1. Strive for the Best Quality
If some aspects of your business are suspect or you are struggling with finance, HR, or whatever, as long as the quality of your product or service is high on your priority your customers will appreciate it and come back again and again. Trying to find new clients has a cost associated with it and if you can give them your best they will come back. The other issues will have to be dealt with but you will have a customer base.
2. Make Your Customer King
You need to continuously ask your customers for feedback. Consider issues that you would want addressed if you were the customer. Client feedback should be a welcome component of your sales cycle. You and your employees need to relish customer feedback so you can improve your product offering.
3. Quality and Prudent Staffing
I’ve seen start ups fill the employee ranks because they had the budget. A prudent entrepreneur keeps the HR department lean and mean, fill as needed and never have excessive staffing. I always say, pay the most you can afford to those working with you and create an environment in which people will want to work for you.
4. Proactive Attitude
Running a business requires you to always be ahead of the game whether it’s the competition or trends. You need to be a positive proactive thinker trying to be the go to guy/business for the latest or the greatest product or service.
5. Goal Priority
Any business person who doesn’t write a business plan is a fool. The corollary to that being if you have done a plan and fail to follow it your an idiot too. Goals don’t have to be followed to the letter and can change as you grow but you need to know what the rules of the game are and where you need to be in a specific time line or you have nothing.
6. Ongoing SWOT analysis
The cool part of being a small entrepreneur is being able to adapt quickly to market trend and competition jumping into your market. Developing a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) and constantly monitoring it will help you keep on top of the competition.
7. Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
I sure hope you have a distinguishing product or service that makes you different from the competition. If you are just like the competition you will need to make up for the similarity with incredible customer service and better quality.
8. Effective Marketing
Your marketing doesn’t have to cost you vast amounts of money to be effective. It does have to be targeted, be part of a strategy and cost effective to the money you have to spend. I can do a global launch with little spending compared to results. Effective marketing can be very guerrilla if planned well in a systematic approach.
9. Understanding What Your Customer Needs
This may involve market research, polls, or something as simple as a gut feeling. The entrepreneur must understand the customer enough to know what the client needs. A restaurant patron may feel the food at his favorite eatery sucks and sets up a restaurant to address the need for a quality wholesome food alternative. Typically businesses will come out of nowhere based on a perceived need for something missing or in an effort to create something better.
There is a fine line between running a great business and having a business that drives you into the ground.
Gary is CEO of Bizzo Management Group Inc.,VanAsia Capital Corp., and Bizzo Integrated Marketing Corp. in Vancouver. London-based Richtopia placed Bizzo on the Top 100 Global Influencers in the World for 2018. He is an Adjunct Professor of Integrated Marketing & Communications, as well as, Consumer Behavior at the New York Institute of Technology, MBA School of Management (Vancouver Campus). Gary can be reached at ceo@garybizzo.com