When running a business, there is nothing more important than being able to engage with your potential customers, as those are the ones that decide whether you’re worth spending their money on or not.
A lot of business owners tend to think that as long as they have a good enough idea – they will get the success they desire, but unfortunately, it just isn’t that easy.
No matter how good your initial unique selling point is, if you aren’t able to connect with the people you need to connect with, then you aren’t going to make a sale, and no sale equals no success. Your job is to do all you can to make sure that you give people the best experience imaginable, and in order to do that, you need to listen.
Listen to what the people want. Listen to the feedback you’re getting – don’t just focus on the positives. While hearing negative feedback is never a nice thing, it can really be used to your advantage. There is so much that you can learn from it and gain as a business to then grow and become exactly who you want to be.
Nobody said that owning a business would be easy. You will be faced with so many obstacles in front of you, and that’s why if you’re only thinking about starting up a business because you assume it will be simple and you have no one to answer to and no specific hours to work – you’re wrong.
You can only succeed if you’re disciplined, determined, focused, hard-working, driven, and motivated. You will also need to have patience – a lot of it. There is so much money that will be needed to get your initial idea up and running, and you won’t see a profit right away. It can take months, if not years to eventually make back what you’ve spent, as well as the profit itself. And that’s only if you’re lucky and do things the right way.
No matter how much you know about the product you’re trying to sell, you can always learn more. Essentially, you need a be a metaphorical sponge, soaking in as much information as you can. And if ever you get the chance to work with a mentor who has been around in the industry for a long time – grab this opportunity by the horns and ask as many questions as you can. Take notes if you need to. Remember that knowledge is power, and you can go far in business once you learn how to learn.
If you’ve already been around in the industry for a little while though, you may already have your set way of doing things. And while that’s okay, it’s important that you’re not afraid of change and don’t mind mixing things up. We’re in the year 2018, and as you are most likely already aware, technology is only getting more and more advanced, and that means there are constantly new ways of doing things.
Your job as a business owner, is to do all you can to keep up with these new trends, otherwise, you will be left behind and miss out on a lot of new horizons. You don’t need to be tech-savvy in order to do this, you just need to keep your eyes open and stay on top of your game at all times. There are many different techniques and strategies for doing this, it just depends on what works best for you. Essentially it’s a process of trial and error until you find the perfect system that suits you.
If you need a few pointers in the right direction, then here are some ideas to get you ready to update your business and ensure it’s current and always on trend.
The business plan
It’s very important to remember that regardless of how long ago you wrote your business plan – nothing is set in stone. You can change it whenever you feel like it depending on what direction your business is going in.
You may have written down ideas about how you plan on achieving your goals, only to realise that there may be a better or easier way. If this is the case, all you need to do is update it.
Business plans don’t need to be professional or formal, they can be a list of notes scribbled down over various pieces of paper. As long as you understand what you’ve written, there are no rules.
The website
Websites are so important because essentially they are the face of your business, they are the thing that people see first before they decide whether or not they want to spend their money with you, and that’s why it has to give off a brilliant first impression within a matter of seconds.
The design, text, and imagery all need to grab the viewer and draw them in. It should make them want to explore and find out more. A lot of people often overcompensate and fill their website with too much, but this isn’t always the right way to go about it as it can end up looking messy.
Your website should be able to breathe, so don’t be afraid of blank spaces. If you still find yourself struggling, consider getting help from Design With Style so they can show you where you may be going wrong.
The social media content
If your business isn’t already on social media, then it needs to be. This is the way everyone gets their information nowadays, and it’s one of the best platforms to put yourself out there and engage and build relationships with potential customers and business partners.
In order to build up a decent following and get people excited about your business, you need to make sure that you are posting regularly enough to keep everyone on their toes. Having said that, you don’t want to overdo it either as this will put people off and be too similar to spam.
So it’s all about finding the balance. You should also alter the content depending on the social media networks you’re using, so for example, you want to ensure you take the best quality images and videos if you know you’ll be posting on Instagram.
The customer service
Customer service is known to be referred to as old fashion values, this is because it’s all based around being polite, knowing your manners, and treating people how you want to be treated. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t update the way you go about conversing.
Don’t just focus on emailing or speaking via the telephone. You can also communicate through social media comments and messages. Not only that, but you can install a feature on your website which means that you can instant-chat through there.
A lot of customers like this because they are guaranteed a quick response within a minute – if that. Just make sure that if you go down that route, you have a team around you that is available to answer questions then and there.
Now you have some ideas, have a think about where you need to focus your attention on within your business. There is nothing wrong with admitting you need a little bit of help, so if you’re still unsure of what you need to do, ask for a professional opinion. The sooner you’re aware of your downfalls, the sooner you can fix them and grow as a whole.
