Want to run a successful business? Then you have come to the right place below you’ll find a detailed and realistic guide to ensure you and your business thrive.
This is a contributed post. Please refer to my disclosure for more information.
Create a product that customers want
It is impossible to succeed in business if the product you are making is not one that customers want to buy. Sadly, many people get this initial step wrong and get carried away by an idea they think is great only to discover after much time, effort and money that other products fulfill the same function, or that no one needs what they have created.
The way to avoid such a mistake that can seriously endanger the success of any business is to stay in close contact with customers from the very beginning of the process to the end. This means plenty of customer and market research needs to be done before you even begin brainstorming products, and that lots of customer testing with the products you do come up with needs to be done to perfect them before you start manufacturing them en masse.
Never underestimate the power of marketing
If you want your business to thrive you have to let the right people know about your products and services. This is the essence of marketing and too many companies forget just how critical it is to success in today’s digitally connected world.
First of all, make sure you are marketing to the right people. This means your target audience, or the people most likely to be interested in and buy your product. Indeed, all of your marketing efforts need to be customized to suit this particular audience as doing so will ensure they are as effective as possible.
Next, remember that while in-real-life marketing still has a place for some businesses, digital marketing strategies are crucial to most company’s success. This means you’ll need to have a good grasp of things like social media marketing, SEO, and content marketing. In particular, finding an expert writer who can professionally produce content for you is essential because competition is forced online, and you will need to do everything you can to ensure your brand comes up when people search for the products you offer.
Embrace working with others
Many business people and entrepreneurs are laboring under the false supposition that success is something that can be achieved alone. However, the truth of the matter is that this is not the case and there are many instances when running a business that you will need to work with people or as part of a team.
One such instance is when your business expands past the capacity that a single person can run. Then you will need to either employ people to help you with the tasks you no longer have time to do or outsource them.
Another example is when your business reaches a certain level of success, and you employ a team of managers and supervising staff that you can delegate tasks to, working together as a whole to get the job done.
Lastly, being at the top of business can sometimes feel a little lonely, even when things are going well. With this in mind, seeking peer support from others or a mentor who can offer you great advice from their own experience can be very helpful here. Indeed, doing so can work wonders for your mental health and ensure you have the tenacity to see your projects through the long term, even during stressful times.
Decide on the correct selling price
Business success also depends on finding the right price at which to sell your products or services. For example, would you pay £1000 for a sponge to do these dishes? Didn’t think so and nor would anyone else, so you need to make sure the price you charge them is proportional to the value of the product you offer.
The tricky bit is that you also need to make sure the price you choose is enough for you to make a profit once you have deducted the cost of the materials, resources, labor, and overheads used to make it. Many businesses double the amount for these things and set that as their wholesale price, increasing single-unit prices even further.
The good news is some ways can help you sell your product for the right price. One option is to mass produce your product in a factory, thereby keeping the costs and overheads as low as possible, meaning more profit can be claimed from the retail price.
Another option is to consider a different business model altogether, such as a subscription service. This can work particularly well for products that only need to be made once, like SaaS and then can be sold over and over again at a high price.
Center your business around amazing customer experiences
To succeed your business needs to be completely centered around the experience that you provide to your customers. This means not only ensuring that your product is great but also making sure that every step of their customer journey is geared toward their needs.
What this looks like will differ from business to business, depending on what products and services you are offering. For example, if you are running an ecommerce business selling clothing online, making sure that you have the best photos and videos of your products will be crucial to the customer experience. Another would be to offer next-day delivery along with free returns thereby reducing any stress caused by waiting or returning items that do not suit them.
However, if you are running a pharmacy business then you will have completely different things to consider to optimize your customer experience. One such factor could be the use of medication adherence packaging which makes getting the right dose at the right time easy for every pharmacy customer. Another would be to create a system where customers can drop off prescriptions and then pick them up at a later date, saving them from having to wait on-site.
Refine your processes
In business processes are vitally important not only because they direct employees on how to perform a certain task, but also because they have a huge impact on the volume of resources that are used. What this means is that by refining the processes you use when running your business you can reduce the amount of time, energy, and supplies they cost, lowering your expenditure.
With that in mind, you must regularly audit the processes that your business uses to run to ensure they have not become bloated or redundant.
Take care of your health
The ‘grind’ is glamorized in our society there is no doubt. If anything it’s getting more intense as many of us pick up a side hustle as well as a main career. However, when running a business it’s vitally important to not overwork yourself, and burn out before you get to see any of the rewards!
What I’m talking about here is prioritizing your own mental and physical health, at every stage of running your business. This means taking vacations, eating well, working out as well as working reasonable hours, and not taking the office home with you every night. It also means having a life outside of your business, so if the worst happens you don’t lose everything in a single blow.
Work on being a good leader
Last of all, if you want to run a successful business you need to become a good leader. The good news is that the skills you need for leadership can be learned just like any other aptitude.
The first of these has to be the skill of effective communication. Being able to say what you want, and hear what others are telling you is vital to the success of your business and will ensure that costly mistakes are avoided.
One way to get better at communication is to practice active listening. Active listening is when you listen to understand what the other person is saying, rather than simply waiting for your turn to speak. In active listening the person listening can repeat back in their own words what the other person is saying to make sure they have properly understood it. The benefits of this are not only increased clarity but also make the other person feel heard and valued which is crucial when managing people.
Another skill that all good leaders need is decision-making. Making a decision can be incredibly challenging for some people, especially if a lot is riding on that decision such as the success of your company or a great deal of money. At its worst decision-making can paralyse people into making no decisions at all!
For those faced with difficult decisions to make, learning how to make them can be very helpful indeed. Several different frameworks for decision-making can be used to weigh up the pros and cons, using the Pareto analysis, using a SWOT analysis or using a priority matrix. By putting these approaches into use, you can approach decision-making more logically and not have to rely on gut instinct, which is often if not inevitably wrong.
Pin This Post
