How Not To Fail

12th February 2020

 

Nailed It or Failed It?

 

Did you know that 80% of small businesses fail in the first year - but it doesn't have to be you.

 

Here are the core elements of your business that you need to be confident in and how to achieve them.

 

 

Invoicing and Payment 

Is your money tied up in invoices, are you getting paid late, do you chase your invoices?

✅ start with reviewing your payment plans and charging structure, what's the best accounting software for you, ask for help to get this right and you'll be in control of your finances and not the other way around.

 

Business Model

Every business needs to know it's client demographic, value proposition and how to get both to meet in the successful uptake of your service or product.

✅ spend a morning getting to the heart of your business and setting profitable and achievable goals, I love a plan!

 

Value Proposition

What is your unique selling point, what makes you the best?

✅ don't be shy, uncover the value that you give and shout about it.

 

Keep Building

If you are busy or have a couple of large contracts, don't stop there.

✅ want keep building your business so that when those big projects are complete you have a bank of new projects to begin?  Create your Business Model to grow your impact and business.

 

Who Knows About You?

Do you know how to find your customers and attract them to our business?

✅ don't use every marketing channel, research the best platform for you and your business and get back the love of selling your business.

 

How Do You Know?

Let's look back at your Business Model and goal setting to see where you're really hitting the mark and where you're not - and why.

✅ analytics are simple to install and fantastic at seeing the bigger picture, Google Analytics, ContentCal are two quick fixes to find out how you're website and social media performing and there are more I can recommend.

 

Listen

How often do you ask your client if they need anything else, have other concerns they would like to discuss or how their busiess is going?

✅ talk to your clients regularly or set up mini market research to see how you impact their business - it's amazing what work is waiting for you.

 

Let Go!

I know this one is really hard, you are the business developer and printer fixer and all jobs inbetween.

✅ work on your core skills and review what can be delegated, outsourced or removed from your workload altogether.  It's easy to get tied up in the 'I must do this because everyone else does' but if it doesn't benefit your business it is time wasted.

 

Security

This is a favourite topic of mine, if my laptop was lost could I survive? Yes.

✅ because I have a great security plan, I cloud base my work, I use software that is cloud based - my head is truly in the clouds!

 

This is what I do every day and there are great case studies in my blog from happy, successful clients.

 

Call or email me for an informal chat or meet up and let's get those ideas into action.

 

 

 Photos Jeroen den Otter & Giulia May