Photo by The CEO Kid on Unsplash
The exciting thing about starting a business is, often people are so focused on the final outcome, they don’t see how much they don’t really know. While it isn’t essential you know everything, because as you go, you will learn what is vital for your business, some things are going to help you from the off.
No Plan, No Movement
Most businesses are started on a bit of a whim. Which is actually very cool. It means that a lot of people have some risk-taking in their nature and that they are seizing opportunities when they arise. But, it is critical that you really think about what you are doing. Are you offering too many services? Well, some people are likely to get the paradox of choice issues and choose nothing at all. Are you offering too many of a similar product? Shipping costs not well worked out? If you have started up your business but haven’t set your sights on any one direction. Bobbing and weaving with new ideas is going to impede your forward motion.
Business Plan
This can be so underrated and often overlooked with the ease of opening a business nowadays. But, the fact remains that if you really want to get the interest of investors, bank managers, and get other people on board, you’ll need to show them you have a plan. In it, you will also be able to outline your marketing strategy, financial forecast and really solidify your vision. It will help keep you on track in years to come because you will be focused on achieving the goals that you had laid out in the plan.
Price Well, Not Low
When you are a startup, most often, you will price yourself too low. In a bid to bring in the sales, and that is great – initially. The problem is, you won’t retain those customers once you bring your prices in line with the market. Very low prices are usually sustainable for most businesses, and you’ll find yourself making a loss, over time that will stack up into business debts and closure. In the long run, you are better off working on bringing value and excellent service to your customers.
Failure- Is Fine
When you start your own business, or even just started freelancing – you can feel like you are failing if you aren’t getting regular work or making a significant profit. But actually, every failure in the business world will teach you something. If you find that you purchased too much stock, you’ll realise you need to work on your stock management and maybe take a course. If you find that you are struggling to understand supply chain management a course from the University of Alabama Birmingham will see you right in no time at all. If you are regularly ‘failing’ in the same place, like time management, social media or other – then it might be looking at how you can break that cycle.
Failure is always fine, as long as you learn from it and make the necessary adjustments.
Hiring
There will come a point where you can’t take on all of the new business that you want. You’re finding that you don’t have time to take care of the big or little stuff. And you are flat out – 24/7 without a break. Before you hit that point, you should take a look at your finances and see if there is room to make some hires. You should steer clear of hiring friends and family in most cases because if it doesn’t work out that bad blood can hang around for years to come.
Outsourcing smaller jobs to freelancers and finding spaces to automate the process is going to maximize your time. The time that you can use to work on your business, not just in it.
Automation
If you are doing the same thing day in, and day out it is almost certain there will be some software out there that can help you spend less time on it. If This Then That is a popular option for rolling process into one. It can automate your business and personal life. For example, in the morning if you have a smart home, you can have IFTTT switch on your lights, which your hub reads your to-do list. It works with hundreds of apps and can make life much easier. If you want to have your social media handles, then hire a freelancer to take a month of content into Buffer or Sprout and let it run – checking in only to reply to comments and post live content.
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We’re here to help you to take action just like we’ve helped thousands of other entrepreneurs, business owners and creative professionals all around the globe.
Now is the time to let your passion SHINE.
Now is the time to Make Tomorrow Today!
To your success,
Vinh Van Lam & Stuart Horrex
Your Coaches ArtSHINE industries
