From digital agencies to barber shops, bakeries and consulting firms, millions of entrepreneurs just like you have taken steps to start a small business; they have also put in the work to grow and expand these businesses, irrespective of their location.
Their success stories has inspired even more aspiring entrepreneurs who have also gone ahead to set up their own brands in different industries.
According to stats, in spite of the number of empowering stories from successful entrepreneurs and myriads of opportunities provided by digitalization, more people have failed to start and run a small business successfully, compared to those that succeeded.
As you decide to take the steps to start a small business, I’ll be sharing with you in this guide, the lessons I’ve learned along my small business journey, the insights I’ve garnered from other experts and the strategies you can use to nurture your business to success.
Conduct a Market Research
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It’ll be a terrible mistake to start a small business without being sure about having an actual demand for that particular business. But many new entrepreneurs are making this mistake so many times.
I’ve had entrepreneurs tell me they plan to start a new business with some very exciting ideas they stumbled on, only to find out after asking probing questions; that they do not really have an idea about the market demand for that business or that the idea itself is something novel they plan to push themselves.
Yes, I do not have an issue with starting a novel idea to be specific but you have to experiment with your idea, conduct some market surveys, find out the market demand for the idea before launching all in.
The benefit of this is that it saves you the cost of expending resources on a business idea that is not viable or something that is not actually in demand so you can channel the resources instead to more viable ideas.
- Research your Market: So, before embarking on your idea, conduct a market research, find out, are there other businesses in that market. If yes, are they making profit?
- Analyze your Competition: Analyse the other existing businesses where you find them in your industry to find out how they are performing. What they are doing in terms of brand positioning, marketing, etc.
- Find your USP: Where there are existing and profitable businesses, you want to find a differentiating factor that will define your brand while serving as your unique selling point.
What this does for you is that it gives your target market a specific reason to choose your brand over the other existing brands.
Your unique selling proposition is the edge you have over the other existing businesses and finding this is very important.
Define your Goal(s)
Any entrepreneur that wants to start a small business does that because there’s something they specifically want to achieve with their business.
This could be anything. For instance, it could be that they want to use the business as a source of employment, for side income or to achieve any other specific goal.
Before you get right in to start any business, you want to identify the specific goal you want to achieve with your business so that you can take steps to build it to achieve those goals specifically.
After you’re sure about your goals, you can then go ahead to create a business plan that will get you to achieve the specific goal or goals you listed out.
I’ve seen a number of small businesses that started out without any specific or clear goals oftentimes out of ignorance. This is also how I started my first business idea and the outcome was totally unimpressive – In fact, the business collapsed after a year.
Starting your business without a clear goal can lead to problems. The pathway to build a foundation for success is to identify exactly what you’re building, why you’re building it and then create a plan that will get you to deliver on your expected outcomes.
PS: Be sure your goal is SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound. Do not set vague goals.
Create a Plan
How do you get from point A to Point B, after having your business all set up? This is one of the key questions that will be answered by your business plan.
So, before delving right in to start a small business, put together a business plan based on your goals as set out in step two.
Take for example your ultimate business goal is to build a million dollar business in two years, your plan will include the steps, actions and resources that will lead you to create that net worth within the specific timeframes you set up above.
Your business plan should be able to capture specific aspects of your business like market analysis, services or product line, marketing and sales strategy, financial projections etc.
Your plan does not necessarily have to be something very detailed, what you want is a business plan that gives you the rough idea about how you’ll get from point A to B, until you’re able to achieve your core expected outcomes.
So, you can keep it as simple as you want but be sure that it is straightforward and realistic enough to actually get you to achieve your business goals in record time.
Set up your Business
Now, this is where you actually get your business from off your sheets right into implementation.
To achieve some sort of legitimacy, most entrepreneurs seeking to start a small business will always want to start with getting their business registered and documented with appropriate government agencies.
Although this is not compulsory in some cases, depending on the nature of your business or target audience, such business registrations can get you credibility before your target audience.
If you want to get started this way, all you need to do is head over to the concerned government agency and register your business, taking all the complete steps based on what works for you.
