10 Quick Tips for Small Businesses in the 21st Century pdf

10 Quick Tips for Small Businesses in the 21st Century by Al Bryce www.wordpress.21stCenturySME.com Copyright 2013 by Al Bryce Smashwords Edition Introduction Business is just common sen

10 Quick Tips for Small Businesses

in the 21st Century

by Al Bryce www.wordpress.21stCenturySME.com

Copyright 2013 by Al Bryce Smashwords Edition

Introduction

Business is just common sense

Set yourself goals and targets

Research your market and keep researching it

Find a niche

Get help where it’s needed

Justify spending every penny

Nothing is secret

Marketing is about volume sort of

Embrace online

Monitor your marketing

Be proactive

Over the last 5 years working as an advisor to start-up businesses I’ve met with over 1,000 people to advise them about starting and running a small business I’ve seen people from all sorts of life, with all sorts of skills and all sorts of reasons for becoming entrepreneurs I’ve seen businesses start-up and flourish and I’ve seen them stutter and fade away I’ve watched good business ideas fail to launch and I’ve seen some poor ones (in my opinion!) go on to success

This first hand access to SME successes and failures has allowed me to develop my own theory

on the correct way to run a winning small business strategy in the digital age In the middle of

2012 I setup the 21st Century SME blog to share these ideas Both before and during this period I also created and ran my own SMEs, which have been invaluable in allowing me to test out my theories of running successful small businesses I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t,

so that when I speak with people about starting up and running their small business, I can do so out of a position of practical experience rather than one of theoretical knowledge

Over this same time I’ve further developed my love of digital marketing techniques Techniques that I believe all SMEs need to start understanding and implementing, not in isolation but as part

of their overall strategy, To ensure their business is found by prospective customers, to ensure these prospects can be converted into paying customers and to ensure these customers will become repeat and referring customers The integration of these digital and non-digital

techniques are fundamental to my philosophy of what makes a 21st Century SME

This basis of this whitepaper was originally written and delivered as a 10 minute presentation to

the Haddington branch of 4Networking in 2011, entitled 10 Business Lessons I’ve Learnt

from Being a Start-up Advisor.

Business is just common sense

I’m not for a moment saying that business is easy For most of us it’s not It will be frustrating, it will be challenging, it will be rewarding (hopefully) but it will almost certainly never be easy

If you break business down into its purest form it’s selling the right product, to the right person for the right money It’s common sense The real difficulty lies in the ability to make common sense decisions Often we can get so caught up in the business, so involved in all of the tiny details of the day to day running of the business that our perspective becomes flawed We become inwardly focused and can lose sight of our goals

You need to ensure that you take the time to recognise when you are in this bubble and take measures to step outside of it and see the bigger picture You need to be able to step away from your business, and look at it from the customer’s point of view rather than your own One

of the biggest fallacies is that being self employed means you don’t have a boss You do, you have loads of them but you call them your customers No customers means no business So you need to always think about what they want from you rather than what you want to give them This sounds so obvious but there are many businesses out there who focus on

themselves They don’t step out of their bubble and so they miss the obvious and they carry on making decisions they think are the correct ones

So how do you ensure you’re making common sense decisions; that you’re perspective is correct? For some people this may mean having a mentor, someone outside of the business that can help you to identify flawed logic It may be regular catch-ups with your customers to ask them what it is they want Some people I’ve spoken to use a recurring diary note to remind themselves to self-analyse It could even be a post-it on the wall asking “What would my

customer think?”

We all have the ability to make common sense decisions, we just need to ensure we’re making them for our customers rather than ourselves

Set yourself goals and targets

“An archer cannot hit the bullseye if he does not know where the target is” Anonymous

Why are you setting up or running a small business? There could be a number of good

reasons You might like to keep your own hours Maybe you want to get rich and retire early Could be that you love the thrill of creating something or solving a problem Perhaps you’re just unemployable! Whatever it is, you should ensure you’re acutely aware of what that reason is and what you’re in business for

There’s no right and wrong answer to this one It’s entirely dependent on you but it’s amazing how many people I’ve met who haven't taken the time to think this through Not only do I think this is an important exercise, but I think you need to expand on this further and set out not only why you started in business, but what your business goals are Write them down Only then can you accurately plan how you’re going to achieve them

I’m not saying you need to write a business plan (that may sound odd from a professional business advisor but I’d rather create a kick-ass marketing strategy than a business plan) But you should at least right down a list of your top business goals Once you have these, you can break these top level goals into smaller targets that have deadlines and explanations of how you’re going to make them happen

Remember to make your goals SMART:

● Specific - what exactly do you want to achieve?

