The idea of owning running a business is exciting and can be very rewarding. However, becoming a successful business owner can also be very challenging. It requires the right mindset, perspective, attitude, traits & know-how. Our Free Business Training is designed to give you an insight into what it means to own a business and provide you with the basics to get you started off on the path to success. This compact but complete 10 session program will cover topics from accessing if business ownership is the right path for you,planning, opening your business to growing and expanding.

1. Is Business Ownership For You?
Training Transcript
NOTICE: You DO NOT Have the Right to Reprint, Re-Distribute or Resell the Information Herein. You
Also MAY NOT Give Away, Sell, or Share the Content Herein Without Written Consent
Copyright © Baanabaana Business Agency
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic,
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without expressed
written, dated and signed permission from the author and/or without proper accreditation.
DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES: The information presented in this report represents the views of the publisher as
of the date of publication. The publisher reserves the rights to alter and update their opinions based on new conditions.
This report is for informational purposes only. The author and the publisher do not accept any responsibilities for any
liabilities resulting from the use of this information. While every attempt has been made to verify the information
provided here, the author and the publisher cannot assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Any
similarities with people or facts are unintentional.
AFFILIATE DISCLAIMER: Baanabaana Business Agency may receive compensation from some of the entities listed in this
report for referrals, as their “thank you” for sending you their way. However, Baanabaana Business Agency never
recommends any service or product solely for the reason of receiving commissions (and neither should you) –
Baanabaana Business knows our reputation is on the line.

2. (Slide 1)
Welcome
Hello and welcome to our free business training webinar series. My name is Sirra Ndow and I
will be your trainer for the training sessions.
I would like to start by thanking you all you taking the time to register, for sharing the training
details and especially for being here.
Working with and being part of something new, something being nurtured, something that is
growing is a passion for me so I am very excited to be here with you all today and I very much
look forward to the coming weeks and hopefully following you on your journey beyond that.
(Slide 2)
About Baanabaana Business Agency
This training is compacted from 2-3 hour material that generally takes about 12-16 weekly
sessions to complete so I plan to make the most of the hour we have to pass along what I
believe are key areas to cover and refer you to sites, books etc. for other “non” vital
information that you can look up later thus for more information about Baanabaana Business
Agency, please visit our website. For more information about me and my credentials, you can
look me up on linkIn.com/sirrandow.
Why this training
This training is partly as a result of what I wished I had when I started out; partly because I love
to share what I know; partly because my business vision includes helping entrepreneurs set a
solid business foundation to build upon and grow quite frankly, partly because my clients are
business owners themselves and there is no better client than a business savvy client. It
makes providing quality and effective services and building a business relationship much easier
for everyone in my opinion.
I must disclose that the content for this training is not yet certified. It is sourced from my own
training, experiences and research on starting and running a business. My company is on the
path to getting certified by various business training organizations, including one that partners
with the World Bank. We will be offering the full course for a fee later on in the year but we
do plan to continue this free version for as long as I can.

3. What to expect
For today and the upcoming sessions:
 The training will be conducted in listen only mode i.e, there will not be live interactions
with me. You will not be able to make comments or ask questions. I made this decision
because I have a tendency to be really lengthy and verbose and sometimes go off tangent
and we’ll probably need many more hours to get through the material
 I will be happy to answer any questions you may have but because of the large number of
attendees and limited resources, I cannot promise to answer every single question but I will
be talking about each week’s training on our blog on our website within 48 hours after each
session and encourage to ask your question as a comment which I will answer. If your
questions are in regards to accessing the webinar site, please refer to your registration
confirmation email for how and where to get support. I am not help with that
 We will endeavor to provide with and/or refer you to as many resources including a
recording and transcript of each session and interviews with other entrepreneurs but again,
will do this en mass via our blog
 We will be sending you a survey after each session to get your feedback on content,
delivery, benefits to you etc. with a view to enhancing and maximizing the experience
overall for the next sessions
 Another disclosure is that I tend to speak fast with a corrupted accent and use of language
that sometimes even I have difficulty understanding myself but will endeavor to speak
slower and clearer
 Lastly, while I will be taking about me and my business experiences, please note that this is
not intended to pitch my services to you nor are you expected to do business with us or
even follow us after this. This truly is mostly a fulfillment of a dream that I hope I can
continue to realize. Thank you again for being here and making my dream happen.
(Slide 3)
Training Overview
As we mentioned, we will be covering the following areas in this weekly training series, one
section per week.
Topics
Is Business Ownership For you?
Writing Your Business Plan
Business Organization
Registration, Licenses, Permits Insurance
Business Finances & Financing

