As
the head honcho of your business, it's your end goal and job to
catapult your company into the stratosphere of success. Getting to be
successful, however, doesn't happen overnight. In fact, you'll likely
have lots of challenges that you'll need to learn from as you and
your team strive hard to make it to the top.
Allow
us to illuminate you with our inspiring tips on how to fashion a
successful, sophisticated business:
1. "Knowing"
Yourself as a Leader
In
our society, entrepreneurs have the fame of exuding a certain
confidence that is infectious and inspiring. They are natural leaders
because they are responsible for the livelihoods of the people who
work for them and so have no other option but to move forward, driven
by the passion and zeal for making their enterprise work. Though
you'll be making a lot of tough decisions in your day-to-day life,
and you will be making plenty of mistakes, "knowing"
yourself a leader and exuding that vibe will go a long way to getting
others to respect you, especially when the going gets tough.
2. Stay Open-Minded
Because
you're surrounded by employees who aim to please you, it's possible
you may become a bit over-confident in your decision-making process
as time goes by. In order to keep your ego in check and to come
across as a leader who wisely seeks input, stay open-minded and
solicit advice from those around you. Remember, your company is
actually not about you. It's about ensuring your business thrives for
the good of everyone. Be ready to embrace new ideas, even if they run
counter to your own way of thinking.
3. Always Aim to
Deliver Value
Make
it a point to provide value in the product or service you provide to
your customers. When you focus on providing value to your target
audience, you are delivering a solution to a problem that many
consumers have. The better the product or service, the happier your
customers will be and the greater service your company provides to
the community at large. If you're just bent on turning a profit and
obsessively dream of dollars-and-cents, you're fooling yourself and
actually embracing a motive that promotes short-term, rather than
long-term, thinking. Customers don't ultimately care how much money
you want to make, they only care about obtaining value from your
product or service. When you sacrifice value for the bottom line, you
only end up harming the longevity of your business.
4. Build Sustaining
Relationships
Piggybacking
on the previous point, when you view your customers as people worth
forging relationships with, and not just profit generating users, you
are creating a more human-oriented business. People love doing
business with companies they know, like and trust. When building
relationships with customers are a priority for yourself and your
team, you are nurturing the likelihood of your customers turning into
fans, who will refer your business to other people. Being kind,
taking the time to be service-oriented pays huge dividends in
referrals and returning business for your company.
5. Hunt For New
Ideas Beyond Your Niche
Don't
just stick to your own niche and industry for ideas on how to
innovate your enterprise. Just following what your competitors are
doing isn't a healthy long-term strategy, as invariably everyone in
your industry will "copycat" the new strategy. Striving to
think outside the box, finding inspiration from outside sources and
deepening your intellectual scope, however, will lead you to ideas
that allow you to establish a reputation as a forward thinking
business, on the cutting edge of sophistication. It's one thing to
copy a strategy from a competitor, but to be the innovator yourself,
is a feature that is easily recognizable and respected by customers
and industry observers alike.
6. Keep Inspiring
Your Team
Your
employees are the lifeblood of your business. Keeping them motivated,
inspired and grateful to work for your company optimizes short-term
and long-term results. They will feel more inspired to provide
quality work and ideas that propels your business forward. By being
generous of spirit, you foment company loyalty. Every employee values
working for a boss that makes them feel good about themselves.
7. Promote A Sense
of Inclusiveness
Because
of the natural hierarchy of job positions in a company, it might be
easy for you to overlook company team inclusiveness. Promoting good
communication between the members of your staff is just as important
as having them communicate well with you. Organize staff meetings on
the topic, foment team-building activities and/or consider hiring a
business coach who can detect the communication "gaps"
between members of your staff. Your company will more likely thrive
when everyone understands that 1+1 is more effective than just 1.
8. Find Out What
Your Customers Really Want
The
whole point of a company is to deliver a great benefit, a great
advantage and a great result to your customers. But if you're not
crystal clear on what your customers want, than how can provide them
a valuable product or service. Don't act on assumptions. Instead,
undertake market research on their pain points and what they're
looking for from a company like yours. Counting on hard, reliable
data, rather than guesses and assumptions, on what your customers
want is incredibly valuable.
9. Work for Results,
Not Reasons
Continuing
on the last point, don't turn to emotionally-based reasons for
enacting a certain strategy. Base your decisions, as much as you can,
on hard data and survey information. Because the only thing that
matters is results, rather than subjective and biased reasoning,
basing your decisions on data and numbers will better ground you in
reality when it comes to implementing sales and marketing campaigns.
10. Strive for
Constant Innovation
Always
make it a point to find ways of innovating your products, services,
ideas and new ways of carrying out tasks. Innovation for the sake of
just brainstorming something "new" isn't the idea. Rather,
the goal should be to anticipate what your customers would want in
the product buying process and their experience of the product
itself. Adjusting your product or service from time to time and
experimenting with different ways of doing things means your company
isn't afraid to take big and small risks here and there.
---
Bio:
Denise
Recalde is a Senior Content Writer at
Day
Translations, a
human translation services company. A seasoned writer and editor with
eleven years of experience under her belt, she is a bonafide
wordsmith who loves playing with the written word creatively and
always takes care to lend a certain hue of snap and color to her
drafts. Always one to rise up to challenges, she has traveled to 14
countries and has worked on a smorgasbord of writing projects that
spanned several industries, from finance to health to beauty and
fashion.
