Entrepreneurs often feel like they don’t have the time or concentration to look after their fitness. Going to the gym feels like too much of a chore, but having a personal trainer can help with this. They’ll keep you motivated and help you look after your fitness.
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Read MoreIn the entrepreneurial journey, where challenges loom large, and the path often seems steep, embodying sway and grace, coupled with an unshakeable sense of self, becomes indispensable. As we unveil the second issue of FemFounder magazine, our focus is on the essential skills defining a successful female entrepreneur: negotiation, personal branding, and the inherent power of navigating business landscapes with a unique blend of strength and elegance.
Read MoreHey there, future Edupreneur! Ready to make your training company stand out like a neon sign at a nunnery? Buckle up because we’re about to infuse some pizzazz into your edu-venture, turning it from “just another one” to “the one.”
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Being an entrepreneur is an exciting and rewarding job but also comes with a lot of responsibility and risk. Whether you thrive in the business world or not is up to you, and all the pressure to do so is on your shoulders.
There are many tasks and to-dos to tend to any given day, and you have to know how to manage your time properly to accomplish the most important tasks. Review the following tips so that you can have a successful career as an entrepreneur and feel good about all that you accomplish when you look back on your professional life one day. Put forth an extra effort and dedicate yourself to your business so that you have no regrets at the end of the day.
One tip for having a successful career as an entrepreneur is to follow your passion. Choose an industry and path that you enjoy and motivates you to want to perform well. Think it through so that you’re sure the direction you choose will be rewarding and you will want to be a part of for a while. If you don’t love what you do each day, then you risk not having the drive and energy to overcome obstacles and roadblocks that try to stand in your way.
You should have a written plan when going into business for yourself. You must have a sense of direction and an idea of what you want to achieve as you get started. The plan should be all-encompassing and include what you want to accomplish in the present, five, and ten years from now, and in the future when you’re ready to retire. Make sure that you don't get caught up asking how to sell my business privately and know who you can turn to for help when it’s time to pass your business to the next person and owner. Planning for the future as an entrepreneur is a must. Operating day-to-day is not an effective way to build a long-term and sustainable venture.
It’s also vital that you get used to taking calculated risks if you want to have a successful career as an entrepreneur. These risks are going to allow you to surpass the competition and innovate your products or services over the years. Otherwise, you may get comfortable or stuck in one place for too long and start to miss meeting your goals. Make sure you set aside plenty of time to problem-solve and think through big decisions before you move forward with them. Let calculated risks help you take your business to the next level so you can excel and achieve more than you ever imagined.
Another tip for having a successful career as an entrepreneur is to hire great help, support, and partners. You need people on your team and side who are goal-oriented and are invested in the business and your future. As you grow and expand, it’s going to become a more substantial job that you won’t be able to handle and shouldn’t try to juggle by yourself. Be picky about who you bring into your company and choose to assign critical tasks. The more you can trust your employees and partners to get the job done right, the more time you can spend on other significant initiatives that will ensure your business excels.
Every good entrepreneur can admit they don’t know it all and will reach out and ask for help along the way. Build a more successful company by securing a mentor who you can bounce ideas off of and contact for advice. You can ask them about what mistakes they made in the past so you can avoid committing the same errors. It’ll be comforting to know you have someone who you trust that you can call up or meet with when you have questions and concerns about how to proceed with your business.
Make your customers a top priority if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur. Focus on offering consistent and exceptional customer service so that you know your clients are well taken care of and feel appreciated. Without them, you don’t have a business and risk running into trouble with keeping your doors open. Train your employees, so they understand how to treat customers and the policies you have in place, so they’re prepared to handle the tough conversations and questions. Providing top-notch quality service is the key to building a successful company.
You’ll get a lot further in your career when you commit to challenging yourself. Be careful not to let your ego get in the way of you working on your personal development over the years. You have the time to work on improving yourself when you make the time for it. There are plenty of online courses you can take and seminars and conferences you can sign up for that will help you advance in areas that you find difficult. Know your strengths and weaknesses, so you can hone in on improving specific skill sets.
