Terrific! Your wonderful idea for a business is under way! You've identified a need, researched the lack of competition, roughed out business plan, and gotten it off the ground.
You had a steep learning curve at the beginning, but after a bumpy start, things are finally starting to hum along.
You're on your way to joining the ranks of happy, hard-working Americans who understand the pleasure of being their own boss.
Now you're ready for the next step: growth.
Maybe you're ready to expand to a new location or extend the products you offer.
There's just one, tiny little problem.
Money.
It's always tough to make any more money before first spending some.
If credit is a problem (due to those earlier bumps in the road), you might want to consider a merchant cash advance.
This option assists those who are having trouble securing a bank loan.
It affords you the opportunity to repay a loan according to your sales: more in your profitable months, less in slow months.
But you can take the money from your merchant loan and apply to growing your business while the opportunity is ripe.
Just make sure that you've mastered the basics and built a strong foundation before considering your expansion.
You don't want to overextend yourself.
Perhaps you've discovered ways to streamline what you do, cutting down the time expended in running your business.
Then you might have the time and energy to focus on expanding your venture.
Believe it or not, developing new products or new markets will take almost as much energy as starting your business in the first place.
Once again, you will need to be creative in promoting what you sell, vigilant in overseeing your progress, and as open to discarding poor ideas as you are to trying new ones.
Hopefully, your business expansion won't suffer the same growing pains as your original start-up.
Everyone makes mistakes; successful people learn from them.
Utilize what you learned when you were first starting out, and you'll be able to grow and expand at a much faster pace.
If you're truly fortunate and savvy, you might even be ready to get others working for you through licensing or franchising of your great idea.
Because after all, the main point of success in business is finding opportunities to enjoy it!