What do you want your business to do in January?  Still be standing is not the complete answer.  Between now and January that will be your task–keep your baby healthy and growing. But what do you want to be able to start doing the first week in January 2010?  Now block out the tasks and systems that will get you there.  Good news!  You can do some of this planning while gardening and definitely put a game plan together on your morning walk.

I have my walking shoes on right now–gotta go!

What would you do if someone invested $10,000 in your business? How would you spend it?

$100,000?  $1,000,000?

At first I thought it was a cute set of questions, but as I started to consider the possibilities I saw that what I was doing was writing a different kind of business plan.  We After 55s are many times used to doing everything ourselves.  These questions stretch us in more ways than one.  Go, Barry!

1. Access to opportunity: Is age, gender or race a factor? How can you maximize those factors to your benefit?
2. Access to capital:  Make sure your business is well-capitalized and know where you will get the capital.
3. Be knowledgeable about being an entrepreneur: Know what it takes to start, build and grow a business.  Work FOR your business, not IN it!

Good points, Sharon!  Too many times we just start on a whim because we have read about some super-successful person who did . . . probably if we scratched the surface, we would find a different story. There are no born entrepreneurs–there are successful entrepreneurs who have succeeded because of Sharon’s pointers.

A friend of mine’s market research business has been very hard hit; she is now using the research skills she has honed over the years to do forensic research on companies and products.  Same skills, different focus–and the possibility of weathering the storm.  Keep thinking of new ways to offer your products, reposition your products and solve customers’ problems in new ways.  Your most important product is between your ears–THINK!

One the lighter side —

“Then remember the story of the poor farmer who lost his crops to a drought, battled disease in his cattle and watched his barn go up in flames after being hit by lightning. Somehow, he maintained his pleasant disposition and sense of humor. How did he stand it, his neighbors wondered.

“Well, it’s like this,” the farmer said. “In the Bible, it says, ‘It came to pass.’ But it never says ‘It came to stay.’ ”

Mackay’s Moral: Your biggest worry should be that you are worrying too much.
– Harvey Mackay

My point exactly. . . just because you’re in the midst of starting or running a business doesn’t mean you don’t take time to think about your business and what the value proposition is.  This week’s assignment is to take those three unique qualities of your business that you last identified and write every wonderful thing about them from your customer’s point of view!

No matter how in love with your idea you are, if your customer doesn’t understand why she should love it, too, you will be soon putting up your “closed” sign.  That’s right. Write a paragraph for each of the three qualities as if they were testimonials for your business.  Do they really ring true to you or, deep down, do you think your reaction indicates you need to do more work on the concepts? Better to go back to the drawing board now, when you don’t have a ton invested and are not carrying a lot of inventory.  Listen to your gut–are you on target or missing the mark?

- Helen Keller

 I hope you have now identified an area you would like to address by starting your own business. For entrepreneurs, there is a lot of activity between the two pillars of Helen Keller’s statement, and that is where success begins–with a lot of planning and hard work. Talk to any entrepreneur and you will find she is always thinking about her business.  Entrepreneurs love the “product,” and the intricacies and challenges of bringing it to market. Here is this edition’s question:

What three features or qualities make my idea/product/service different from what is already out there?

This may seem like a pretty simple question, but it will be the foundation for your sales and marketing efforts.  Don’t slide over this step.

A good place to start thinking about a business is: “What can I do just a little bit better?”

These are really big numbers!  Because we are all here on Entrepreneur.com, we know that one of the ways this 60 percent of workers are meeting this challenge is by starting their own businesses and reinventing their future.  That is exactly what this blog, my sister column After55 on WomenEntrepreneur and my website, Silver Vixens, will be focusing on in the coming weeks.  Stay in touch and keep in touch.

1. Don’t quit your day job, if you have one.
2. Go with your passion.
3. Start with what you know.
4.  Try to have some financial bench strength.
5. Be prepared to work at it every day.

If you’re thinking about starting a business on the side to pursue when you hang up your track shoes, this is a good place to start.  Get going.