by Angela Taffs | Nov 19, 2018 | Business Success
10 TOP TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS
Why is it that two businesses in the same industry can both differ so differently when it comes to being successful or not? Take two hairdressers. One is booked up weeks in advance whilst the other struggles to fill appointments. Why is this? It can quite simply be down to a few simple rules that can dictate the difference between success and failure. Follow these Top 10 tips to a successful business and make sure your business succeeds
Offer what people want to buy, not just what you want to sell.
Just because you love your product or service, doesn’t mean that your customer will. You may think that blue umbrellas are the best thing since sliced bread so, therefore there is a market to sell them, but others may not agree.
You need to listen to what your customer wants to buy and supply that. Don’t try to force sell them your own personal preferences.
Jumpstart the cash flow into your business
Cash is King and you want to get it coming into your business as quickly as possible. The early months of starting a business can be the most difficult when it comes to income so think of ways to get that cash flowing into the business asap.
Where possible, ask for deposits up front. If that is not possible, ask for cash on delivery to avoid long credit terms and late payers.
Find new ways to keep costs low
So many small businesses start up and overspend on things they really don’t need to. They think they need to go out and buy all the latest gadgetry and office equipment. Try leasing or buying second hand instead. Ask suppliers for a discount for an upfront payment.
Do you really need that swish office premises? Could you not create an office at home. I once saved a company £12,000 by helping him set up a home office in his garden rather than paying a premium rent for an office he used to meet clients only on odd occasions.
Overestimate expenses and underestimate income.
When you are planning your business and preparing your cash flow, after you have done the first draft, go back and double your expenses and half your income. How does it look now? Scary? Well, this may well be nearer to the truth in the early days than everything going to plan and the world being rosy.
Be prepared for the unexpected expenses and for the sales that never come to fruition. If you can prepare for this, you will be far more prepared if this worst-case scenario happens than if you rely on healthy sales and low costs which turn out to be further than the truth than you were expecting.
Focus on marketing and sales
You know all about your product and service and how wonderful it is, but your target market won’t until you make them aware of it. So get out there and tell them. And then ask them for the sale. Until you start getting sales, you are not running a successful business, you are running a hobby.
Too many startup businesses focus on getting all the detail perfect or their brand such as their logo, website, business cards etc when they should just be getting out there and going after the sales. Your perfect business logo can be finished at a later date. After all, when did you make a purchase just because of the perfect colour scheme on a business card? A name and number will do to start with.
Find ways to upsell
When you make a sale, is there a way to upsell to your customer and thereby increase your income? All the big businesses do it. When you go to get a burger and fries at your local drive-through I bet you are asked if you would like a large fries for just a small amount more. When you buy cards at your stationers, do they ask if you would like to buy a book of stamps?
So think how you can upsell to your customers. If you sell a service such as coaching can you charge a little extra for a written summary of your session? If you sell a product, offer an add-on product to enhance the original purchase. Do you make special occasion cakes? Offer a photograph of the cake with a gift card for the recipient to remember the occasion by. Get creative and see what you can come up.
Measure your marketing
In order to know if something is working properly, you have to test and measure it. The same goes for your marketing. Too often small businesses start up and run a marketing campaign and then just keep it running. They don’t actually stop to take time out to see if it is working or not.
Add codes to specific marketing campaigns and ask customers to quote this when getting in contact to receive a free gift. Make sure you look at the online analytics of any social media or web campaign. If you fail to do this, you could just be throwing hard earned money down the drain.
Learning more means earning more
You really can never stop learning. Keep your industry knowledge up to date to stay ahead, or at least in line with the competition. Learn new skills to help you get ahead in your business, whether how to close sales better or how to increase visitors to your website. There is so much learning material out there including the member’s club resources on this site so there really is no excuse not to keep improving your knowledge.
It is also widely acknowledged that all the most successful entrepreneurs spend at least 30 minutes per day listening to or reading motivational and inspirational books and audios. If you want to follow in their footsteps of success, try following this one habit of theirs.
Don’t discount, add value
Too many small businesses fall into the age-old trap of discounting their products or services to try to increase sales. You may make more sales initially but you will decrease your profits and as happened to a business I was called in to help, customers became all too aware of their constant sales and so stopped buying at the retail price altogether to just wait for the next sale to come around.
So rather than offering a discount, find something of a low cost to you but of value to the client that you can add to the sale to encourage customers to spend with you. It could be an extra 10 minutes for a head massage if you are a hairdresser. Or free gift wrapping with a product.
Get a coach
I have said many times in articles, that having an experienced mentor or coach when starting up can have a significant impact on how the business survives in the early months and even years. Having someone that you can use an objective sounding board for ideas and who can look at your business without the emotional ties, can be invaluable.
A professional coach, mentor or advisor should be able to help in the areas in which you are weaker and can help push you when you need it to stop you procrastinating and delaying your business success.
Now you have your Top 10 tips to a successful business, I wish you all the very best in starting up your business. Do come on over to the Facebook group to let me know how you are getting on.
by Angela Taffs | Jun 7, 2016 | Business Success, Running a Business, Starting a Business
There are three key things you need to build a successful business:
If any one of these is lacking, it is going to need to be made up for in one of the other areas.
Let’s take a look at them one at a time.
Time
Building a successful business takes time. And it is likely to take a lot longer than you think. All too often we set up our small business thinking we are going to be drawing a full time wage within a month or so. All too often the reality is different. We end up working for nothing for the first 12 months or just drawing a paltry sum that barely covers a pair of tights each month.
