Starting your own business is not as easy as many people think. It takes a lot of hard work and effort and needs you to wear many different hats at the beginning. You will be the salesperson, handle the marketing, complete the bookkeeping and will need to know about all the rules and regulations relating to the types of products or services you are selling.
You may be struggling to cope with all these things, but you started this because you did not like the alternative of a 9-5 job, making money for someone else. That concept still applies and you need to buckle down and get things on the move as quickly as you can.
There are several strategies that can help, some of which will have more impact than others. Some of them will need a lot of front-end work, but they will all help and be worth it when the profits start to show.
Build A Sales Funnel
A sales funnel is a buying process that you lead your customers through when they are purchasing your products. They are usually divided into several different steps, which can include awareness of your product, interest in the items you are selling, evaluating if they represent good value for money, decision time, and lastly the purchase phase where they actually buy the products.
This will help to make your business more automated and helps you to grow quickly and more easily. Consider what steps your sales funnel needs and include anything special such as free shipping, to make your business grow even quicker.
Promote Your Business Everywhere
It is very possible that when you started your business you knew very little about marketing unless of course, you had one of the digital marketing jobs that teaches you all about it or you’ve read a lot about it on websites like Problogger. If you have not had that experience you need to learn quickly, as no business can expect to grow and succeed without a marketing strategy.
You do not have to spend a fortune to market your business, but you will need to dedicate some time.
Social media, for example, has millions of people log into it every single day. How many of those are potential customers for your products? Open a business page, put plenty of posts up and start to gain some followers. Human nature is funny in that you may only be a friend on Facebook or Twitter, but if they need the product you sell, consumers will buy from you rather than someone they feel is a complete stranger.
Never ignore any comments on any of your posts, and even if they are not complimentary, keep your responses positive.
Build an email list of purchasers of your products and send regular emails with any important information. Have you added new products to your range, for example, or do you have a special offer they may be interested in? Emails are a cheap and convenient way to stay connected with all your customers.
Make sure your website is user-friendly and has regular content added to it. It does not matter if that is videos, images or written content. Search engines can account for them all, and keeping the content fresh will help you to move up the search engine rankings.
Research Your Competition
Research your competition to see what you are up against. Firstly look to see if you think they are making any mistakes, and then you can avoid the same errors. You also need to look at things such as the quality if their customer service. Consumers will stick with you all the time if they have had a good buying experience, even if you are a little more expensive than your nearest rival.
What are your delivery times compared to theirs? Is their website as appealing to the eye, or better than yours? Do they have more special offers or deals for buying in bulk? These are just a few of the things it is worth considering when researching your competition.
There are software programs that will provide competitor intelligence, and this can allow you to see if their advertising strategy works, for example, and if it does would it be worth you adopting a similar approach? If it has proved to be successful for your competitor it is likely it will be for you too.
Reward Customer Loyalty
It costs more money, time and effort to create new customers than it does to keep existing ones. Building a customer loyalty program will help you to retain the ones you already have. Make it something that is easy for them to see, and easy for them to achieve the reward and you will see your sales increase.
If there is a clear incentive to spend more with you, most consumers will. These rewards do not mean you have to spend a lot or give away too much for free. Whichever you do you will find the extra sales they encourage will more than pay for the costs.
Watch for New Opportunities
Always have one eye open for new opportunities as they can come in many forms. It may not be increased sales they produce, but it could be that you see a better deal for shipping or even a better supplier for your goods. If you get to understand your industry and all its channels well, you will spot new opportunities that a layperson might not.
If you do spot an opportunity to enter a new sales market, don’t let the chance pass you buy. Adding more consumers to your customer base is how your business will grow,
Form Strategic Partnerships With Likeminded Businesses
This might be easier said than done, but if you can find other businesses where your products complement each other, there can be advantages for you working together. You can promote each other’s businesses on your sites, and open up your products to a whole new audience.
Placing adverts or promoting the other businesses’ products through blogs on your site could do this. Adverts or blogs will not cost either of you any money but could help both businesses to expand. Of course, you do not have to stop at one partner business. There is no reason why you cannot do this with several.
Contact any you think might be suitable and have a plan ready before you speak with them. Just going to them with a vague idea will not inspire any confidence in your abilities to make this work.
Expand To Other States, Or Countries
Expand your business into other states and even other countries. This can take some research to make sure you comply with the local laws and regulations, but the potential for this sort of expansion is massive. It may cost you some money to get any licenses and permits you need, but once you have those and can sell to those other places too, you are increasing the potential customer base no end.
Just imagine how much your sales could grow if you could sell in Canada, for instance, or Mexico. You might not have envisaged being international when you started out but it could be the answer for you now.
Consider Outsourcing Tasks That Are Getting Too Much
As you do start to get busier, you may not have the time to wear all your hats, but none of the tasks become any less important. You may not be to keen on employing anyone because of all the legal responsibilities that come with being a boss. You can outsource some of the jobs to freelancers though. It is a cheaper option as you only pay them for the work they complete, and you have no commitments that tie you to them.
Putting fresh content on your site is a typical example, or using someone to manage your social media. You can outsource your bookkeeping too, and then you can concentrate on what you are best at, which is running your business.
There may well come a time when you do need employees to help with packing and shipping for instance, but for the time being keep costs down by outsourcing any job you are finding it difficult to cope with.
Do You Have The Drive and Determination To Succeed?
To make any new startup successful, you need drive and determination. You are going to face numerous challenges along the way, and you have to deal with them head on and learn from them. Work your way through the errors; keep working hard and eventually, your business will become known and successful.
If it doesn’t, don’t give up. Put that business behind you and start again. You must not consider yourself to be a failure if this happens, as about 50% of the startups that begin every year in the US, cease trading within the first 12 months. Over the next 3 years, another half of the ones left will cease as well.
These figures are that high because the task of running your own business is not a simple one, but with planning, commitment and dedication, you can get there in the end.