The first time hanging out your business sign can be an exciting thing to do, even if there is no actual sign!
Maybe it’s a web business or a service business operated from your home or car so there is no place to put a sign. But it is a big step, declaring you are entering the marketplace.
Prosperity Consulting has been helping companies improve since 1990, first by delivering custom process improvement software and websites. But since about 2005 we have been delivering strategic planning and on-going support to new and existing companies. We have helped train sales teams and made websites easier to find as well as tell the company’s story more effectively. To better communicate to the customer and make more sales. Do you know everything you need to know to grow your company?
You have a good idea that you think can work, but there are a lot of moving parts involved in taking something from an idea to a profitable enterprise.
The first time hanging out your business sign. Putting up a sign, literally or otherwise is marketing. Marketing is building an awareness of your offerings and brand. Getting potential customers to notice you. This is different from sales. Sales is getting the order, completing the transaction. All marketing and sales have two parts, emotions and logic or reason.
3 essential aspects of business success
- Marketing and sales
- Management
- Merchandise or services delivery
This is obviously a great simplification as there is also capitalization, finance, legal, research, product development, training, hiring, firing, wining & dining, and vehicle maintenance. To name a few. But all of these aspects of a business are either in support of selling your product or service or delivering your product or services or managing how that gets done. Really there are two essential parts, selling and delivering. Unfortunately today many people are happy to just sell and collect money, and delivering value has been forgotten.
The first time hanging out your business sign
Does the headline and title of the page seem awkward to you? It does to me. Do you notice how many times it has been repeated? Quite a few. It is awkward and it is repeated often as this is what Google currently wants to see in order to show you this page when you search for things like “business”. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? You can learn more about why this is on this Page of our website. If you have a website it may be good to check if it is being found by people searching for products or services you sell. However, keep in mind there are many aspects of what it takes to be successful and it is so easy today to think that everything is about social media presence and website ranking. While these things are important, there may be other things that are more important to be done first. Also if there are not unlimited funds available so it is important to prioritize where the money is spent money. A great website or a bunch of likes on Facebook may feel good, but depending on other factors this “exposure” can actually harm business more than help it. Let’s say there is a bunch of traffic to Facebook but you can’t fulfill the orders. Then all those likes can quickly change to negative reviews, which are very very hard to get rid of.
You can get more information about laying a solid foundation for a newer business, first 4 years, by clicking this link.
You can get some information about traps and dangerous practices in trying to improve your search ranking by clicking here.
First time hanging out your business sign can be big deal. It can be the beginning of a prosperous adventure or it could be a lot of work with little results while you find yourself going in circles always on the brink of disaster. Which scenario would you prefer?
If you are willing to spend some time preparing yourself and applying time-tested methods you will get better results than just “winging it” or trying every “get rich quick”, “easy money” or short cut scam you see on the web. The fact is even the short cut, quick money scheams will take work and most of them will ask you for money upfront to use their “guaranteed”, sure-fire, fast-talking method.
There is a lot to achieving business success. We have grouped them under three headings. There are many other ways to think about it, but if you keep these three aspects in mind it may help to realize you have to be good at many things.
Unfortunately what we are offering is somewhat boring, but so far it is free and you won’t need to lie, misrepresent anythjng or mislead anyone.
