**I’m so glad to hear this. Atleast you know what your strengths and weaknesses are and you’re willing to invest time in your strength. You already have the mindset to succeed. **
**I would still say go for a business loan and shield the whole thing under a community “organization” rather then under your own names. It won’t affect your credit as much, if something goes wrong. Besides, you can write off taxes and get a few active community members to be on your BODs. The idea of BODs is to get recognized talent and free advice. It also provides you with free marketing when these people go out to boast about themselves, they end up mentioning your businesses. And as a new business, you are going to need every bit of advertisement you can get your hands on. I know most small businesses would just rather run the whole thing by themselves but by opening up and giving access to others, you’re increasing your businesses. To be honest, I’m not a fan of Twitter. I have never had an account but when I implemented the idea in a business I saw its potential and the response just blew me away. Also, just because you’re a small business doesn’t means you can’t have BODs, I have implemented BODs with just one person working for the business.
TIP: Usually Professors are the most vulnerable ones when it comes to jumping on BODs bandwagon.
Also a small change in your business statement can make a huge difference. For example, if you’re running an art house cinema, you pay half the price of what an actual cinema would. Lets say the movie, Valkyrie cost $300,000 if you want to play it on the release date for a regular cinema. For an art house cinema, the same would cost only $150,000 for the opening night. The only difference is that, with an art house cinema, you’ll have to devote 30%-50% of the time to art movies. That essentially means playing 3 art movies for every 7 big Hollywood releases. Not bad, as the profit outweighs the risk you’re taking.
So always see the alternatives, or ways of changing your mission statement to get yourself ahead.**
Now this is somewhat of a unique idea. If executed properly, this might just give you the edge you’re looking for. Always implement ideas that will increase the barrier to entry for others.
**For Brand Development,
Developing a Brand is by far the most important public aspect of the company and I cannot stress how important it is. From the font that you’ll be using to the colors involved, you’ll be working on not just how it look but how much would it cost you and what sort of message will it send out to customers. Lets say having less colors in your brand would mean less money to reprint it. I did a post on brand.ing, you can read it > Here <](http://www.paklinks.com/gs/gupshup-cafe/301629-i-need-some-company-names-post-your-suggestions.html#post6138617). If you don’t understand the complexities, read a book on it. It will open your eyes to the kind of detail one has to know before he/she gets into developing a brand. To make life easier, I would suggest coming up with a concept yourself. And then hire an online artist like NimbuPani Designs to do it for you. (I have never worked with this girl but shes from singapore and I like her sense of design and how she creates simple and effective design but I wouldn’t recommend her to you. I’m just giving you an idea of the quality of work that you should be looking for or the standard you should set for your brand. As for the website you’re better off with just a simple Magneto CMS, for which you can checkout the demo right > Here <](http://demo.magentocommerce.com/).)
Your local artist are always better but they cost a little more and you’ll have to find the right one as most of them just give the impression of knowing when they actually don’t and that is the reason why I suggested that you read a book on it so you can talk the talk. Also artists from south america are very creative when it comes to brand.ing for clothing lines. They produce far superior results and cost less. Again have a clear image of what you want and covey it to the artist. Also give them room to come up with something of their own. It’ll also give you some personal criticism to your own ideas as well.**
**For Marketing,
Marketing is tricky. It requires you to get into the consumer’s head and then use your resources extremely carefully. For example, you can figure out which areas of your city has the most desi population and then advertise on the bus on places where they are most likely to see it. And they you’ll have to see if it works or not. Like you have to take that bus a few times and see where people are looking at or which advertisements are they looking at. Advertisements really involve the greatest efforts because it wants you to get your point across without saying much. The lesser the words you use, the more appealing your message gets. The colors, the font, images, everything weighs in. Read up the eye-movement theory in reading. Amazingly we all abides by it without knowing anything about it. So take advantage of all the knowledge out there.Like where to place your phone number? which font to use? what color should the font be? should there be extra space? what should the background color be? Invest sometime in it and I assure you it will all pay off. You can put your advertise in yellow pages with coupons for older generation, whereas the young loves google. Remember I mentioned twitter earlier, you may not feel comfortable with it but certainly you businesses can take advantage of it. Similarly, you can launch a business blog where you discuss ideas with your customer base where you get their input because at the end of the day they are the ones to buy your stuff. And never use them for suckers, give them something back. Give them a %25 discount coupon, if they participate in a survey. Reward them and they’ll keep coming back and you’ll build a loyal following/customer base. Harvest emails of your customers but don’t bomb them everyday… send a monthly newsletter. You have to get creative and there are not limits when it comes to marketing i.e. Bridal magazines, to just sign boards on the seats. Everything is game.
**