place you should look is a good local library, usually a major city or a university one. They\'ll have a wealth of information about local business, free for you to find. Next, find a good business consultant. We would like to humbly suggest speaking to the good people at EM Advisory Corp. Finally, make an appointment to speak to the people at the local US Small Business Administration. They\'ll be able to help get you on the right track.

That\'s not an easy question to answer. It depends on what your business is, how long you\'ve been running it, where it is now, what the demand is, and several other factors. The advantage to leasing, of course, is that you aren\'t sinking as much money into the location right now, but it leave you with no resale or salvage value. Take some time to do a detailed cost analysis, especially with your financial planner. This is not an easy decision to make, and your best bet is to learn as much as you can about your specific situation before moving forward.

It very much depends on your business, but if you\'re running a small storefront in a local area, then location can be incredibly important. What you need to consider when choosing a location is availability of your prospective clientele, their ability to access your establishment, the potential employee pool, and the number of competitors nearby. Be sure to be liberal in your definition of "competitor" when you\'re considering this. Just because you run a bakery doesn\'t mean the sports bar down the way won\'t be drawing people into large, filling meals and pouring lots of alcohol that could prevent them from taking advantage of your lovely Black & White cookies.

First, let us recommend that you consult an expert on this, as setting price levels can be a complicated process. However, just as a basic idea, prices are based on a few major considerations. The first thing you need to consider is your direct costs (actual material costs), labor, and overhead (facilities, utilities, taxes, insurance, security, and general operating costs). When you add all of these things up, you have the break-even cost. From that point, you have to determine what you\'d like your profit to be. Again, that is a very complicated decision, and we suggest talking to a financial adviser before settling on something.

Market potential in general boils down to a very basic formula. You figure out a customer profile (who you want to target with your marketing) and combine that with the geographic size you want to target (how many of those people are in that area). This is your general market potential. To get a more specific marketing potential, you need to know also how many competitors you have and their strength in the market area. You can then estimate how much of their business you\'ll be able to take from them (we recommend being conservative on your estimates), and that will be the market potential of your business.

Marketing is much more than just advertising and selling. It involves learning about the market you want to sell to, understanding what they can afford, and how best to approach them. There are four basic aspects to marketing: product (description of what you’re selling), price (how much it costs), promotion (how you inform people of what you’re selling), and place (the distribution channels you use to get the product to the market). Keeping those in mind, you have a very basic concept of what is actually involved in marketing.

There\'s no way to anticipate your profits exactly before you actually make them, but there are ways to estimate them. There are standards of comparison called "industry norms and ratios" that are used by businesses to figure out roughly how much a business should be making in an area. They\'re broken down by standard industry classification (SIC) code by assets and size, and you can look up the kind of business you\'re in in your area. Several groups keep copies of these ratios, but you can usually find them at your local library or by contacting the SBA.

First, let me suggest that you work very closely with your financial adviser and accountant when making any decisions regarding the financial health of your business. That being said, what you\'ll need as far as start-up capital begins with equipment and building needs such as lease, equipment rental and purchase, and upkeep on all of it for a year. Next you\'ll need enough for both fixed and variable operating costs, which include your salary as an owner, telecommunications (internet service, phone service), and money to repay your loans in the interim, among other things, again for at least a year. Make sure when you\'re writing your business plan to work these costs out and talk with your accountant to help provide accurate estimates of what the variable costs will run.

That rather depends on who your family members are and if you feel that you can trust them to be good employees. Like with any other employee, you have work that needs to get done and they need to be able to do it. Which also means that you have to be able to keep your work and family life separate. In the end, it can work very well or very poorly, and you have to be willing to react either way.

Wages are a tricky thing, but generally they’re set on the basis of position importance and skill requirements. What you should do is consult your accountant and trade association for the most current practices in your area, as well as cost ratios and profit margins. There is a federal minimum wage and several states have one, but for the most part once you have an idea of what the standard is, wage is something that you work out with your prospective employee.

Taking on a partner doesn’t always make it easier to run your business and can, in fact, make it more difficult. What you should look for in a partner is somebody who compliments you, and makes up for your weaknesses with their strengths. I know somebody whose uncle was an amazing salesman, but didn’t know how to run a business, so he hired my friend’s father, who helped him quadruple his business within two years. Make sure if you do take on a partner that you have a clear understanding in writing of what everyone’s rights and responsibilities are.

If you\'re looking to import from Mexico, you want to contact the Trade Commission of Mexico in Los Angeles (350 S. Figueroa St, Suite 296, Los Angeles, California 90071, phone # (213) 628-1220). However, that\'s for general information. The US doesn\'t require a specific importer\'s license, but you will be asked for your "importer\'s number," which is either the IRS tax number of your business, or your social security number if you don\'t have a registered business. Otherwise, contact your local Customs office for more information on the paperwork you\'ll need. Also, read this document from the US Customs website: http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/newsroom/publications/trade/iius.ctt/iius.pdf

For now, I would suggest finding another potential business. While e-cigarettes are currently sold nationwide in over 4000 retail outlets, the FDA\'s findings show that they contain nitrosamines (which are the carcinogens found in regular cigarettes anyway) and diethylene glycol, the poisonous part of antifreeze. While it\'s by no means a sure thing, odds are that the FDA will either heavily regulate them (as they are considered now a "drug delivery device") or, more likely, ban them like was done in Australia. While you may be able to take advantage of the hype temporarily, it\'s not a business with much of a future.

There’s no formula for business success. No math will help you except the math on your balance sheet, so don’t look for one. There are some things that can help you, though. Sound management practices, technical support, experience in whatever industry you’re in, and the ability to plan will help you make the decisions you need in order to create a successful company. Remember, though, that even with all of these elements, there’s no guarantee that you’ll do well. It will still take a lot of hard work , a realistic outlook, and any number of other factors that you can\'t necessarily control.

This is an excellent question because it applies to so many business owners that simply don’t know what business they’re in. I don’t mean to sound insulting, but take a moment to actually look at your business and ask yourself what you do. Are you a laptop salesman? Or are you a laptop repairman? It sounds to me more like you’re in the repair business than the retail business. So scale back your retail operation and focus instead on the repair work where you’re making the most profit. There’s nothing wrong with cutting off parts of your business that are unprofitable, and when you realize what business you’re really in, you’ll find it’s also much easier to do that work and give you a better sense of where you want to go in the future.