Consider these points as your explore the idea of being a pharmacy entrepreneur.
1. Accounting – Owning a business requires a basic knowledge of financial statements and how cash flows through a business. Having this skill will allow you as a new owner to better manage the business.
2. Management – with a business comes people and people require managing. Experience with managing people will greatly assist you as an owner. Pharmacies tend to have 3-6 people in a small space so properly managing expectations and culture can make or break the business.
3. Your personal financial situation – You should have a good grasp of your monthly expenses and your cash position. You need this for two reasons, buying or starting a pharmacy will require a cash injection and you need to understand what cash you have available for the investment. Second an understanding of your monthly personal expenses allows you to gauge how long of a period you can go without a salary in case the business needs you to not take a salary.
4. There are going to be times where you ask yourself, why did I do this? – things are going to happen (robbery, building damage, natural disaster) and cash will get tight at times and it will be stressful.
5. Understand truly why you want to own a business – I think this is really important because when things like the above happen it keeps you motivated to push through.
6. Team you need a team, accountant, attorney, financial advisor and mentor. Make sure you have these people it will make life so much easier.
7. It’s not going to be a quick process everyone going into owning a business believes they will purchase or start a business and it will be profitable and easy to manage within 6-12 months. The reality is the process will take 3-5 years and you have to be ready to weather that storm.
