Every entrepreneur dreams of making his business big one day, but no one can do it overnight. It takes some skills, hard work, and some time to begin and successfully let your business grow. Here are some tips I would like to share with you on how you can start your business and make it big.
Starting your business
- Knowledge and commitment. Your business is bound to fail if you know nothing about running a business or about the product or service you are offering. Before you go into business, learn as much as you can about the business you are into. Know the basics in running a business and apply it faithfully. You have to be committed not just during the initial stage, but all throughout the duration of your business.
- Competent people in the business. A successful business requires competent and dedicated people working together towards their common goal. You need to hire the right people who are willing to work and grow with you and your business. You need to hire people who are committed to providing the best service to you and your customers. You also need to hire the right people who possess the expertise that you need, but don’t have. For example, you want to run a computer business. You may have the capital and the expertise in running a business, but don’t have enough computer skills, then you need to hire a computer expert, who is reliable and dedicated with his job.
- Comprehensive SWOT analysis. Every company needs to develop a business plan that will help accomplish their goals. Making a SWOT (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis will help you develop your strategies or your business plan. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will help you identify which skills to focus and which ones to develop and improve on. Learning your opportunities and threats will help you take advantage of your opportunities to maximize your profits and do something about your threats to avoid losses.
- Effective marketing strategies. Developing marketing strategies for your new business is definitely challenging. You need to make sure your plans are directed towards you target market. If they don’t, your business is dead. You have to let your target market know about the products and services you offer. Make sure you develop cost-efficient, yet effective advertising strategies, such as starting off with your friends and relatives and taking advantage of the social media. It is very important to generate as much leads as you can that will hopefully turn into sales and profits.
- Good location. Find a high foot traffic location for your new business or at least a place where your target market can see you. If you are conducting an online business, you need to develop a website, where you offer as much information and convenience as you can to your customers, such as user-friendly catalogue and shopping cart, information on shipping details, availability of various payment options, and information on ways to reach you with complete contact details.
Growing a business
- Excellent customer service. Impressive customer service is what will put you ahead of your competitors and will help you capture your market when your products are equally the same. People usually tend to choose where they are being truly valued. The best way to provide excellent customer service is to put yourselves in the shoes of your customers and understand their needs and wants. Remember that you should not keep them waiting; you should be approachable; you have to be prepared to answer their queries; and always put on a smile. Make sure you value your customers and make them feel that you are always grateful for their continued patronage. Providing excellent customer service also gets more leads from satisfied customers, thus helping you increase your sales and your profits.
- Resource management. Being able to manage your resources well will help you achieve your goals. Among these resources include having and maintaining the right people in your organization, managing your cash that will make your business more liquid, as well as looking into raw materials that can be used to make more profitable products.
- Employee management. All the employees of your business – from production to sales, as well as from supervising units, are critical to the success of your business. Keep your people motivated so they will give out their best in the work that they do. Commend and thank them if they have done an excellent job. Set up a reward system that will serve as a challenge for them to strive harder.
- Flexibility. It takes one business to be open to changes and be flexible in order to succeed. With the ever-changing market, you need to change with it and cope to survive and succeed. You need to be prepared to try new marketing strategies if your current scheme is not working. You might need to tap a different market; try to diversify your products or services; and set smaller, short-term, and more attainable targets that will help you achieve your long-term goal.
- Record-tracking. Financial statements are very important to help you see how your business is actually doing. Keep track of your cash flow and know how much your sales, your expenses, and your profits are. See if you have actually improved over the few months or quarters or years and find out what made you improve or decline. These financial records will also help you strategize how to keep your expenses low without sacrificing the quality of your products and services to generate more income. Keeping track of sales records will help you see where you need to improve, what your strengths and weaknesses are, what product or service you need to improve, change, or phase out after months of poorly performing.
- Market monitoring. Keeping your business successful also entails learning about your market over and over again. You have to keep up with the ever-changing trends and the ever-changing needs and wants of your target market. This way, you will learn how satisfy them with your products or services.
- Study of Competitors. Finally, to keep your business growing successfully, you have to know your competitors. Be on the lookout for new entrants and their aggressive approach. See where you stand among other companies in the industry you are in and how you can do better. Study how the pioneers in your industry have made it big and learn from their approach.
Starting and letting your business grow is not as easy as you think it is. No matter how much you plan for it, there will always be challenges and difficulties along the way. By considering the tips I have shared with you, your journey to a successful business will be smoother, a lot easier to bear, and certainly attainable.