Some say that more than half of small businesses will never survive for more than 5 years. Let’s face the fact: starting a business can be easy, building it and making it thrive, is difficult.
There are so many strategies and tactics you can use to grow your business, but where should you start?
Here are 5 quick tips you can apply to increase your chances of building a successful business:
1. Launch with your MVP
You want to launch with your MVP or “Minimum Viable Product” as soon as possible. This concept was made famous by Eric Ries through his book The Lean Startup.
When you first start, you want to launch as quickly as possible, because you don’t know whether your business ideas are going to work. And the best way to find out is to launch your business quickly.
You don’t want to spend months in research only to find that your product or service has no demand.
Thus, get off the ground as soon as possible. Once you have the basic idea of what your business is going to look like, get a minimum viable product and put it out to the world.
At this point, you don’t have to worry too much if your product is perfect or has a world-class quality. You want to receive feedback to improve your product.
Most small business owners wait and spend too much time and money into building a perfect product, and when they launch, they discover that their products are not what the market requires.
2. Build the Right Foundation with the Right Audience
Another important key to improve your chances of success is to build your business based on the right audience. You want to attract the right audience upfront, you don’t want to attract just anyone.
A lot of small businesses fail because they target the wrong crowd. They don’t vividly define their target audience. They fail to identify the pain points, and as a result, they spend a lot of money advertising their business to the wrong people and wonder why there are no sales.
It is like climbing the ladder. You don’t want to work hard climbing up the ladder only to discover that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
For example, do you notice that Apple has never compared their smartphones with their competitors? Their competitors’ phones may have higher specifications and all that, but Apple just doesn’t do the comparison because they know they are targeting people who are looking for designs and people who love their brands, not specs.
Once you know your target audience, you can then craft your message properly and capture the market more effectively.
3. Focus on Creating Value and Solving Your Customers’ Problems
Creating value for your customers and solving their problems are some of the core factors to your business success.
Businesses exist because there are some forms of value exchange. People don’t really buy your products or services, they are buying value and solutions from you.
Think about it, a general practitioner may not earn as much as a cardiac specialist. Why? The reason is that a specialist can solve your heart’s problem more precisely and save your life.
If you have a fever, you will pay to consult a general doctor. But if you have heart problems, you will want to consult the specialist, even if you will have to pay much more.
This is what it means when it comes to creating value and solving your customer’s problems. The better your solution or the better you can help your customers, the more you can charge them because they will treat you as an expert in your industry.
4. Review and Improve Your Strategy
One reason most small businesses fail is that they focus too much on getting the sales and they forget to review their results and work on their strategy.
You can’t improve the results you get if you don’t measure and review them. The only way to know if you are moving forward and making progress is to review your results on a regular basis.
Thus, every week, month, or quarter, review your numbers. The more you understand your numbers, the better you know what works and what doesn’t.
And when you know what’s working, you can do more of it. Similarly, when you find out what’s not working, you can do less or get rid of it.
Your numbers are important especially in today’s world where you can advertise online and track almost everything. You can tell how much you have spent, how many people you have reached, how many engagements, what are your profits, etc.
Hence, review your business performance regularly and work on improving your results. And don’t leave things up to chance.
5. Always Over-Deliver and Do More than Expected
A very important factor that will determine if your business will thrive, are your abilities to over-deliver and exceed your customers’ expectations.
The competition is high nowadays. No matter what industry you are in, there will be people who are already doing the same business as you.
So, the best way to win over the market is to over-deliver and do more than what is expected from your customers.
Joe Girard was the most successful car salesman in the world. His best record was that he sold 1,425 cars in a year, which is equivalent to 3.9 cars per day. Can you imagine that?
So, what did Girard did? His secret was that he always did more than his customers expected of him. For all of his customers, he sent a handwritten greeting card to them, every month. At one point, he sent almost 13,000 cards in a month.
This is just one way how you can surprise, over-deliver, and maintain a good customer relationship. What Girard did was just an example, the key is to understand that if you want to win your customers’ hearts, you must over-deliver and exceed their expectations.
About The Author: Shawn Lim is the founder of StunningMotivation.com and he’s a passionate internet entrepreneur who has inspired thousands to pursue their dreams and follow their passions. You can learn more about him on his website.
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