● Measurable - How can you tell when you’ve achieved it? How can you chart your

progress?

● Achievable - Do you have the resources to reach your goal? There’s only 24 hours in a

day

● Relevant - Getting 100,000 visitors to your website may be a good achievement but

unless you’re converting them into paying customers then it’s pointless

● Timely - Specify when you will achieve your goals by We all work better when we have

a deadline, otherwise where is the motivation to take action today?

It’s all too easy to set your goals and never look at them again but you know what will happen; you won’t achieve them Add a note to your diary so that every Sunday evening, Monday morning or whatever time works best for you, you review your goals Measure how you’re performing against where you should be by that stage What can you do to get back on track or blow them out of the water

Research your market and keep researching it

Many people that start a business have some experience within the industry already, usually through employment, but don’t let this lull you into a false sense of security Being employed in

an industry can be very different to running a business within an industry so you need to act as though it’s an entirely new area and do your research

There are many different ways to access customer data but here are some of my favourites:

● Google Keyword Tool - don’t accept what this tells you as 100% accurate, but the

Google Keyword Tool allows you to get an overview of Google searches for keywords and phrases This can help give you an idea of 1) how many people are actively

searching for your product or service and 2) what the most popular keyword phrases are for your industry (they aren’t always what you maybe think they are!)

● Facebook Advertising - you don’t need to actually run an advert but the Facebook

Advertising process lets you get a nice overview into their demographics If you’re a business that sells to consumers (rather than other businesses) then you can gather some good data from this (i.e the number of females aged between 18 and 35 that have listed golf as a favourite activity? 163,000 *at time of writing*)

● British Library - if you’re looking for market data or information then the British Library

have an online resource to help you out (non UK based businesses should have a local equivalent)

● Local Enterprise Agency or Authority - in the UK there are organisations set-up to

help advise and support SMEs They can often access market research data on your behalf

● Trade Organisations - there aren’t many industries around these days that don't have

an industry body set-up to support their members As well as other benefits, they often have access to the latest industry information

Much like a business strategy, you need to ensure that you treat market research as an active task It’s easy to get caught up in a bubble when you’re running a business but remember that over time customer’s demands shift, products and services change and your competitors are always evolving You need to ensure you’re ahead of these changes and there are tools

available to help you:

● Community Network - as part of your marketing efforts you’ve probably set up a

community somewhere be it a Facebook page or a Twitter feed - make use of this one-to-one access to customers and ask them for their thoughts on the industry, your

competitors and your own company

● Google Alerts - set up alerts for your competitors (so you can keep tabs on what they’re

up to), your product or service (to hear about any new advances first) and your key phrases (to keep in the loop of the public’s latest thoughts)

● RSS Feeds - another great way to quickly and easily keep up to date with the latest

movement of your competitors and the leading industry authorities Google Reader is a free tool that allows you to see whenever any website or blog you choose to follow has

added new content - it saves you navigating separately to each website you’re interested in

● Survey Monkey - if you’ve built up a mailing list of customers then every so often you

might want to ask them for more in-depth feedback Survey Monkey allows you to

set-up questionnaires that you can easily share to your networks and analyse the data they provide

Your Mouth - most businesses have at least some face-to-face contact with their customers

Use this time to ask them for their thoughts - people tend to be receptive when asked for their opinion!

Find a niche

When you start up a small business the temptation is strong to try and make your business appeal to as many people (i.e potential customers) as you can But is this really the best

approach?

Ask yourself this – “Am I more likely to choose a photographer that handles all types of

photography for my upcoming nuptials or am I more likely to choose the photographer who specialises in wedding photography?” I know which I’d go for

It used to be difficult to get your business in front of potential customers, or at the very least it used to be expensive You’d have to take out an advert in the newspaper or rely on word of mouth or a few other slow or expensive methods So you would try and appear to be all things

to all people otherwise the majority of your costs or time would be wasted These days it’s never been easier to access your customers Using the Internet you can almost access the entire world So we can now afford to focus our businesses on a niche area because that niche could still be huge

I’m not saying you should ditch all the services you currently offer to focus on just one But you should at least be working out your key services and treat each one differently when promoting them If I was a photographer I would make a list of all the types of photography that I provided (i.e wedding, family portraits, events and products for example) I’d then pick the top one or two with the most potential and focus on them I’m not suggesting that I’d turn down other work if it came along, but by being more specific about my services I think I’ve got a better chance of:

1 Being found online – it’s all about the keywords right?

2 Converting an enquiry into a sale – because I’m the specialist in the area!

3 Gaining referrals – because I’m the ‘go to guy’ for wedding photography*

*Don’t hire me for your wedding photography If you do, I’ll be using my iPhone Camera!

