If you are starting up your own business, there are several important things you need to think about if you want to become a success. Read on to find out what they are.
People – The Best Asset
Some stats to keep in mind before you begin on the hiring process:
It costs $7,000 to replace a salaried employee, $10,000 to replace a mid-level employee, and $40,000 to replace a senior executive.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the average cost of a bad hiring decision can equal 30% of the first year’s potential earnings.Source: hr.com
First thing’s first; don’t scrimp on setting up your team. Although you might not have a large budget to play with, or your budgeting software might suggest else wise, those core members of your workforce will be vital cogs in getting things up and running and off the ground. You will need hard workers who can put your business before anything else. There are two ways of doing this. Firstly, by relying on their enthusiasm. Certain types of people have boundless energy and love getting things done. Make sure you have some spirited people like that on the books. Secondly, give them incentives Sure, you might not be able to pay them a lot, but you could incentivize them by giving them a slice of the business if what they do is successful.
Legal Protection
If you have a solid business idea, you have to be aware that there are others who could steal it and make it their own. Make sure you have the right protection in place so that your work is patented, trademarked, or copyrighted. It’s an easy thing to forget, but as soon as people start hearing about your product, you could lose everything if the wrong pair of ears overhear. Especially if they have the finances in place to make it happen while you are struggling to get a simple business loan.
Insurance
You should also protect yourself against any eventuality with the right insurance policy. Put simply, if you don’t have the right cover in place, should something happen that goes wrong, you won’t be able to afford to replace it. A good insurance policy will give you confidence and a safety net, and all for the price of a couple of lovely bottles of wine.
There are different types of commercial / business insurances available, best is to put in a few days of research to understand them and apply the ones that cover your business assets in the best way.
Marketing
However awesome your product is, if nobody has heard about it, nobody will buy it. Getting that interest up is going to be vital to get things off the ground. First of all, think about hiring a marketing team or outtarget if you do not have the scope to hire permanent employees. With experienced team to take care of marketing needs, you can find the best way to reach our customers and clients. Online presence matters as well, so next, use your hired team or hire a specialist SEO company. They will help you climb the search engines and get you ranking well. The higher your search engine ranking is, the more traffic your website will get.
On average, 83 percent of the traffic from search engines comes from SEO, and 17 percent from paid search (Source: BrightEdge internal data).
Scalability
You also need to think about worst-case and best-case scaling issues. Right now, you are a small company who hasn’t managed to sell anything. But what happens if the floodgates are opened and a mass of interest tests your production line to its maximal capacity? Will you be able to handle it? If not, then your company could end up not fulfilling orders and shooting itself in the foot before you have even had the chance to grow. Having some ideas about scaling up – or down – will help you react in a more suitable way and take your business to the next level smoothly. One of the best ways to get going on scaling your business fast is by having a sales and R&D team that’s on constant evaluation of market trends and on competitors who are entering new markets. When teams work in sync with each other productivity increases and so does the scope of getting out faster and bigger in the market.
Check out the rest of our blog for more excellent tips on making the most of your business ideas.