adminSmall Business Survival Tip 6 : Building a Support Network
Identify Resources
No business can do everything itself. It is highly probable that you will need some help along the way. Brainstorm a list of the kinds of help you’ll need from others and try to determine who could help with each function. If you don’t know anyone offhand, reach out to freelancers, virtual assistants and other businesses whose help you can use.
Build Your Network
Everywhere you go, think about networking. For each person you meet, try to figure out how you can add them to your network. Start by offering them some help they can use. This is how you build relationships with others. Regularly attend networking events in your community and grow your network.
Find a Mentor
In addition to you networking and sharing information with your peers it’s good for you to have a mentor. A mentor in business is simply someone who is further along on the path of success than you are at that time. Their experience can teach you a great deal. They can help you avoid making mistakes they made along the way.
Schedule Networking Time
Like other aspects of your business, networking works best when it’s a regular part of your schedule. Scout out the opportunities and make it a point that you attend business events on a regular basis. Set goals on growing your number of contacts.
Join Your Chamber of Commerce
A great place to get started networking is your local Chamber of Commerce. Many online businesses forget to do this since most of what they do is over the internet. The Chamber of Commerce is an organization that works for the mutual benefit of every member involved. It’s a chance to meet like-minded business people as well as find out about events and spread awareness locally of your company.
Join Groups
Seek out similar business people everywhere you can both online and off. Think of it not only as networking but also as a chance to share ideas and learn from each other. You never know when someone you meet in a group can be helpful. If you don’t find a group you like, start your own.
Manage Well
Everyone knows there are those who are good managers and those who are terrible at it. You need to be a good manager to your employees and outside help. Good managers are patient, flexible, easy to communicate with and trustworthy. Get to know your helpers well, whether they work for you full-time or on a project basis, and give them praise and rewards for a job well done.
Prepare Your Elevator Pitch
An elevator pitch is a short description of what your company is all about. It explains what your company does and who it helps. It’s called an elevator pitch because it’s supposed to be so short you could deliver it in a short elevator ride. Use this quick summary whenever introducing your company during networking or while hiring outside help.
Keep in Touch
Keep in touch with the contacts that you have made fairly regularly, even if you are not currently doing business with them directly. A casual email updating them on how your business is going is alright, but even better, offer them help again just like you did when you first met. Another great way to stay in touch is through social media.
Ask for Help
You must never be afraid to ask for help when you need it. No one can possibly run every aspect of their business. It is important to learn how to recognize when you need help and get comfortable for reaching out to contacts who can help you.
Small Business Survival Tip 7 : Monitoring the Market
Keep a Regular Eye Out
As part of your daily business operations, keep your eye on market trends and stay on top of news and current events that relate to your business. A good entrepreneur or business owner must be constantly monitoring what’s going on in the market. Make this part of your regular routine.
Sign Up for Alerts
To stay on top of important trends, sign up for Google Alerts and other alert programs. Identify keywords that are relevant and important in your business, and sign up for these services so that whenever someone posts that keyword online you are notified.
Use Social Media Subscriptions and Searches
Use your social media accounts to subscribe to news services and to any other useful sources of information that are relevant to your business. Twitter and Facebook are great for this and you can even save searches within these platforms. Seek out sources of news and thought leaders, and pay special attention to what they post.
Learn from Other Businesses
One way to stay abreast of what’s new in your industry is to follow the competition. Read your competitors’ blogs, follow them on social media, sign up for their email lists and check their websites occasionally. You may find valuable information you can use for your own business.
Connect on Social Media
Use social media not only to watch trends in your industry but also to listen to your market. Engage them with content that encourages them to communicate with you and with each other. Listen to their discussions with one another to discover how they feel about the companies they buy from.
Conduct Surveys
Find out what your market thinks directly by offering surveys and polls. Use your social media site to ask them direct questions about products and services. Conduct focus groups online or off to get your market’s opinions.
Use Analytics
Use analytics tools to analyze the behavior of your market. Google Analytics is a good, free place to start. It monitors visitor behavior on your website. Most social media sites, blogging platforms and other marketing channels have their own built-in analytics that show you how you’re doing.
