Owning a startup, in and of itself, is challenging. Having the monetary capacity and knowledge to get a business off the ground is one thing; surviving the fierce competition, volatile economy, as well as the oftentimes changing and unpredictable marketplace is another. Steps have to be taken, even tiny ones, and the demands of the company will need to be met one at a time.
To really survive, there are some rules which matter more than others. Most who manage and own large businesses, who, at one time, were struggling in their own start-ups, will inform you there are definitely some steps and strategies you need to hang on to, to reach your goal. Whether you’ve bought a franchise, opened your dream store, or started a business in retirement, you’ll want a solid growth strategy. This will ensure your company sees long-term success.
- Define Goals
Create a list of goals with a brief description of action items. If your business is a start-up, you will want to put more effort into your short-term goals. Often a new business concept must go through a period of research and development before the outcome can be accurately predicted for longer time frames.
Create two sets of goals:
Short term: range from six to 12 months.
Long term: can be two to five years.
- Understanding Your Target Market
It is not realistic to expect you can meet the needs of everyone, no business can. Choose your target market carefully. Overlook this area, and I guarantee you will be disappointed with the performance of your business. Get this right and you will be more than pleased with the results.
- Define your ideal customers, including their age, income, gender, location, and demographics. Understanding this can give you a strong base to work from in the rest of your research.
- Gather survey data on your market interests, preferences, and dislikes. This can help you create products that better solve consumers’ problems and fit their needs. You can also easily send your surveys to your audience with email marketing campaigns or through the mail.
- Create ideal customer personas that outline behaviors, expectations, and your target customers’ needs. You’ll also want these to describe the challenges your customers face. This can help you customize messaging to better relate to specific types of people.
- Look at social media to see who your target market is following and how they use different platforms. Use Google Analytics to see if your content is working for your target audience.
- Competitor analysis
For a competitive analysis, you’ll want to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the other companies you’re up against.
- Research who your competitors are: The best starting point is to see who offers the same products and services as you. You can use search engines like google to read through industry blogs. From there, you can attend different conferences and networking events to meet other companies face to face and see what they’re offering.
- Monitor social media: Rely on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to see what the public is saying about your competitors. This gives insight into your customers’ opinions and expectations.
- Ask your customers: This is one of the cheapest ways to gather information. If you gain a new customer, ask them who they used before you and why they’ve switched. You’ll want to understand why they weren’t happy with their previous supplier and then use this to help your operation improve.
- Leverage free or inexpensive marketing and advertising strategies or tools
Because your business is just beginning its way to making good money, it is practical that you rethink expensive choices to get individuals to notice your services or products. Don’t ruin your odds of getting the ROI you’ve set your eyes on, merely because you spent more than you ought to for that advertisement or sponsorship. As you embrace social media, you’ll know that exposing your brand to a broad section of your marketplace without having to go beyond your budget is possible.
- Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
It is difficult to measure startup success without first defining a few key performance indicators. The savviest startup founders will focus on the key performance indicators that most affect the growth of their startups and dedicate resources to those areas.
Remember, identify the KPIs that have the biggest impact on your definition of success. The most popular growth metrics include:
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC
- Customer Lifetime Value (LV
- Burn Rate
- Gross Profit Margin:
- Conversion Rate
- Establishing Long-Term Goals for Your Startup
Long-term goals give your business consistent direction and motivation and are key to a successful business model. They also give everyone at your company a path to follow for success by reducing confusion around your business plan. They’ll help your company focus on both small and major tasks throughout each year, which can increase productivity.
Some of the long-term goals for startups include:
- Reducing business expenses by 10%
- Increasing traffic to your website
- Hiring your first employee by the end of the year
- Opening a second business location in 5 years
- Starting referral programs where customers get awarded if they send someone new to your location
- Using social media marketing
- Never Compromise On Customer Service
It’ll take lots of effort to get your clients to trust you; however, make one error and you’ll lose them all prior to even being able to explain. Irrespective of your reinvention, expansion, or growth, high-quality customer service needs to be permanent. Your people ought to have the ability to do their job. Be certain they’re highly trained to offer your customers the help needed as they conduct business for you.
- Financial Matters
Take the time to invest in preparing financial projections. These projections should take into account the collection period for your accounts receivables (outstanding customer accounts) as well as the payment terms for your suppliers.
Take account of the following key areas:
- Startup Investment
- Assumptions
- Running Monthly Overhead
- Streamlined Sales Forecast
- Cumulative Cash
- Break-even
- Scale Responsibly
Avoid premature scaling by monitoring spending habits, avoiding debt, and limiting overheads. As previously mentioned, spending too much money before establishing product-market fit is the number one reason for premature failure. One of the easiest ways to maintain a low burn rate is renting coworking space. Startup teams working in tech-centric coworking spaces also enjoy warm introductions to VC, targeted educational programming, and access to resources designed to help them scale faster.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE – 10 BENEFITS OF WHY COWORKING SPACE PLAYS A SIGNIFICANT ROLE FOR STARTUPS
- Do Not Be Frightened Of Failing
The path to success is mostly paved by failure. It’s nearly impossible to succeed without having to fail first. It’s possible to learn as much from your failed project as you’re able to form a successful project, yet the most important thing you can learn regarding failure is how to get back up on your feet and keep on trying.
