Houston, We have a problem!
7 Strategies to get your business off the Runway!
So maybe you’ve been in business for a little while now or maybe you are just starting and your business is not taking off the ground. Do you feel like your Boeing 747 is just circling the runway? Here are a few strategies to get you off the ground and get you soaring high.
1. Plan, plan and plan!
I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times and you will keep hearing it. You need to plan. An idea will always be what it is, an idea, and it will always remain where it is, in your head. You need to get the pen and paper out and start planning. You need to set clear direction of the course of your flight, no plane just starts flying randomly without a destination; the same thing with your business, you need to know where you are headed and start setting out how you are going to get there. Planning will save you all the time that you waste in mistakes and confusion; imagine all the time you spent circling in the same position, you could have been somewhere by now because you know what step to take next.
2. Get the numbers and people right!
The problem we make sometimes is over projecting sales and underestimating the costs we will incur. It is good to set targets and be optimistic, but since you are just starting out, you also have to consider that you still need to build awareness and be known. Try to minimise your costs as much as you can. Do not hire too many people in the beginning, do not spend too much on fancy offices and facilities that your business cannot handle, rather start at home and when things are at a better level, go for it.
Stop employing all those people who have no clue of what they are doing but are cheap; rather get one efficient employee who can cover multiple roles till you are stable enough to get more people.
3. Be your own cheerleader!
Probably when you started you were so excited and had high expectations, and maybe now things aren’t going the way you want them to. You need to try, try and try again even when nothing has or is happening. Keep doing what you are doing and putting as much effort as you can till something comes up. You have to be your own cheerleader. If you start losing faith in your idea, it will be even more difficult to sell it and getting new clients would be even harder because your sales pitch won’t be as passionate.
4. Get off the spotlight!
So who are you promoting here, yourself or your business. You need to start promoting the solution that you have for me and not yourself. It does not matter whether you’ve got an Oxford or Cambridge degree; “are you able to solve my problem” is all the client wants to know. The moment you start marketing yourself, people definitely want to know all about your credentials. So maybe you might meet the one or two who might question how you know what you know, my response, SILENT THEM WITH YOUR WORK, let your work speak for itself. When people go on your website they should immediately see a possibility of their problems being solved.
5. Market within your budget.
So maybe when you started out you were so excited that you did some marketing that was not within your budget. What you can do for yourself now is develop a marketing plan that circles around your budget. You will be shocked at how many ideas you will generate and the marketing strategies you will have in place just by getting the market plan in place.
6. Don’t just hit and run – Repeat!
Maybe you did your fair share of marketing once and now everything seems stagnant. The key to any marketing initiative is repetition. When people are faced with a specific problem you are likely to come up first in their minds. Do not think by doing it once you’ve done a great job; maybe as we speak your competitor is on round 5, so guess who’s going to be thought of first.
If you keep repeating yourself, it means I always see your advert, your blogs and all, guess what, I will end up thinking to myself “who is this person and what are they all about... mmm, what’s their website again and what can they do for me?”
7. Get rid of the copy cat syndrome.
You need to stop copying your competitor and be innovative, lest people start thinking you are a division of your competitor. If you keep copying your competitor you’ll always be a follower and a step behind them because whatever you are copying now, they would have done first. Rather see what they do and even come up with better ideas.
DO IT NOW!
So you’ve read all these tips, what are you going to do now? The one thing that will make you keep circling in the runway is not doing anything. Each day ask yourself what you’ve done toward the advancement of your vision. As you read a new article, take some action points that you can start implementing immediately.
If you need a Strategic Marketing Plan, or need help in putting one together; get in touch with me.
All the best
Cynthia
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