Business Insider: Before You Take the Leap, Do These 5 Things

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For years, I talked about it. For years, I gave it away for free (more in the next section). For years, I lacked the bravery to step into the wild, shielded by a full-time job and numerous excuses for why I couldn’t, shouldn’t or otherwise. Finally, I took the step; I took the leap and jumped and built a ladder on my way down. By leap I mean self-employment. Now, I am not suggesting that you walk into your boss’s office and offer him your final farewell tomorrow. If you don’t have somewhat of a safety net, gleefully return tomorrow to your day job and consider it a blessing that will serve you well as you SERIOUSLY and finally build your enterprise to step out and give it 150 percent of your time and attention. Oh yes, and it will absolutely take that! Long nights, early mornings, sacrifices, did I say sacrifices? It will take living like most are not willing to, to have options and the freedom that many will NEVER be able to. Whether you leap cold turkey into entrepreneurship or you take a more moderate approach, plan to do these five things for business success.

  1. Decide how you pay for your current lifestyle

Will you rely on a spouse? Or work part-time or on contract while building your business? Or will you grow your enterprise while you maintain your full-time job? Whatever your plan, be sure to have an exit strategy from this support and set clear goals and objectives on how you will focus on your business 100 percent of the time.

 

  1. Build an emergency fund

Making a decision to hang up your corporate cleats in favor of dress sweats and sneakers, and hanging out your own “For Business” sign is a tough and oftentimes fearful decision. Many are the stories of entrepreneurs with less than $100 to their name amassing fortunes off of true determination and grit! I applaud them and relish in these stories; however, for most of us, it gives us a sense of security to plan to fire our bosses. With that, ideally plan for 12 months, and no less than six months of your current expenses in savings. This will help to keep you afloat until you can start to earn a salary from your business. (This book will help you do that much more quickly.)

 

  1. Uncover what makes you different from the pack

If an investor offered you $100,000 today to invest in your business and the only catch was that you had to pitch to him exactly what makes you different than your competitors, what would you say? Knowing why customers should choose you over your competitors is an instrumental component of building a sustainable business. Being able to effectively communicate that within a 30-second elevator pitch, a presentation to customers/investors, and in written communication is a non-negotiable skill set. Every entrepreneur must be able to articulate what makes them unique.

  1. Identify your niche

A niche is a special area of demand for a product or service. Find yours today. Upon beginning this journey, ask yourself, “What problem does this product or service solve?” and, “How does it uniquely address a need?” The great Albert Einstein notably stated, “Genius is the ability to focus on one particular thing for a long time without losing concentration.” Many business owners fail due to their desire to do too many things. They spread their attention and funds across so many areas that they fail to do any of them with great excellence. Find the one thing that you do so well, that you enjoy doing and would do for free for the rest of your life, and you have at least found the skill set that you should wrap your product or service around. Perfect that business and drill it down to serve a small subset of the market, creating extreme value and high demand. For me, it is developing people with unique strategies and passion. That is why coaching and consulting was a no-brainer. The ability to deliver it Q.U.I.C.C™ to start-ups and small businesses is my niche.

  1. Decide, TODAY, how you will get your first five customers

Many of my coaching clients are thrown off by this question. In fact, the majority of new businesses don’t give a second thought to how they plan to acquire clients and new business. This should be the core component of your marketing plan. Yes, you need to write a marketing plan. Under market strategy within your plan, you should look at the top 5–10 tactical action steps you plan to take to get your first five customers. Depending upon your product and service, you can start with your sphere of influence (family, friends and colleagues) to gain your first customers. They can also serve as part of your product/service research for your business. With a great product, you will receive word-of-mouth advertising from this group as well. If you are transferring a skill from a corporate job, but not in a competitive capacity, and branching out on your own, your previous employer (provided you made a proper exit rather than utilize a 10-piece orchestra to gleefully announce that you were leaving the drains of their organization and corporate America in general) always serves as a perfect first customer. After all, they know your work and trust you, HOPEFULLY! As you begin to have exit interviews, start to plant the seed on how working with you as a client in your new business solves a particular problem within the organization that you know they have. Even if you have left your corporate job long ago, reaching back to previous employers is always a great place to start.

“Strong Marketing Plan Series: Step 1: Market Research”

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businessmen-1005545__180_IIIn part one of our Strong Marketing Plan Series, we will explore market research—what it is, why it is important, and how you can conduct it to help your small business. To achieve sustainable business growth, you must first get to know your customers, your competitors, and your industry. Market research is the process of analyzing data to help you learn which products and services are in demand, and how you can gain a competitive edge. Many people fail to include this important step in their marketing strategy and dive head first into creating content. It is natural to be eager, but without market research you run the risk of creating the wrong content. As an entrepreneur, you don’t have that time to waste.

