Did you know that more than half of the small businesses ever formed close within the first 5 years? So how do you ensure that your business doesn’t become a part of those statistics? Here are some basics tips for growing a business on a tight budget! To stay in business, a company must have good cash flow. When you start a business, you may not have access to a lot of capital, be it debt financing or equity financing. During this phase, you need to know how to budget, take advantage of available resources, and not run out of cash as you grow your business.
Here are some tools to help you grow your business on a tight budget:
Conduct In-Depth Research Before Starting Your Business
When you are new to the world of small business owners, you may find it difficult to sort through all the information out there needed to get your company up and running. Fortunately, the experts at entrepreneur.com have created a short guide for startups that can be accessed for free on their website. They have guides for more than 20 different business types, which will walk you through the essentials of starting a business.
In addition, you need to consider which types of marketing you’ll use. Since 90% of the global population owns a mobile phone, it’s in your best interest to consider SMS marketing. Text messaging unlocks a powerful combination of strong reach and engagement, quick delivery, ease of use and low cost – making it an extremely effective marketing tool for driving sales and revenue. According to a study by the Mobile Marketing Association, SMS marketing boasts an open rate of 98%, significantly higher than email marketing.
Do Business Planning Carefully
If you are starting a new business, you will need a business plan. Whether you are going to raise funds or not, a business plan will help you in providing a clearer idea in the business development process. If you are new to the business world, this can be a daunting process. But don’t worry because there are many articles and helper applications such as Business Model Canvas, a collaborative online tool that can help you save time in creating business models. As Steve Blank, a renowned entrepreneur and academic, states, “A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value.”
Starting Bookkeeping from Day One
Small business owners certainly have a lot to take care of. One thing that is often delayed is bookkeeping. Many small business owners delay the bookkeeping process until it’s time to file taxes. Don’t make the same mistake! Getting started with proper bookkeeping doesn’t cost too much and we couldn’t emphasize any further how important it is to do this from day one. The longer you delay the bookkeeping, the more difficult it will be for you to monitor your finances because a lot of time has passed. According to a study by the Small Business Administration, poor financial management is one of the top reasons small businesses fail.
Website Building
If your business model focuses on physical stores, it would be better if you keep a website for the business. This does not always require a lot of money. As Neil Patel, a digital marketing expert, points out, “A website is the window of your business, keep it fresh, keep it exciting.”
Starting a business does provide great benefits for the perpetrators. However, to achieve this requires great effort as well.
In fact, as many people know, some business owners who are already big now start a business from a small place with minimal capital. In fact, most start a business from scratch. Indeed, there are some risks that will be faced at the beginning of building a business. However, with hard work, everything can be paid off with a growing business and increasing profits.
Before starting a business, first determine what product or service you want to sell to consumers. You can determine this by doing some research first. To stand out and be different from other brands, you can sell useful or unique items. In addition, you can choose to sell something that you really like or you have a passion for. Apart from liking it, later you will be more enthusiastic and willing to face various obstacles so that you can achieve success faster.
After determining the product, then prepare a mature plan and a clear vision and mission. These three things are the key to the success of a business. By determining the plan and vision and mission, you have a picture and goals to be achieved in the future, starting from the target market, marketing plans and so on. By making these three things you can go on track and stay focused. A clear plan, vision and mission will also make it easier for you when making loans, finding investors, and assessing whether your business is possible to start and further develop. As Peter Drucker, a management consultant, educator, and author, famously said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
If you’d like to know about selling a business be sure to visit Nash Advisory.
When doing new things like starting a business, it’s natural that there are one or two things that are still forgotten and some things are still confused. Make it a habit to record details of goods, operations, activities and challenges that you face. This note can later be used to remind what was forgotten, to be bought and done and used as evaluation material. Making the decision to start a business does have a big enough risk. But if from the start you were afraid of failure, it could be that future efforts will fail. You have to be able to convince yourself and throw away any fear of failure. Failure can indeed happen, but a true businessman will definitely be able to rise and be able to learn from the failure. Don’t try to back down when things don’t go according to your plan. As Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