Another vital aspect of your business you can’t let slip through the cracks is your finances. If you want to have a successful career as an entrepreneur, then you need to commit to making wise financial decisions. It all starts by having separate accounts for your business and personal life and tracking all transactions and expenses in detail. You may want to consider hiring a financial director or bookkeeper on your team who can handle these logistics for you if you don’t have the time. They can alert you to any red flags and advise you about how to proceed if you discover that you need to find ways to cut back spending.
You’re going to be very busy as a business owner and entrepreneur. You mustn’t let your health and wellness take a backseat over the years. You need to find ways to take better care of yourself and make sure you feel your best each day. For instance, you should make sleep a priority, exercise daily, and eat nutritious meals that give you the energy you need to get through each day. Be sure to stay hydrated by drinking a lot of water and taking breaks away from your desk and the office every so often to clear your mind. The better you are at taking care of yourself, the more likely it is that you’ll be successful in your career because you’ll make fewer mistakes and wiser decisions.
You can also have a more successful career as an entrepreneur by admitting to your mistakes when you make them. People will respect you more when you’re truthful and honest in your interactions with others and at work. Also, get comfortable failing and taking a few steps back once in a while as failure is inevitable as an entrepreneur.
The path to success will not be perfect, and there will be challenges that try to stand in your way of achieving your goals. Use your mistakes and setbacks as learning opportunities to do better the next time you’re put in a similar situation. You’ll begin to trust yourself more and have more self-confidence the more you do this in your career.
Use these tips to help you have a more prosperous and gratifying career as an entrepreneur. Remember, that your path to the top may not be easy but that it is possible with the right attitude, mindset, and approach. Believe in yourself and avoid making excuses for why you can’t or why it’s too hard to beat out the competition and become a profitable and stable company people come to know and trust. Make sure you appreciate the journey and take the time to celebrate your small wins along the way.
When you are hoping to start a business, you need to make sure that you are aware of as much as possible to do with what you need to expect. There is just so much that you are going to have to think about, and so much to deal with, that it is all going to be a lot easier and simpler if you know exactly what you need to do along the way. In particular, there are many things to focus on at the start as you start up your business. In this article, we are going to take a look at whether you have what it takes to start your business. What are some of the things that you are going to need straight away?
Secure Funding
All businesses will need a fair amount of funding if they are to start up well, and that will certainly go for your business too. That funding might come from a number of places, or you might be lucky enough to find a single benefactor who really believes in your cause, but in any case, it is something that you are going to have to think about to some degree. To ensure that the funding is secure, get it down in writing and in a clear payment clean or otherwise have it in your bank account at the very start where you can see it. Whether you are borrowing from visiolending.com, your local bank, or an investor you have found, you need to make sure that you are doing so in a sensible way.
Confidence & Drive
A lot of how well your business does comes down to you as an individual. As long as you have a certain amount of confidence and drive, you can be sure that you are going to have much more success with your business throughout its lifespan, so this is something in particular that you might want to focus on. There are always ways to improve your confidence and to fill yourself with more drive, so it is a good idea to do that. Hopefully, just the idea behind the business will be exciting enough that you have the drive to make it happen. Perhaps if you are feeling unmotivated, it just means you need to find an idea that you can get really excited about.
Time
Finally, starting up and running a business takes time. If you do not have a great deal of time to spare, then you are going to struggle to make it all work. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to spare every waking second: plenty of businesses began life as part-time ventures, and there is no reason that yours should be any different. But even those side businesses require a lot of energy put into them, and that means dedicating some time every day towards them. Be prepared for that particular sacrifice straight out the gate, as it is going to be an important part of the process.
Passion
You need to make sure you have a passion for the industry in which you are starting a business; otherwise, you might want to give up if you are just running a business for profit over everything. Your customers might also notice lower-quality products since the owner has lost passion and does not care when running their business. Finally, you must be consistent to maintain your customer base and make your business sustainable for years to come.
