In today’s edition of Tips from the Experts, we’ve asked four seasoned business professionals to give us their top business start up tips.
Warren Bickley and Rob Pollard, Founders of Rock My Roost
Rock My Roost is an online store that stocks specially sourced, boutique homeware items.
1. Have a clear vision from the outset
Write an achievable business plan and commit to it. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of a new business idea and forget about the business side of things. Setting achievable and realistic mid-term targets and objectives is key.
2. Be prepared to work harder than you ever have
Working for yourself isn’t the easy option; being your own boss can be tough. It includes working long hours, sometimes around an existing job, which can be challenging, but in the end it’s all worthwhile.
3. Embrace technology and move with it or lead it!
Web technologies can make it easier for start ups – especially using social media to your marketing advantage. Get to grips with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and even LinkedIn – they do work!
4. Business will not always be about success
Failures are hard but use them to learn from and never let your emotions rule your decisions – move on and embrace your learning!
5. Keep an eye on costs
Look for creative ways to achieve a similar outcome. For example, if you can’t afford an expensive PR agency to help get your business recognised, try ringing around and see what packages you can get. Sometimes day rate project agreements are better than you think!
Daniel Rajkumar, Chief Architect and Founder of Rebuilding Society
Rebuilding Society is a company that connects creditworthy businesses with investors. This peer-to-business lending market is also known as crowdfunding.
1. Start with the end in mind
Have a clear understanding of how you want the business to look in 1, 3 and 5 years’ time.
2. Be proactive
Get through as much as possible and don’t get distracted. Try to stay focussed and finish each day planning the next, until you develop the skill to plan each week in advance.
3. Look after your staff and train them to look after your customers
The first people you work with must be customer-centric in attitude and service. Customer loyalty is absolutely critical for any new business.
4. Work more on yourself than you do on your business
Starting a business is a personal and professional development journey like no other. Read the autobiographies of other entrepreneurs; they always write about their mistakes and it’s so much cheaper learning from someone else’s mistakes than making your own! Be prepared to learn quickly. The words ‘I know’ are dangerous in business. Try to read about the different functions of business to get a better understanding about best practices. Start with the basics, like the psychology of motivation and advanced communication skills.
5. Be introspective and desire success
At the top there is no one else to blame; everything happens as a result of the decisions you make. When things don’t go according to plan, it’s because you didn’t think things through far enough. Some people become cynical from being repeatedly ‘let down’. For you to be successful, you need to know everything happens for a reason. You have more power to influence the outcomes you want than you think. As long as there’s competition, your standards need to be higher, your product/service better, and your smile brighter. Every little detail needs to be worked on, repeatedly, until you win.
Clare Whalley, Life & Business Coach at Meta4
Meta4 provides life and business coaching for changes in career direction, business start-up ventures and business growth.
1. Join a networking group
There are so many business networking groups out there, and you can visit many for free. Networking is a valuable exercise for a number of reasons: firstly, your own personal development – it’s really important for self-confidence and belief, hearing yourself being the expert in your field. Networking provides the opportunity to find out what other business-related activities are going on in your local area, and allows you to mix with like-minded business owners – self-employment can be lonely. Plus, it offers you the opportunity to gain business and grow your contacts. It’s also a great place to test out ideas and get advice. Networking cannot be shouted about enough!
2. Create your online profile
In the very early stages you may not have a website but it is important to ensure you have online profiles and that they are consistent with one another. Develop your presence on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. This will create early confidence and trust in your brand, and enable potential contacts to connect and share easily with you. This will give you an idea of what your competitors and potential business contacts are talking about and are interested in, ultimately enabling you and your website to have a better online presence.
3. Know your market
Clearly understand who your target market is, and how to get to them (research, research, research). Think about age brackets, demographics, geography, how they like to buy and how best you can serve them. There are lots of really great tools available to challenge your thinking and direct you to answering questions about your target audience: surveys, social media tools and so on.
4. Be open to all opportunities
Being brave and taking risks is part and parcel of being a successful business owner. Say yes and then think about how you’re going to do it. The most wonderful thing about running your own business is the amazing opportunities that come your way. You never know where they might lead you.
