Category be successful

Entries 58 Total

Small Business Sales Performance – Q1/2011

May 4, ’11 11:02 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Development, Online Sales, SOHO/SMB/SME/Micro, Sales, Small Business / SOHO, Start-Up, be successful

The Open University just published their Quarterly Survey of Small Business in Britain and I want to share one graph with you here.

As you can see micro and small business are suffering in this economic climate more than the mid-size and large businesses – why do you think that is? This graph has been haunting me for days and for me it comes down to the same old issues I keep on ranting about, in one word: FOCUS.

SME Sales Performance by Size

With business focus there is no way a larger business can out-perform a well run small business in terms of customer care, customer loyalty and business efficiency.

Bigger business is better at analyzing business performance and optimizing processes, these tools are available to small business for free – why are they not being used?

Focusing on the competitive advantages of being a small business, with lower over-heads, better customer service, faster reaction times and so on and on, should become second nature. Not following every rabbit-hole (distraction) is essential to business success too. Do a SWOT analysis and focus on what you are good at.

In my mind there is no way that large business can out-perform small business on a size adjusted basis – let’s get to it and let’s change this graph!

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Upper Class Virgin.

May 3, ’11 7:18 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Model, On The Money - Small Business Tips, Small Business / SOHO, be successful, grow your business

I’m sitting here waiting for my flight to the US to depart and I’m flying with Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic. I’m thinking back a few decades to when it was I heard the name Virgin or Richard Branson for the first time.

Upper Class Virginl

I remember listening to him when he was asked why he started Virgin Atlantic and his answer was something like this: ‘I looked at this business and decided I could do it better and cheaper.’

While it was not just that simple, for instance he only serviced the most in demand routes like London to New York (another good business move), for me it shows the most basic, most powerful of all business models and his entrepreneurial spirit and motivation – ‘I can do that better and make money doing it!‘

He does not do what I have done all my business life, push the envelope with new technology. Far from it, he looks at mature business sectors and looks at how to improve the service/product, finds a niche (London-New York) and gets a foothold, makes it cash-flow positive and then builds on that success. AND he makes it look easy.

Only easy it is not, there have been numerous failures. Each failure helps him to be even better next time around.

Virgin, as a business group, is truly upper class when it comes to overall business model success. Look at it – Make it better – Maybe fail, then learn from it – Move on – Do it again.

Which business sector could you improve to become an Upper Class Virgin?

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Stop Selling. Stop Talking. Listen.

Apr 17, ’11 10:54 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Customer Service, be successful

You’ve done the marketing and your efforts have paid off – customers are contacting you – should you keep on selling?

When a customer starts talking to you he/she has already decided you are a person who could help to solve a problem, no more selling required.

If you keep on with your sales talk, in fact if you keep on talking you become the biggest hinderance to getting an order from your conversation partner for your small business.

Stop talking!

Listen – and your customer will let you know what the problem is and how you can help to solve the problem, resulting in an order!

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Know Your Business Inside Out

Mar 31, ’11 4:46 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories How to ..., be successful

businesssuccess_winweb

As a small business owner in control of a successful business, it can be tempting to simply sit back and allow it to almost run itself. The problem with this approach is that it causes you to become detached from the business and too far removed to put things right when they start to go wrong. In order to sustain success for the long-term, a business owner must remain hands-on and get to know every aspect of the business from the inside out.

A deep understanding of your business and the wider industry in which it operates is essential to make a business thrive. Functions like marketing and human resources have to be understood and applied correctly to your business, it is not simply enough to read books on the subject.

In terms of business management, there are numerous issues to consider. You will need to appoint the right people with the right skills for the job. Planning for the future is essential and you will need to make sure that you can afford the salaries of anyone you hire. Accurate analytical information is required to make these decisions.

Business analytics will also allow you to evaluate the success of your marketing efforts by providing statistical data such as website traffic and page impressions. You can then analyse how this changes whenever you launch a new marketing campaign. Just because a marketing campaign has been successful in the past there is no guarantee that it will continue to be in the future.

Taxation is another important aspect of your business that you need to stay on top of. The tax system is overly complex for small businesses. Your tax liability may change whenever you hire additional staff or sell different products. In order to keep up-to-date with legislation changes you will need to devote a lot of your time to accounting, or work closely with an accountant.

Remember that in business, knowledge is power and you should always try to gather as much information as possible about your business to assist with your decision-making.

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Failure Is Always An Option

Jan 27, ’11 10:14 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories How to ..., On The Money - Small Business Tips, be successful

WinWeb Business Planning Software

Talking about business success is always great and uplifting. Talking about business failure not so much, why is that?

All too often failure is seen as a bad thing, not as an experience, a valuable lesson or the next important step on the ladder to success. Failure is painful, it dents our ego, but the truth is failure often teaches us more than success. We just need to learn to see failure as an opportunity to make it better next time.

You may say, there won’t be a next time, because you lost not only your shirt. This typically only happens if you discount failure, people who understand that they can also fail, often take far fewer risks.