Where it’s important to do that through a third party legal practitioner or other professional, you can reach out to the appropriate entity and get started with the process.
As soon as this is done and completed, you can then proceed with the official set up of your business physically or online, depending on what works for you.
Build an Online Presence
It is not enough to start a small business, you also need to build an online presence so customers can reach you and your business from different locations within and outside your locality.
And one of the most important steps to build an online presence is to create a website for your business.
To do this, you want to get a domain name, a website hosting account and then hire a web design agency to create your website from scratch.
While at it, pay attention to create a mobile friendly website that will be easily accessible to your target audience.
Also, create pages to list your product or services on your website using clear and colourful images and powerful product or service description in a way that is both compelling and attractive to a potential customer.
When this is all set up, you can thereafter head over to the other platforms like social media to promote your brand on in there.
Identify these social media platforms with the largest number of your target audience and then create a profile and start sharing content and promoting your brand there.
Promote your Business
As a new business, you need as much reach as possible if you really want to hit the ground running from the start.
Most times, your business will not generate the needed traffic on its own. Even where you have a website all set up, that website may not be generating the kind of visibility that will keep you in business for the long run.
So, to make up for this, after you set up a small business, irrespective of your location, you have to take steps to promote your business for improved visibility.
That said, there are two major ways to promote your business. This include using paid and free marketing strategies.
For the free marketing strategies, consider using the following:
- Content marketing: Create and share content relevant to your business and what your target audience needs on your platform. This will improve your reach, social imprint while attracting backlinks to your website. It will also improve your credibility before your target audience.
- Social Media Marketing: Create a page on the top social media platforms popular with your target audience and then share content and engage with your audience on that platform.
- Optimize your Website: Optimize your website for search engine visibility using relevant target keywords. Pay attention to use on-page, off-page, technical and local SEO strategies that will position your business right in front of your preferred target audience.
- Use Strategic Link Building: Backlinks improve your credibility, domain authority and overall visibility on search engines. Use strategic link building approaches like guest posting, linkable content, long form content and guides etc. to attract backlinks to your website.
Using these strategies, alongside paid strategies like PPC advertising on Google, Social Media Advertising and sponsored advertising on third party websites can boost your overall business visibility in the long run, positioning you right in front of your preferred target audience.
Create Systems & Evolve
It’s nearly impossible to start a small business and grow it without building solid systems that will get you to create better and faster outcomes for your clients.
So, at this point since you would have already started your business, it’s time to document your processes and procedures as it applies to some specific aspects of your business.
This makes It easy for these practices and procedures to be repeatable with or without your availability.
Let’s say part of your business practices involves publishing a certain number of content over a specified period. You want to document the content, the creation process that leads to the best outcomes as well as the key procedures involved.
You also want to set up a standard of engagement for building a proper business. This will include having a template for things like invoicing, quotations, price lists etc.
If you’re into production business, your system will also cover the production process from the start to the end.
As a plus, you want to create a standard of relating with your customers. Especially for a service based business, you want to define the extent you can go in specific details based on your kind of business.
Keep in mind you don’t really need to have all this sorted out from day one. For the most part, your experience in the business is part of what will give you the guidelines in building sustainable systems that will aid in your business growth and evolution.
Final Words
Starting a small business is demanding. It will require a lot of resources, effort and work from you but it can also be quite rewarding when you’re finally able to use these strategies to grow your business.
Now keep in mind, besides all what you learned here, you also need to build a good relationship with your customers in areas like pricing, service delivery etc. as this will rub off on your brand.
Also, there are a number of technological tools you can use to use to understand, automate and simplify your business for easy growth like CRM tools, AI tools, etc., irrespective of your industry.
You’ll also want to measure your outcomes from time to time. Use metrics from your business including sales, marketing and visibility to gain insights and find better ways to improve your growth strategy.
And finally, work with experts like us to grow your business from scratch by reaching out here so we can get you by the hand to build a sustainable business just like we did for other clients.
Now, it’s over to you. What are your challenges when it comes to starting a small business? Drop your comments below.
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