If you take just a few moments to look online, you’ll see a plethora of stories about people who had ambition and a will to succeed and who went from nothing to hugely successful business owners with no training, no money, and no experience. You might even be motivated to start your own business because of these types of people. Yet when you do, you’ll more than likely find it to be much harder work than you anticipated.
The truth is that for every one of these success stories, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of stories of people who wanted excellent results but couldn’t achieve them. They were not as lucky as these other people, and they didn’t realize the hard work that has to come when you launch a business.
However, although it is possible to become one of these inspirational success stories, if you truly want to have a business that thrives and is profitable, you’ll need to understand what it takes. You’ll need to know what business means and how to use your knowledge to your advantage. With that in mind, here are some ways to ensure your company is a good one and that it is successful.
Strong Leadership
A business is only ever as strong as its leader. If you want to ensure your business works in the way it is meant to and how you planned for it to work, you must be that strong leader. You need to have a number of different traits, including knowledge, experience, confidence, and determination. You don’t have to know everything, but you do need to have a plan and you need to have at least some understanding of how each department within your business is meant to function.
This is not an easy task, and it’s why not everyone is cut out to run their own business. You need to have the self-assurance that leadership requires to work; no one is going to follow a boss who seems unsure of themselves and who doesn’t have any idea of where they see their own business in the future. This will be unnerving for staff, and it won’t inspire much confidence in customers either.
Some people are naturally strong leaders, but if you find this to be a struggle, there are things you can do. One option is to attend classes to obtain an additional business degree. When you do this, you will gain many skills, all of which will help you, and those skills include leadership. Don’t worry if you don’t think you’ll have time to study and run a business; with courses like the St. Bonaventure University Online MSBA program, you can work at times that suit you and build your business and your education at the same time.
A USP
Every business has to have a USP, which stands for ‘unique selling point’. Without a USP, your business is likely to be forgotten, lost amidst the myriad other businesses that are all starting up at the same time. Some of these businesses will work, and others – the majority, according to statistics – will fail. If you want yours to be in the former category, you need it to stand out so that your prospects will notice you and, crucially, remember you. Your USP will help this to happen.
Your USP is effectively the thing that makes you different from your competitors. Ideally, you will have found a gap in the market when you thought about what your business was going to do, and it’s how you fill that gap that is your USP. However, it might be that there was no gap, and you decided on a different course and a different reason for starting your business. If that’s the case, you’ll need to look harder for your USP. Don’t give up, though; your USP is crucial, and it will help you to ensure your company is successful.
The good thing about your USP is that it can be anything at all. It might be the products and services you sell, but equally, it could be the packaging you use, what you do with your profits, your customer service, or the added extras you provide. No matter what it is, once you have it, you need to ensure people are aware of it, so include it in your marketing and make it prominent on your website and social media.
A Strategy
What do you need to start a business? Many people think the only thing they need is the idea of what they are going to sell. So, they create a website, make some social media profiles, and wait, hoping customers will come to them.
This might work, in part. Some people might notice your business, and they might think you’re interesting enough for them to spend money on. However, this plan is unlikely to bring in the money you need to survive and grow your business into a successful company. It might bring you a little pocket money, but probably not much else. Plus, it’s not really a plan at all – you’re just hoping for the best.
In reality, the first thing you’ll need when you want to start a business is a strategy. You’ll have to write a business plan, and although this might seem like a chore, it’s best not to rush through it; take the task seriously, even if it takes a long time. This business plan is vital to the ultimate success of your company and rushing it or not thinking things through could mean you make mistakes further down the line that cause you any number of problems.
When you write things down in a business plan, you can navigate your way through from where you are to where you want to be on paper. This will give you the opportunity to think carefully through each stage of your business growth and ensure that you will be making the right choices at that point.
Not only will a business plan help you grow your business and help you to become a strong leader (if you know what the next steps are, you’ll be confident in taking them and asking other people to take them with you), but you’ll also find any borrowing you need to do for your business is easier. You can show your business plan to lenders and investors, and because everything is laid out carefully and you can prove how you’ll use the money and how you’ll pay it back, they will be more likely to lend to you. This can be what is required to take your business to the next level.
Competitor Analysis
You can do everything we mentioned above – and a lot more if you choose to – and still not be successful. Why is this? The answer is that you must also carry out a thorough competitor analysis to see what your business rivals are doing and how they are doing it.
It will always be easier to ignore your competition and just focus on what you’re doing, and in many situations in life, this is the best tactic to use. It usually doesn’t matter what other people are doing, as long as you’re doing what you want and need to do. In business, it’s different. In business, if you ignore your competitors, you could fall behind them and lose customers to them.
The fact is that thousands of businesses are being launched each year, and although many of them will be unsuccessful, some will grow. Some will become absolute powerhouses and eventually household names. It all depends on the leadership, the idea, and how well your competitor analysis goes.
Competitor analysis should start immediately before you even think about launching a website or registering a business name. Take a look at your potential rivals and see what they are doing. This will actually help you determine whether or not your idea is a good one to begin with. If you feel it is, you can then see how much competition you have.
You can then use that competition to gauge what you can do in your own business. You can look at their marketing and see what is working and what to avoid. You can examine their USPs and anything else you can find about their business. Then you can use that information to create your own plans – never steal ideas directly from your competitors, of course, but use the knowledge you have gained to come up with workable ideas of your own.
Marketing
It is impossible to run a successful business without any marketing. As we’ve said above, simply launching your business and waiting for people to find you is a mistake that you should avoid; it will lead to tiny profits and perhaps no profits at all. You might have to retire your business or get a job while it grows.
The best thing to do if you want a successful company is to put a good marketing plan in place. The budget for your marketing will depend on how you intend to do it, but there should be some money behind it if you can manage it; the more money you have in your marketing budget, the sooner you can find success.
