5 things every business owner should know

Most people launch their own business without knowing if they’ll succeed or fail.  Given the statistics about the number of start-ups that fail in the first year, five years, etc. it seems sensible to do as much as possible to increase your business’s chances of success.

I’ve started up three businesses, one with a partner, one that acquired two co-directors and one that I own outright.  I’ve made plenty of mistakes and learned some really valuable lessons.  These are the 5 things I wish I’d known – and ACTIONED before jumping in the deep end.

1: Who is your ideal client?

My first business worked on the ‘Anybody who needs us’ premise, with limited, but not long-term success.  The second business took a look at this, but we couldn’t bite the bullet and choose a market sector.  There was too much ‘but we could do this for these people, and that for those people too’.

Finally, in my third business I got to grips and made myself choose a client profile that I knew would really value what I could offer and that I would really enjoy working with.  It was worth writing out my client avatar – it was almost like magic.  Suddenly I was getting calls from people who either fitted my ideal client profile perfectly or were very close.

2: What can you do for them?

The key to keeping clients is a thorough understanding of their problems; what keeps them awake at night.  If you can solve their problems and deliver tangible benefits your clients will stick with you like glue. 

So list the biggest and most common problems your clients experience.  Then list your services (or products) and identify how these could solve your clients’ problems.  Now outline at least a couple of benefits (what’s in it for me?) for each outcome.  This is what you’ll use to attract potential clients.

3:  What are you worth?

Nobody wants to price themselves out of the market, nor do you want to be ‘cheap and cheerful’ so you need to set your prices in relation to the value to your customer.

Some people recommend starting out by working out how much you want to earn per month/year and then working out what you would need to charge to earn that.  I think there are some dangers there as start-up companies usually underestimate the time things take and overestimate the number of hours they have available.  This means they end up working day, night, weekends and holidays to stay viable.

What value does your service have to your client?  How much would it cost them if you didn’t provide what they needed?

Of course, it’s worth doing some research into your competitors pricing, but don’t let that stop you charging more.  People who are willing to pay more, appreciate you more!

4:  Where are your ideal clients to be found?

Another easy-to-overlook aspect for a new business.  In fact, I’ve met quite a lot of established business people who still haven’t really nailed down where to find their potential clients and spend a lot of time turning up at random networking events in the hope that the golden egg will fall into their lap.

Are there local branches of professional organisations that fit your ideal client profile? E.g. if you’re providing management training a good proportion of the local Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development group would be potential clients.

Are their online forums, LinkedIn groups, Facebook Pages or groups where your ideal clients are found?

5:  How can you influence potential clients to come to you?

Who else serves your market?  Could you form an alliance?

If you’re active in groups online or offline where your ideal clients can be found, offer enormous value first and you’ll earn a reputation as an expert.

Write articles around your area of expertise – and publish on your blog, on your LinkedIn profile, in the trade journals your target market reads.

Make sure your social media activity is focused on giving value.

Don’t send out newsletters or email marketing that is sell, sell, sell – value first, promote later.

Build a list of people that have shown they’re already interested in what you offer.

If you invest time in working through these five essentials – you’ll find building and growing your business gets a lot easier.

31 questions every budding author should ask

If you think being the author of a book would be a good business strategy then there are some things you need to consider first.

Why you? 

1. What qualifies you to write about this subject?
2. Have you got a following for this area of expertise either on your blog, social media or as a speaker/presenter?
3. Do you know what other books on your subject already exist?  Why is yours different?

Get focused:

4. What is the core subject of the book?
5. What kind of book are you planning to write? (Autobiography, business handbook, self-development, etc)

Planning and writing:

6. How many chapters and/or sections will your book have?
7. Have you organised your information into chapters and sections along with any supporting material?
8. Will you need to read other books to inform your writing?  Do you have a reading list?
9. Do you know how long it takes you to write 1000 words?
10. Have you put writing time into your diary to achieve your first draft by a specific date?
11. Will you use any quotes or other material that requires permission?  Do you know how to obtain the necessary permission?
12. Are you planning to have your book professionally edited?  Do you know the costs of this?
13. Your book will need proof-reading do you know how long this will take and the cost?
14. Have you got a title – or a list of possible titles?  Also a subtitle?
15. Do you have a list of people who would be willing to read the final draft and provide a review to include either on the cover or inside the final book?

Publishing:

16. Do you want it to be an ebook or a hard copy book – or both?
17. Are you planning to get a publishing house interested in publishing your book or will you be self-publishing?
18. Are you aware of the financial aspects of publishing?
19. For traditional publishing what do you know about advances, royalties and expected returns?
20. For self-publishing are you prepared for the costs up-front for editing, graphic design, page layout, print-on-demand, etc?
21. Do you know how long it takes for a book to get from finished manuscript to in the bookshop – for traditional publishing and for self-publishing?

Marketing:

22. Books don’t sell themselves so how will you promote your book to the people who will find it most useful?
23. What gives your book that ‘WOW’ factor?
24. Which genre does it fit into?  Where would you find it in a bookstore?
25. Who will buy your book?
26. How big a market do you have – i.e. how many potential buyers?
27. Where will you find your readers?
28. Apart from social media how else might you promote your book?
29. Who do you know who is famous or an expert in your field or an allied field and would either write a foreword for your book or provide a review to be used on the cover?
30. Which publications might be interested in featuring your book?
31. Do you intend to have your book featured on Amazon?  If so, do you have a strategy for encouraging people to write reviews?

