Starting a new business often begins with a bit shaky start. You have a rough idea of what you need to do, but you’re not completely sure. It’s important to create a solid foundation on which you can build your business. And just like many other things in life, preparation is key.
So Here Are 5 Things You Can Do To Build The Solid Foundations Your Business Needs For Longevity:
- Envision: now I don’t know about you, but I am no psychic. However it is important for you to start considering what the future could hold. Take a look at the trends and the news that is related to your business and try to envision where your industry is heading. The best entrepreneurs have the ability to predict new opportunities and openings in the market that they can use to give their entrepreneurial venture a competitive advantage. Then take that and create an overall vision of what that future opportunity could mean to your customers.
- Enlist: now you have a vision, it’s time to get some people on board to help you. Doing it alone is not the only option. You may not have the money to hire full-time employees, but consider assistance from family members or hired strategists or admin. No-one expects you to know all the ins and outs of running a business, or what’s going on in the market, so getting some help isn’t a bad idea.
- Embark: you have your vision and some help, now it’s time to take that step forward and believe in your business and embark on your new venture. You will always be able to think of a million different reasons as to why you shouldn’t embark on your dream, but you just need to start believing in your business and understand the environment around you, and take the plunge. If you don’t truly believe in your business, it may give you the opportunity to reconsider what you’re doing and how you might want to change things up a bit, so that you have the confidence to really embark on this venture.
- Execute: it’s not going to be easy, it takes a lot of hard work to create a successful business, and this is why you need the commitment to execute your vision. Despite the stories the media like to tell us of people who got rich ‘overnight’ with a great idea – it’s rarely what it looks like on the surface. On closer inspection, i’d hesitate to say, for everyone of those stories, you’ll find the real story is more one of resilience and a lot of hard work executing the vision on a daily basis – come hell and high water. Everyone goes through peaks and downfalls. Sometimes it’s the tough lessons that lead to break throughs. And don’t be scared to change your plan along the way. New circumstances are guaranteed to arise so monitor the market and be responsive and you will find it a lot easier to bounce through a tough time.
- Evolve: expanding from the previous point, all businesses need to evolve. It isn’t possible to be stagnant in the continuously changing business environment – and change is the one thing I can promise you will happen. Prepare yourself for change, and be constantly aware of what is going on in the world around to help progress your business forward. Read widely, watch other aligned industries, talk to clients, monitor news outlets, looking for clues as to what’s new, what’s next, etc. Especially look for early warning signs of those changes that will change how business is done – like itunes, amazon’s (and other) online platform and vending machines for changed the movie rental business forever. You need to be ahead of those sorts of curves.
Now obviously these five E’s are no guarantee of success, but it can help you create a solid foundation for building your business.
If you’d like to enlist our help so you can build your foundation more quickly, by doing your admin work or answering your phones whilst you’re in a meeting, etc. You can reach us on 9994 8000 or you can drop us a note.
