2 Strategies to focus on when starting a business

If you are in business or thinking about starting your own business soon, there are two strategies you should take into consideration when thinking about how your business will be successful in this competitive business environment.

1. Differentiation Strategy – with this first strategy your main goal should be to come up with a product or service that is able to differentiate itself from your competitors. Create something that no one else offers or add a little extra something to your products or services that adds value to them that make them different.

2. Low cost Strategy – the second strategy to think about is how you can eliminate costs when developing your product or providing your services in order to charge lower prices compared to competitors. Customers are always looking for the lowest prices in town. With this strategy, you will be able to have higher profit margins that will make up for the low prices provided.

 

This is how you can use Pinterest for your business

Pinterest is a pin-based social media website where people and businesses share photos about all sorts of personal and business related things. It is a great way for businesses to engage with customers about products, services, events and much more through photographs.

The following video gives you a short explanation about this trending social media and you can use it for your small business. And note: Pinterest has a higher click through rate to websites than Facebook and Twitter put together! Check it out!

"A business is simply an idea to make other people's lives better. If you can make people’s lives a lot better, you've got a really good business." - – Sir Richard Branson

Partnerships? How do you structure them?

A lady writes to Inc Magazine asking them for business advice. She is opening an art gallery and pottery studio, but she isn’t doing it alone...she is partnering up with another artist. Is this a good idea? How do they structure the business, as a partnership or S Corporation?

You may be in the same situation if you’re thinking about starting a partnership with someone else. The following article answers the lady’s questions, and also says there are 2 very important facts you need to consider before entering into a partnership.

First, you never know what the person is like until you have worked with him/her for a couple of years; and second, the more complicated you make the partnership structure at the outset, the harder it is to get out of it if things don’t turn out the way you thought.

Take a look at what Inc Magazine advices the lady about her partnership and how to structure her business.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/201209/norm-brodsky/partnership-or-s-corporation.html?nav=featured

10 questions to ask when you are ready to hire

You are already in business and it is starting to expand, so it may be time for you to hire your first employee or maybe add another one to your team. Sometimes it may be hard to accept that you need help, and as entrepreneurs delegating different tasks to others is hard to do. You want to be in control and do it all, right? The answer to this is yes, but asking for a little help shouldn’t be scary.

However, you have to be careful with who you hire, because hiring the wrong employee can become a burden to your team and can drag everyone else down. So be smart about it and ask the right questions before you hire!

This article gives you 10 questions you should answer first to make sure you’re ready for another addition to your team, and to determine what type of employee you need to fill that open position.

The Cheesecake Factory started out as a small business too.

Most of us probably know what The Cheesecake Factory is and have probably eaten there before. Just like any other business, this company started out very small many years ago. The original recipe came from the CEO’s mom in 1940. She started making cheesecakes in her basement and did so for 25 years. After this, her son saw a potential in the business and decided to give it a shot and open their first Cheesecake Factory restaurant. Ever since they opened they have had a line out their door.


This video should be an inspiration to all of us small business owners or anyone who is looking into starting a small business. You have to start somewhere to get somewhere. Usually, businesses start out small and build their way up; and this is what The Cheesecake Factory did.

If they can do it, so can you!

3 words that will create credibility for you business

A couple days ago we posted about the 5 C’s your small business needs to succeed; once of them was credibility. An article in inc.com says how the 3 most powerful words that will make you and your business more credible are “I don’t know”. They say in their article “Admitting ignorance makes everything else you say more credible. Admitting ignorance marks you as a person who's not afraid to speak the truth, even when that truth might reflect poorly on you.”


Of course, the next thing you should say after “I don’t know,” should be something like: “I’ll do whatever it takes to find out the answer to your question and get back to you”. And then be sure to follow through and make the effort to provide them with the information needed.

Once you get back to them, they’ll realize that you care about them and their business, giving you even more credibility!

To read the full article click here.

The 5 C’s you need for your small business to succeed.

If you are thinking about opening a business or you are already in businesses, the following 5 C’s are the ones you need to focus on to be able to succeed.

• Customers
• Cash Flow
• Credit
• Credibility
• Capital

As we all know, any company would not be able to survive without customers. They are the heart of any business.

Without having a positive cash flow, your company will not be able to stay alive. It is crucial to bring in cash to the business for you to keep operating.

Having good credit will help your business and you in the future when obtaining loans, managing your cash and working with new vendors.

One of the disadvantages a small business can face is the lack of credibility the brand may have. Since you are still small and in some cases new, customers will not know much about you. Because of this, you have to work extra hard to develop brand awareness and loyalty; without it, it is hard to survive.

And lastly, having access to capital is important when you want to expand your facility, launch a new product or buy more inventory.

An article on investopedia.com explains how to you can make the most out of these 5 C’s and how to use them for your small business to succeed.

What steps to take before launching your new business/idea?

Click on the following link to watch a video on what you need to do before launching your new business or idea. This video will help you out if you are not really sure where to start.


http://www.inc.com/scott-gerber/what-to-do-before-you-launch-a-business-idea.html?nav=pop