Today, there's a myriad of business structures available, from partnerships to corporate entities. Yet, the allure of pursuing one's passion and becoming one's own boss is driving more individuals towards entrepreneurship. A business startup is an exhilarating endeavour, filled with opportunities and challenges. It demands careful consideration and decision-making from the outset. Establishing sound practices early on is crucial in building a sturdy foundation for your venture's success, ensuring sustainable and manageable growth. Hence, we've put together a two-part series highlighting essential aspects to consider when embarking on your journey to start a business.
Who is currently in the market?
As creativity permeates throughout our modern world, it is often difficult to find a new market to sell new goods. Consequently, a majority of new small businesses will enter an established market with existing competitors. Whilst this may seem intimidating, a new business often has the advantage of having the ability to offer a ‘point of difference’. By highlighting how you will differ and stand out against the rest of the competitors, you have a higher chance of eliciting interest in your business and pulling in new customers. However, in order to do this, it is essential that you analyse your market carefully. You must consider who are the competing firms, what they offer, what are their ‘points of difference’, what are they lacking and how influential are they amongst your target customers. It is also essential to analyse your target audience; what do they want that they do not already have, how loyal are they to the current business that they are engaged with and how can you reach out to them?
By anticipating how your competitors and customers will react to your entrance to the market, you are more likely to respond in a more appropriate and effective way, establishing yourself as a business that is going to stay for the long run.
What is a ‘point of difference’?
Let’s divulge further into this ‘point of difference’. What is it really and why is it so important?
When arriving at the chip aisle at the supermarket, we are often faced with a difficult decision: Which packet of chips should we buy? More often than not, we make these everyday decisions almost instantly, however, it is important to consider our thoughts up until our point of decision. There are often many factors that influence our choice, this may be price, packet design, size, flavour options or even placement on the shelves. These are all components that companies have taken into account in order to make their product stand-out, also known as a ‘point of difference’. By having a strong point of difference, your business will be able to have a stronger pull in comparison to other competing businesses and allow you interest a greater range of customers in the market.
Thus, by breaking down your everyday decisions and considering how you make your quick-reflex choices, you can begin to understand how a typical customer is likely to react when coming across your product. Explore ideas on how you can quickly attract a potential consumer and how you can separate yourself from the sea of competitors. In focussing on your point of difference and advertising this attribute to your customers, your business is likely to generate interest and demand, placing you in a comfortable starting position.
How will you manage your finances?
It can often be tempting to dive right into the heart of your business and focus solely on how you are going to better your product or service. However, there are a range of other considerations that need to be made when establishing a business. For a majority of entrepreneurs, they do not have a background in accounting and are mainly interested in pursuing their specific passion through their business. This is where a bookkeeper can come in to help you out. With an abundance of professional skills and experience, they are able to help your business with bookkeeping and provide you with benefits that you can find on our blog post Why outsourcing bookkeeping services can help your business.
It is critical that you are able to manage the financial aspects of your business in order to perform well. This will allow for accurate budgeting and help you pinpoint any difficulties as well as positives that are associated with your small business.
Starting a small business is an ambitious decision that is becoming more accessible to a range of people. If you are planning to take advantage of this entrepreneurial boom, take into consideration the above factors and keep an eye out for our second set of recommendations to ensure that you kickstart your dream business in the best possible way.
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