There are no guarantees of success with a book, some really well-written books don’t do very well and others that aren’t so well-written go viral.  However, whether you go down the conventional or self-publishing routes, you WILL need to do your own marketing.  The more effort you put in the better your book will do!

Building your list

If you’ve ever been on a webinar run by one of the big online marketers you have almost certainly heard the phrase ‘the money is in the list’.

You may have discounted that as ‘not relevant for a business like mine’, but a list of people who have demonstrated an interest in what you do or offer is definitely the next best thing to money in the bank.

It doesn’t matter if you have a strong aversion to the idea of spamming people – that’s something you need to get over.  If people have already shown an interest and you deliver information that’s valuable it’s not spam.

The key elements of a money-generating email marketing system

1: Creating the ‘carrot’

This is something that will persuade people to willingly give you their name and email address.  It’s usually a document that has information of value to the people you want as customers.  Here are some examples:

• 17 Mistakes Property Investors Make ... and how to avoid them
• The Top 7 Questions Interviewers Ask
• Your Email Marketing Blueprint
• Your Health & Safety Checklist
• How to assemble a flatpack with the minimum of frustration!

Every business has expertise embedded – it’s just a case of working out what will tempt your ideal customers and then providing that information with an attractive title.

It doesn’t have to be a long document as long as it has useful tips or advice.  A one-page checklist or 10 top tips is enough.  Some people create longer ‘reports’ or ‘ebooks’, but it’s up to you.

Save your ‘carrot’ as a pdf document to make downloading easy and the content stable and secure.

2: Setting up the data capture form

To provide the means for people to enter their details you need a form – and then the information needs to be collected somewhere.  Of course, you can get a developer to create a bespoke system for you that sits behind your website, but we’re probably talking figures with at least three zeros on the end.

The more usual approach is to use one of the many online data-management tools.  Probably the best known is MailChimp, because it has a free option for up to 2000 names and it’s a good place to start. Other options with monthly subscriptions that usually relate to the number of contacts you’ve got; these include AWeber, Constant Contact, GetReponse, Infusionsoft and many more.  Most are based in the US and subscriptions are in US$, but some have other currency options.

Once you’re signed up you can set up a list (or several lists) and set up a form for each list.  The hosting platform will provide some html code that is pretty straightforward to insert into your website.

3: Organising the delivery system

If you get people’s contact details and then don’t deliver the promised information your reputation is going to take a battering!  This means you need a means of delivering the document.

This might be a hidden page on your website where people can download the document.  Your data capture form set up will probably allow you to insert the URL for this page into their process so that, once someone has confirmed they want to get this information, they are taken to the page for download.

Another option is that confirmation triggers an email with the document attached or with a link to the page where they can download it.

These three steps are pretty straightforward, but don’t forget to promote your free document on social media.  If people don’t know it’s there, your list will grow very slowly so Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and other places where your target market hangs out are great places to let people know about this valuable information.

If you need help with any of this – from developing your giveaway to setting up the data capture system – just give me a call on 01245 473296.

There are awards – and AWARDS!

Just recently a client was talking about entering some awards – and we thought it was just a case of answering the questions on the entry form, until we looked into it and discovered they wanted supporting material.

Most local business awards are happy with written answers to their questions, but some organisations, especially professional bodies, want evidence to support the narrative.

What is supporting evidence?

It depends on what award you’re entering for, but these are some I’ve seen:

A business plan:  OK, you should have one of these if you’re running a business, but in the real world many small business owners never get the plan out of their head and onto paper (or screen).  A business plan doesn’t have to be a 92 page document and it doesn’t have to be just a spreadsheet of financial projections.  A one pager is possible and should include:

• Products/services
• Target market
• Competitors
• Market share
• Last year’s turnover and projected increase either in % or actual currency
• Staff numbers and recruitment plans
• A short statement of the company’s goals – vision, mission, etc.

Training plans for the staff:  If you are running a small organisation training may be hands-on rather than formal workshops.  That doesn’t mean you don’t have a training plan.  The secret is to identify where skills need upgrading and stating the method – even if that’s on-the-job.  Also where staff have the potential for promotion what skills/knowledge they need to step up and how they’ll acquire these.

Financial performance:  Turnover by product/service per year showing increases.

Make sure you’re comparing like with like, if a new product or service is introduced this is likely to have an impact.

Most awards panels will want to see the profit as well as the turnover.  You can increase the turnover year-on-year, and not increase the profit if overheads have risen.  They’ll want to see increases in both figures, especially the profit line.

Market analysis:  The customer base for your product and their buying patterns:

• What kind of company/person buys your products/services?  Location, age/company size, etc. 
• How often do they make repeat purchases?  
• How many additional purchases do they make?  If they buy A do most of them also buy B? 
• How you stack up against competitors?
• What sets you apart from your competitors – i.e. what are your advantages?

Expansion or development plans:  What activities are you intending to carry out to grow your business?  This might be new products or services, but it also might be opening new outlets or plants in different locations, moving overseas, changing suppliers, buying new equipment – anything that will enhance the company’s performance.

Testimonials/case studies:  If you don’t have these you’ll need to start talking to your customers.  Third party validation is powerful and a case study that shows how you go about solving customer’s challenges is an excellent way to show how you operate.  Always include customer feedback in a case study.  Asking for feedback is a really good habit to develop.

There may be other supporting evidence requests, but, even if you’re not entering an award any time soon, these are really good activities to carry out to help your business grow.