New businesses have a tough time nowadays as the marketplace is an extremely competitive one in near enough every industry. It is becoming more and more important for small businesses to make themselves known quickly as the amount of time between opening and closing for good, is getting shorter. If you run a small business yourself, you know how important it is to pull in the customers quickly so you can start to make some money as soon as possible. Although this can be tricky in 2016, here are three simple tips to help get you on your way.
Business Credit - One of the biggest problems that small businesses face is cash flow; as soon as the cash runs out, it becomes harder and harder to keep the doors of the business open. However, there are places you can go to save this from being a problem. For example, Business Credit Workshop is a perfect place to start with this. As well as having lots of useful information for small businesses on their site, they also offer services that will help you to gain a loan whether your business is just starting and relatively small or even if your business is bigger but need some help with finance.
Not only can credit help a business to stay afloat for a longer period of time, it can also be used to invest in order to promote growth. For example, if you are a company that delivers goods, you could invest in another driver to help get your products out quicker and therefore provide a more efficient service. Similarly, you could invest in training, more products, new technologies; ultimately, extra finance can be the difference between failure and success.
Social Media - Social media really is taking over the internet; with every page you click on, you will be certain to find a link to social media somewhere and for good reason. As a result, if you are a small business, you need to start building an online profile. Whether it is on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other well-known site, you will soon see the benefit after signing up. Having an online presence will allow you to start building followers and reviews for your products/services; you will also be able to keep in touch with your customers meaning that you can add a 'personal touch' to your business that others in your field may not have. It is no coincidence that all of the market leaders in your field have a presence online so don't forget this powerful tool!
Plan and Set Goals - Benjamin Franklin once said 'If you fail to plan, you plan to fail' and this goes hand-in-hand with small businesses. Planning is vital as you need to know where you are going and how you are going to get there. If you aren't planning your moves, how are you ever going to compete with those around you? Make sure that you write down exactly what your plan is and how you are going to follow this through.
You also need to set goals for your business and these should be written with your plan. Once again, if you have set no goals, how do you know how well you are doing? Goals can be fantastic for motivation and can be easily compared to your actual performance; if you haven't quite reached your goals you have to find ways of working harder to reach it next time, if you did hit your targets you then have motivation to push on further.
Your plan and goals should work together in tangent; you should be saying 'right, we want to get here and this is how we are going to get there'. All of the biggest companies you can think of had to start somewhere so don't lose motivation. Don't get lost in the busy world that we live in, constantly strive to stand out in the crowd and you will soon find that your customer base will be strong and growing wider every single day.