4. Business Location
Tools, Technology & Equipment
Staffing
Marketing & Opening
Growing & Expanding
(Slide 4)
Week One Topics - Is Business Ownership For you?
In today’s session, we will cover the following:
Personal Evaluation
Your Business Vision
Business Selection Recommendation
Choosing The Right Path For You
Get the skills
What To Do / What Not To Do
Although the ensuing information may apply mainly to aspiring entrepreneurs more, it can still
be very relevant and useful to some of you that already own a business. Going through this
process can help you in tweaking your current business and also in preparing for growth and
expansion.
(Slide 5)
Personal Evaluation
Characteristics Of An Entrepreneur
We came up with this list of personal characteristics that makes a successful business person.
A long list no doubt and it is almost certainly impossible to find all of these in a single
individual. Thankfully, no one needs or wants all of these  It is important however to assess
which traits you have and which ones you might need to work on (depending on the type of
business you are in.)
(Slide 6)
Personal Evaluation
Critical Traits
Among all these, the most important traits critical to being a successful entrepreneur are
perhaps the ones highlighted in red.

5. Gutsy Risk-taker– Becoming an entrepreneur takes courage, determination, nerve, intense
desire/need to take the risk and leap toward having your own business.
Expertise – Owning a business is not rocket science but it is essential you have a working
knowledge about the business industry you plan to be in before you start. You are less likely
to a successfully business own and operate a neighborhood diner if you cannot cook or if know
nothing about cooking for example. In addition, a good dose of common sense, willingness to
learn, combined with appropriate experience, is also necessary.
Patience – Becoming successful takes time. You may also fail a number of times before you
make it and even if you hit it the first time, you need patience so you don’t grow too much too
and fast to run your business off the cliff. It took me almost a year to land my first steady
client.
Adaptable Opportunist – No matter how much you research or how detail your plan is, there is
a good chance that things may not go as you envisioned so being adaptable and ready to take
advantage of opportunities and/or the ability to turn a failure into an opportunity is critical for
success. Be like a catfish, one of the most adaptable creatures in the sea. For example in
Southwestern France where they are not native, the catfish in the river Tarn saw an
opportunity for more food and started hunting and eating pigeons on land on the river bank.
You can see a video of the pigeon hunting catfish here.
There are many free online personality tests you can check out to help you pin-point some of
your characteristics. I will share some of these on our blog later
(Slide 7)
Personal Evaluation
Why would you need to evaluate yourself?
Because everything about owning and running a small business revolves around one thing and
that is YOU. You may also be about to invest quite a bit of yourself and your net worth into a
risky venture so knowing that you’ve got what it takes to do it helps.
You also want to check for other readiness factors before you launch including your current
circumstances and that of your loved ones such as personal or family turmoil, health issues
etc. Starting a business is stressful enough. Having to deal with illness or divorce for example
will not be helpful. Not having a support system can also make it harder

6. The relationship your business has with your customers, suppliers, employees; and your
products, services, money etc. depends on you. How you interact with and manage those
people and things makes a difference.
There are many aspects of your business and personal life that you are responsible for, but
over which you have little or no control. For example, you won’t be able to control if your
virtual assistant gets sick or stops dong business without notice; or if a competitor moves in
down the block. But you will have control over how you react to these things.
(Slide 8)
Business Vision
We are assuming that you have completed your self evaluation and decided that you are
business ready. If you do want to be in business but your personal circumstances are not in
order yet, consider waiting
Your business vision is about taking time to think about your business dream, what you
visualize when you think about owning a business
Some of the questions you may want to ask yourself may include:
 Where will you work – home, shop, factory, outdoors, indoors>
 How many hours per day do you want to work – full time part-time?
 What do you want to do daily – making things, travelling, interacting with customers?
 When do you want to work – daytime, evening, night owl?
 How do you want to dress for work – formal professional suites, in your pajamas, casual
clothes?
 Solopreneur or working with others?
 What would you love/hate doing - love to cook and do the books but hate cleaning up for
example?
 Moonlighting* or full fully fledged – If you already have a job/career you enjoy or need,
you may want to run your business on the side for a short time or even as long as possible.
Do make sure that there is no conflict of interest that may jeopardize your job, be unethical
or even violate your employment contract. For example if you work for the largest cake
bakery business in your town, you’ll probably not want to moonlight on side baking cake at
home for sale
 Etc
Even though I could not name it as such at that time, my vision when I started my business
was working from home online and/or on the phone part time for 2 to 3 years while I ride out
the recession and take care of my 3 young children (all of them under 7 at that time).