Have you considered buying a business for sale?
If starting a business from scratch is not the ideal path to entrepreneurship for you, you should consider purchasing an existing business for sale. This way, you can acquire a business of your choice depending on your schedule, investment range & industry. This will help you find your ideal business opportunity. If you want to browse existing businesses for sale, you should use a directory of business opportunities, such as https://businesses-for-sale-uk.co.uk
As a small business owner, do you set business hours and stick to them, or do you handle calls whenever they come? Some entrepreneurs see the need to work 100 hours or more every week when the business is still new, while others feel the need to balance work and private life. In the latter case, an answering service can help you keep in touch with customers who call after business hours.
If you have to drop everything to answer the phone or you have to stay late into the night to ensure no call is missed, you will achieve little in business’s development and growth. After-hour sales can be lucrative – and you shouldn't miss them due to unanswered calls. Besides, you need to devote more time to better your products. Instead of having the calls go to voice mail, get an answering service.
An answering service lets you capture leads and offer customers the information they need outside business hours. Most of your customers might be occupied during the workday, with most working 9-to-5 – being able to answer their calls after five will play a significant role in ramping up your small business revenue.
Instead of waiting to answer all calls that come to your business, you can dedicate your time to developing new products or producing better versions of the product you already have. A voicemail box is impersonal and generic and will drive your customers away. An answering service, on the other hand, handles each caller personally.
An answering service answers all calls that come in when you are either busy or away after closing hours. For starters, you can set business hours where requests that come in after business hours or before the start of your workday are directed to the answering service. You can also set the call to go to the answering service just to be safe. This way, you do not have to pick up all calls during your workday if you are otherwise engaged in other tasks.
When using an answering service, you need to set different scripts for different hours. For instance, after hours, you need to set troubleshooting issues, service outages, or website availability issues. Note that the answering service should not be part of your marketing strategy – they only capture leads that you would otherwise miss.
It can be a daunting experience setting up your very first business. It is also likely to be one of the most exciting times of your life. There is so much that you will be focused on and trying to get right, and however you approach it, you are bound to need a little help here and there. There is nothing wrong with that. After all, it is true for everyone, and so there’s no shame in it. But let’s look now at some of the areas that most first-time entrepreneurs need help in, to give you some idea of where you are.
IT
It is often the case that you will need help where you are weak. Most people, for instance, are not well-versed in all things technological, and so this is one area where they generally need a little help to get things going. If you think you might need help, you will want to think about going to the right people to make sure you get it right. Using a decent managed services team like www.thinktechnologiesgroup.com is often the best way to go - that way, you can just leave it all in their hands.
Marketing
The world of marketing is one that changes profoundly with each passing season, let alone with years. It is a full-time occupation just keeping up with the changes in the cultural winds, so it’s hardly surprising that most business owners don’t have the time to look into this stuff themselves. See www.mplans.com/articles/ for advice on marketing to get you started.
If you are going to try and run your business as successful as possible, then you need to make sure that you are getting some help with your marketing. With that kind of help onboard, you will be able to lead your business to the kind of success that you really want for it
Sales
Some people seem to be born natural salespeople. If you happen to be someone who can sell anything to anyone, then you will be able to use those skills in your new business - although even then you might want to find someone to help you. But most people are not such individuals, and they will need to find true salespeople to help them get their sales off the ground and their products shifted. It’s definitely wise to look out for such people early on so that you can have a much better chance of selling as many products as possible as soon as possible.
Office Design
If you have ever helped to design an office before, you will know that there are so many things involved that you need to consider. In truth, this too is something that is best left to the professionals, as they are much more likely to be able to do your team justice. You need a working space that your team can enjoy, and that means having a keen sense of what works and what doesn’t. With this kind of help, your business is going to be much better off indeed.
Whatever type and size business you run, there will always be obstacles to overcome. Of course, when you are operating a small business, there are some conundrums you are more likely to encounter. The good news here is that they are often very solvable in simple, smart ways. Keep reading to find out more.
