What would you have said
On Radio 2′s Jeremy Vines show today they were talking to people who are considering setting up a business during the current recession. There were some innovative business ideas and some good points were made during the programme.
I sent an email with 5 tips for business start-ups:
Starting a business at any time can be scary and yet often a recession can be the best time provided you’ve found the right market so:
1] Research your target market. Do people WANT what you are offering or do you just think they NEED your product / service? People buy what they want, they don’t always buy what they need.
2] Marketing is crucial – BUT it must be the right type of marketing. It is very easy to spend a fortune and get little or no results. For a small business direct response style marketing is the only feasible activity because the results can be closely measured and they can concentrate on the activity that is bringing in sales.
3] Time management – it is vital to keep your lifestyle balance. It is very easy for the business to take over your whole life and put a strain on your home and relationships. And it can also affect your health.
4] Finances: Keep on top of cashflow. This can be the most difficult aspect of having your own business.. getting people to pay their invoices. Make it very clear what your payment terms are when you agree to do business with someone.
5] Finances: Put money aside. It is tempting to spend all you’ve got coming in but I would strongly advise opening a high-interest account and transferring 10% of your revenue into it. As your business grows increase the transfer to 22%. And don’t touch it. Doing this gives you the money you need when your tax bill comes in and saves the stress of having to find the money to pay those bills.
What advice would you give to these start-up entrepreneurs?
Have a good weekend… Find new business: 2 is your next blog post, keep an eye open for it.
~ Carol Bentley
10th January 2009 at 2:37 pm
Good point Karin, it’s always best to have as many different marketing tactics as you can handle, then if one isn’t performing the others will continue to feed the business.
Steve Pett sent me this comment by email:
“A good contact management system which will record names, contact details, notes and run off mailshots will pay for itself a thousand times over.”
Steve
http://www.apww.co.uk
which ties in rather nicely with the Find new business theme of my current posts.
10th January 2009 at 12:45 pm
Hi Carol
My tip would be: make sure you create/discover multiple pillars of lead generating ‘tools’:
A static website
A dynamic blog-site
Email autoresponse marketing
Small ads in (local) publications
(All can have the same good copywriting but all will ‘find’ different readers/prospects)
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)