Here is the thing, a good business plan includes the possibility of failure. Try it, make failure part of the plan, it can be very liberating.

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How Important Is Business Integrity?

Oct 20, ’10 8:30 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Customer Service, be successful, market and sell

Social Media for Business

How important is business integrity to your business? Would you risk your business integrity for a headline, media coverage or to pull in a new customer? How about the people who work for you – what would they do? If you haven’t asked yourself this question, perhaps you should.

Your own personal integrity, as a small business owner, can guide your organization’s integrity; as a business owner your staff look to you in order to find the expected way to behave. However, the organizational integrity of your business is also reliant on those you have working for you – everyone from customer service to marketing and PR could, possibly, jeopardize your businesses’ integrity.

After following #CommsChat on Twitter this week (a discussion based on marketing and PR) a significant amount of the discussion came back to how important the truth was when it comes to PR and the damage it could cause to a business if their PR was unreliable, or worse still, lied to get results and headlines.

Thankfully, the vast majority of the participants in #CommsChat held the reputation and integrity of the business, whether their own or a clients’, at the top of their priority list. But, some excellent points were made regarding the impact that having an “anything for the headline” attitude can have.

Business integrity and reputation is something that is built up over many years, but can also be destroyed incredibly quickly with one bad decision or half-truth. Publicity is crucial to every business, however, as social media changes the way we work and build relationships, ‘spin’ generated to create a newsworthy story can backfire at best and, at its worst, can cause devastation for a business.

Social media creates not only a transparency to the way we all do business, but also a means for reputation to be devastated in mere hours. Reputation, integrity and honesty are more important in business than ever before.

So, how can you gain publicity without the spin? Create a newsworthy story; help a charity, run a training course or release a great new product. As well a making it more important than ever to ensure our PR campaigns are transparent, social media also means that we no longer need headline grabbing stories to secure publicity – get people talking about your business on social media and the results will surprise you.

Building relationships on integrity, trust and reputation and instill a corporate integrity throughout your business to ensure your employees do the same is vital and the rise of social media is making this both more important, and easier, than ever before.

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Business Basics To Keep You On Track

Sep 15, ’10 7:44 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Checklists, How to ..., be successful

Business Basics

New businesses are starting up each and every day, yet the mortality rate of small businesses is still 60%. With more people turning to entrepreneurship in the economic downturn, either through an unexpected chance due to redundancy, or because they see an opportunity in the downturn, trying to increase the success of small businesses is more pertinent than ever.

Whilst nothing can guarantee business success, there are steps that small business owners can take that will not only help their businesses to succeed, but that will also make the fall less damaging should a business fail.

It may sound pessimistic to talk of business failure, and wherever possible we must look at the ways to maintain business success, however most of the ways to ensure businesses succeed also help should the worst happen and a business should fail.

I cannot stress enough the importance of bootstrapping, which means only using the funds available within your business to grow it. There are circumstances that mean that bootstrapping your business is difficult, such as when it is necessary to buy stock and equipment. To avoid being left with surplus stock, always ensure that you have necessary orders in place before ordering significant amounts of stock; spending a significant amount of money on unnecessary stock is a road to disaster for many small businesses.

Use marketing techniques such as social media marketing, and search engine optimization, to promote your business online. Whilst these efforts may take time, and research, it is possible to do these things yourself, for nothing. If, however, your time is precious and you aren’t confident of your ability, outsourcing these business functions is a great option for a growing business.

Make sure that your business accounts are kept up to date. While this might sound like a simple point, it never fails to amaze me how many businesses are caught out because of unexpected tax bills. It is really simple to keep on top of your finances; if you are competent bookkeeper then simple bookkeeping or accounting software is all you need, but if you are unsure, then outsourcing these business functions could save you a nasty surprise.

Offer fantastic customer service, and more and more people will come back to your business and tell others about it. This can be done for free and is the best way possible to grow and maintain your business. Fantastic customer service costs nothing, and can make, or break, your business.

There are no secrets to business success, no matter what anyone may say. What there are, however, are fundamental basics that can help keep your business on track.

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Be Positive and Be Successful

Jun 23, ’10 7:30 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories How to ..., be successful

Be Positive

I’m aware life is not always as simplistic as the title of this post suggests, but how can people expect to succeed if they have a negative attitude towards everything? We all encounter people on a daily basis who live life with a “can’t do” ethic, and while a “can do” attitude doesn’t guarantee success, constantly thinking you can’t succeed will almost certainly guarantee failure.

Many people put off starting their own business because they think that they can’t because of numerous reasons; I would argue, however, that if you really want to start your own business then nothing should hold you back. No money? Bootstrap your business. Need to hold down your regular job? Work 5-9 building your business until you are in a position to rely on your business venture.

There are obstacles that are incredibly difficult to overcome; but being pessimistic and taking a negative view on challenges that you or your business face will almost certainly lead to hardship. View every challenge as an opportunity, and every problem as a way to gain experience and improve your business.

