5 Tips to Help You Build Your Business

As  business owners, it’s important to understand how we can build, grow and improve our businesses. Understanding it is one thing – doing it is what matters. Here are 5 tips to help you stay on track to building your business.

1. Marketing

There are many ways you can market your business, and that can sometimes be the problem. What I mean is it can become overwhelming at times – not knowing what to do, or when to do it. Create yourself a marketing spreadsheet (some people use a calendar), sit down and think of some cool offerings, promotions, etc, and start to plot them into your spreadsheet/calendar. What this will do is paint an organized picture of what initiatives you are going to do and when. It’s not set in stone so you can always make changes on the fly, but it’s important to map it out so you’re organized.

2. Branding

What is your story? Look at your brand and ask yourself, “What story does it tell?”. Is your logo visible and consistent? Do your colours match the emotion of your business? Is your messaging strong, relative and does it make sense? It’s important to understand that creating consistency in a brand is key, so you need to make sure that wherever the end user is, the experience they’re having with your brand is consistent.

3. Advertising

Are you advertising? If so, where? I have had my fair share of debates with people on advertising, and I guess it’s a matter of preference. Without getting into a detailed breakdown of my thoughts, I agree that advertising can be good for your business. But do your research first to see if it is hitting your audience, and challenge the person selling you the ad space (whether it’s newspaper, radio, online, etc) and ask them how it’s measured. Personally, I don’t feel comfortable investing money into any form of advertising unless I can measure the campaign in detail.

4. Communication

How are you communicating with your end users? This applies to both B2B and B2C. With the tools at our disposal – Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, online communities, etc, you should be using the ones that are specific to your audience. Where is your audience? Take some time to identify where your current customers are, and reach out and start communicating with them. I’m not advising you to create a complete online marketing/ social strategy – just to do some research as to where you audience is and start talking to them in simple conversation.

5. Be Grateful

It goes without saying – be grateful for the people who choose to do business with you. I don’t mean smile when they leave, I mean tell them you’re grateful – show them through a loyalty reward, whatever that may be. Your clients NEED to know you appreciate them, and the only way for that to happen is for you to show them. Don’t assume because you say, “Thanks, have a nice day!” that it’s good enough, because for most… it’s not. Do whatever you can to provide a positive and memorable experience, and always show your gratitude.

I hope some of these tips on building your business have been helpful – please feel free to leave some of your own or comment on the ones above.

Your Friend,

Troy Claus

“To do more for the world than the world does for you, that is success.” – Henry Ford.

image: Arlo Bates

Author : Troy

Director of Business Development at JumpPoint, Product Developer at Clarity for the boss, a supercharged Speaker and the founder of The Entrepreneurs Journey series. The secret to success is stored in my beard, but I will share it if asked nicely.