Learn Your Business
Obviously, to have a business at all, you need to have a product, service, or — at the bare minimum — an idea. And, for most businesses to succeed, you need to determine if it’s something you plan on going all-in on or if it’s becoming more of a hobby.
Much like the quote, “an entrepreneur is someone who jumps off a cliff and builds an airplane on the way down,” consider that with your business. .It may have started as one thing, but rapidly grew into something else. That’s what we mean when we say, learn your business. Fortunately, when you’re on the ground floor (so to speak) of a business, you have insight into how your business is operating that you don’t get (and wouldn’t get) in larger companies.
Whether you’re a one-person jack-of-all-trades for your business or have multiple employees and contractors at your disposal, you know what tasks need to be done, where they’re delegated and what they’re costing you.
Failure Is The Path
Another important piece of advice, don’t regard mistakes as failures when you are in the process of growing your business. Small businesses are great because you have time to recover and pivot from a mistake. The failures you make in your business’s infancy will seem remarkably small in a few years time.
Failures are a learning experience, not a disaster. Use failure as motivation to learn more, recover and move forward. Performing little activities and learning on a small scale is what will lead you to advance to higher level.
Small Is Big
The flexibility of being a small business cannot be underestimated or ignored. Remember that in a large organization, changes are made at a slow pace. On the other hand, a growing business can adapt to changes quickly and easily. We don’t want to make comparisons to the tortoise and the hare due to obvious moral, so maybe think of it as a race between a jaguar and an elephant. In this scenario, larger corporations are big, enduring, and high on the food chain, but remarkably slow compared to the jaguar. The jaguar is quick, can pivot on a dime, but it needs to eat. In essence, a small business is easy to maneuver and fast. Being flexible to changes can give you a competitive edge over other large businesses while laying a foundation for growth.
Connect
To make your company, scalable and become a successful entrepreneur is a consistent process. It is important to learn about the opportunities that a good relationship with other individuals and businesses can bring at an early stage. When growing a business, you’ll no doubt come in touch with others who want to partner up, don’t simply pass these up, consider them or at the very least network and connect. There’s always a chance they have more work than they can manage and are looking for someone to offshoot some of their load. Or maybe their business model changes and they don’t provide the services you do.
Growth is also measured in terms of how well sophisticated and connected you are with the market. This means your ability to face high tech challenges and adapt to new technologies quickly. This is where any business can shine. Irrespective of the product or service you offer, giving your customers the best possible experience should be your motto. Being accessible to customers is something every business should be able to do (big and small). Make sure to take a balanced approach in management, by starting small and thinking big.
End Goals
Last but not least, beginning with an end in mind makes all the difference between success and disaster. Every task that you take on in a business becomes the stepping stone when you are headed to achieve the ultimate goal. It makes things easier to handle or devise plan appropriate to the situation.