Know Your Market

It is important to fulfil the consumers’ needs and not just your own, make sure you are selling things that people want – and not just what you want to sell. Market research will do wonders for your business as you’ll know exactly what the people want. Don’t just settle for making and selling one product just because you think it’s going to do well. For example, if you’re idea is some state of the art, top quality running shoes, instead of starting off with that one specific product start off with a concept, such as shoes in general. This will allow you to expand new products on an idea that you already know sells.

Keep Costs Low

You should always be trying to keep getting your running costs lower and lower. Anything can happen in the business world, and you don’t want to be caught out. Even if your company is doing really well you should be aiming to keep your costs low –  but not so low that you are scrimping on quality of course.

 

Overestimate Expenses, Underestimate Revenue

If you overestimate your expenses and underestimate your revenue – unless there is a huge cash flow crisis into the business – will always work out well. Errors can be made and things can crop up seemingly out of the blue.

 

Focus on Sales

You’re going to need to find leads to be able to sell your products. Don’t make the mistake of trying to perfect your brand above everything else, because without any leads the company will fail and you won’t even need a brand.

 

Test and Measure Everything

If you don’t test and measure your results, how will you able to improve and expand? Easy answer, you won’t. Primary data like this is extremely valuable because it relates directly to the company and is only accessible to you. Measuring data such as the success (or failure) of an ad campaign will help you improve on it next time.

 

Don’t Discount, Add Value

It may be tempting to offer a discount when sales aren’t doing so well. But all this is essentially doing is taking money out of your pocket, and telling consumers that the product isn’t actually worth what it’s being originally sold for. Instead try adding value to a product by showing your consumers a sense of goodwill and adding something desirable to the sale, because after all, everyone loves a freebie!

 

Always Be Willing to Learn

No one knows everything, there is always something new, and better, and more efficient that you can be learning. The same goes for if you own a business, it doesn’t matter if you’ve owned it for 2 years or 29, you aren’t going to know everything. Remember that learning always comes before earning.