Ask for Input
Anywhere you have communication with your market, run your ideas by them. If you’re thinking of developing a certain product or offering something new from your company, ask your customers what they think. They may provide you valuable input that helps you create better-selling products or services. This is also a good chance to establish two-way communication.
Offer Multi-Tiered Pricing
A good way to monitor your market in terms of price points is to offer several different packages for your goods or services. Offer one package that’s stripped down and others that have added features, each with a different price tag. Through sales, you’ll discover how much your market likes to spend on products such as yours.
Attend Conferences
Attend trade conferences and trade shows in your industry. You’ll learn a great deal about what’s going on currently, what’s new and what’s projected for the future.
Small Business Survival Tip 8 : Social Media and Online Reputation Management
Choose Social Media Well
There are many social media websites to choose from and each that you choose takes time out of your schedule to maintain. Identify a few key social media sites where you know your target market hangs out. Decide how many you can successfully manage at once.
Engage Daily on Social Media
Spend some time on social media daily. Check in at least once during the day, but more often if possible. The more you’re on social media interacting with your audience, the more engagement there will be and the more results you’ll see from your efforts. Just don’t make it the main focus of your business day.
Learn Social Media from the Pros
If you’re not sure how to use social media, follow brands you like and consider successful. Observe how they engage their audience and promote their business using social media. Then “borrow” ideas from them.
Stake Your Claims
Search for your business on all directory social media sites such as Google Places and Yelp. Claim your listing if you find it and make sure all of the information there accurately reflects your business. Work these business directory sites into your regular social media routine and keep an eye on them for new reviews.
Sign up for Social Media Alerts
Sign up for alerts on social media so that you know when people are talking about you or things related to your business. Some social media sites have features that allow you to sign up for alerts, and there are also online services that do it for you. You can also search many social media sites by hashtags.
Respond to Negative Feedback Quickly
Should you receive a negative comment on social media or anywhere elsewhere online, respond quickly. Just don’t let it sit unaddressed for too long a period of time where others can see it. Address the reported problem and you must try finding ways that you can no. 1 either correct the person if they’re misinformed or no. 2 make them happy if they are a dissatisfied customer.
Establish Protocols for Social Media Disasters
Social media disasters happen and they can be extremely damaging to a company that doesn’t respond well to them. Imagine different situations and establish clear protocols for you and your employees to follow in dealing with them.
Stay Cordial on Social Media
Always maintain a friendly tone on social media. There are people who will make you angry or annoy you, but don’t let them get to you. The worst thing for your company’s reputation is to lose your cool on social media. Make sure you’re always ‘on brand.’
Bolster Your Rep with Social Proof
A great way to maintain a good reputation and drown out any negative comments is to seek out social proof. Get testimonials from happy customers and post them on your website and blog. Ask customers to leave good reviews for you on review sites and recommend you to friends. If there is plenty of positive content about your company online, it will offset any negative comments you get.
Offer Free Help with No Strings Attached
Another great way to establish a good reputation is to offer free help to your customers, social media connections and website visitors with no strings attached. This shows that your company is here to help and not just to make money.
Small Business Survival Tip 9 : Time Management
Decide How You’re Going to Manage Your Time
Time management is just as important to your business as any other kind of planning. As with planning your business operations, you need to sit down and to create a time management plan to help you get everything done.
Monitor Your Time
A great place to start in creating a time budget is to monitor how you spend your time now. Log your workday and write down how you’re spending your time. Keep this going for a week or two and you’ll see patterns. It will often show you where you’re wasting time and can tighten up your schedule. It also shows you a realistic picture of how much you can get done each day.
Make Prioritized To-Do Lists
Make to-do lists each day with items prioritized, with the most important or pressing ones first. Work your way through the priorities and if you end up not finishing the last few tasks, put them onto the next day. It may be helpful to create weekly or monthly to-do lists as well.
Pad Time
When deciding how long you need to finish tasks, pad them. Add more time to each task than you think it will take. This way, if there are distractions, they won’t derail your overall plan. Plus, you’ll end up getting most of your tasks done sooner than you expected.
