5 Tips to Help You Make Your Small Business More Successful
Though starting your own business is an extremely rewarding experience, it can also be extremely daunting. After all, you’re responsible for the success or failure of your business – and that can be scary! If you want to make sure that your small relations thrives and succeeds, there are a few strategies you can implement to help you along the way. Here are five tips to help you make your small business more successful.
1) Look into what your target market wants
This may seem obvious, but when you’re running a small business, it can be easy to lose sight of your customers. Spend some time looking at competitors, checking out online reviews, and talking with people on social media about what they like and dislike about different brands. You should also look at other aspects of your brand such as your website and see what needs improvement. Do you have enough photos? Are your products or services explained well? If possible, get someone who isn’t already associated with your company to take a look; their view will be fresher and more impartial.
2) Give personal attention to each client/customer
First impressions are vital, so set aside time for every customer and focus on your small business’s growth. When you make a connection with a client or customer, show how much you care about your small business. By doing so, you’ll increase customer loyalty and retention rates as well as give your small business that extra push toward success.
If they feel they can trust you and believe in your ability to meet their needs, chances are they’ll refer others (and share positive reviews) which will lead to more leads coming into your small business! Additionally, if you aren’t able to personally attend an event where clients/customers may be gathering such as networking events and trade shows, promote them via social media like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn so those who might not have seen those invitations can still connect with your small business!
3) Invest in marketing efforts, but be smart about it
Choose a marketing channel that’s effective for your business, i.e., one you know will yield results (such as local ads in print or online, or a company-sponsored event). It can be tempting to try out every possible strategy in an attempt to hit it big, but don’t waste money trying a bunch of different tactics. Instead, focus on what you know works best and continually work to improve those efforts over time. Your hard work and smart investment should pay off at some point!
4) Don’t be afraid to try new things
As small-business owners, we’re responsible for every aspect of our businesses, from sales and marketing efforts to payroll. We have no one else to fall back on or delegate tasks to when we don’t feel comfortable doing something. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try new things, even if it means failing or making mistakes along the way.
Trying new techniques can often be beneficial to our businesses in unexpected ways; think about how you might harness these opportunities. For example, you could use an untested promotion strategy or a market your business hasn’t tapped into before as an excuse to meet potential clients face-to-face (whether they buy anything is completely secondary!). Look at each challenge as an opportunity to expand your reach—even if you aren’t sure what you will end up doing with it right away!
5) Always stay focused on providing quality service and products
If you’re not willing to invest your time, energy, and finances into providing customers with a quality product or service, why should they invest their time and money in what you have to offer? The answer is: They shouldn’t. Rather than focusing on gimmicks and tactics that may work in short bursts but are unsustainable over time, focus on growing your business through offering a quality product or service—and do so consistently. What happens if your entire marketing plan hinges upon one particular tactic that fizzles out quickly? Now you’ve got nothing else to fall back on, and chances are good you might lose your customers along with it.
The best way to start marketing your business is from within: Word of mouth (WOM) can be more powerful than any single marketing strategy because people trust other people more than they trust brands.
How to Pick the Right Team
Before you can even think about your company's growth trajectory, you need to have a solid staff to help you achieve your goals. To make sure that your team is the best fit for your business and the skills you need them to perform, it's essential to understand what makes up a strong team and how to find the perfect people to build it with you from the ground up. It all starts with picking the right team in the first place. Here are four steps to help you do just that.
One trait that many successful startups have in common is the ability to switch directions quickly in response to changes in their industry. Understanding your needs as a startup and being able to restructure accordingly is vital for companies looking at long-term sustainability.
Ensuring you have proper staffing allows you to adapt quickly, because you’ll always have people who can pick up new tasks and work around your weaknesses. Don't go overboard on research & development (R&D). Most startups fail because they are underfunded or overspend on R&D; not enough businesses keep an eye on their cash flow - leaving them vulnerable to financial shocks.
Types of Staff
Staffing your business requires a nuanced understanding of what types of employees you need and when. The standard template goes something like: interns -> entry-level employees -> seasoned veterans. But, in practice, there’s plenty of room for variation in that template. A startup needs people with many skill sets—and that means it might be worth hiring people earlier than usual if they can fill a certain void more quickly (but not so early that they don’t know how to do their job right).
Your business will also want to take advantage of things like freelance workers, but treating freelancers as a first resort has its drawbacks; even though freelancers are cheap compared to full-time staff, if you use them too much then your company might suffer from significant communication problems down the road.3.
The Building Blocks
Envision your team's skills and experience, then look for someone with a similar background. Make sure everyone's on board with your business goals; people who have doubts about what you're doing will be less likely to contribute their best work.
As you grow, hire staff members based on whether they can help your company evolve. If you're in a startup phase where there's still plenty of room for growth, you'll probably want more generalists on staff so they can learn as they go
. However, if you reach a point where you've settled into an established routine, seek out specialists whose strengths don't overlap too much with those of others (i.e., if you have an analytics-minded person working on data science, it may not make sense to also employ another employee whose responsibilities revolve around math). As your company grows, assign roles according to departments that match each person's interests and passions.
When To Hire
Before you even think about your company's growth trajectory, you need to have a solid staff to help you achieve your goals. Before putting together a team, there are three questions you should ask yourself:
What does your company do? Who is it that will be doing that? And, how much time and money do you have available for funding? Once you’ve answered these questions (and likely talked them out with friends and colleagues) move on. Chances are you already know what type of talent you’re looking for; if not, use LinkedIn or other job-search websites to find people who might match up well with your vision and existing employees.
If you're building a business that depends on network effects—for example, if you are creating an email provider, an eBay-like marketplace, or a social media platform—you may need to pick your team carefully. Here's why: when there are lots of users, but not all of them can reach each other through your service (for example, if users can't find each other and exchange messages on your new mobile app), then you don't have any network effects. Rely more on word of mouth than advertising. In contrast, a startup with poor network effects can't succeed in such circumstances.
To see how important it is for startups to build products with strong network effects, consider MySpace versus Facebook. When Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004, it was aimed at elite colleges; since most students had similar profiles—including common interests and friends—it was easy for them to find one another and invite others into their network easily.
0 Comments
plz do not enter any spam link in the comment box