Small Business Truths - 7 Things Experts Don t Tell You About Starting Running a Small Business
It's All About Marketing
Marketing is about what prospects and clients think, about their perceptions. You must find a way to have them think of your products or services before they think of those of your competitors. You must discover what's important to them.
Focus is Essential
To be successful in business you must have a crystal clear picture of who your prospect is, your target market. And you need to know exactly what it is you're trying to sell them. You cannot be all things to all people.
Good Systems Create Good Performance
A system is simply the way things happen in your business. Poor systems create major problems. Your people can succeed only with clear systems that they can follow easily. Forget procedures. Concentrate on systems.
Think Like A Manager
Most people who start businesses because they're good at something. That dominates their thinking. Small business management demands management thinking: about the "big picture" and how one thing affects another. Managers lead. They accept responsibility for what happens.
Perception Is Reality
The way people - staff, customers, suppliers, associates - see things is reality to them. Clients' opinions may be unreasonable, illogical, impractical, inaccurate or even stupid. But they're the reality you must deal with. Find out what your prospects and customers perceive they want. Then provide it.
Take Care Who You Listen To
It's easy to be misled by friends - and by experts. Follow what Bill Gates was doing when he employed two people: not what Microsoft does today. Ignore "best practice" unless it's in an extremely successful small business operating in a market similar to yours. Pick the brains of successful small business people not the 'Captains of Industry".
Learn To Observe
If you want to know what experts do and why and how they do it, don't ask. Observe, then ask. There's a mountain of research to show that experts are poor describers and explainers of what they do. This applies to managers and tennis players.
Conclusion
Running a small business is a great adventure. It can be frustrating, demanding, unrewarding and debilitating. When you're successful, it's extraordinarily satisfying. To help you reach that state remember these seven truths.