More businesses die in their first year than those that go on to become thriving enterprises. The reasons behind this are more often than not due to the seemingly little things that are glossed over by entrepreneurs in their quest to build their empires.
As the saying goes, ‘If you build your house on a weak foundation, it will certainly crumble’. On that front, this article provides you with five key building blocks that will help your business excel.
1. Practice excellent customer service.
A business is nothing without its customers. New customers and current customers alike are the essence of every enterprise. Therefore, it is essential to build a superb family-like relationship with existing customers and be ultra-attractive to potential ones. This means being proactive and reaching out to customers regularly. To maintain a superb customer experience, you can utilize a customer voice solution like the one offered by Alchemer.
They mix simplicity, efficiency, and flexibility to deliver the most advanced Voice-of-the-Customer (VoC) programs for your business. Alchemer will also help you design suitable customer voice surveys with unique survey questions. The tool will automatically collect VoC feedback at every stage of your customer’s journey, which is a great way to understand levels of brand awareness and customer satisfaction amongst both your existing customer base and new audiences. This way, you’re offered seamless communication with clients to ensure you’re offering a service that’s responsive to their needs.
2. Share your knowledge and experience as an incentive.
No doubt, it’s essential to try all avenues for growing your business. One great way to do this is via knowledge sharing. No matter how small you think your business is, you always have some new knowledge, experience, or skills to offer someone. So, you can combine the right blend of expertise and skill to sell your service and product. Try to educate customers and help them tap into their creativity. You can implement this via consultations, good customer service, support on a website landing page, and blogging about essential topics.
3. Grab the publicity social media offers.
If this COVID-19 pandemic has proven anything to us regarding business, it’s the importance of social media, an online presence, and the need to adapt and innovate constantly. You don’t need any skill training or certificates to know how to use social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter to indulge in the right content marketing.
All you need is a dedicated team that can provide the requisite lure to potential customers while at the same time satisfying your current customers. This way, you’ll keep them continuously interested in your products and services. With over three billion people using social media at least once a month (with the trend rapidly growing last year), you have a huge audience to make a mark on with your brand.
4. Build and maintain a small business network.
The saying ‘If you want to go fast, you walk alone; but if you want to go far, you walk with others’ rings true in the world of business. You can never quantify the value of networking with other companies and entrepreneurs. Take a look at the world’s wealthiest people. Notice how they started, garnered their finances, and have thrived over the years. You will see a clear-cut pattern of partnership building, mutual investment, and support.
Regardless of your business’s industry, you would need to have a proper management system in place. This will help create a steady and sturdy web of industry players in every sector, including finance, logistic, consultation, recruitment, etc. “Word of mouth” referrals and favors are certainly a priceless tool in the growth of your business.
5. Be an invaluable asset to your community.
Whether you’re starting an eLearning business or a beauty shop, whatever you know you can do to enhance the quality of lives in your community, do it. The essence of this is not for trying to build or strengthen your brand. That is secondary and is an inevitable outcome. Your business has to do so. The synergy created will place you and your business as a critical element in its flow.
