How often have you thought of running your own business because you assumed it would be easy? Or if you currently have your own business, you thought, “There’s got to be an easier way to do what I do.”

Fact is, often there is not an “easy way” to achieve business success. It takes time, commitment and most importantly realizing that success leaves clues.

The clues are available if you are willing to look for them. As owner and operator of a unique retail store in Myrtle Creek, Oregon, I have experienced ups and downs that come with being an entrepreneur.

Fortunately, there are far more ups than downs, but it was during low points, I have had to evaluate choice I made in early 90’s to open Just Bears and Stuff in a town of little more than 3,000 people.

What I have learned over last decade is enough to fill not only one book, but several. For sake of space, I will share with you high points of what has allowed me to be one of most successful teddy bear and specialty item gift store owners around.

As I share my strategies with you I do not do so to impress or gloat. I do it to impress upon you importance of studying success and then determining if path of business ownership is for you.

Vision - Every journey begins with a vision. Without vision it is virtually impossible to stay on target.

Plan – As saying goes, you must plan for success or you are planning to fail. Have a plan in place that is your road map. The plan will allow you to stay on course with your vision. Of course, there will be times when plan must change due to unforeseen circumstances. Which leads to next point. ..

Flexibility – Life is not set in stone, nor is business. There will be occasions best laid plans will not work. In a moments notice you will have to do something else. The key to flexibility is a solid foundation.

In order to understand how to use new employment regulations to your advantage, we first need to look at how new laws differ from old employment legislation.

In old days, an employee might be dismissed without an appeal and first sign of trouble for employer wouldn't come until employee put in a claim for unfair dismissal.

Or an employee might have been unhappy and so decided to resign. Sometime afterwards, you as employer could suddenly find employee putting in a claim for constructive dismissal.

For employer, written procedures provided a good defence but employment tribunals still made their own decisions and defending your business could cost a lot of time and money.

With all this in mind, Government decided to do something to reduce number of employment tribunal claims. In doing so, they ended up introducing thirteen new ways that an employee can claim against an employer at an employment tribunal!

All these new ways of claiming at an employment tribunal are based on documentation. For example, tribunal will look at whether certain letters were written and why, or they will ask for proof of whether a meeting was held at a sensible time and place.

The new employment laws mean that if paperwork is not right, then employment tribunal can class employer as guilty - without need for a hearing!

In exchange for this, new legislation gives employers new ways of protecting themselves against tribunal proceedings. To understand how you can protect your business, we need to take a look at new employment regulations in more detail.

The new employment regulations state that employees can no longer claim constructive dismissal unless they can show that they have tried, and failed, to resolve problem with their employer.

Employees can no longer claim against their employer for unfair dismissal unless they can show that they have exhausted every appeal procedure offered by their employers and still failed to resolve their differences.

However, if an employer does not have a written dispute resolution procedure then employee can go straight to an employment tribunal and obtain an automatic award!

On that basis, it should be obvious that all employers need to issue a dispute resolution procedure to all their employees in order to avoid risk of automatically losing at an employment tribunal.

The good news is that a dispute resolution procedure needn't be that difficult to implement.