Lack of staff skillset
One of the issues small businesses often face is that they do not have enough employees to cover all of the skill sets they need. For example, a small online t-shirt retailer won't have an IT specialist to build their site or run their network. There are also unlikely to have a marketing professional to create their strategy.
Luckily, two solutions can be applied to this problem. The first is to outsource the projects that you cannot complete yourselves. This is an option due to the gig economy. Of course, with outsourcing, you will still need to shoulder a significant cost, as the best people do not come at a cheap price.
Alternatively, you can remove the need for additional specialist skills in your business—a task that is now possible by using products like SimplyClouds hosting service. In fact, this service is designed to be so simple to use and manage that you won't need any specialist IT services.
Smaller marketing budget
Smaller businesses often come with smaller budgets. Of course, this applies to all departments, including marketing, which can be problematic. After all, marketing your business lets your customer base know what you have to offer and helps to convince them to buy. Without marketing your small business, it could struggle to sell as many products as it needs to be successful.
There is hope here, however! This is because effective marketing doesn't have to be expensive.
Of course, now with social media, search engine marketing, and SEO, it is possible to create marketing content that fulfills your small business goals—all without having a sky-high budget. In fact, the focus is now on content that is entertaining, informative, and engaging, rather than slick big-budget campaigns and productions. This means that small businesses have just as much chance of being successful in their marketing campaigns as any multinational conglomerate.
Restricted income stream
Finally, an issue that can plague many small businesses is limited income streams. When a company only has a single stream set up, this makes the whole enterprise risky.
Planning to have multiple streams of income from the outset of launching your business is the way to go. You can do this by appealing to different demographics or by diversifying the products and services you offer. This approach will help you to create a stable income for years to come.
Please note, this article contains affiliate links.
When it comes to business, we may think that too many people are jumping right into this, without first thinking about the basics of business. It’s now so appealing to be your own business, and to have a company of your own that’s providing you with a solid income. It’s well known that working for a company, and being stuck in the corporate cycle is just not something that’s appealing anymore.
But this large influx of people who wish to set up their own business is creating a crowded market, so now is the best time to think about doing it. But diving right into it without first understanding the basics is one of the worst things that you can do. But naturally, not everyone is geared up to run a business, or to understand everything that it entails.
Given this, this article is going to aim to introduce you to the basics of business, and how being an entrepreneur can grow from something you’re doing on your own, to something that’s going to grow into an empire. So have a read of the points we’re going to make below, and see if you can learn something you didn’t know before.
Technology Is Power
Business is now led by technology with more people setting up businesses that are online based. Your basic brick and mortar shop seems to be dying out, but that’s only because our generation and the generation we’re raising, is now so focused on technology and using it. So as a business, especially those of you who are web based, you need to think about all of the software you can have that will benefit your work. Even the basics, such as the Microsoft Office Suite for Mac, is becoming ever so important.
You can do so much with this from creating contracts to send to customers or suppliers to managing your finances through spreadsheets. But the software you can use extends further than this. There are software solutions that can help you to manage money, time, marketing… the lot! You just have to do a bit of research, and find out which one is going to really benefit your business.
Reputation Is Key
As a small startup, reputation is something that can be hard to build, and is often not focused on from the beginning. But you’ll admit that when you’re just starting out, this is the time that you’re most likely going to make mistakes, and perhaps build a bit of negative feedback, but that’s only because you’re getting used to how your business works.
So right from the beginning, focus on the basics of building a good customer rapport, which will in turn build an even better reputation. The more people you can get talking about you for all of the right reasons in the beginning, the more attention you’ll attract. Try actively encouraging customers to leave positive reviews on your social media pages, and web pages, for all to see. Word will spread as long as you market your company well alongside this.
Please note, this article contains affiliate links.
Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/_6HzPU9Hyfg
Success is a wonderful word that we all want to be associated with in one way or another. When you hear the word, you immediately visualize good things. It can put you in a better mood instantly, just by the power of imagination.
