Starting a small business signals many significant changes in the life of the business owner: 1) the financial freedom that you won’t have to worry about being laid off again; 2) the flexibility to work on his own schedule; 3) the satisfaction of making a difference in life, whether it’s growing your business to become a major player in a competitive industry or just doing what you love to do while making lots of money.
Parallel to the thrill of doing cool things is the challenge of wearing too many hats: strategic planning, marketing, sales, production, customer service, accounting, and finance. The business is small, but the work is huge.
No matter what industry you’re in, the ingredients of a successful small business are the same: 1) an idea that works; 2) a marketing plan that won’t break the bank, but still gets the job done; and 3) operating efficiency.
Ideas
The right business idea is crucial to the success and growth of your new business. First of all, the business you are in should be what you are passionate about. Second, you have enough knowledge, experience, and talent to compete in the industry. Finally, it’s best to choose a business that can generate a small, steady income without a large initial investment and has the potential to grow to support you and your family. Freelance writing, web design, online marketing, freelance programming, accounting are just a few ideas to consider.
Promotion
Distributing business cards is one of the most popular and affordable ways to market or advertise your products or services. Although you can print business cards yourself using many different business card templates, it’s wise to spend a little money to order professionally designed business cards. For as little as $20, you can order 500 business cards. Color business cards will cost a bit more. A professional website is the next thing you may want to have to promote your service so that prospects can get information about your business 365 days a year and 24 hours a day. Affordable web hosting costs as little as $50 or less per year. For another $80, you can have one or two simple web pages. If prospects are likely to search for your service online, spend $50 on online pay-per-click (PPC) ads. $50 in PPC will actually bring you some clients and generate a reasonable income.
Operating efficiency
Most small business owners are often 100 percent busy running the business: marketing, sales, production, customer service, accounting, and financing. They often don’t have the time (if not the wide range of knowledge) to think strategically and allocate resources and time to think about growing the business. The result is simple and devastating. They will remain small businesses if they are lucky, or go out of business when market conditions change drastically. Operational efficiency is even more important to running a small business than operating an established company.
There are many ways to improve operation efficiency: 1) streamline business processes, 2) use productivity software, 3) outsource, etc. It’s common for small businesses to outsource many business support services: hiring an accountant for bookkeeping and tax reporting, a collection agency (or agencies) for debt collection, and working as an affiliate for a major work to group promotion and advertising. No matter how busy you are, small business owners should always spend 10-20% of their budget on growing businesses.
