Youve got your business ideas, you know what you want to sell and to whom. Youve even got enough money to survive for six months. The next bit is easy then. Sorry no its not now the hard grind starts. Here are some business myths that you should be careful not to believe.

Starting a new business is easy: Well you have done a lot of the hard work if youve done your planning but now you are working for yourself and need to be your own boss. You will need to set clear objectives, work towards them and keep yourself motivated.

I wont have to work so hard: Sorry but entrepreneurs generally work harder and longer hours, particularly at the start of their business life. The difference is that they generally enjoy it and get rewarded for their effort.

Ill be the boss: To a certain extent you will be BUT please remember that your customer is king. Look after them and, apart from your bank manager you are in total charge of your business!

If I need more money I just put up my prices: Should be true, but unfortunately the economic laws say that as prices go up usually the amount of items you sell goes down. There is a limit to what people will pay for an item before they start looking at alternative products or alternative suppliers. You are better to do one or more of the following:

1. Make your company more efficient so that your profits go up.
2. Increase your sales by up selling.
3. Sell again to existing customers.

I only have to work with people I like now: Sorry again but any experienced entrepreneur will tell you some customers are awful, demanding and unreasonable but if you make a profit out of them sometimes they are worth it. Anyone working in a service industry such as travel or hotels will have some wonderful tales to tell about impossible customers. You just learn to grow an extra skin to cope with their demands.

Ill have more time to do what I want to do: Sorry yet again but at the start of your business you will be very busy. BUT you will be able to decide what to do when well subject to your customers again.

Im in charge and can work how Ive always wanted to do: True to a certain extent, but some people find that they are the worst boss they ever had! Yes you can decide to manage things the way that you have always wanted to do. Just remember that sometimes the way other people did things may be as a result of having more experience than you do.

Im good at this so I am going to be a success: Hopefully if you have talent, work hard and have designed and planned your business well you will succeed. Just dont forget all those unplanned and unexpected things that may happen and for goodness sake dont spend what you dont have as yet.

So why do people start their own businesses? Simply because they want to and they want the kind of lifestyle that a successful business brings. Good luck with your new business.

Lee Lister

Lee Lister is Management Consultant and Program Manager with more than 25 year's management and consultancy experience and more than 20 year's program and project management experience in projects for Banking, Finance, Insurance, Leisure and Government bodies. She also have more than 10 years bid management experience ranging from bids for medium companies to large international and infrastructure bids.

British born, Lee received her BA(Hons) Financial Economics from the University of Essex. She went on to work in or for a considerable number of countries within Asia and Europe as well as Australia and the United States. While building a name for herself through helping company restructure, change management and project management consultancy, Lee became a well-known figure for her skills in analyzing, problem solving and trouble-shooting. She has consulted for many major industries, including banking, telecommunications, insurance, transportation, leisure and governments from many different countries. Some of the companies who have benefited from Lee?s expertise are Hewlett Packard, Siemans Nixdorf, Electrolux and the Philippines government.

Whilst working in the Far East she became a recognized expert on preparing and evaluating large World Bank Proposals (infrastructure projects within developing countries). These accomplishments called upon the skills of bid and project management, risk assessment, contract negotiation and supplier management and required dedicated work to very tight time scales. This expertise was acknowledged by an invitation to be the principle speaker at an International Business Development Conference in Washington, USA. She has also consulted at very senior level in several countries.

She owns and manages two companies, Biz Guru LLC in the USA and Biz Guru Services Ltd in the UK as well a considerable number of profitable web sites. She works almost entirely via the internet, visiting clients on site during major consultancies and training. Her Internet skills span from when major companies first started to consider obtaining their own web sites. During these years, she has kept up to date with the rapid changes on the internet, including the dot com boom and the resulting bust ? which her own web based companies survived.

She regularly consults, writes and lectures on business, bid management and marketing and has published numerous courses and books.