It is not particularly difficult or expensive to start your own business. What is hard in the whole story is keeping a business on feet and even harder is to expand it and make it work with success.

That’s the reason why every new businessman asks himself: “What does it take to start a business and succeed in it?” Although there is no answer to this question that can be tailored to all businesses, there are still 5 rules that are essential and you must respect them if you want to succeed in the business world.

1. Be honest to yourself

No matter how much money someone else earns from another business, if you do not enjoy in that profession, if you are not proud of the products or services that you deliver, then do not start doing it. If you start a business you do not like or in whose success you do not believe, even if it brings you a temporary success at the beginning, you will never have the real touch of it.

2. Respond to the consumer needs

You may have heard this advice 100 times, it's really very helpful. The easiest and most successful is a business that delivers products or services that are already known to the consumers, or who are already aware that they need it in life. That way, you will not need to spend a lot of money and time to persuade the potential customers that they need what you are selling, but simply focus on answering the question of why your product is the best of all.

3. Be honest to your clients

Do not promise something you cannot deliver. Do not cheat or overdo it regarding to the benefits that consumers might have from your product or service. For the small businesses, the "face to face" marketing, that is, the transfer of information personally from a consumer to consumer is primary. That's why you must not allow customers distribute bad advertising for your business to the potential customers.

4. Use Internet Marketing

No matter what you offer, there is always a chance that many potential customers will use the Internet as the primary mean of information. Unlike the traditional marketing, the internet marketing is significantly cheaper and reaches a large number of potential customers. The social Internet networks are particularly relevant for the promotion of products and services in the last few years, and most importantly, they are easy to use and do nothing.

5. Do not expect a miracle

It is true that some people earn both while sleeping or while on vacation. The chances of this happening to you, a person who has just started his own business from scratch, is very small. Keep in mind that those people have also put a lot of time and effort into their own business at the beginning for now, after many years, to enjoy the complete luxury that business has brought them.