Starting a Small Business

– and making it successful

Starting a small business is something which many people want to do.

The reasons why people want to do this are varied but often include a wish to be independent, the ability to do things the way you want to, to have a better lifestyle and to earn more money than you are currently receiving when working for someone else.

The informetric show covers some of the issues you will probably need to think about when planning your business. however, don’t be put off as most successful business started by taking “baby” steps. After all the journey of a thousand miles takes place one step at a time.

To give you a start, we have summarised the key things to think about in a five point process for small business success. We will be happy to help you to promote your business and you gain the benefit of having a successful online presence.

1. Know Yourself.

Starting a small business requires you to know your strengths and weaknesses, what skills you will bring to bear, what skills and knowledge you will need to access from elsewhere, what you can do well and the things you can do which make you happy. Above all you will need to have confidence in yourself. You will need to take initiatives, be comfortable with an element of calculated commercial risk and above all have confidence in what you can do as customers will sense the confidence you have in yourself when deciding whether or not to engage your services or buy your products.

2. Know your Market

This involves making a mind-shift to go around to the potential customer’s side side of the table and think about about what people’s needs are, what they want, what they are prepared to pay and how you can provide something to meet their needs. As you go along you may need to do some market research such as test marketing what you do or sell and analyse data such as the age, gender, occupation and location of your customers. Comparing this with available statistics from other sources such as Statistics New Zealand should tell you what part of the market you are being successful in and what parts of the market you might want to target. As you go along you may benefit from preparing a marketing plan but more about this later.

3. Plan your Business

Basically, you need to plan out what you are going to do and where and how you are going to do it. Some key questions include:

Where will your business be based or operate from?
What sort of structure will you have – sole trader, partnership or company?
What capital or finance will you need for plant, vehicles equipment and tools and where will you get it from?
What will you live on while you are getting the business up and running?
What professional advice do you need? E.g. solicitor and or accountant.
How will you promote your business? (See item below for more on this topic.)

More information about business planning can be found here

4. Promote your business

Promoting your business is a key factor for business success. If people are now aware of who you are and what you do they will not be your customers.

Successful businesses have a strong brand. for instance think of Coca Cola or Google. They have a logo, their publicity is visually consistent as is their message so that people are aware of what they offer. If you need assistance with the visual branding we can help you by putting your directly in touch with a graphic designer.

You will also need to think about the various ways in which you can promote your business. Traditional ways are advertising, distributing business cards and pamphlets etc. As mentioned previously, we can help you with this.

However today more and more people use the internet to find suppliers so a strong online presence has become increasingly important.

The key point is that if you want to succeed potential customers need to be aware of you and what you do. We can help you to create a strong online presence to attract customers and showcase what you offer. We can do this for your by building you a website, social media marketing such as Facebook, Search Engine optimisation and search engine marketing so that you rank high in search engine results and even things such as email marketing and directory listing.

5. Do the business

This seems pretty obvious at first sight. Customers tell others how happy they are with what you do. Some key points are:

Under-promise and over-deliver by doing better or quicker that you promised.
Make every transaction a winner – you are happy and your customer is happy..
Ensure a quality produce or service.
Stand behind and guarantee your products.
Ask for and collect testimonials and reviews.
Keep in touch with your customer especially where there is potentially repeat business.

If you would like assistance or more information please contact us on 07 895 3344 or use the contact form to email us.

For information on business planning see