 |
Business startup steps 7 & 8
Business startup steps 7 & 8: 7. What employees or skills will I need that I don’t have myself? Business startup steps STEP 7 Skills assessment, especially of yourself, seems to be a very rare commodity these days. It is rare particularly when you’ve not worked for yourself before. A business can only be successful if it addresses all aspects of the job to be done. This sounds obvious, but what if you have no accounting background, is it proper to use QuickBooks and be your own accountant? What if you are an accountant, but cringe and the thought of sales and marketing? Which business startup steps will work? No one can do everything, so objective skills assessment is important for the success of your business. Be honest. Make a list of what you well and also write down what you don’t do well. This task will give you a thumbnail look at your areas of strength and weakness. It’s a necessary step in determining what you need moving forward. It’s sometimes very difficult to do an honest, objective self-assessment, especially when you’re trying to tart your own business. However, if you are diligent, you will see areas you’ll need to fortify by bringing in help, business startup steps depend on it. My father started a chain of grocery stores with NO MONEY. He overcame challenges that superman would have trouble with, but he was never willing to hire people to work in areas he wasn’t so good at. He was great at raising money from banks, but terrible at managing money. Because this problem wasn’t addressed, his finances where always in horrible shape and it eventually forced him out of business. Had my father have been willing to let some else manage his money; he’d probably have achieved success beyond what he could have imagined. He should have found a key person to supplement his skills as part of business startup steps.
What are your weaknesses?
Now what are your weaknesses? What is your Achilles heel in business? How does this impact your business startup steps? Are you too detailed such that you spend too much time on tasks? You may want to get an advisor on your board that is visionary and will help you separate the forest from the trees. Does the though of selling product cause you to break out in a cold sweat? You may want to wholesale your product and hire others to market and sell it for you. As I said before, everyone has weaknesses. The key is figuring out how to compensate for them and minimize their impact either, by hiring people or outsourcing those sections of the business where you need help.
Selling your product or service is usually the most important determinate of success. Even if you’re a not-for-profit entity you still need people to use your services, make donations, etc. Many people are afraid of sales and truly don’t understand marketing. This is probably the biggest factor that stops people from starting their own business.
I HATE SELLING!!!
If you hate selling, then you need to plan sales and marketing tactics that help you get others to sell your product for you. How is this possible? You can wholesale your product using the internet, find retailers willing to take your product on consignment, open your own retail store on eBay or hire someone to sell your product for you.
How to use marketing to avoid “selling” Another strategy is to focus on marketing tactics rather than sales tactics. Examples of marketing tactics are: - Creating a blog about your product and working to get it broadly distributed using RSS. - Hiring a PR firm to create a press kit, website and free media references, to get buzz about your product, either locally or nationally, depending on your market. - Create a direct marketing campaign using widely available lists to target your customers - Hold a series of free seminars educating your target audience about your product - Create an industry survey about key issues with a local university and use it to improve your product and reach your market
Universities are your friend These are just a few ideas, but I bet you’re thinking these ideas are a little far-fetched. Not so fast! I launched a magazine using the last idea on the list. We hired (VERY inexpensively) the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to create a customer magazine survey for us that we used to define the demographics that the advertisers needed. That was one of our first business startup steps. So try not to limit yourself. Try to think outside the box. If it can be done inexpensively what do you have to lose! I LOVE TO SELL!!
Many people love to sell and they think marketing is a HUGE waste of time. If you love to sell that’s great. One word of caution however, selling an established product for a MAJOR corporation is very different from selling a brand new product or service you just created. Make sure that you’ve defined your product CLEARLY, communicated it well and then your sales skills can be used to their best advantage! Ultimately loving to sell should be one of your best assets!
Do what works for you!
So whether you HATE selling or LOVE it, or you’re somewhere in between, create a sales & marketing strategy that matches both you and your product.
|