But who’s to say what success actually is? How is it measured? Sure, a lot of people picture a successful person as someone with too much money and all of the thriving business in the world. If that’s how you solely picture success, then good for you – you have high standards, and you’ll probably push yourself to reach them. Not everyone will reach the pinnacle, however, because it’s a place that’s reserved only for a select few.
Success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, and that’s how most of us view it, too. Whether it’s perceived as something small or big, it’s that feeling of achievement. In order for anyone to find success in anything, they need to have something about them. Nothing ever falls comfortably on our laps (well, perhaps they do for some people).
Whether you’re tackling something that nobody has ever managed to tackle before, whether you’re trying to reach a personal milestone, or whether you’re trying to overcome a personal hurdle, you’ll need to have certain qualities. You don’t have to be Mr or Mrs Perfect and be flawless at every task you face, but it helps to have the skills to accompany your mission.
If you’re interested, let’s go through a bunch of different skills, traits and characteristics that are possessed by successful people.
Organization
In order to reach a good level in terms of your work or your overall standard of doing things, you need to have a degree of organization about you. Nobody ever got very far by stumbling along and hoping for the best. Being organized means having everything together – and that means everything. From your general plans and schedule to the bits and pieces that are assembled on your desk. People that manage to get lots done often have a working plan ahead of them. Hopping from task to task on a whim might sound like an easier idea, but it’ll only get you so far.
Perpetual Motivation
Motivation is something we all need just to function on a daily basis. Without it, we’d all just be sat around wondering what the point is. If you want to reach your goal and reap the rewards, you’ll need to be mentally switched on at all times. The way we get up in the morning is all based on how motivated we are to get the jobs done.
When you’re struggling for motivation, it can be quite hard to pull it out of seemingly nowhere. You can, however, train your mind and get the motivation you need. You can watch videos, listen to podcasts and read up on the stories behind successful people. The law of attraction is also a popular method of getting what you want and being driven to do so.
Bravery
We’re not talking about immense levels of fearlessness in terms of risking your life, instead, having the courage to commit to something. When you first set out to do something, you’re free to drop out at any time and continue on with whatever tame plans you had before. Heading in a new direction or pushing yourself to do something higher-octane takes some boldness. This doesn’t always have to be regarding something that could be detrimental or that stresses you out massively, though. There’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity!
A Sociable Personality
When you’re a person that people can bounce off of comfortable, you’re going to be in with a bigger chance of getting what you want in life. That’s just a fact. Popular and well-liked figures often get more out of life than reclusive types. As a more bubbly and sociable person, you’ll get to know more and more people. Thus, more opportunities can be found, and more networking can be done. Furthermore, when you’re good with people, you’ll develop a good reputation amongst them, and they’ll be more inclined to include you in things.
Constant communication will mean you are subconsciously practicing. You won’t notice it as it’s happening, but your brain will constantly be taking in words, phrases, behaviours and mannerisms. These learned aspects of communication could turn you into an impeccable leader someday as leadership is more than just being the face of a group. Being a leader requires many skills, and being able to talk with everyone properly is a big one.
A Constant Willingness To Learn
It’s very easy to slow down your pursuit of knowledge when you feel like you’ve reached certain levels. It’s understandable because you’ve gotten to the position you’ve needed. The learning was a necessary piece of the puzzle on this particular journey. If you want to constantly improve and build on any success you’ve already found, then you should always remain a keen student. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an expert in a particular field; you’ll never know it all. You could spearhead a big firm, like Mark Zuckerberg, Cynthia Telles, Jeff Bezos, and many others – it doesn’t give you the right to stop studying. Approach everything and everyone with the attitude of an amateur – you’ll be benefited hugely.
Honesty
This is split into two ideas: being honest with yourself and being honest with others. If you can’t look at yourself and honestly evaluate where you are, then you might not make progress that you want. Often, when people either lie to themselves or continue wishing the truth was something else, they operate around something that doesn’t exist and any issues they had become exacerbated.