Get help where it’s needed

I’ve never come across a small business where costs aren’t tight Part of the pleasure out of running an SME is the variety of the work you get to do You’re the boss, the teamaker, the salesperson, the marketer and the accounts department all in one

There’s a few reasons this is the case but I think the three key ones are:

● There’s a control element - you want it done the way you want it done

● You’ve got the time to do it - part of being an SME is knowing that sometimes you

don’t always have sales work to see you through all day every day

● You want to keep costs down - taking on staff or hiring in a professional is costly,

sometime more than the business can afford

There can be a downside to all of this however Think if you’ve ever come across any of these:

● a poorly made, evidently homemade website

● a terrible logo that looks like it was made with Microsoft Word

● email newsletters that show the email of everyone it was sent to

● late invoices or payments from an SME because they are too busy to get it sent out

So what I’m trying to get at is there are some occasions where stubbornly refusing to pay

someone else to do something for your business can harm your brand and end up costing you more than you would have paid in the first place

Think about you financial books for a second How long do you spend doing them yourself? Let’s say it’s a fairly conservative two hours a week That’s 104 hours a year, or to put it another way, three full 8-hour days a year If you spent those three days a year out actively selling your product or service, could you create more value for your business than the cost of a

bookkeeper? I bet you could!*

In the very early days, it might just not be possible to outsource because of limited funds but if the aim is to build a business then very quickly you need to consider outsourcing the elements that you don’t have the time or the skill to do effectively

*This doesn’t include the potential tax efficiencies and benefit from prompt invoice factoring it could bring you either.

Justify spending every penny

Businesses need money in order to survive If you can’t pay your bills or pay yourself then you don't have a business It doesn't matter how many orders you have unless you’ve got the cash

in your bank account Unless you’re a millionaire starting up a business for fun then it’s more than likely that you need to get a handle on your costs from day one - and that can mean

making decisions you don't necessarily want to make

It’s tempting if you’ve never been your own boss before to say “I will buy the latest Apple iPhone for my business because I want it and I’m in charge” What you should really be thinking is “can

my business afford the expense of £500 per year on a phone or will I get the older model and pay half that?” There are a few techniques you can try to change your mindset:

● Work out how many products you need to sell or how many billable hours you need to charge to pay for a purchase and you might start to look at things differently The 40 products you need to sell to pay for that iPhone might make you change your mind

● Add up the annual cost of your regular purchases, it may just surprise you that the daily latte you buy on the way to the office costs you over £500 per year

● Think like you have a boss Whenever you're faced with a purchasing decision, think what you would do if you had to justify the expense to an employer

Nothing is secret

These days we in order to effectively promote ourselves online we need to become content

creators We need to increase our ‘digital footprint’ by creating and publishing information that

we hope our potential customers will find, read and then be convinced to buy our product or service But it can be hard to speak regularly about your business without giving away any trade secrets isn’t it? Yes

But here’s the deal - it’s okay to give away your trade secrets!

Let me explain You can find out anything on the Internet So in the time it takes me to enter a query into Google I can find out your trade secrets because someone is bound to have

discussed it somewhere online Don’t believe me? Unless you’re Coca-Cola or NASA then I’d

be pretty sure it’s true There’s two sides to this as well

Firstly, by sharing your trade secrets, you’re demonstrating that you’re an expert in the field

Just because I could look up Google and find out how to do something doesn’t mean I have the

time or the inclination to actually do it I want someone who can do it quicker and more

effectively than I could do because I want to concentrate on my business or on my life Despite the global economic downturn, many people are still cash rich, time poor and willing to pay for goods or services that they value By giving away your knowledge to many through a blog, you are promoting yourself as someone that knows their business and is worth paying for

Secondly, let’s look at a case study of a plumber who gives out tips through their blog on how to stop your water pipes freezing up in the winter, or how to repair a broken tile in the bathroom It may mean that they lose out on the job to come round and mend the burst pipe on a frosty January day, but next time the customer decides to refurbish their bathroom suite who do you think they're going to call By sharing the knowledge, you’re helping people save time or money and banking goodwill for when they come to a job that they can’t or don;t want to do

themselves Heck, they may even get you round to fix that bathroom tile because they decide it’s too fiddly a job for them to do and they know you can do it right

So don’t be afraid of giving away your insider knowledge, because someone somewhere will already of done it And by doing it yourself you can build up your reputation and start storing up goodwill for the future