I can’t believe it is now almost 4-years since I launched my business and it has been one hell of a ride! There have been days where we were riding on a high and exceeding our sales and customer expectations, and there have been days where we were really worried about whether we would be able to meet our payment obligations and just couldn’t get a sale over the line to save our lives.
Business, if you get into it for the right reasons, can be highly rewarding. Even on days when you are not meeting your sales targets. If you get into business just to make money though, you will be in for a huge shock. To avoid this shock or do your best to minimize it think about studying for a Business diploma – course info available here or using the number of resources provided by the Australian government.
No success occurs overnight. Success takes time, hard work, perseverance, and determination. It takes the right team to bring out the best of the business, to bring the business to great heights, and help the business rise up and overcome its hurdles.
There were times I really wished I knew some of the things I know now, and I want to share this with you. Hopefully, it can help you cut out a lot of heartbreaking moments and sleepless nights, and help you achieve success in your business much quicker than I did!
Know your marketing inside out
This is business basics. Knowing your market inside out, knowing your customer intimately and knowing what they need and what their triggers are can help you build an irresistible offering. Do not ever underestimate the need to know your market inside out. When starting that business in this current digital age of marketing you as the business owner need to make sure you learn everything you can about marketing or have the funds to pay an actual marketer to do it for you.
Take insurance startup – Huddle. They saw the crisis of trust customers had with insurers and saw the gap in the market. They pounced on this opportunity and used all the information they could get about their market to market, sell and improve on their offering! Thanks to this, they now provide over $1 billion in insurance coverage for about 500,000 members!
Test out your commercial strategy
Research, analyse, build. Research, analyse, amend. Now, keep repeating this. Your commercial strategy is not a set-and-forget aspect of your business. You need to constantly make sure you have as many intimate details about your market as possible. Even sometimes down to how many times they call their mum! The market is constantly changing and not reviewing your strategies, your policies, and your processes regularly is a death sentence. Sometimes, change happens overnight and your business must be ready for it.
A good example of this is driverless cars. If you have a business that is currently depending on drivers and you don’t adapt to the new technology your business will be out of business very soon.
A good starting point would be to create a touchpoint strategy. Consider what media you will use to reach your target audience, and what your message will be. Every touchpoint you have with your prospect is the potential to build a relationship and sell, sell, sell; regardless of the market changes. When a customer is loyal to you, and they have a reason to stay loyal to you, even when the market changes, they will continue to buy from you. Give them a reason to stay loyal to you.
Getting your pitch right
If your business is at the capital or fundraising stage, be sure to get your pitch right and practice it with your family and friends before facing potential investors. Family and friends are great at giving you honest and brutal feedback on how you went and what you can improve on.
When designing your pitch, you need to make sure you have refined and tested your business plan, and most importantly, know it like the back of your hand. You will be heavily grilled on your business plan by savvy investors and you need to know your strategies, your market, your research, and your projections (as well as how you have arrived at your projections) insanely well. Find out what is the characteristic of a good business here.
If your business has already started and you are lacking traction, interview your customers and find out why they have bought. You might need to change your marketing strategy, your price point or even your offering itself to serve your market! If your business hasn’t started, be sure you have already tested that your product is something the market needs and that your marketing strategy is going to be viral!
Most importantly, your passion needs to show in the delivery of your pitch! Show them how involved and in love, you are with your offering! Show them how much your product or service can revolutionize the marketplace! Show them how you are in this for the long run and are ready for the challenges you may face! Don’t show any sign of weakness, especially not knowing your market or your offering well enough. This will put any investor off investing a single dime in your business. Employees also play a big part which is outside the scrope of this post but if you are interested visit this site. You might also want to look at if working from home is really a good idea. If you come to the conclusion that it is now, you might need to start looking into education providers for tutoring.