 

By incorporating these 4 dos and don’ts into your marketing plan, you will gain valuable insight that will help you identify business risks, trends in your industry, and sales opportunities.

 

1   Do: Size Up Your Competition

Before you can play the game, you need to know who your opponents are and how they operate. This can be as simple as running a Google search for popular terms in your industry or searching “top 10 (insert your niche) blogs”. You can also turn to social media and learn who the prominent businesses and influencers are in that space. Who are people following, engaging with through comments, or re-tweeting? Many industry leaders are writing e-books. Visit the Kindle section on Amazon and search with key words to discover which authors are most popular. Keep track of what you learn about your competition on a spreadsheet.

 

2   Don’t: Assume Your Customer’s Needs

As a business owner, you are a problem solver. But before you can provide your clients with a solution, you need to know what they need help with. To do this, refer back to your list of competitors. Dig a little deeper and visit their websites. What customer problems are they solving? Do they have a list of FAQs? Do the majority of their blog posts address a specific challenge their customers are facing? What are they selling and at what price? Add this information to your spreadsheet. As a result of this research, you may opt to add additional services or change the way you deliver your product. As your business grows, you will have ample opportunity to get creative with product development. However, to ensure success from the start, market something that you are confidant people want.

 

3   Don’t: Recreate The Wheel

Trade groups, business magazines, academic institutions, government, and other third parties gather and analyze research data about business trends. Internet databases are chock full of information related to your location and industry. In addition, you may already be collecting analytics that you aren’t aware of. If you have a Facebook page for your business, you have access to helpful data about who is clicking and when. The same applies to your blog. Comments are indicators of engagement, but you can also learn a ton from the back end of your platforms. For example, if you embedded an infographic with tracking capabilities, you can monitor every time it is clicked, viewed, shared, and how long each online user viewed it. This wealth of knowledge will afford you a greater understanding of what makes your target market take action. You can then adjust your content accordingly to make it even more relevant.

 

4   Do: Get To Know Your Customers

While secondary research is critical, it is also important to go straight to the source. This means conducting qualitative primary research such as interviews, surveys, questionnaires, or focus groups. Once you have a group of willing participants, you can design and questions that inform your business plan. You might choose to incorporate questions about a person’s demographic, buying habits, what they dislike about similar products on the market, or what problems motivate them to purchase a product.

Once you have done your market research, you can incorporate it into your marketing plan. You will no longer be throwing a dart while blindfolded, hoping to hit a target. Instead, you will have incredibly valuable information about who your customers are, what they want, and how they are likely to purchase your product or use your services.

Have you been surprised by something you’ve discovered in your market research? If so, please share in the comments below!

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Using Crowd Funding Effectively To Grow Your Business

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Crowd funding has become a powerful tool in helping small businesses grow their business and maximize their full potential. If this is done right, one will see that there are various aspects in a business, such as products and services that can reap the rewards.

Sometimes, people will donate to an online platform because of a worthwhile cause they are supporting. Other times, they will want to invest in a company and in this way they can buy a share in the business. An example of something which you can invest in is green energy. This has become huge over recent times, and a company like Abundance Generation has seen much growth by allowing investors to visit their wind farm.

Another method of crowdfunding is where people are able to donate in a project, but will only get billed once they see their project is starting to pay off. An example of this is Spacehive which allows people to fund a park in a community of their choice.

This can work well if the business has planned their project and has the research set out. You have to be prepared for questions that investors might throw at you. People who are open and are able to engage will go far in this sort of environment.

Crowdfunding is an alternative to the traditional approach of getting loans and quite possibly going into debt. One will also be able to see rewards as you become known through social media. You will be able to see this when you release a product and there are people who fund this, stating that it is a good idea. Often this will go viral.

The top five crowdfunding platforms:

There are many of these platforms that you have to experiment with, but starting with the top ones is always a good idea.

  • Kickstarter – this is mainly for creative projects that specialize in dance, film, arts, food and photography. Ouya is one of the companies that have had a lot of success with them.
  • Indiegogo – There is a lot of money that has been put into this particular platform and it has grown a lot during recent times. They get 4% of the cut, which is about average. This is a platform that is more flexible in nature.
  • Project Travel – As the name suggests, is for people who are interested in the travel industry as well as education type projects which connect with travel.
  • Razoo – This is mainly for nonprofits that want to grow in one way or another. There are no charges for signups and you will find that it has been very popular.
  • Crowdrise – This is basically a platform for good causes which people are able to donate to. They specialize in a wide range of causes, such as disease, education, religion, animal rights, arts, disease and crisis as well as the environment. Their pricing is lower at 3%. They have had success with the NYC marathon.