Identify Peak Focus Times and Use Them
Identify the times of day when you’re the most focused and use these times for tasks that require the most focus. You can do this through observation. Keep a journal and check in throughout the day, noting how you feel and your energy level. Go back over your log after a few days and you’ll see when your peak times are.
Schedule Non-Working Time
In addition to you scheduling your work time, also schedule time when you’re not at work. It’s hard for entrepreneurs and small business owners to maintain a work-life balance. Many business owners find it easier to keep this balance if they schedule times when they are not ‘at work.’
Stay Focused with Short Breaks
Take many short breaks through the day to help you keep your focus. During these breaks get away from your computer or workstation and move around as much as possible. Many people find that the more they take breaks, the better they’re able to keep their focus when they’re working.
Don’t Multi-Task
Try to keep multi-tasking to a minimum. When you perform several tasks at once, none of them get the full attention they deserve. When something urgent comes to your attention, set it aside for later.
Just Say No
Learn to say no when people make requests of your time. These requests can easily derail you or cause you to lose focus, partly because they may be important things that need to be done. One way to do this effectively is to tell the person that you’re busy now but you’ll get back to them.
Delegate and Automate
Wherever possible, ask others to perform tasks for you. Look for tasks that can be easily delegated or outsourced. Look for automation tools that allow you to automate certain tasks to get them off your daily to-do list.
Small Business Survival Tip 10 : Stress Management
Develop Good Stress Reduction Strategies
Business is stressful but you can minimize the stress by developing good stress reduction strategies. Find some things that help you de-stress and work them into your schedule. You can also try something new like meditation or yoga and see if it provides relief.
Recognize When You’re Over-Committed
A small business owner wants to do everything to make their business succeed, but it’s easy to over-commit yourself. Learn to recognize when you’ve taken on more than you can reasonably handle.
Stay Positive
Keep a positive attitude, even when things are going badly. You have a kind of armor that protects you when you stay positive from all of the daily frustrations. One way to practice being positive is for you to reframe any negative thoughts and statements turning them into positive ones.
Take Care of Yourself
Make sure you’re eating well and getting plenty of rest. When you’re operating hungry or in a sleep-deprived state, your brain doesn’t have what it needs to deal with daily stresses. It also helps a great deal if you get some moderate exercise.
Balance Work and Life
Maintain a healthy work and life balance. Make sure that you’re involved in doing something outside of work that you do enjoy, so that your life isn’t consumed by your job all the time. If you get especially busy with your work, schedule some time to spend with family and friends or doing activities that you enjoy. Write it into your calendar so it can’t be ignored.
Learn to Let Go
You can’t control every aspect of your small business. No matter how well you prioritize and manage time, there are times when you simply can’t get it all done. When this happens, learn to let go and put it off until tomorrow. Next time, put fewer items on your to-do list. You’ll feel better simply seeing more items crossed off at the end of the day.
Keep a Stress Journal
A good way to combat stress is to keep a ‘stress journal’ where you write down things that frustrate you and how you feel about them. Your journal offers a way to vent and rage on paper. Don’t try to solve problems or deal with frustrations. Just write them down and note how you feel about them. Sometimes you’ll feel a weight lift off your shoulders after letting it out.
Own Your Feelings
When things go wrong, take responsibility for them. The old cliché that you can’t control what happens but you can control how you react is absolutely true. When you own your feelings, you take charge of them and this means you’re not helpless or susceptible to random things that happen. It empowers you and helps to cut down on stress.
Turn It Off
Set aside some time each week to go offline and unplugged. Turn off your computer and put away your electronic devices. Go somewhere no one can reach you. In today’s age of constant electronic communication, turning it all off offers great stress relief.
Cultivate a Sense of Humor
If you learn to laugh at things, you’re untouchable. Nothing can get you down. Cultivate a good sense of humor and use it when you face adversity. Laughter is a great stress reliever. If you can’t find anything to laugh about, try watching a good comedy or surfing YouTube for funny videos.
Running a small business certainly isn’t easy and you’ll find that there are many roadblocks along the way. But hopefully these survival tips are enough to get you started with conquering those challenges and getting past many of the common mistakes most business owners and entrepreneurs make.
As you put in place all the detailed business success tips, you should see a change in the direction of your business.
(Small Business Survival Tips 1-5)