Being open and honest with others is the second point here. Say you’re a boss and you have people working under you. When you need to have a chat with them, do you want to get the best results for both yourself and them? Sure, you do. The way you do that is by being completely sincere and frank. When you lie to people, regardless of the situation, it always comes back to bite you in the backside. Even if the truth is sore, you have to speak it.
Self-Belief
While it’s not totally necessary to have it in droves, it’s quite important that you believe in your own ability to do things. Some are born with loads of it, so they don’t need to worry about backing themselves. For those who are a little short of confidence, however, it can be worked on. Constantly studying, getting qualifications, experience – these will all boost your self-belief in a lot of subjects.
Patience
Good things come to those who wait is how the old adage goes. And when you want something good, it’s going to take a while to reach you. Sure, some lucky souls hit the bigtime overnight, but those are one in a million instances. You need to have patience because, without it, you could give up way too soon.
You may feel as though you’re wasting your time when you’re just around the corner from something special. Patience is also a wonderful trait possessed by leaders in terms of teaching, passing down advice and working together with contacts.
A Positive Mental Attitude
Finally, and this is often smirked at by many, but people at the height of success view life with a glass half full kind of attitude. There’s always a brighter side to any outcome. There’s always an opportunity to capitalize on. If you’re moping around with a negative mindset all of the time, you’re going to get nowhere fast.
Please note, this article contains affiliate links.
By: Kayleigh Alexander - MicroStartups.org
Content is great for your business. It drives traffic to your website, sells the value of your brand, and converts visitors into customers. Repurposing blog posts is a way of producing brand new content quickly.
Below I’ve explained 3 great ways to repurpose blog posts, each of which adds immediate value to your business.
Recommended reading: 25 Ways To Improve Your Content Marketing & Get More Traffic
Long-form content is excellent for SEO. Blog posts over 3,000 words are more likely to get shared on social media, earn backlinks, and appeal to Google. You can create long-form content by making a guide from your existing blog posts.
Drill down to the root of your business. Are you a content marketing website, an e-commerce brand, or a female geared creative agency?
Whatever your area is — that’s what you want to focus on.
Then, give yourself a broad title and use your existing content to thicken it out. I’ll show you how this works using content marketing as our example.
● Title: Content Marketing 101: The Ultimate Guide To Content That Converts
● Existing blog titles:
○ Why Pinterest Is The Best Marketing Tool
○ 5 Top Tips For Writing Content For Your Blog
○ How To Improve Your Blog Shares On Facebook
Add in every article relevant to content marketing and make each one a subheading. Then include a few new points for each one, so that the content isn’t duplicated. In no time at all you have an enormous mega-guide, giving you supercharged long-form content.
It’s over a decade since Kindle was launched. Millions of units have been sold and billions of eBooks have been published with the device in mind. Kindle has had its time in the sun but people still love eBooks, especially free ones with specialist advice.
Turning your blog posts into a free book is not so different from making an ultimate guide. Group your articles around a title and create a larger resource. I’ll show you now:
● Title: An Expert Guide To Content Marketing
● Existing blog titles:
○ Why Instagram Is The Best Experiential Marketing Tool
○ 5 Reasons Niche Content Is Perfect For Your Business
○ How To Boost Your Business With Email Marketing
You add the “expert” flavor to your content by including quotes from your own business:
● Your Head of Marketing gives their rationale for Why Instagram Is The Best Experiential Marketing Tool
● Your Creative Director summarizes How To Boost Your Business With Email Marketing
● Your CEO includes one reason Niche Content Is Perfect For Your Business
Simple. Where it differs is in the value it adds to your business. Ultimate guides are great for SEO, eBooks are excellent as lead magnets. Lead magnets are a great way of driving customers to your business because they give them an incentive to do so – it’s a gift for their attention.