Looking for all possible ways to turn a problem in to an advantage is fundamental in being successful in business. Entrepreneurial spirits tend to have this attitude; you didn’t see Richard Branson giving up when he lost it all, did you? As a businessperson you will face challenges, and you should not only expect them but also embrace them.

Of course, we all have days where it gets on top of us and business life seems too hard – but if you run your business with a “can do” attitude then you will find these days much easier to bear. People with a positive attitude inspire positivity in others, so if you have employees it is more important than ever to conduct your business with this mindset.

Whenever your business encounters a problem, look for the opportunity that it creates. Think about how many problems we all face every day, if you view each one of these as a potential opportunity the world will suddenly seem full of things that you can, and will, do.

Success was never won by people thinking they couldn’t achieve their dreams. Always think that you can achieve, and there is the best possible chance that you will.

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What’s Your Business Personality?

May 14, ’10 7:30 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Customer Service, Development, How to ..., Small Business / SOHO, be successful

Business Personality

When you’re in business you often hear the phrase “people buy from people”, but just how important are people, and personality, in running a successful business?

On Monday, Gordon Brown the British Prime Minister announced that he is to step down as leader of the Labour party. What was his main problem? Policies, recessions and unemployment aside, people lost faith in him and the moment that happens, whether you are a businessperson or a politician, you are in trouble.

A series of blunders led to Gordon Brown’s downfall; allegations of bullying, public gaffes and the icing on the cake was Labour losing the General Election. But it was the nuances of his character that left him being criticized and deemed as cold, unfriendly and awkward.

If Gordon Brown had a better public persona would the general public have forgiven him these blunders? It is difficult to say but in small business we can learn a lot abut the importance of public relations through this story.

I, for one, have encountered a rude, curt or abrupt salesperson and gone out of my way to not purchase something from them. I know people who have left one job in favour of another simply because their boss was difficult to get along with, unreasonable or simply unappreciative.

This doesn’t mean you always have to be nice to be successful in business, we all know there are times when tough decisions have to be made, but having a personality that blends in to the ethos of your company is vital. Once you have developed this micro-culture within your small business employees and customers will know exactly where they stand and what to expect.

A great deal of small business success can be attributed to developing a company personality. This is considerably easier if, as a small business owner, you have passions, belief and a purpose behind your business. It is your ethos, values and priorities that will become the lifeblood of your small business. Make sure they are positive.

Creating a personality for your business isn’t about cracking jokes and being the life and soul of the party. It can be anything from creating an environmental awareness within your company, through to flexibility for your employees. It’s not about being nice; it’s about being approachable, respected, open and considerate.

Under Gordon Brown Labour lost their personality and strayed from those that so fervently supported them in previous years. This election proved that. Don’t let the same happen to your small business. Your company’s personality should be representative of the thoughts, values, experiences and character of the small business owner.

So, what’s the personality of your small business?

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Why Do So Many Small Business Start-Ups Fail?

Apr 7, ’10 7:30 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories SME-Blog, be successful, start-up in business

Small business success

Starting a small business can be a worrying and daunting time for would-be entrepreneurs. With four out of five small business start-ups ending up in failure the statistics are stacked against small business owners. But knowing why small businesses fail could just be the key to making sure yours doesn’t!

Knowing the pitfalls that other small business start ups have made can stop you making the same mistakes. I believe there are six fundamental issues that cause small businesses to fail:

- Lack of planning – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, starting a business without planning where you want to go is like starting a car journey with no idea of your final destination; you’re bound to get lost. To avoid this mistake set a clear goal of where you want to be, and how you are going to get there.

- Inability to delegate – Within every business someone needs to keep an eye on the bigger picture; and have an overview of everything happening internally and externally around the company. That person should be you and if you have your head buried in the accounts you won’t. So delegate and outsource all the tasks that can be done by others and free yourself to focus on the bigger picture.

- Unwillingness to change – As a small business you cannot afford to remain motionless as your market and the world around you drives forward. Adapt and develop your small business so it is forward thinking and innovative, not behind with the times.

- Forgetting that cash is king! – A small business needs to keep its eye firmly focused on cashflow, as soon as a business loses sight of this then they are prone to failure. Plot and analyse your incomings and outgoings to make sure your small business stays on the right track. Don’t expect massive profits from the outset, but don’t accept a loss.

- Lack of objective targets – Not measuring the success of campaigns, products or services can be disastrous for a small business. Is that PR campaign your running really worth the money? Does Twitter really bring traffic to your website? Know what to measure and you’ll know how successful you are.

- Not asking the right questions – When you are a small business start-up knowing which questions to ask, and to who, is difficult. I aim to answer as many as I can here on my blog, but a new website, Advicely, offers tailor made answers to your small business questions.

Whilst avoiding these pitfalls won’t necessarily guarantee your small business success, knowing what not-to-do can help you to focus on the things that you should do. I know that small businesses are going to be the making of this country – lets pull together reduce that horrific statistic.

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