Canadian Small Business Kit For Dummies®, 4th Edition
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019939298
ISBN 978-1-119-57589-4 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-57584-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-57587-0 (ebk)
Starting a business is an exciting — and often frightening — adventure. Who knows where you may end up? To keep from getting lost on your journey exploring business opportunities, you need help setting up your business — choosing the right vehicle, charting the right course, and heading out with the right equipment. This book gives you a head start on your voyage.
According to Industry Canada’s recent Key Small Business Statistics, the Canadian economy totalled 1.17 million businesses. Of these, 1.14 million (97.9 percent) were small businesses — namely, enterprises with fewer than 100 employees. But for just about every one of the 100,000 new businesses created each year, there are others that no longer operate due to bankruptcy, insolvency, retirement, or other reasons. In fact, these statistics also show that about 85 percent of small businesses survive for three years, and 70 percent survive for five years. That’s a pretty high failure rate.
In addition to external circumstances beyond anyone’s control, exits from small businesses are commonly driven by the fact that many small business owners are poorly prepared to go into business. They don’t know the things they need to know that will allow their businesses to succeed. This book isn’t long enough to tell you everything you need to know about going into business for yourself, but it gives you a really good head start and addresses many of the root cause “knowledge gaps” often attributed to business failures.
Within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If you’re reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as it’s noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist. If you’re reading this as an e-book, you’ve got it easy — just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.
We wrote this book for people who want to go into business for themselves. You have aspirations of being an entrepreneur, but that’s all we know about you. We don’t assume that you know where your business will be located, or even what it will be. We don’t assume that you have any background knowledge about law or risk management or insurance or accounting or marketing or anything else for that matter. We do assume that you have a computer with Internet access, although we don’t assume that you’re a techno-nerd. We assume that you are intelligent and self-motivated. And we assume that you’re aware that this book is just the start of a long journey that will entail a lot of work but will hopefully confer great rewards, too.
Scattered along the left-hand side of this book are little icons. Here’s a guide to what they mean:
This icon draws your attention to important information you’ve probably already forgotten if we’ve told you about it before, or to information that we want you to remember in the future.
This icon suggests that we’re going to say something that will make your eyes glaze over. But we use it sparingly — instead we try to make sure to cover technical points in understandable language, so you hardly know you’ve hit a technical bump at all.
This icon tells you to sit up and pay attention. We’re telling you something that’s worth acting on or keeping in mind.
This icon says that you’re heading for trouble and should reconsider your flight path!
In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this product also comes with some access-anywhere goodies on the web.
Check out the free Cheat Sheet for help on determining whether you have a small business personality, a list of five great websites for setting up a Canadian small business, and five reasons why small businesses fail. To get the Cheat Sheet, just go to www.dummies.com and type Canadian Small Business Kit For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.
This book includes companion downloadable content. You can find just about every form, table, questionnaire, and contract that we mention in this book on the Downloads tab at www.dummies.com/go/csbkfd4e.
You don’t have to read this book in order. Each chapter is self-contained, so you can pick up some information here and some information there about a topic that’s of particular interest to you. For example, if you’re interested in buying a franchise, have a look at Chapter 5. If you’re keen to incorporate, take a peek at Chapter 6. Worried about where you’re going to get the money for everything you need to run your business? Check out Chapters 9 and 10. If you’re forward-thinking, and you’re already envisioning how your business will expand, go to Chapter 18.
But if you’re really thinking of starting a business and you haven’t been in business before, we recommend that you begin at the beginning and read until you reach the end.
Part 1
IN THIS PART …
Figure out whether you’ve got the right stuff to go into business for yourself in the first place.
Find information about starting and carrying on a business.
Decide what ideas you’ll want to use in your business and whether you can get the legal right to use them.
Choose which product or service you want to offer.