Friday, February 29, 2008
SkyQuestCom's Success Blog: How to Start a Successful Business: A Beginner's Guide Part 1 of 3
Where Do You Start?
Getting started, you need to have have the right mindset, passion and you must rally support. Prepare yourself mentally by writing out your mission statement and objectives. Then rally support.
How to Start it Right?
Right Company Name: Select a name related to your business and easy to remember and pronounce.
Forms of Company: Decide if you want to be a sole proprietor, set up a partnership or incorporate a company. Look at franchising and multilevel marketing types of businesses.
Raising Funds: Before raising funds, ensure you have a practical and achievable plan in writing. Know exactly how much you need and be able to convince others of your plan.
Walk the Street: Walk the street to find out the estimated market size for your planned venture, your product’s Unique Selling Point, profile of your customers, their buying habits, competition, etc.
How to Chart Out Your Path?
Charting out your path means setting your objectives as follows:
1. Visualise
2. Define Target Customers
3. Decide where and what to Sell
4. At What Price and How to Market it
5. Manage Time Frame
6. Projections and Cash Flow
It always helps by writing down your business plan. Then visualise how you are going to implement your plan. This helps you to achieve your business objective and success. Given limited resources, it is important that you define your target customers clearly. To ensure you carry out your plan in a systematic and timely manner, it is also important that you do up a work time sheet.
Set your sales target slightly higher than what the market is realistically able to achieve. This motivates and encourages growth. With the sales target, do a profit and loss projection by month for at least the first year.
Most important of all, manage your cash flow.
How to Make Yourself Known?
You can have the best product on earth, but if no one knows about it, you will probably fail.
Knowing your target audience and objectives of your marketing campaign is the first step to selecting your right marketing tool. The various types of marketing tools are: by Word of Mouth, Internet, Advertising, Sales Promotions, Public Relations etc.
Allow time for results of the marketing campaigns to show. Do not be too quick to judge the effectiveness of the campaign. Be persistent. However, be sure to include a way to measure the effectiveness. For example, the number of cut out discount coupons redeemed verses the number of mails mailed out. Plan your promotions 2 steps ahead, like using one promotion to promote the next event or cross-sell products.
Last but not lease, a database is a valuable tool for more effective and targeted promotions and encourages repeat purchases. Do not forget that a good database must be maintained and updated.
You can learn even more business strategies and secrets from internationally renowned business experts including Jay Abraham, Brian Tracy, Keith Cunningham, Tony Alessandra, Gerald Bradley and many others at http://www.SkyQuestCom.com/learning.
With over 200,000 subscribers around the world, SkyQuestCom is Asia's largest multimedia e-learning company. SkyQuestCom offers online video seminars of the world's best personal development experts and business gurus including Anthony Robbins (Unleash The Power Within), Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad), Brian Tracy (The Psychology of Selling), T. Harv Eker (Secrets of the Millionaire Mind), John Gray (Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus), Jay Abraham (Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got), Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and many more.
Labels: Business, Business Marketing, Business Tips, Internet Business, Marketing, Small Business, Start Business, Success, Success Blog
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