05/11/2016
10 Rules for Succeeding in Your Own
Business
by Janet Attard
What does it take to start and succeed in business?
Although there is no one answer that fits all
businesses, there are a number of practices followed
by successful business owners. No matter what you
sell, you'll be ahead of the game if you live by these
ten essential rules for succeeding in your own
business.
What does it take to
start and succeed in
business? That's a
question I get asked a
lot. Although there is
no one answer that fits
all businesses, there
are a number of practices followed by successful
business owners. No matter what you sell, you'll be
ahead of the game if you live by these ten essential
rules for succeeding in your own business.
1. Be true to yourself. No matter how much money
someone else makes, if you don't enjoy the business,
wouldn't be proud to show your relatives what you
are doing and how you are doing it, then don't do it.
If you run a business you don't like or don't believe
in, even if you have temporary success, it will come
back to haunt you one way or another.
2. Find a need and fill it. Yes, you've heard that a
million times. But it still works. The easiest business
to run is one that produces products or services that
people already know they need. The reason: you
don't have to spend a lot of time and money
convincing prospects they need what you sell. You
can focus on why you are the best source to satisfy
their need. Just be sure the "need" is one people will
spend money to satisfy.
3. Choose products or services that you can sell
for a lot more than it costs you to make or buy
them. If the difference between your cost and selling
prices is too low, you will have difficulty growing the
business. When profit margins are too low, you won't
have enough money to hire employees, pay for rent
(when you need to move the business out of the
house), advertise more, and do other things needed
to expand.
4. Make realistic estimates of your expenses...
then double them. Most new businesses either
forget about marketing, fulfillment, overhead costs,
income taxes and self-employment or greatly
underestimate them.
5. Be true to your customers and prospects. Don't
promise what you can't deliver. Don't lie or
exaggerate the benefits of what you sell and always
deliver a quality product or service. Word-of-mouth
marketing has always been one of the primary ways
small businesses find customers. The Internet and
social networking sites spread the word (good or
bad) to even more potential customers.
6. Understand the importance of marketing and
learn how to do it effectively. The world won't beat
a path to your door just because you build a better
mousetrap or write a great ebook about how to grow
tomatoes or teach a child to read. To get customers
you will have to market your products or services
effectively and continually.
7. Treat your vendors, manufacturers and service
providers with respect and let them know you
appreciate them. They are an important part of
your team and your success. If you speak down to
them, pester them with questions you could answer
yourself, imply that they don't' do a good job, nickel
and dime them to death, or are an ongoing pain in
the neck, they'll never go out of their way to help you
-- and might drop you all together. No business
needs picky, annoying, time-consuming customers.
8. Embrace the web. No matter what you sell or to
whom, your customers will turn to the web to
research and/or buy. They may turn to online yellow
pages to find a florist in Florence, SC; use voice
recognition on their smart phone to find a nearby
restaurant, or use their computer to go to Google,
MSN or Yahoo to search for a phrase like "Elder law
attorney Farmington Hills MI", or "plumber weekends
Astoria NY." If customers can't find you in their
queries, they are likely to give their business to one
of your competitors.
9. Don't expect miracles. Yes, people do make
money in their sleep or while they're away on
vacation -- the Internet makes that possible. But only
after they've invested a lot of time , effort, and money
in building the business and building the team that
keeps it going and growing.
10. Remind yourself that one is the loneliest
number in business. One product, one service, one
main client, and all your records stored on one
computer hard drive without regular off-site backups
is a recipe for failure. If you only have one product or
service you're missing out on the chance to profit by
selling more things to people who already know and
trust you. If you have only one main client, you're up
the proverbial creek if they decide to change vendors
or run into cash flow problems. And if all your
records are on your computer and you don't have
always up-to-date backups of your important files, a
hard drive crash could destroy your business.
