Is your start up finished before it starts?

STOC goodie bags for the launch party!

Like it or not, a good business does not just rely on good products or services. The success of your start-up will be built on whether people know about you, like you and trust you enough to part with their dollars. The key to achieving this is how effectively you communicate your products or services to your customers. And that's where all that marketing comes in!

Leaflets, billboards, posters, stickers, goodie bags, business cards, stamps, magazines, local newspapers, social networks, bus ads, giveaways, pens, word of mouth, radio Ads, TV Ads (I should be so lucky...)

All of us recognise the necessity of marketing. We are constantly bombarded by examples, after all! Good marketing builds a solid name and reputation for your business, creates leads, generates industry interest and customer attention and, most importantly, makes those sales! Whichever way you see it, marketing is a vital tool to help your business survive, make money and grow. With this firmly in mind, it is simply illogical to consider marketing an 'optional' part of your business. Sadly, many start ups commit business suicide in by thinking just that.

The reality is, most start ups venture out with more enthusiasm than skill. Unless you have a marketing qualification, or a generally prolific creative brain, there is a chance you need outside help with marketing. As a new business owner, you have to figure out all areas of your business, constantly switching hats, with no time to spend on vital strategic planning. Yet so many people devote so little time and effort to activities researching marketing and advertising, and spend little time thinking about how customers can actually get to know about them.

One option is outsourced marketing. Many small business owners are too intimidated to seek outsourced marketing, associating it with big billboards and even bigger budgets, risking leaving their idea to ferment in silence. Little do new start ups realise the true importance - and ease - of obtaining professional marketing help. With some outsourced marketing, such as Marketing Eye, an experienced marketing executive can help you build your business to a success from only $27.95 a day. If you are really stuck, you can get outsourced marketing managers that have been strategically headhunted as the best people to help you get the results you want, all at an affordable, small business-friendly price.

Without attention, there are no customers; without customers, there are no sales; without sales, there is no money; without money, there is no business. Whether you get your hat on and come up with all the creative ideas you can think of, or get outsourced marketing help, it is really your responsibility to provide clever and affordable solutions that will help you generate attention, boost those sales and save your business from death by cashflow.

95% of small businesses don't make it through 5 years. Most small businesses ignore marketing. Spot the link. If you do what everyone else does, you get what everyone else gets. So don't make the same mistakes and make sure your business stands out from the crowd! With the right marketing strategy, it can - and will.

With hard work and good advice, you can make it happen!

Be the nerve centre, not the nerves

But... it IS personal :-/

"To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour."
                                                                                -William Blake

O.K., here is what I have learnt in a few short months of running my own business. No matter what 'The E Myth' (see previous 'business classics' post) says, running your own business IS always personal.

It doesn't mean you have to physically be there to dot the 'i's and cross the 't's on every single invoice. In fact, the failure of most small business owners lies in devoting time and attention to those time-consuming but unrewarding tasks rather than focusing on what really matters - i.e. brings PROFIT.

However, running your own business is always involving and always absorbing. It not only should not but MUST NOT demand every ounce of your time, attention and energy (otherwise, how can you stay energetic and inspired and produce more great goods?!?) But there always things your business does demand from you. These are: your energy, your vision and your values.

give give give to GET GET GET


GIVE YOUR ENERGY

One very important reason you cannot spend 20 hours of your day working, hugging a can of Red Bull: You have to have energy!!! Energy to inspire, create, communicate, drive. If you do not give your business this fuel, who will? Be the instigator and the engine of positive energy and see it reverberate through everyone you touch with your ideas. Be excited, be buzzy, and believe in what you do and watch the results. Energy and positivity are infectious!

GIVE YOUR VISION

By vision, I don't mean a floating reverie of you, a white fluffy cat, a beach and a margharita. I don't mean the vacuous image of a goal. I mean the PROCESS.

Think about
How do you want your business run?
What is the role you see yourself playing in your business?
What do you want this business to ultimately achieve?
How do you want people to think of your business?
What it is that you want to create with this idea that you have?
Why do you want to spend this money, energy and nerve cells on these ideas?
What is it that makes this business so important?

