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A company is a collection of persons that do business for a specific purpose, either for profit or not non-profit. A company is a legal person, which means it is taxed separately from its owners, who are called shareholders. The company has to pay all its debts. How can a woman start and register each type of business?
Sole proprietorship — a person can simply start a sole proprietorship, there are no formalities or founding documents and it does not need to be registered.
Greg, this post on the 4 Question Business Plan is outstanding. You must have all three of these at work in your business to be successful. I so appreciate this post. We have seen the same companies take totally different directions and immediately the plan becomes ineffective. In the next 3, 6, 12 months, what are specific milestones you want to accomplish?
Partnership — two or more persons must have the intention to enter into a valid partnership agreement to start a partnership. A partnership agreement can be in writing or verbal spoken words.
A partnership does not have to be registered. Company — the persons must first decide what type of company they would like to start; a profit or non-profit company. Once this has been decided, a name can be reserved and then the founding documents may be lodged for registration at the Companies and Intellectual Properties Commission of South Africa.
What are some of the risks involved in each type of business? Sole proprietorship — the business will stop existing when the owner dies; the owner is personally liable for the losses of the business; and the name of the business is not reserved or protected and can be stolen by another business. Partnership — the partnership ends when a partner dies or is replaced; the partners are jointly and severally liable for losses; any one of the partners can be held liable; and they are not as stable as other businesses, like companies. Company — it has to be registered and a fee must be paid; it has to comply with the Companies Act; it has more difficult decision-making procedures than other businesses; and it gets monitored strictly by many organisations, like the Companies Tribunal.
Some important rights are, the right to maternity leave; the right not to be discriminated against; and the right not to be sexually harassed. A pregnant employee is entitled to at least four months of maternity leave. However, the employer and employee may agree to more than four months of maternity leave. Maternity leave may start at any time from four weeks before her expected delivery date birth or a date given by her medical practitioner, which is necessary for her health or the health of her child. An employee may not return to work for six weeks after the birth of her child, unless approved by her medical practitioner.
An employee who had a miscarriage during the third trimester of her pregnancy or had a stillbirth, is entitled to maternity leave for six weeks after the miscarriage or stillbirth. Unfortunately, an employee is not entitled to be paid her salary while on maternity leave. An employer may, however, have an internal policy, which provides for maternity leave and the payment of maternity leave benefits. A woman, as an employee or job applicant, may not be discriminated against on grounds like her gender, race, pregnancy, marital status and so on.
However, an employer may discriminate against a woman because of affirmative action measures or as a result of specific requirements relating to the job. Sexual harassment is any unwelcome sexual attention, behaviour, suggestions, messages, or remarks of a sexual nature that offends, intimidates or humiliates an employee.
Examples include unreliable delivery, outdated production tools, insufficient marketing efforts and a lack of planning. Opportunities are ways for your business to grow and be more profitable. These can include seeking new markets, managing technological change or addressing new consumer trends.
You need to look at how your company's main skills can be used to take advantage of these opportunities. Threats are barriers to entry in your primary markets, such as a labour shortage, legislative hurdles or detrimental economic or political developments. Here you want to demonstrate that you know your customers inside and out, including their expectations and their whims.
Your profile should include basic demographic portraits that paint a clear profile of your clients. Look at characteristics such as age, sex, profession or career, income level, level of educational attainment and geographic location. You'll want to provide research that shows the estimated demand for your product or service as well as the rate at which that demand is expected to grow. This builds confidence within financial institutions that your business has growth potential.
It's also important to understand exactly what motivates customers to buy. Are your clients looking for savings or a way to simplify their lives, for example, or are they just shopping for pleasure? Ask yourself why they would buy your product or service.
Are they too costly? Do they lack something unique? These insights will help you develop a product or service that outshines the competition. Here you describe the desired outcome of your marketing plan with attainable and realistic objectives, targets and a clear time frame. The most common approach is to use marketing metrics.
For example, your market objectives could include:. Your choice of marketing vehicles will be governed by the profile of your target market, so you need to understand how different vehicles reach different audiences. If you have a niche audience, for example, you can take advantage of low-cost marketing strategies such as e-mail. The costliest options are usually advertising, sales promotions and public relations campaigns. Referrals and networking are lower cost ways to reach customers. Digital marketing is a powerful strategy because it is inexpensive and effective in reaching target markets.
A marketing plan without financials has little clout. Financials can also be included in a general business plan. It may help to start with the following questions:. A break-even analysis is another important step in developing your marketing plan. This analysis shows exactly how much you need to sell to cover your costs of doing business.
If you can surpass your break-even point and easily bring in more than the amount of sales revenue needed to meet your expenses, you stand a good chance of making a profit. Subscribe to receive, via email, tips, articles and tools for entrepreneurs and more information about our solutions and events.
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