Step by Step Guide to Small Business Success
It’s not easy to find success as a small business. Any successful startup executive will tell you that it’s part art and part science. But just like many challenging endeavors, being part of a small business is highly rewarding. Your team becomes your closest set of friends, and you have the chance to be highly involved with every activity around the office. There’s no recipe for startup success, nor is there a road map of key checkpoints that illustrate the path to prosperity. However, many small business do have some commonalities. We’ve put together a list of some of the key factors that can help to foster small business success.
A Clear Vision
Every startup needs to know what it is and what it aims to be. The corporate vision can help to embody and indoctrinate what the company stands for and what it aims to provide to customers. A clear and inspirational corporate vision can help to both energize employees and win over potential customers. Every member of your company should be able to not only tell you the corporate vision, but also they should understand it and be able to explain what it means. This ultimately helps to create a small business environment in which all stakeholders are allied in pursuit of success.
Great Ideas
Startups and small businesses have a lot of advantages over large firms. One of these is the ability for bright minds to have creative ideas, communicate them effectively with top management, and implement them, all with relative ease. However, it’s rare for startup firms to capture scale economies or market power, so it is imperative that your company differentiate itself in a way that generates value for your customers. One way to do this is to craft creative solutions to your customers’ needs. Lead your team to small business success by encouraging them to think of new ideas and listening to their pitches. Companies everywhere, both large and small, are fueled by great ideas and lucky breaks.
Strong Connections
As any college student looking for their first job can attest, it’s not just about what you know, but who you know. Most of the time, your biggest and best customers will come from existing connections in an industry that you have lots of expertise in. As your small business grows, more customers will come from word-of-mouth and old-fashioned organic marketing. However, the first few big wins will likely come from prior connections.
A Kick-ass Team
The smaller the business, the larger the impact that each individual plays on corporate success. It is in the small business environment that the most talented employees and leaders cut their teeth and prove their worth. With each employee having such a heavy impact on corporate success, it is key to identify what traits you look for (and avoid) in a company. Furthermore, it is important to identify where your firm has gaps. It’s often easy to identify what technical skills your business lacks. However, you should also take note of the team dynamic. Is your office too stressed-out and serious? Be on the lookout for a new team member who can bring a fun, positive attitude to the table. Do your projects often get sidetracked? Think about bringing on board someone who has a knack for creating a clear road map of short-term and mid-term goals.
Savvy Marketing
Often the biggest challenge for small businesses is winning over new customers. When you have small scale, it is often hard to convince potential customers that your offerings are equivalent to or better than those of your competitors. That being said, a couple of good marketing campaigns can do wonders for your company’s image. Small business marketing success often stems from a strong online marketing strategy and savvy use of the free advertising made available by social media. Strategies like leveraging user-generated content, creative social media campaigns, and using engaging online advertisements can foster a community around your brand that incorporates both your evangelists and potential customers.
Funding
This point is probably fairly self-explanatory. If you’re a fan of Silicon Valley, you’re familiar with the plight of small businesses and their quest to be financially viable. It’s a lot easier to achieve small business success with a company that isn’t strapped for cash. However, there are some caveats here. Too much cash on hand can make your business fall into a trap of complacency. Furthermore, it is very rare for small business seed money to come without some strings attached. As such, you should take the time to carefully consider the conditions that come with funding, and weight both the benefits and drawbacks of every deal.
What are some of your keys to small business success? Let us know what you do to energize your startup in the comments below!
