Setting up their own business is the ultimate goal for many people. The idea of working for yourself often seems like an exciting notion, being able to utilise lots of ideas and turn them into reality.
The truth often entails working longer and longer hours with little time for breaks. Just keeping the whole operation ticking over can be a struggle. And yet few people would go back to working for someone else after they have been their own boss. Let us look at a formula for success, to turn your business into a successful, viable company.
- Tell people what to do. Your staff are not psychic. They need clarity, guidance and education. These three things motivate staff because they feel that they have support and interest from management. They feel that you are with them.
- Sell with energy and belief. Every business is about selling, whether it be goods or services. Money has to change hands in order to cover your overheads and then make enough profit to make it all worthwhile. Being enthusiastic about your products and enthusing your staff is the key to business success. Sales is the creative side of the business, so hire good, dynamic staff and work to enhance their levels of motivation.
- Choose good sales staff. Staff are the backbone of the organisation. They are the human face of your company. Paying them well is important as is paying staff well enough to entice good staff from other companies. The result is you invest in your business in order to increase your profitability.
- Winning over good sales staff from your business rivals benefits you by weakening the strength of your competitors. Also good sales staff often find that their customers move with them as they value the relationship that they have with their sales consultant. A good sales representative understands that sales is about repeating a process over and over. Customers return for a good product. It is about keeping the market with you by providing good service and reliability.
- Good sales figure are also about providing honest, quality advice. A good friend who always, every year, came top of sales in her company had no qualms about telling customers not to buy something if she felt that it had no relevance to them. Her customers valued her advice, trusted her and she could on occasion, simply phone them up, recommend something and they would place significant orders on her say so.
- Marketing and Advertising matters because it keeps your brand alive in peoples minds. It reminds people that you are a strong presence in your field and can also be used to introduce new ideas, innovations and products as well as keeping your regular product and contact details visible.
- Be prepared to invest in your business. As you grow sometimes investment is required to sustain and enable bigger orders to be undertaken. It can be a risk, but in order to grow sometimes increased funding is required.
- Have a plan. Have a vision of where you want to go. Decide if you are working towards an exit strategy. Is your goal to retire, sell the business or become a back seat member of the board? Decide if you need to tailor your business to work towards that goal. Might it be worth thinking about turning it into a franchise opportunity for people to invest in? Setting up a good business model with a business plan and support in place could provide a lucrative on-going income for you in the future.
- Tailor you business plan with a future sale in mind at some point. Is it worth thinking about buying out your competition to strengthen your market position and make your business a more attractive proposition to a potential purchaser? Could you be looking to become that strong that you build an empire and look to float it ultimately?
By utilising good business support you can take control of your choices and work towards your end goal, your exit strategy. This enables you to move at your own time and pace, to achieve what is right for you.
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