There are a few key things that every business owner should focus on to get the results they want. Let’s delve into those and see how they can help your business thrive.
Small business owners must stay organised
Successful business owners wear many hats, meaning they have to balance a lot of tasks at the same time. But without planning and organisation, how do you know that you’re prioritising correctly? How can you be certain you haven’t let something fall through the cracks?
Organisation is great for a number of reasons.
First, it saves time. If your business isn’t properly organised, tasks can pile up, paperwork gets lost and you waste valuable time on finding information that should be readily available.
That’s especially damaging if the paperwork in question is receipts, expenses and invoices, as it’s easy to miss out on an allowable expense you could have used to lower your tax bill if you don’t have the evidence to back up your claim.
Meanwhile, without a system that monitors your cashflow, it’s easy to miss unnecessary repeated expenses that drain your finances. And if you don’t have a proper invoice system, how can you expect to get paid on time for your hard work?
But a lack of organisation is worse than all that, as it can affect your customers, too. For example, a poor billing system can result in your clients being overcharged, which could cause them to choose a competitor next time.
What can you do to get better at organisation? Before you write up yet another to-do-list or stick another post-it note above your monitor, consider investing in accounting software to help with your financial management; project tracking software is great for your core tasks.
Alternatively, consider hiring an accountant and bookkeeper to help you with your finances. Then, you can pour all your time into organising the rest of your business.
Successful small businesses need to understand the competition
To succeed in business you need to understand your competition. This means researching their products, services and pricing strategies. By understanding your competition, you can identify gaps in the market and find ways to differentiate yourself from them.
Generally speaking, there are three options you can choose to differentiate your business from the competition:
- offer an equivalent service or product for lower price
- offer a better product or service for the same price
- offer a seriously better service or product for a premium price.
Don’t forget about marketing, which can help make a business unique by creating a distinctive brand identity that sets it apart from its competitors.
The basics of marketing include:
- identifying and communicating what makes your business unique to help customers understand why they should choose you
- creating a brand personality — tone of voice, visual style, etc — that helps make your business stand out
- building a marketing strategy to make the audience aware of the brand — this could include everything from email campaigns to blogging and attending industry events.
Business owners should be creative
Creativity is essential in business, especially in today’s fast-changing business landscape.
First, creativity is an important quality you need if you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors. After all, only unique products, services and marketing campaigns can capture the attention of your target audience. Therefore, you need to be able to explore new ideas and think outside the box to stay ahead of the curve.
Meanwhile, you’ll constantly come up against challenges in business, many of which you won’t have experienced before. Therefore, you need to be a good problem-solver, which a healthy dose of creativity will help with.
Then there’s dealing with your customers, which creativity can also help with, as it can help you engage with people in new and exciting ways. By creating unique and memorable experiences, you can then build stronger relationships with customers and generate more loyalty over time.
If you are looking for valuable business advice that can help you take your business to the next level? Get in touch with us.