Write down some solid points and them commit yourself into living them out every day from the time you open your eyes. Then, the next time you ask yourself 'dear God, WHY?!?', you will have all the answers you need.

GIVE YOUR VALUES

What are the values of your business? Why is it so important for this business to exist?
A business is an extenstion of you, and an excellent, unique opportunity to offer something of yourself of the world. Imagine your business as a human being. What values do you want it to have? What motivates it? What inspired respect from other people? What separates it from others? These are things the business can only get from you.

Mantra
I try to spend every day analysing the health of my energy, vision and values. Being vibrant, visionary and living out your values is far more important than getting a sale or completing another receipt that day. I believe if I can really establish what is important and brings the most value to my business and do my best to not stray away, great things await!

Plus, it means you can have your business AND always have the time to say YES to a cofee break in Darling Harbour...

- Victoria A.

Business classics: 'The E Myth'

Business bible

'The E Myth' by Michael E. Gerber is a life-changing classic. It gets brandished as a business bible at the front of just about every business class I have ever attended.

For those unfamiliar with the book, the main contention is that small business owners spend far too much time working IN their business rather than ON it. Most people start their own business because they are craftsmen who love their craft and think they are doing it better than others. However, they are NOT entrepreneurs.

So, what they are essentially doing is buying themselves a job and falling into the following cycle:

Before

- Baker loves to bake

- Baker bakes far better that their fat boss, goddamit! That guy spends more time stuffing pies inside his mouth than stuffing the shelves...sheesh

- Baker can totally do better

- Baker can TOTALLY go alone...

- So baker does

Next

- Now, baker has to get up at 2am instead of 3am so they go and set up shop

- Baker has no holidays or days off. They spend all their time working in their business

- Staff are unreliable and noone can ever cover for them. They do not trust their managers. They are totally tied to the job.

- Now, on top of baking pies, they also have to strap up legal contracts, accounting sheets and pay the rent

- Family time and, god forbid, dating are all out of the window as this means spending time away from the oven which is, by definition, NOT ALLOWED in any circumstances

- Baker is sick and exhausted, and spends their nights sleeping in a pile of their own mince pies

Finally

- Baker develops a smoking addiction and stress-related hairloss

- Baker is so time-poor they cannot remember the last time they saw their own feet

- Baker is losing money as they cannot sustain productivity as productivity means them working harder. They are already at their maximum capacity.

- Baker hates it, moans about it, complaints, curses, eats too many cookies and HATES IT HATES IT HATES IT

- Baker closes up shop and vows to spend every evening of their life from then on eating Ajisen Ramen takeaway.

The moral of the story is that every business ought to be set up like a franchise models with a turnkey operation. This means that systems and procedures should be set up so that anyone could operate them and the business starts with that precise intention that the owner sells it. That way, the owner keeps distance between themselves and their operations and builds the business as a sell-able, autonomous machine. Anyone could walk into the business at any time and simply 'turn the key'.

Technician turn boss?!

There is a common assumption amongst small business owners that having a business is a 'lifestyle' more than professional choice. They see themselves setting the whole thing up in a month, doing it better and brighter than anyone else (thanks to those long years of industry experience). There is nothing about the job they don't know, so stepping up to owning your own business seems as simple as taking on the title 'boss'.

If only it was that easy...

The reality is that most people are simply 'technicians' who are not versed in the legal, financial and entrepreneurial facets of owning a trading operation. They assume that being manager mainly revolves around telling their employees who do all the work the whats and hows of the job. WRONG!

Turn key book

This book is really illuminating and famously life-changing. It reveals some really earthy truths about running your own business and the realities of being your own boss. About the challenges of being self-motivated, with noone to chastise you for slacking. About the downs of having no one to celebrate your success with but yourself. About the loneliness of being the only one responsible for oversights and mistakes, And the sheer darn frustration of improving your business one way possible: by even more hard, hard work and grind.

So why run your own business?!

Answer: read the rest of the blog :-D

- Victoria A.