7. (Slide 9)
Business Vision
Why You Need A Business Vision
You need to have a vision of what you want to do in order to plan and implement effectively!
Not knowing if you want to travel out of town or stay local can impact you business planning a
great deal for example
Having a vision also gives you direction. If you know that you definitely don’t see yourself
working on your own for example, this helps when considering the types of business you can
be involved in
A vision let’s you know when you have reached destination success!
Don’t forget to envision an exist plan. If things don’t work out as you expected you should be
able to have a plan B. I planned on and found a part time job working late evenings when I
started. Good thing I did because I made under $700 the first 6 months into my business.
That is like gas money only when you live in California!
(Slide 10)
Business Vision
Create Your Vision & Write Your Vision Statement
Sound Bite
Your business plan may not be much use to you it stays up in your head only. You need to be
able to communicate it to others.
Write down the answers to the list of questions you compiled earlier as best as you can.
Expect to do a quick research of your industry, market and competition to be better able to
answer some of your questions.
Create your sound bite. This is a short (20-30secs) promotional speech intended to give your
audience a brief, clear, compelling and memorable description of who you are, what your
business idea is, what products/services you provide, when you intend to start a business or
how long you’ve been in business. Sound bites can be very useful when you are exploring
funding or partnerships options for example. A sound bite is also called an elevator pitch
You should try not to repeat your sound bite verbatim every time you say. It can make it
sound mechanical and fake. I would recommend writing the same thing in 2 to 3 different
ways and interchange them from time to time. The key is saying it like you mean it, saying it

8. with passion and tailoring it to your audience. Giving a banker your elevator pitch should
sound a little differently than when you are talking to a potential customer for example.
A sound bite may read like this:
Hello, my name is Sally. I am a chef, a food blogger and winner of the 2012 Healthy Chef
competition in Johannesburg, South Africa. I graduated from one of the region’s top culinary
schools and have been in the food and beverage industry for over eight years, working with
internationally chefs.
I plan to open a one-of-a-kind restaurant in Cape Town, called The Skinny Chef in the next 3
months, providing a combination of healthy eating with perfectly prepared and portioned food
and outstanding service that creates an extraordinary healthy, gourmet dining experience.
You can follow my blog at www.skinnychef.com or reach me at 45-555-1212
It takes time and effort to perfect your sound bite and it may need several re-writes and
sharing but your efforts will only serve to give you more clarity about your business idea and
what you want to achieve.
Vision Statement
To create your business vision, you want to pick a time frame to get your destination i.e reach
your goals. It can be anywhere from 1-20 years but shorter time times are recommended e.g
3-5 years
Once you’ve got your sound bite perfected, decide on the time frame you want to achieve
your goals and then write your vision statement
A Vision Statement based on the above might read like this:
In the next three years, The Skinner Chef will be rated as a "five star" restaurant in the
Manhattan area by consistently providing a combination of healthy eating with perfectly
prepared and portioned food and outstanding service that creates an extraordinary healthy,
gourmet dining experience.

