When we were beginning our business, we understood the risks that came with it. We were completely aware that for us to be a success, we have to be willing to face those risks. We have to do what we can in order to ensure that we rise above any challenges that come our way.
We accepted that risk taking was just another basic part of entrepreneurship. We became bolder and we eventually managed to make our business the successful establishment that it is today. This kind of thinking can help you too as you start your own business.
While you are starting up your business, you can expect that there will be times when challenges will come. During these times, you have to ask yourself how you can overcome them so you would not regret your decision to put up the business in the first place. Most of the time, however, you will find that you will not be able to do it on your own.
You need the help of other people to help you in boosting your business. Fortunately for you and many start up businessmen, there are people and organizations that are generous enough to extend help. One such successful entrepreneur who spends time sharing his expertise is Steve Blank.
Gaining Wisdom from Challenges and Mistakes
Steve Blank mentioned in one of his talks that an entrepreneur should understand the difference between worshipping one’s failure and learning from the mistakes one has encountered while operating a business. He explained that when a person worships failure, it means that he is doing nothing to rise above everyday business problems. What he does is only to troubleshoot them as they come.
On the other hand, a business person who learns from his mistakes uses what he has learned to improve his business and what he has to offer to his clients. This way, he not only prevents the same problems from recurring, he is also making great strides in improving his products. With this perspective in mind, you should be ready to hit the ground up and running without fear of regretting your decisions.
Growing Your Business
Now that you have the right mindset about the challenges that you should expect to face, you can focus on the more important things in running your business. Of course, your goal should be to provide the best products in the most efficient way possible to your clients. You should be able to deliver your products and services in a manner that delights your clients.
Consider these four ways through which you can achieve your goal:
1. Give Your Clients What They Need
Before you even started your business, you should have already had a good idea about what your target market needs. Your products and services should be able to answer this need better than your competitor does. You have to continue thinking about what your clients desperately need.
Sergey Brin of Google once said, “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
This means that you have to give something meaningful to your clients if you want your business to flourish. More than just providing what your client needs, you have to provide something that will make your preferable over other similar products.
Your competitive advantage will come from what additional value you can offer to your clients. This does not necessarily mean giving out freebies all the time. Take your cues from your clients, go beyond just knowing their preferences, and uncover their most desperate needs.
2. Listen to Your Client Feedback
Denis Waitley, a famous motivational speaker for entrepreneurship, once said “Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.”
Do not get defensive when your clients give you feedback. Instead, welcome it with humility and sincerity.
View client feedback objectively rather than emotionally and subjectively. Listen to what they have to say and understand what they are trying to tell you. Using feedback as basis, examine your business, products, and services to find out how they can be improved.
Remember too that feedback is not only limited to complaints and demands. If you are doing something good, you are likely to get a good amount of positive feedback too. This will tell you what you can continue doing and improving on to delight your clients even more.
Make sure you offer your clients multiple channels for giving their feedback. They will appreciate your concern and desire to reach out to them. You can try using comment cards, SMS/text, email, and phone customer contact points.
3. Find a Journalist to Accelerate Your Business
Get a boost by giving your business, products, and services some publicity. More than advertising and promotions, having a journalist write something about you gives you more credibility in the eyes of the consumers.
Marketing consultant, speaker, and book author Jay Baer said that: “If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure.”
You need to make your story relevant. When you offer something that is of value to your clients, it will be easy enough for any journalist to find an angle for a story that your target market can relate to.
Make sure that you are truthful in whatever you publicize about your business, products, and services. Most reputable and respected media personalities will not endorse or cover any product that’s not worthy of their audience’s attention. Having a journalist write about you tells your clients that what you have to offer is something that they should consider.
You have to be able to live up to the expectations that were set by the media endorsement. Disney, for instance, went all out and publicized itself as the “happiest place on earth.” For years, they have been developing and improving their parks all over the world to make sure that this media pronouncement stays true.
4. Get Testimonials from Your Clients
One of JC Penney shoes founder James Cash Penney’s famous quotes sums up word of mouth advertising. He said, “courteous treatment will make a client a walking advertisement.”
If you are providing something of value to your clients, you can expect people to talk about you.
Today, you do not have to just sit down and wait for word to get around. You can actually speed things up a little by asking for client testimonials. There are a lot of creative ways which you can employ in order to get testimonials from your clients.
The most popular venues for client testimonials these days are the social media, sharing apps, and other websites all over the internet. Be present on Facebook and utilize other social media that your target clients frequent online. Actively ask for testimonials that share their positive experiences not only to their friends and network, but to your prospective clients as well.
Over to You
Starting a business is a challenge in itself. Even more challenges will come your way as you go along. You have to be brave in the face of these challenges armed with a positive mindset and the right strategies as shared by successful businessmen.
Think about the challenges you have encountered in your business thus far and examine what lessons you can gain from them. Take the wisdom from your experience and use them to delight your customers more. Soon you will see your business growing, perhaps even faster than you ever planned when you started out.