By Mercy Meuni
Top 5 Tips For A Successful New Business
Starting a new business is undoubtedly an enormous risk. As an entrepreneur, you are putting your money and time on the line. Therefore, you need to take steps that set yourself up to have a long-lasting successful new business.
It may be hard to accept, but there is no perfect blueprint for start-up success. However, through smart business practices, you can lay a solid foundation for long-term success in your business.
Here are five tips that will help you start your successful new business.
1. Choose the right business for you.
You’ve decided to take the leap – venture out on your own. But what is the right business for you? The decision you make on a business choice will affect you for years to come, and as such, you should not take it lightly. You need to carefully screen your options and make the right choice from the very beginning. A wrong business choice will result in you jumping from one venture to another, squandering precious time and money.
Some of the factors you need to consider when analyzing if a business is right for you or not are;
Passion
Though exhilarating and lucrative, starting a business is a demanding and time-intensive task. A natural interest in your business will keep you motivated and help you push through tough times. If you are spending a great deal of time doing something that you dislike, you’ll eventually burnout.
Skillset required
What are the technical skills required for your business? Ideally, your business should align with the skills that you possess. Educational background and work experience in your field of business can be vital for the success of your new business.
Start-up costs
The factors surrounding the start-up costs of your business are delicate and require extensive analysis. How much capital do you need to start your business? What percentage of the initial investment are you able to raise? Are you in a position to obtain funding from investors? Are you willing to give up equity to raise funds for your business? The answers to these questions will help you determine the choice of business is right for you.
Your ultimate goal
What is the motivation behind you starting your business? Are you aiming for financial freedom, more spare time, or the status of being a business owner? Your business should be capable of achieving your core purpose.
2. Learn from others
As a start-up, you can either stumble blindly trying to determine which strategies are fruitful or you can learn which practices work from your predecessors. There are a lot of priceless lessons to be learned from the millions of entrepreneurs who have preceded you. From the businesses that thrived, you can study their best practices and incorporate them into your business. You can also learn from the mistakes of companies that failed and avoid them in your venture.
You can learn from businesses within and beyond your industry. Successful businesses in your industry have developed effective practices and strategies over time, and they have yielded results for them. While implementing already proven strategies does not guarantee the prosperity of your venture, it is a less risky path to take.
As an entrepreneur, you can also look at businesses that have been successful in other industries. You can then borrow some of their best practices and tailor them to fit your industry better. Such innovation will not only develop better techniques for your business but also create a competitive advantage for your business.
There is a wealth of resources that an entrepreneur can utilize to avoid the most common pitfalls in business. You can learn from courses offered by experts, seminars, industry conferences, lectures, webinars, and eBooks. A mentor can also be an enormous asset for a budding entrepreneur.
3. Incorporate Digital Marketing
The internet is arguably one of humanity’s most revolutionary inventions. As an entrepreneur, you must maintain a strong digital presence for your business to succeed. Some of the benefits you’ll reap from using digital marketing include;
- Affordable marketing compared to traditional forms of advertising.
- Your business will enjoy a global reach.
- You can easily engage with consumers and build lasting relationships.
- Digital marketing is indispensable in building a solid brand image and presence.
Digital marketing offers a wide variety of tools that you can incorporate into your business. At the very least, your business should have a professional-looking website, social media accounts, and an email list. A blog is also an excellent tool that you can utilize to further your digital presence.
Website
Potential clients will most probably search for your business on the web and then decide to either make contact with you or not. Your website provides the first impression of your business and will influence the decision of prospective customers. A basic website does not cut it anymore. A superior website that exudes professionalism has become the expected standard.
Your website should contain a wealth of information that is carefully curated to show that your primary purpose is to help, not sell. A website that is too salesy is off-putting to clients. On the other hand, subtlety will carry you through.
Approximately half of the global website traffic comes from mobile devices. For this reason, your website needs to be mobile-friendly. It should also be easy to navigate with easily accessible social sharing buttons.
To improve your ranking on search engine results pages, you need to optimize your website. The majority of internet users only look at the first few pages of their search results, and thus your website needs to rank favorably. You can optimize your website by researching and creating an exceptional list of commonly used keywords that you can then incorporate into your site. SEO is a dynamic tool that will serve to boost your image and drive up traffic to your website.
Social media platforms
With 3.6 billion social media users, it’s no longer an option for businesses to skip out on social media accounts. Some of the most popular platforms for businesses include Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Social media has made it possible for businesses to connect and engage with customers instantly. Replying to comments from your customers is a great way to interact with them, get their feedback, and build better relationships with them.
Social media can also be a great way to inject some personality and humanize your brand. Do not take yourself too seriously on social media or make the amateur mistake of sharing ads only. Aim to integrate content that inspires your clients, makes them laugh, or teaches them something new. Some of the most popular content on most sites is memes, comics, and infographics. Such posts are liked and shared a great deal and are more likely to go viral.