9. (Slide 11)
Business Vision
Sample Sound Bite & Vision Statement
A sound bite may read like this:
Hello, my name is Sally. I am a chef, a food blogger and winner of the 2012 Healthy Chef
competition in Manhattan, New York. I graduated one of San Francisco’s top culinary schools
and have been in the food and beverage industry for over eight years, working with
internationally chefs.
I plan to open my own restaurant called The Skinny Chef in the next 3 months, providing a
combination of healthy eating with perfectly prepared and portioned food and outstanding
service that creates an extraordinary healthy, gourmet dining experience.
You can follow my blog at www.skinnychef.com or reach me at 202-555-1212
(Slide 12)
A Vision Statement based on the above may read like this:
In the next three years, The Skinner Chef will be rated as a "five star" restaurant in the
Manhattan area by consistently providing a combination of healthy eating with perfectly
prepared and portioned food and outstanding service that creates an extraordinary healthy,
gourmet dining experience.
Please Take a minute to look at this sound bite that I came up with and evaluate it for brevity,
clarity and impact. Let me know what you think via our blog later.
(Slide 13)
Selecting A Business - Recommendation
I know firsthand that being in the wrong business is one of the top mistakes business owners
make. If you take a little time and do a little planning, you can easily avoid this
"Find a job you love and you will never work a day in your life. " – Confucius. Look for a
business that matches your interests, skills and expectations -
Find a need to fill – you love to bake but there are already 4 bakeries in Smalltown Ville and
you’ve noticed that they are usually empty when you pass by. Chances are the residents of
Smalltown Ville do not need another bakery. Perhaps you can look into selling those specialty

10. cookies from Great Grandma’s recipe chest that you know everyone would love on the
Internet
Don’t rush, take your time - - You will not be penalized for missed opportunities. If you feel
you haven’t found the business idea that speaks to you, wait until the right business comes
along.
Make sure you have enough capital – not only startup capital and enough money to maintain a
positive business cash flow until you start breaking even and making money but make sure you
have enough capital (or an alternate way) to take care of your basic personal / family needs
Start simple and grow – an elaborate business plan can turn into a much more elaborated
nightmare. Keep it simple and remember you are in control and can grow as quickly or as
slowly as you like
Look for long term potential – there is nothing wrong with making a quick dollar and then it’s
over but it means that you’ll be going back to the drawing board sooner to research new ideas.
This costs time you could have been using to make money.
Go for a business industry you know over one that is brand new to you
Specialize if possible – if all the 4 bakeries in Smalltown Ville make the best local bread, and
pastries, specialize in making the best pies if you still want to bake in Smalltown Ville.
Specialists tend to fare better in general
(Slide 14)
Choosing The Right Path For You
There are many roads that can lead you to business ownership. You will need to weigh you
options and select the one that would work best for you
Start from scratch – build a business from the ground up.
Buy an existing business – millions of businesses are bought and sold annually. An existing
business obviously has its advantages – existing client base, being established etc. It may not
jive with your vision however
Buy a Franchise – Franchise are ready made, proven business plans and model that are license
to you with limitations on control over operations and other aspects and what you can change.
For example owning a Macdonald’s Fast Food restaurant can be achieved by buying a
franchise

11. Choosing the best business path is much like home ownership – build to spec or buy an
existing home or rent
(Slide 15)
Getting The Skills You Need
At this point you are almost ready to go but if you don’t have the skills to do the core activities,
you will need to get them somehow. You can hire someone else to do the work while you
manage but you having a working knowledge of the core business can make or break you.
Work for someone else in the same business – this probably the best way to get trained.
Nothing beats hands on practical training
Take courses – especially the core ones to you business. If you want to provide bookkeeping
services for example, you will need to take a bookkeeping class first
Read books / online material – there are many how-to books, blogs and website to learn from
ranging from free to high end paying classes. Do be aware of information overload however
Get a mentor – having someone who knows the business you are in to guide you in your
journey is a good way to get the knowledge you need. This however may be best if you already
have some basic skills already
(Slide 16)
What To Do / What Not To Do
A quick overview of this session can be summarized as follows:
Do Don’t
 evaluate your business readiness  rush into business ownership
 research industry, market and competitors  neglect research and testing
 get the skills you need  get caught in a conflict of interest
 test your market  mortgage everything you own
 objectively compare all your options  do something you don’t enjoy
 ensure you have enough capital  spend, spend, spend
 be patient  be in business by yourself

12. (Slide 17)
This completes our session today. Many thanks to you all for being here. I sincerely hope you
found this session useful enough to join us again next week to talk about writing your business
plan. Please help us improve this training by giving your feedback on the survey we will be
sending along.
Have a great weekend!