5. Take action
Always be prepared to step outside of your comfort zone. This is where amazing things happen for you and your business. If you have an idea for a new and innovative product or service: go for it, research it, develop it, test it and send it out to your market. What’s the worst that could happen?
Ali Golds, Managing Director of Operation Enterprise & Juno Projects
Operation Enterprise provide training and support for aspiring entrepreneurs, and also offers enterprise education consultancy. Juno Projects is an offshoot of the business that focuses on female entrepreneurship.
1. Write a business plan
I get it, writing a business plan isn’t the most fun you can have. When you have an idea for a business and you just want to get up and at it, being tied to a desk for the foreseeable future can appear to be a bit of a chore. It takes lots of time, painstaking research and a degree of commitment. I know a good few would-be entrepreneurs who have fallen at this first hurdle – just the thought of writing a plan has seen them giving up.
But a business plan is vital. It takes you through all of the things that you need to think about – your product/service, customers, marketing, operational details, HR and, of course, finance – as well as helping you to allay potential problems along the way. The mere act of writing a plan can even identify a business that just won’t work.
Investors will want to see one, bank managers will want to see one and even suppliers may want to see one. So writing one is non-negotiable if you want to start up properly.
2. Don’t be afraid to start off small
Not every start-up is going to be the next Virgin or Body Shop. Let’s accept that. And, in fact, not everyone who starts their own business wants to be the next Richard Branson or Anita Roddick. Remember that some 95% of businesses in the UK are small. Only a tiny proportion of businesses we see on the high street are corporate enterprises.
Starting small is a really clever way to start. There’s no need to throw everything up in the air and resign from a full-time job to start working on your own. Planning to run your business on a part-time basis for the first few months, even the first year, can be the perfect way to test out not just your business’s suitability to the market but also your suitability to running a start-up!
Starting small can also save you money; not having to take a salary can be the difference between success and failure. And kicking off with a small amount of capital, resources and the basic tools is quite sensible. Better to start small and work up to something bigger slowly.
3. It’s about you, as much as your idea
Whenever I talk to someone about my work as a Start-up Coach, most people sigh and say ‘I could never start my own business, I don’t have good ideas.’ And whilst that’s plainly a pre-requisite; it’s also important that you have the skills to work for yourself.
I don’t just mean professional or vocational qualifications, they are of course important; I mean attributes and behaviours. Running a business takes resilience and confidence, as well as excellent problem-solving and negotiation skills. You have to be organised and independent, a creative thinker, and a first class communicator.
The trick is to play to your strengths, and to find someone to fill the gap when it comes to your weaknesses. Take a training course in sales techniques; find a great book-keeper or accountant. Send your website off to a designer, rather than spending night after night poring over something that makes you want to pull your hair out. We can’t do it all. Accepting that is a great strength in itself.
4. Find a mentor
Starting a business can be really hard going at times, and very isolating, particularly if you are working on your own. In your previous life as an employee, you will have had a colleague or boss to turn to for advice; someone to run ideas past. Of course you’re the boss now, so all of the decisions are down to you.
Finding a good mentor is essential. Mentors come with lots of business experience and some may even be entrepreneurs themselves. They know the problems you will face and will have some great hints and tips. They will also have a useful network of contacts that they can put you in touch with.
They may not have specific industry experience but that’s not always necessary. The problems that start-ups face are largely the same; it’s just the scenarios that might be different.
5. Love what you do
It might surprise you to know that some people start up a business with one goal in mind. They just want to make money.
Now, I’m not going to say that being motivated solely by money is bad, far from it, but I will say this – starting a business is seriously hard work. It will take everything you have, and a little bit more. It will take over your life. Even if you aren’t working, you will be thinking about it. You will be out with friends, and have to dash home because you suddenly had a Great Idea and have to get cracking with it right away. Believe me, I’ve been there.
Doing something because you love it, because it runs through your veins and excites you more than anything ever will is a much better reason for working for yourself than mere money. It needs to be a passion.
Thanks to all our contributors for their valuable advice. Do you have any start up tips for new entrepreneurs or businesses? Feel free to leave a comment in the section below.