If you are searching for a secret recipe on how to succeed in business, you will face disappointment. The so-called “hacks,” “guarantees,” and “ultimate guides” do not work. Trust us. That said, some tips or suggestions do work in helping you succeed in the initial stages.
In fact, we’d go so far as to say that the modern-day entrepreneur needs to take specific measures to ensure success in a highly competitive environment. This blog talks about the different tips on management, branding, and outreach fronts that entrepreneurs must not ignore today.
Check out this series of 4 blogs that focuses on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.
Part 1: 7 Things an Entrepreneur Must Assume When Starting a Business
Part 2: Created a New Business Plan? Do This Next!
Part 3: New Entrepreneurs Must Master These 4 Skills
Part 4: 7 Ways for Entrepreneurs to Decrease Risk on Payments
How to Succeed in Business – 12 Tips for People Starting Out
Tips on Branding
Tip #1: Build a Social Profile
Building a social profile over different platforms is critical to a modern-day business’s success.
Look at it this way: When you want to buy something, you go to Google to search for the best options first. Once you found a relatable brand/product, you likely check their Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook pages for customer reviews and testimonials. Building a social profile helps your brand with the credibility it needs to take off.
Tip #2: Don’t Create a Website Unless You Need One
We know this is a contradictory tip to the first one, and it may also be the exact opposite of what you read on other blogs. However, building a website is not as important as you think if you have a solid social presence. Many business owners obsess over the minute details of building websites and spend way too much time and energy. Unless your business caters to enterprise customers, you probably don’t need a website from day one.
Tip #3: Register Your Business on Google
Study how Google business works and register for the same. Companies that deal with local customers from a specific geography need must register on Google.
Tip #4: Find Out Where Your Customers Reside
As a business owner, you need to start hanging out at the places where your customers reside. This place might be a LinkedIn Group (if you run a B2B business model), a Facebook group (for B2C customers), Upwork or Freelancer (for service-based business models), or something else. Actively engaging at these places as an SME (Subject Matter Expert) in your business field helps you understand your customers better.
Tips on Outreach
Tip #5: Do Not Be Afraid of Experimentation
Innovation and experimentation form the foundation of modern-day growing businesses. Unless you do something truly revolutionary, there are good chances that your market space is already saturated with a lot of competition. You do NOT need to reinvent the wheel to succeed in business. However, experimentation on the outreach and branding fronts helps you offer a fresh take on the subject.
Studies from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that nearly 20% of businesses fail within the first two years of operation, 45% during the first five, and 65% during the first ten. If you want your business to last for years to come, you need to experiment and take bold steps deliberately.
Tip #6: Focus on Cold Outreach
New business owners often underestimate the power of cold outreach. Unless you are associated with a notable brand early on, you need to invest in cold outreach via calls, emails, and paid marketing. You cannot afford to wait for the customers to walk in through your front door all the time. Cold outreach might not always bring you new business, but it helps you understand the market and establish a brand name.
Tip #7: Partner with Complementary Business Owners
Establishing healthy and mutually-beneficial partnerships is the fastest way to succeed as a business owner. Business owners providing complementary solutions are often happy to partner with new and rising businesses to offer their services as a complete package. For example, if you start a company that provides live entertainment, partner up with popular cafes and restaurants to get the initial business opportunities rolling in.
Tip #8: Leverage Cross-sell and Upsell Opportunities
Did you know that nearly 35% of Amazon’s is generated by cross-sells? The cost of acquiring a new customer is often several times higher than cross-selling or upselling to an existing one. Business owners that offer a wide range of services and products quickly scale by correctly leveraging these opportunities. Collect customer feedback to help you identify these opportunities and prevent unnecessary attrition. Customers that feel valued stay much longer and eventually become loyal clients that spread praise via word-of-mouth.
Tips on Management
Tip #9: Train at Least One Employee to Manage Everything
Passive income is the ultimate goal of creating a sustainable business model. Ideally, you want your business to run efficiently even while you sleep. As a new business owner, you will probably have to sacrifice a couple of vacations and parties in the early growth stages. However, preparing an individual or a team of people to handle the day-to-day operations will help you take the much-needed break.
Tip #10: Track Progress and Pivot When Necessary
Set milestones and track your progress while growing the business. It is essential that you stay true to your course but equally vital that you pivot once you realize a strategy is not working.
Tip #11: Keep Your Enemies (Competitors) Closer
Conduct market research, identify your top competitors and see what they are doing differently. All successful business models have at least a couple of different tactics that help them stand out differently.
Tip #12: Offer a Seamless Payment and Checkout Experience
Studies show that businesses lose nearly 70% of potential sales due to cart abandonment across various industries. A seamless checkout and payment experience helps business owners minimize this loss. Ideally, business owners should partner with a reliable payments processor that enables them with a hosted payments page for a good checkout experience. The most popular payment processors help business owners quickly accept payments via ACH and credit cards. They also help you offer cash discounts to attract a more extensive customer base.
Succeeding in business is no cake-walk, but it is not utterly impossible, too. Business owners with a level head, good plan, and a knack for timely execution will see success in the long run. If you are a business owner starting your own venture, reach out to us to set up your payment processing today!
Date originally published: April 28, 2022