A plethora of new small business owners believes they can turn a profit in 30 days, 90 days or the first year of operations. To be honest, companies such as; Twitter has not turned a profit yet, and Ashley Stewart took twenty years to become one. I am not writing this blog post to diminish your goals of being a successful small business owner. It is truly possible to do so, but we must first be realistic when it comes to this. Today, I wanted to provide some real insight on increasing your small business chance of becoming profitable this year.
We all make mistakes when we first jump into something new. However, with the level of information you can find on the internet, it’s easier to jump over the roadblocks most people faced when they launched. The learning curve can be easier when you do the first item on this list. I know it can be seen as boring, but the information you collect will save a lot of time, money, and stress.
As a small business owners, you know that our world is rapidly growing and moving towards a more tech experience in all levels. When I first started my business Twitter was 3 years old and the people I followed were still trying to figure it out. I am very lucky that I am able to run my business from anywhere in the world. Today, I want to share some tech toy options for the savvy business owner.
Yes, I am a serious kick to help small business owners see the importance of growing their local brand. Too many times I hear how can I achieve such big feats with no accolades to back it up. Everyone wants to scale their business globally but so many people are missing the goldmine of growing their business locally.
For the last couple months, I have been talking about Power In One Hour on social media and how it can really change your business life. There was not a day in my life prior to doing this that I did not feel like my plate was pilled on with projects and I was treading water trying to get everything accomplished. Utilizing day designation, batch system and theme week really do help me knock things out, but there are still moments things would fill like it creating a pile and nothing was happening.
Looking back, most of the stuff I know today, I didn’t know seven years ago when I was launching. Most of it wasn’t even learned from a book. Learning as I go has helped me grow my business tremendously. Running a successful brand no one really knows about is kinda funny, too. The reason my business has grown with the help of my loyal following is because of how I diversified my sales channels for my merchandise.
Its almost 2015 holiday season which means several things but one of the biggest is shipping. Handling your shipping needs year round is super important not just holiday season. So many times we don’t put much thought into shipping our clients or customers packages. In addition to the programs that we use to do this. It is important to be informed business owner and select the right choice to ensure your business runs smoothly.
As a small business owner, you are juggling a million things at once. One of the things that seems to pile up and causes the most stress is, the never-ending emails coming in from current clients/customers or future ones. One of the best things I did for Imperfect Concepts and ICB Consults was create canned emails. This has cut down on a lot of stress and emailing back and forth.
Just the other day, I was chatting with a friend about her business shipping needs and what her currently method was. Maybe 5 minutes into the conversation, I stated that her plan needed to be redesigned to completely. See, most small business owners think a customer’s experience with their store ends after the purchase is made. It doesn’t. It extends way past that, all the way up to them receiving their order in the mail. This can either help you land a repeat customer or lose one.
A plethora of small business owners are weekend warriors. Especially, the ones who have 9 to 5’s during the week, plus other priorities that need to be handled. On the bright side, the four things you will do this weekend to help your small business, will bring a change that you have never seen before.