Advice for New Business Owners

A while back, I asked business owners what advice they would give to new business owners. Here are their responses to that question. 

 

Gill Andrews	StoriesWithGill Gill Andrews
Rajeev Bagra	splendiddigital Bagra Rajeev	Passionate about delivering services related to Content Creation, Web Development, and Internet Marketing combining online technologies with offline tools.
David James		11 years in Digital marketing – SEO, Copywriting & Link Building
thewritingking	richardlowejr Richard G Lowe Jr.	I’ve written many blogs that all need to be SEO optimized.
Nikola Roza	NikolaRoza	I have 4 years of blogging under my belt. I’m not the greatest expert in that exists, but have valuable insights I can share with you readers, thanks.
Edwin Dearborn	edwindearborn Edwin Dearborn	I have been a C-level executive for over 25 years. I have also given workshops to over 10,000 professionals over that same period of time.
Chas Cooper		Over 20 years in high tech industry, including marketing and product management. Former CMO and VP for global tech companies. Founded Rising Star Reviews as a SaaS company to applying my digital marketing experience to help small businesses with the most important part of their digital marketing: customer reviews.
Arlene
Gaurav Kumar	makone007 Gaurav Kumar

Q. What is one piece of advice you would give to new business owners?

A. Gill Andrews (Content creator and web consultant)

My advice would be to create a plan for your business for the next 6 months and give it a chance by sticking to it and ignoring all shiny things that come your way.

Sure, while you are still crafting your plan, you can read every “how to” post you’ll find and listen to every “how I earned my first million” podcast. But at some point, you need to stop, create a plan that fits your business, and stick to it.

This plan depends on your business goals and the kind of your business.

For example, if you are a freelancer and you’d like to get clients through your website (or anyone who wants to earn money online and has a new website), for the next 6 months you could do the following:

• Choose your niche.
• Determine your target audience and ideal clients.
• Make sure your website doesn’t have major problems regarding technical structure, web design and user experience.
• Make sure your homepage, About page and services page are as perfect as they can be in terms of copy (relevant, valuable, and clear, not clever) and user experience (no frictions or distractions).
• Do keyword research to find out what problems your ideal audience has.
• Decide on a content strategy and start writing at least one quality article a week based on those keywords offering solutions to your audience’s problems.
• Choose one platform (a forum or a social network) and become active there posting quality info and connecting with real people.
• Stay focused.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Gill

A. Rajeev Bagra (Web Professional)

Learn skills related with your business which you can directly relate to your work instead of taking a break for learning a new skill from scratch which maybe a part of your long term goal of increasing your income manifold as a consequence of a newly-acquired learning but may actually spoil your present earning and take you into a world of ideal instead of being practical. For example instead of taking a break of 15 days from your business for completing a certificate course in newly-introduced GST, learn about GST as you complete real-life assignments related with GST compliance for yourself or your client.

A. David James (Digital marketing specialist)

The best piece of advice I would give to any new business owner is that they need to build their audience. They should aim to build a buying customer audience of up to 10,000 people. If it cannot be scaled to 10,000 people, then they need to reconsider their marketing approach.

This will allow them to focus their energies to building a loyal customer following that will continually purchase their products or services. They will always be in the position of being able to make money from that audience. This is because their sales pipeline will always remain full with new opportunities.

A. thewritingking (Professional blogger, ghostwriter and author)

I would tell all new business owners to be prepared to work hard. A new business requires a lot of work, more than I thought when I started. The effort is not always predictable. I’m a writer, so I thought I’d write some books, get some ghostwriting projects, and I’d be all set. But as it turned out, there is constant promotion, marketing, public relations, accountable receivable, bookkeeping, taxes and tons of other things. I found I needed several insurances to protect myself, and the advice of accountants and legal professionals to do things right. Most of all, what I learned (the hard way of course) is to avoid scams. There are so many scams out there, promising to make it easy, instant or just better, that it boggles the mind.

A. Nikola Roza (Founder of Nikola Roza SEO Writing)

Hi Erica, here’s my contribution. I hope you like it:)

My one piece of advice- take it slow and don’t compare yourself to your role models.

You’re making your first step, while they’ve made their 101-st, so it isn’t fair to you. And it’d only get you down big time.

But you can still learn from them.

You’re in luck because they’ve shown you the way by carving out success for themselves.

Follow in their footsteps.

By absorbing the lessons from their paths to success, you can avoid many pitfalls newbie business owners make. And you can advance much, much quicker.

For example:

My first website was a total dud.

I created it with the thought that I need to pump out piece after piece of content, and that Google will reward me for it, because, hey, Google likes fresh content. Of course, it went nowhere and, at best, it was a learning experience for me.

At worst? I wasted both time and energy.

Then I stumbled upon  the work of Brian Dean of backlinko.com He preaches that less content, but of higher quality, is the answer. And a more sustainable way to do internet marketing.

I adopted it and it worked!

The was the solution… for me.

And for you?

Here are the steps:

Find the best examples from your niche and study them well. Separate the winning pieces and make them into a system; the one YOU can follow and that works for you.

It’s not impossible and you CAN do it.

Good luck:)

A. Edwin Dearborn (CEO)

Master the art and science of branding, marketing and sales. Too many startups and entreprenueurs focus on the internal actions of thier business. Your number one priority is generating and keeping clientele. Your cash flow will improve to the degree that you attract positive attention and close new business. New customers are the lifeblood of any new business or startup.

A. Chas Cooper (CEO & Founder, Rising Star Reviews)

Be customer obsessed. Profitable revenue cures all ills in business, and revenue comes from happy customers. A new business owner faces many challenges every day, and it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. The customer should be your anchor for what’s truly a priority. Know when you’re doing well in the eyes of your customers, and know when you’re not. When customers aren’t completely happy, learn from them how you can do better. Never stop making improvements based on customer feedback. And when customers are thrilled with your business, learn what went right and double down on it to make sure future customers have the same experience.

A. Arlene

– Determine for yourself the need for a reliable partnership.
If there is such a need, then it is necessary to choose a responsible partner who is an expert, thinks strategically and is interested in mutual benefit.
– Create a good team in which all participants will support each other and know in which area they need to work without interfering with each other, but rather complementing each other.
– Determine the place or location in which you will promote your business. You need to be well aware of the audience for which you are going to promote your product. If it’s a big popular city, then you need to understand that you need big investments and a big advertising company, otherwise the idea will fall at the very beginning because of strong competition. If it’s an Internet business, the strategy here may be very different, so you need to very clearly imagine selling your products or services in combination with a place or location.
– Another tip: always and in all situations, you need to try to be persistent and have a flexible mindset. You need to be able to respond to changes in time and understand the latest trends in the market for services and goods, but do not deviate from the goal and go to the end.

A. Gaurav Kumar (Make Money Blogging)

The very first tip for every new business owner is to go online. The world of internet is huge, and it is straightforward to join this world. All a business need a website to showcase skills, products, about business etc. When you take your business online, you should also do one of the most important, and that is integrating the blog.

Every business website must have a blog. The reason is that blog help you to educate your target audience to find how useful your products are. Blog posts not only help attract readers and boost traffic but also plays a vital role in increasing conversion.

It is an easy way to make people aware of your business and grow your business in real time.