Denny’s, an American restaurant chain, has embraced viral humor on social media and runs one of the funniest brand accounts on Twitter. They figure out ways to blend their products into hilarious contexts. Denny’s tweets are widely popular among millennials, and they serve as a free technique of spreading awareness. While you may not dedicate your entire social media sites to humorous content, the occasional funny post will go a long way.
Blogging
A blog allows you to demonstrate your proficiency. By writing engaging and helpful blogs, your business can show consumers that it is credible and a leader in the industry. A blog can be an invaluable, inexpensive tool for your business.
According to a report by Hubspot, businesses that blog will gain 97% more links to their website and receive 55% more website visitors than businesses that don’t. Additionally, statistics show that 61% of the people who read a recommendation on a blog will buy the product or service.
Some of the benefits associated with running a blog for your business are;
- Blogs can be a valuable tool in building relationships with existing and potential clients. You can engage with your readers in the comment section of your blogs, and cultivate better relationships by responding to their comments and addressing their concerns.
- Enhance search engine optimization. By consistently posting blogs that are rich in relevant keywords, Google and other search engines will favor your website, enabling you to rank higher.
- Provide value to your clients. A blog enables you to furnish your existing and potential customers with helpful information and ideas. Customers appreciate free beneficial content, and it may inspire their loyalty towards your business when they are ready to make a purchase.
4. Business plan
Every start-up requires a business plan, some more elaborate than others. If you are not looking for investors or committing a lot of money into your venture, a basic business plan will suffice. The plan should outline your objectives and map out a plan of action to achieve them. A business plan should also cover your mission statement, the business description, a sales and marketing plan, a financial plan, and a management and operation plan.
Some of the benefits of having a business plan include;
A business plan is a crucial tool in determining the viability of your business. You will need to analyze the competition in your industry, potential market for your product or service, and the expected costs compared to projected income. This analysis will help you determine if your business is capable of supporting itself financially or if you should skip the project altogether.
- A business plan helps you to foresee obstacles you may encounter down the road. You are, therefore, able to devise ways to get past them in advance.
- You can identify your strengths and resources, and capitalize on them to get an advantage over your competitors.
- A business plan serves as your resume. If you are seeking to obtain funding from investors or loans from lending institutions, your business plan showcases your business potential and is the tool to win over financiers.
- You can use your business plan as a point of reference when reviewing costs and profits. It will help you to determine where you are off-target, based on your financial goals and projections, and you can formulate the necessary means to cut down costs and maximize profits.
Your business plan should not be set in stone. As your business progresses, circumstances may change, and you will need to adjust your business plan accordingly for your business to remain competitive and successful. However, the plan will still help to keep you committed and on the right track to achieve your goals.
5. Move with the times.
It’s a fact that conditions are constantly changing and as an entrepreneur, you cannot afford to be rigid in your ways. You will need to embrace the change and adjust your strategy to incorporate the latest trends in business. Of course, not every trend will be suitable for your business, but from time to time, a revolutionary development will emerge.
Some of the current trends that may benefit your business include;
- Remote work. There is no denying that business space can be costly, especially for a new venture. With the advancement in technology, your employees can work remotely eliminating the need for expensive office space.
- Outsourcing services. While the importance of employees in a business is indisputable, the cost of hiring and maintaining full-time staff may be crippling, especially for a start- up. A solution to this challenge would be to outsource some of the duties to independent contractors. This will not only save your business money but also infuse some fresh outlooks and experience into your business.
- Growth of virtual marketplaces. The internet has transformed how customers shop today. In the late 1990s, online purchases accounted for less than 5% of all retail purchases. As of 2019, this percentage had risen to 12%, and it’s only going to keep rising. The value of e-commerce sales in 2019 was a staggering 3.53 trillion US dollars, a figure that is expected to grow to 6.54 trillion US dollars in 2022. For this reason, your business will need to adapt by building an online presence and embracing digital marketing techniques.
You need to monitor changes and trends in the business world as they have the potential to either aid or hurt your business. Consumers’ needs and desires also change with time, and you will continuously need to adjust and step up your services to satisfy your clients.
Final word
As an entrepreneur, it is up to you to ensure that your new business succeeds. Your business will flourish if you employ the right business practices. If a technique is not working for your business, do not hesitate to change or scrap it altogether.
Starting a new business is a demanding task. Ensuring that your new venture is profitable is even more intricate. However, you’ve not taken the plunge and set up your new business only to have if fail, have you? Implementing these tips in your new business will build the proper foundation for your business and bring about prosperity.
Sources
https://www.statista.com/statistics/379046/worldwide-retail-e-commerce-sales/
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/06/29/funniest-twitter-accounts
https://wpforms.com/the-ultimate-list-of-online-business-statistics/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/business-blogging-in-2015
https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/
