October 20th, 2014.
What are the foundations of every successful business?
When it comes to starting up a business there are a collection of things that need to be implemented to ensure that you succeed. You’ll find that many of these are what makes up the core of the largest brands and businesses worldwide, driving them forward and forcing growth.
If you want your business to take off then make sure you’re doing the following:
Have a Decent Product/ Idea
Do you know why the social tandem never took off? Because it was ridiculous, impractical and had no benefits to a traditional bike. Any business that doesn’t offer something new or doesn’t provide a high quality or cheaper alternative to something already on the market isn’t likely to achieve roaring success.
Get your product or idea firmly tested and validated before trying to launch your business. Do you think Apple tried to sell computers before they even made them? Okay, they did but they are the exception to the rule, not you!
Market research is essential at this stage in your development as it can be the difference between you becoming a multi-million pound business and burning out in two months flat.
Build a Plan and Organise a Budget
Nobody gets anywhere by being too hasty. Before you do anything else make sure that you have a proper business plan in place. What avenues are you going to go down, how are you going to pitch your ideas, how will the business be run and most importantly – where is the funding coming from?
Even if you have a healthy amount of money to start with you’ll find it quickly disappears when it’s unaccounted for. Figure out how much money you need to get the most from your business and ensure that you have this kind of funding available. Make sure you cover basic items such as rent, utilities, research and development, marketing, salaries and materials etc.
Hire the Right People
One of the biggest downfalls of new businesses is hiring the wrong people. Your business is only going to be as good as your staff, so it makes sense to ensure that you’re hiring the best. Try to increase your budget for salaries to ensure that you can hire the people you want and not simply the people you can afford.
Find people who are innovative and who, ideally, have previous experience in helping businesses get off the ground. The better your initial team, the more chance you have at succeeding with your business. Try to instil shared values and goals from the get-go and ensure that everyone is working their hardest to meet the company’s targets.
Adapt and Change
Sometimes things don’t go quite as planned. Your business needs to be able to take criticism, make changes and adapt to the needs of the market. If you find that a certain area isn’t working then you need to be able to change it quickly and efficiently. The faster and better you can change your products and services the more chance you have of being successful.
You need to do everything you can to keep up with the latest trends and updates, as well as being able to add demanded features or adjust to requirements with your existing products. Many market leaders initially started out with entirely different products than they now sell and have only remained successful by being able to restructure their business around what the market wants.
Have a Backup Plan
If you do start taking off then expect your product or service style to be copied by the bigger businesses out there. How are you going to stand up to this? You need to have a plan B in place which either needs to be legal copyright and patents or simply to be bought out by the bigger businesses. This should probably be decided early on and agreed upon as a company – either way if you’re at this stage you can easily classify yourself as successful.
Are you establishing the foundations of your successful business venture? Get in touch today so we candiscuss your commercial finance options.