Overthink found HubSpot’s ten most lead magnets of 2017. Four of these were eBooks:
Once you’ve decided on your title, selected your blogs, and added the expert quotes, turning it all into a traffic-driving eBook is easy. Using a tool like Designrr allows you to create an eBook in minutes. Then add your eBook to your website and start getting more customers for your business using your repurposed content.
For more on lead magnets, check out the video below:
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Niche audiences let you target quality over quantity. Narrow audiences are more responsive to topics angled to them. This is because they address their needs, not a general idea. This also makes them more receptive to sales promotion in your blogs. It’s simple enough to take an existing blog and optimize it for a niche audience.
Millennials are a great example of a niche that many marketers and brands want to appeal to right now.
I’ll start with those same titles:
● Why Pinterest Is The Best Marketing Tool
● 5 Top Tips For Writing Content For Your Blog
● How To Improve Your Blog Shares On Facebook
Now they become:
● Why You Should Use Pinterest To Market To Millennials
● 5 Content Writing Tips Designed For Millennials
● How To Reach More Millennials Through Facebook
Next you’ll need to optimize the content so it’s angled towards the topic of millennials. A quick way of doing this is to change references to “customers,” “audience,” or “readers” to millennials. This needs to be done naturally in order to show Google your blog isn’t a spam post, and you will obviously need to add in more data and research to show you understand the topic.
Add a couple of new subheadings so there’s some fresh content in your blog post. Use software like Ubersuggest to give you ideas on what you include. You should also try Google’s People Also Ask:
After doing all this you’ll have a new blog post that’s niche focused and targeted to engaged readers.
Busy business owners don’t always have time to produce new content. By using these three tips you can turn your existing blog posts into a fresh asset. So go away and get repurposing!
By Kayleigh Alexander
Over 500,000 new businesses are set up every month, but only half manage to get to the five year mark, a statistic that can be a little alarming if you’re thinking of founding one of your own.
The infancy period of any start-up is volatile, and it can be especially difficult for entrepreneurs who don’t have any previous business experience.
Having a grip on some basic business concepts will give you some of the tools you need to successfully establish your brand and then keep it growing. Don’t blindly fight against established business norms — learn them, boss them, and then choose to subvert them if you want.
Here are seven easy business concepts that you need to know to help you realize your wildest creative business dreams.
One of the main challenges for young businesses is finding a way to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage over other brands in a given market.
Put simply, a competitive advantage is an advantage you have over your competitors. This is achieved by giving your customers greater value — either by offering lower prices or justifying higher prices by providing a better product or service.
In his 1985 book ‘Competitive Advantage’, Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter outlined three core ways that businesses can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage:
● Cost leadership means providing reasonable value at a lower price, which can be done by improving operational efficiency. Basically doing more with less — gig economy businesses are great for this
● Differentiation means delivering greater benefits to the customer than your competitors can. This can typically be achieved through having an innovative product, a very high-quality product, or delivering a similar product as your competitors, but offering exceptional customer service. Differentiation is often how creative businesses like yours stand out
● Focus means that the company’s founders understand and serve their target market better than its competitors. The key to focusing is to choose one specific target market, often a niche that bigger companies don’t serve, and then concentrating hard on nailing it.
The concept of supply and demand is directly relevant to any company competing in the marketplace, regardless of its size. Supply and demand mean that a market will respond to changes in demand and supply to overcome surplus and shortages and therefore maintain an ‘equilibrium price’. For example, a shortage of gold leads to a higher price, because, as demand for gold increases, the upward pressure on prices would naturally prevent a shortage.
Source: The Dasinger Daily
Understanding the specific supply and demand issues affecting both the sales and the purchases that your business makes will enable you to make more informed decisions.
Return on Investment (ROI) is the financial benefit that is received from an investment, or, put more simply, a measure of what you get back compared to what you put in. For example, say you spent $1000 per month on Google Adwords, and your business made $2000 as a direct result of the ads, your ROI would be the difference. ROI is usually measured as a ratio, which in this case would be 2:1, because for every $1 you spend, you get $2 back.