And on the subject of time, everything we do seems to take longer than expected. I will just write a quick blog I hear you say. And three hours later you are still staring at a blank screen. I will just make a quick update to my website I hear you say. And two weeks later you are still playing around with the design and the layout. I will quickly set up a mailing system I hear you say. And days later you are still tearing your hair out and wondering what the hell everyone else is on it about when they say it is all so easy.
If you don’t have time, you are going to have invest money to make up for it. You are going to have to spend money on marketing rather than trying to do everything for free on social media. You are going to have to spend money outsourcing all those tasks that are eating up the precious hours in your day.
Energy
You are going to need massive amounts of energy to build your own business. The time it takes will easily leave you feeling drained and exhausted and it will be all too easy to feel like throwing in the towel.
One of the dangers of building a business, particularly when working from home, is that we let healthy habits slip. We stop taking exercise as we just want to get one more task squeezed into the day. We stop eating healthily and grab chocolate bars and coffee whilst chained to our computer screens.
This soon leaves us feeling sluggish and out of kilter.
To build a successful business, you need to take of yourself first and foremost and keep your energy levels up. You need to take regular exercise, you need to keep healthy and you need to get enough sleep. If you energy levels drain, you will end up either ill or having to take time out to recharge the batteries.
If you don’t have energy, it is going to cost you more in time and money. It will take more time to build your business or you will have to invest more money to get someone to take over your work for you.
Money
Yes, you are going to have to invest some money! I’m sorry to break the bad news to you but those get rich quick schemes where you only have to put in a few pounds or dollars up front just don’t work. I have had numerous people send me their schemes but when I ask to see their bank details or profit and loss statement to validate their claims, they disappear into the mist never to be heard of again.
You need to invest in the tools to do the job. You can get many free versions of systems and software, but if you really want to build your business, it is the paid versions that you need. You need to invest in yourself and the businesses that really move forward faster than the others invest in a coach. I invested in thousands for a coach for myself. Even though I am a business coach, I still need someone to help me with new ideas and to hold me accountable for achieving results. Without this, my business would have taken vastly longer to be successful.
If you don’t invest money it is going to cost you more time and energy. You can try to build a business on a shoestring but you are likely to end up just running a very expensive hobby for many years to come. And more time is going to take more energy. You really need to look at the potential return on investment and savings in time and energy rather than holding on those purse strings.
Do you have these three key areas covered or is the lack of one of these hampering your success? Let me know in the comments below.
by Angela Taffs | Apr 7, 2015 | Business Success, Running a Business
Do you have the mindset of a successful business owner or are you just playing around hoping that things will miraculously just drop into place for you?
Too many times I come across those who tell me they are running a small business whilst complaining that they are not getting the results they want. They blame everything from the economy to marketing just not working for them down to customers just not understanding them. But really?
What is the real reason that your business is not gaining clients and generating income?
So many times during discussions, I find these people are not treating their business as a business but are just doing ad hoc work here and there when it suits them. They play with their business when they feel in the mood and if they don’t get instant results, go off and do something more interesting instead.
I work with these people and help them set out plans and goals for the month ahead to start moving things forward. Heads always nod enthusiastically and then when we next catch up these plans haven’t even been started upon, let alone achieved. It is incredible that the same excuses come up time after time.
- I wasn’t well
- I had to take my dog/cat to the vet
- I had a lot going on in my personal life last month
I am sorry, and I know there are some genuine cases out there, but these really are pitiful excuses. If this resonates with you, do you really mean to say that you were ill all month? Did you have to take your dog to the vet every day? Did you really let your personal life take over your business efforts? Emergencies do happen, but these should be factored into your business and a back-up plan put in place to deal with these.
Have you ever been in employment? If so, do you think the CEO or MD managed to run the business and pay their staff with the excuses and lack of performance you are allowing yourself to get away with? Do you think if they took time off every day to deal with personal situations they would have held on to their job? No. I didn’t think so.
Change your mindset and start to think like a successful business owner.
Stop playing around and decide if it is a truly successful business you want or just a hobby that will fit in when you feel like it. Change your mindset and start to think like a business owner.
As fired up and enthused as you may be about creating your own business, it will take hard work, commitment and personal investment on your own part along with self-responsibility for making things happen.
As John Barney stated in a past article on why many quit their business, being your own boss is tough and comes with its own pitfalls such as not having anyone to be accountable to and telling you what to do. This is one of the reasons that many start their own business but soon discover they need to be given constant direction as they lack the necessary work motivation to get the job done.
To build a successful business you will need to be able to motivate yourself to do work that you do not always enjoy and that does not bring instant results. To be able to succeed, you will need a strong inner drive, work ethic and a laser focus. Sadly too many people I meet lack these characteristics which are needed to accomplish the success they are looking for.
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If you truly want to succeed and have a business to be proud of, start to act like a business owner now.
- Set out your goals and specific plans to achieve them and put them into action.
- Prepare for the unexpected and emergencies and have a plan in place of how you are going to be able to cover these where possible.
- Set yourself out strict working hours and sit down and work!!
- Sort out your priorities and get them done.
Because if you don’t, you won’t have a business. And there will be no-one to blame but yourself.
Need more help?
If you really do want to put those plans into action but need some help, join the member’s club today. As part of your membership, you will be able to take advantage of the Time Management business builder video tutorial along with all the accompanying planners, templates and action plans to turn you into a successful business owner.
