It’s a new year, and a perfect time to reflect on how your business has been progressing. It can be challenging to overcome obstacles and reinvent your products and services to meet the needs of an ever expanding customer base. As a business owner, it can also be difficult to make time for self reflection. Making time to consider how to overcome obstacles, create new goals, and learn how to be a more successful business person are essential in working towards a healthier business. Because of this fact, we’ve consulted with the experts to provide you with 5 tips for the successful business owner.
Having Great Ideas Won’t Cut It
Whether you’re considering how to start your business as a new business owner or how to refresh your image as a current business owner, great ideas are a great start. However, they won’t cut it with regards to helping you actually get to where you need to be. Millions of aspiring entrepreneurial dreams are the building blocks of new businesses across the country. With 20% of businesses failing within the first year and nearly 50% by the fifth year, entrepreneurs and business owners seem to be missing something.
Ideas are essential for the inspiration to build a business, but if there are no executables that coincide with these ideas that are attainable, the point of your ideas will be moot. When working with new ways to create ideas, make sure that your ideas have attainable goals and are as structured as possible. Aligning your ideas to help solve a problem will provide them with greater value and allow them to be more likely to succeed.
Use Time Wisely to Build Meaningful Relationships
This is a very common issue that many business owners face. Successful business owners thrive on positive relationships with individuals and businesses that provide value to them. It’s easy to be the “nice guy” and natural to not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. You may be asked to go to lunch or go grab coffee by numerous amounts of people and there’s nothing wrong with that. The issue that ensues is the fact that once you end up meeting with one person, then you will suddenly have a calendar full of lunch appointments and coffee meetings.
It’s essential for successful business owners to use their time wisely. Remembering that it’s OK to say “no” and to spend your time with individuals who will help you grow your network connections and overall business is essential. When you’re confirming what appointments to make during the week, make sure to ask yourself these questions before you say “yes”:
- How are they helping my business? Is this person or team of people adding value to my business and helping me reach my goals?
- How am I helping their business? Value should be shared and you should be meeting with individuals who compliment your business, but who also need you to help them with theirs. This should be regarded in equal parts, but always try to bring value to the table when meeting with someone.
- Will I come away from the meeting with an actionable item? As a result of your meeting, try to set a goal to achieve one actionable item that will help your business. It may even be a good idea to set this as your objective when you meet with networking groups on a regular basis – otherwise, it may be worth rescheduling for another day.
Make Sure That You Have an Online Presence
It’s important as a successful business owner to make sure that all of your bases are covered when it comes to marketing and advertising. Business that have an online presence are 90% more likely to be successful. This may be common sense to some, but not to all. Part of having an online presence is to make sure that you have the following:
- Citations and Reputation Management Systems. Did see this one coming, did you? When you’re creating an online presence, your reputation matters. Word of mouth doesn’t apply online – what’s written lasts a lifetime. Making sure that you have a citations management tool and reputation management system is essential. Citations provide your business with the online visibility that it needs to be found by searching potential customers. Reputation Management helps to keep your customers happy by managing reviews and feedback given by the community that you serve. Why is this important? The ability for customers to know who you are and leave feedback about their experience with you is essential for growing your business. Make sure to look into a citations tool and reputation management system or service as a successful business owner.
- SEO-Friendly Website. You may have guessed this one, but it’s equally as important as citations and reputation management systems. Without a website you really don’t even have an online presence, right? Let’s say that you do have a website and you’ve had one for nearly five years. If your website content hasn’t been changed to update and reflect what customers are searching for, is it still effective? The answer to that question would simply be “no”. If your website has not been optimized for search engines (otherwise known as SEO), you’re missing out on new business. Your website should be evaluated for it’s SEO efficiency to understand if it should be updated.
- Social Media Is A Necessary Evil. Yes, you heard us. A successful business owner not only has a company brand through their website, citation service, and reputation management tool, but also through social media platforms. Social media is a necessary evil now a days. If your company doesn’t have a Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn account, it’s imperative that they create one immediately. There are over 2 billion people around the world who have a social media profile. That’s 2 billion opportunities for you to promote your business. Not only is promoting your business by having a social media account necessary, but advertising through social media is also something that should be considered. Social Media Advertising can be one of the most affordable advertising mediums in existence that contains the most saturating marketing reach. Learn about social media advertising and consider implementing it into your marketing plan and budget.
Having a website connected to social media is key to your online presence.
Make It Work with Communication
All of the tips we’ve provided are essential to help business owners become more successful. Without adhering to a proper communication plan, none of the tips we’ve provided will work. It’s essential to have the best communication plans and actionable items in place to benefit from your new business strategies. If you’re unsure of how to construct a proper communication plan, consider the following:
- Choose a project leader. When beginning any new project, designate a project leader. This person should be responsible for the proper completion of a project. They will work with a team to construct the project in the beginning, but they will be the one to confirm when it has been completed and report on its successes and failure.
- Don’t be afraid of over-communication. It’s essential to communicate. Have your project leader set up a communication plan in order to ensure that everyone with relevant responsibilities is on the same page.
- Reward results. With every plan, make sure that there is an incentive for positive behaviour and results. Reward your project leader for staying on task and dealing positively with scope creep.
Successful Business Owners Understand Risk vs. Results
Successful business owners understand that in order to achieve results, they have to take necessary risks. Working towards positive, results-driven goals will only help increase your business. Make sure that before you pursue any project, that you consult with your team or a professional to confirm that your strategy is effective and a great fit for your business.
Elevare is a full-service media agency that strategically works with business owners to help advance their endeavors and grow their bottom-line. Make sure to check out Elevare on Facebook to learn more about how to achieve success in your business.
Interested in learning more about how you can increase your business and grow exponentially this year? Use the form below to schedule a free consultation with us to learn more about what you can do to get the results you’re looking for.
