How to start business in Pakistan with low investment ?

G app he ka intezaar ta! ;-)

So you are probably here because your job sucks or you don’t have one that would suck or you don’t think you are job material or maybe you are doing job and it doesn’t sucks rather you have been saving little money and now you are thinking, how to invest it in a good business that will yield healthy return on investment.

Keep in mind bro/sis, low investment means low returns on investment so just don’t think that without investing money you would be able to gain millions … yeah you can gain something around 20-40% in net profits with your investment but nothing more than that.

Now when it comes to starting a business with little or small investment, you need to consider the following things before you throw down your hard earned little money in and see nothing coming in the end!

12 Key Things to Consider While Starting Business with Low Investment in Pakistan!

Be an Expert or Take an Expert Help

With that little money you can’t afford, take much risk, even little risk can take your whole investment to the drain, so what you need is to be an Expert in a given business niche, by Expert I mean having at least 4-5 years experience in that niche, in case you have no idea, then you should take help from the Experts who have at least that much experience.

Fact: Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers talked about needing 10,000 hours (that is almost 4 years based on 9-5 routine) to be an expert in your profession regardless of that profession.[1]

Conduct a Thorough Market Survey

This means you need to really make sure that what you are investing your money into, worth it, again you can take an Expert help if you think you are “stupid” 😉 when it comes to market surveys, research, product/service demand and all that.

Patience is Key

Yep, you heard it right! Just because you have invested some money doesn’t mean you will get a healthy return overnight, chars bhang ka business kar lo phir 😈, you really need to have patience, perseverance!

Hire a Superb Sales Team

Efficient and effective sales team is the blood line of your business, it really, really matters for startups to have superb sales team, now in case you are wondering, how am I supposed to hire expert sales guys when I can’t give them the salaries they demand, well here is an article that can help you exactly with that, How to hire Experienced Sales Staff that Won’t quit ever!

Advertise!

Make those one page brochures and advertise your business with them by handing those brochures out to your target market, this is really important, it will cost you around 15 thousand rupees but it really worth, if you don’t know how important brochures, pamphlets can be for a small business, read this article Small Business &Print Advertising: Is it worth it ?!!

To get the word out you must advertise and obviously you can’t do that on tv, radio, internet, the most effective and cheapest way is using brochures/pamphlets.

In case you are not sure if advertising really works, then read this little piece Does Advertising actually works? If so! How exactly ?!!

And in case you want a really awesome marketing strategy for your business then read the best marketing strategy for your small business.

Give your business: efforts + time

This is really important, if you just throw in money in hope to earn something then that will never happen, you have to put in your efforts in it, you have to give time to it, in fact in early days you may need to give at least 10-14 hours per day.

By efforts I mean learning basic finance to keep eye on your business financial aspects, learning a bit about marketing to make your new brand stand out among the clutter and learning about human resources, making relationships with suppliers, target buyers etc.

If you think you are not strong in one of these things, have fears then this in depth article will help you in overcoming all those fears I want to start a business but I have fears!

Quality + Price

When you start with a new brand you have several strategies available to you to capture market, to penetrate, to achieve growth, to improve brand awareness, exposure, trust.

But in low investment startup case you have just one strategy available to you, that is to get into the market with reasonably well quality but with low price, trust me if you go high price with a quality that sucks then it will be really hard for you to survive and thrive, you won’t be able to sell anything at all.

Low price will help you in getting a healthy foothold in the market, capturing market and high quality will help you in gaining customer, market trust, so once you achieve that, you can then go for high prices, it may take anywhere from 8 months to 2 years to gain reasonable market share and high customer trust.

Be Creative!

Since it is more likely rather obvious that you will go for a business that is already run by thousands in Pakistan, what you need is creativity, to make your brand, your product, your offer stand out among this immense clutter.

Just try to think and do outside the box whenever possible!

Relationships are Key

Yep, that is true! If you have good relationship with your supplier he/she might supply you things on credit for good length of time, on good terms, if you have better relationships with your target buyers like wholesalers, retailers, they will run an extra mile for you because you care for them and so they care for you!

Relationships are vital but like many things in business, it takes time to have, to develop relationships in the market, so patience, perseverance is key!

Always Keep Some Money Safe!

All businesses by their very nature are unpredictable, you may think you don’t need money at one hour and you will be dying to get some money the next hour, so it is better to always have good amount of money kept safe just in case…

Avoid Nepotism/Favoritism

It is one of the ugly aspects of Pakistan business culture to hire people who are relatives, friends into your business and then you realize that such people are harming your business, your relationships, are not capable enough to do conduct their job related responsibilities efficiently and effectively.

Therefore avoid it, avoid it so that you and your business may not suffer, be serious about merit, individual capability, experience, education etc when hiring!

And Keep a regular Check

Keep a check on

1.      your finance and accounts,
2.      your human resource,
3.      your market environment,
4.      your customer service,
5.      your overall business management team
6.      your marketing aspect, brand building aspect
7.      your products/services quality, price, customer response etc

Keep check on all aspects of your business and take corrective measures whenever and wherever necessary!

Well as you can see I provide practical, actionable insights on small business management, marketing, HR, Finance that can help you in becoming an Expert in small business, marketing, can help your business achieving the desired success.


So if you want all of that, if you want to learn the whole trade along with all its tricks, want to achieve immense success as an Entrepreneur then subscribe to my website and you will get all the practical, cool actionable ideas right into your inbox! without any charges, absolutely for free!

Over to you guys! ;)

 

References:

1.      Gladwell.Com