If you have dreamed of owning your own business then the simple answer is to go ahead and do it! We can all find a million obstacles that stand in the way fo our dreams but you must get out there and take risks. Your new business venture may even fail, learn from it and go again, alternatively it may be a resounding success, and here are some tips on ensuring that you have the best possible chance of finding it.
High Quality
The first step is to ensure that you have excellent quality products and services, that have been rigorously tested so that they are market ready. Regardless of any marketing, relationships, customer service, you will not succeed without a great product.
Location
The location of your business is vitally important, it will be crucial to your customers but also to your suppliers and of course, to your staff. Rent may be cheaper outside of town but if it doesn’t help the business from a geographical point of view then you will be wasting your money.
Interaction
Whether you have any money to invest in marketing in or not, you must interact with your customers, both existing customers and future. We live in a world of heavy competition and customers can find it very difficult to place any real loyalty, when they do it is based on trust rather than gimmicks. Through the use of social media for example, you can directly communicate to your customers, and offer a human face behind the name of your business, gaining their trust, and their loyalty.
First 5 Years
Sadly, over half of all new businesses fail within the first 3 years, and over 40% of those then fail in the following 2 years. With this in mind you should be looking to survive the first 5 years, and this should be your man focus, prior to even considering growth. Scaling up can come later, for now you should just be focussing on those first 5.
Contacts
You should be looking to build relationships throughout the sector that you are in and beyond, if you want to see future success. Always be open and willing to form and maintain new relationships as you will be surprised at just how many times those relationships will be able to help you in the future. Don’t be an island, get involved in your new community and be a good contact.
Outsourcing
Don’t be too proud an think that you can accomplish everything inside the business on your own, you cannot. In fact something which damages a lot of businesses is that they try to reach beyond their means and end up in financial trouble. Your job as the leader is to lead, not get bogged down in the minutiae. With this in mind, it is vital that you look for areas of your business that you can outsource, to help keep the business streamlined, and to make sure that the skills which your team have, are being used where they are needed.
Business is tough, be patient, be smart and you’ll get that success that you are looking for.