When you have a new small business start-up you want it to stand out from your competitors. In a crowded market, that’s not easy. The first step is to make a plan, and follow it. Take a look at our top tips below to give your business the best chance to attract your target audiences, and succeed.
What Does Your Small Business Start-Up Need To Standout?
Your plan needs to focus on what customers would like from your business. Consider the following:
- Delivering excellent customer service
- Make the experience unique to your business only
- Admitting mistakes and resolving problems to build better customer relationships
- Honest service and product offerings
- New products and procedures to surprise your customers that others don’t offer
- Embrace Social Media to drive your brand awareness to customers
- Blog about your business and its services and what you bring to the table
- Guarantee your products and services
What Do Your Customers Want That Will Make You Stand Out?
You must determine what your customers want and also don’t want. Complete market research and focus groups to receive honest feedback. Then, make a plan to determine what you want to get out of this to ensure you cover all aspects.
- What do they think of your current offerings?
- What are new products/services you could offer?
- How can you improve current processes?
This market research is critical as it will allow you to determine what you can do differently to the rest of your competitors. By listening to the pain points of customers you can also determine what products and services you can develop and release to meet their needs.
Remember, you want to create a product or service that is unique to your small business to make it stand out. If your market research has identified a different product or service that no one else provides then focus on that and see how your business can pivot to include this product/service.
A Different Approach Can Make All The Difference
Whilst offering a unique product or service definitely helps you stand out; it’s not the only option. You might be an insurance broker and whilst your services are similar to many others, the way you do it could be what is different. You might offer “instant” online options for your customers, or perhaps it’s that you take time to offer a deeply personal approach.
Offering a positive and different customer service experience is often what sets you apart from your competitors and keeps customers engaged with your brand. So take time to understand how you can deliver your product or service in a different way, that’s better than your competitors.
Once You’re In The Know – What’s Next?
Once you know what your customers want from your small business you can identify your goals and timelines. Making a timeline so to ensure you achieve your goals will also help with your budget and cash flow.
Keep In Touch With Your Customers
Communication is just as important as the product/service execution itself. It’s great that you’re offering superior results, but if your customers don’t know about it they can’t be pleased about it! It’s important to keep in contact with your customers. This can be done in many forms:
- Regular email marketing
- Social media (including videos)
- Blogging
- SMS
Now You Need To Invest In The Business Support You Need
Whether that’s hiring a business coach, a business mentor, virtual office support or a bookkeeper. By knowing where your skillset is lacking it will help you determine what support you need.
Whilst there are always people that will help mentor you or business if it’s staff your need it can be a huge cost to your business. One option is to look at virtual office support like SOI who tailor their solutions to help you grow your business. Through outsourcing the auxiliary and administrative tasks such as phone answering, appointment booking and mail management, you can save huge amounts of time in your workday.
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