It’s never been easier to start a business. Gone are the days when it took weeks, months, and a myriad of forms to get your business started. Now if you can buy a domain name and register your business online, you’re in business. However, staying in business is a much more complicated matter.
While business expertise was once an expensive and time consuming endeavour, you can now find experts online for many questions that you might encounter. There is help to starting an online store, for example, for getting business cards and marketing materials – all at a very reasonable cost. The ease of starting a business creates a much broader level of competition.
We live in the era of outsourcing and that of the gig economy. Consumer choice has never been greater or with such ease of access in terms of finding people who offer a service that you need. You might find different businesses competing for each product you sell and new businesses that focus on a single item and spend all their time and focus on being the very best at just one thing. This increase in overall selection and more focused competition will make it more difficult for businesses of all sizes to retain customers who can change their suppliers with the click of a mouse.
It’s a battle of perception, focus, and marketing. Business owners who master these elements and provide a great customer experience will win the sale. So firstly concerning perception…there is a well-known quote which goes something like ‘Your brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what google says it is”. You may have a great service and some happy customers but this MUST translate across online. Where do you rank in Google for relevant search terms? do you have any google reviews? What is the user experience of your website like and where do your visitors come from? How many visitors do you actually get? These are all key questions that need to be answered if you want to start working on the online perception of your brand and ultimately your business.
Having a sharp focus on your customers, your competitors and what makes you different is an essential part of being successful and will also inform your Marketing. Concerning your customers, it’s important to build a profile of what your ideal client looks like. What are their key characteristics in terms of things like industry, size, turnover etc… How will your product or service solve their problems? When you know your customer inside out and can clearly and concisely market to them not just the features of your product but what it will ultimately help them achieve, your only missing piece of the puzzle is to highlight what makes you unique to everyone else. This final element really separates the average company from the super successful one.
Look out for our future article on the importance of Unique Selling Points.