Calculating ROI will help you to track what’s working and what isn’t working for your business. If your ads aren’t generating a profit, you will know that you need to make changes to them, or drop them altogether in favor of another form of marketing.
When you start a business, your costs come in two forms: fixed and variable. Fixed costs don’t change when your sales volume changes, but variable costs do. Examples of fixed costs include the rent you pay for the space that your company uses, such as an office or storage facility, insurance, marketing and management salaries. Examples of variable costs are material and labor, the costs of which go up and down depending on sales.
Source: PrepLounge
Understanding which costs are fixed and which are variable will enable you to budget and plan accordingly, and help you to identify what is a profitable price level for your products or services. If you suddenly lost your biggest customer account and therefore 25% of your sales, you’d still need to cover your fixed costs to keep your company running; figuring out these costs could be crucial to keeping your company alive.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the total worth of a customer to a business over the entirety of their relationship. It’s important to your business because it costs less to keep existing customers than it does to acquire new ones. According to the book Marketing Metrics, “businesses have a 60-70% chance of selling to an existing customer, whilst the probability of selling to a new customer is only 5% to 20%”. Increasing the value of your existing customers will really help to drive growth.
However, measuring CLV isn’t easy, with only 42% of companies feeling able to do it, and citing poor systems, lack of coherent marketing and lack of integration as the reasons why.
If big, established businesses struggle to measure CLV, then new and small businesses are likely to find it hard to make accurate measurements, but you can make a start with this simple formula: customer revenue minus the cost to acquire and serve the customer. If you are prepared to really drill down into the concept, there are more complex calculations that will help you get a more accurate result.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) means the price that your business pays to acquire a new customer. It can be worked out by dividing the total costs associated with acquisition by total new customers, within a specific time period. For example, if you spend $500 on marketing in one month and acquire 500 customers, then your CAC is $1. Web-based companies can roll out highly targeted campaigns and track customers from leads to conversions, making their CAC highly accurate.
If you’ve just started a business, acquiring customers is crucial to making sure it is a success, but if you spend too much money on acquiring customers, then you won’t be able to pay your other costs and keep your business afloat. CAC is directly relevant to CLV, and combining the two will allow you to calculate what is the true value of a customer to your business.
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a development technique where a new product is introduced to the market with basic features, which will capture the attention of early adopters. Companies such as Uber, Dropbox, and Airbnb all started as MVPs and achieved very rapid growth. An MVP is a bare-bones version of a product that includes a minimum of features and directly addresses the core problem it is trying to solve. Once the initial product is successful, more features can be added.
Source: Cheesecake Labs
An MVP allows you to release your product to market in the shortest possible time, reduce start-up costs and test demand before spending money adding all the bells and whistles.
An easy creative product-based MVP would be a print-on-demand business with low overheads. Simply set up shop, hook up with an app like Printful, and go out looking for ways to make your first sale. Using print-on-demand methods means you can keep costs of production down while you test your designs and brand out with your target market.
On the service side, you might be looking to start a consultancy coaching business for creative entrepreneurs. Before going all-out, test the waters with a series of blogs, a webinar, or a training course (Thinkific is good for this) to gauge whether you have a viable market and compelling message. You may find that you need to adapt your messaging.
You can work directly with users to analyze behaviors and get feedback, allowing you to develop your product in ways that you know customers will like. Developing your business in this way can also avoid large capital losses, therefore attracting potential investors because it is a low-risk venture.
There’s a lot to learn when setting up a new business and there is no guarantee of success, but educating yourself about some of the basic principles will stack the odds in your favor. A firm grounding in everything from basic economic theory such as supply and demand to sophisticated development techniques like MVP will help you found a business that is both profitable and sustainable.
Kayleigh Alexandra is a content writer for Micro Startups — a site dedicated to giving through growth hacking and shining a light on innovative startups. Visit the blog for your latest dose of startup, entrepreneur, and charity insights from top experts around the world. Follow us on Twitter @getmicrostarted.
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