Due to the nature of my work (and this blog too) I get a chance to work with many wonderful business startups and people only thinking of launching their self-employed careers. I help them to start their venture and well, basically rock their world.
But also thanks to this I get a chance to observe how those people work, what problems they face and how they try to solve them.
Many new businesses have a tendency to suffer the “big boys disease”, they try to solve their problems the way big companies would. They try to do things they not only can’t afford but also shouldn’t be doing in the first place.
It’s hard for me to tell if it’s good or bad however I can see the effect this approach has on the startup business. It’s not always causing any real damage. It rather takes away valuable resources that could have been used for something more needed in the business.
In light of this, today I want to properly solve 5 of the most common business startup problems I noticed. Below I am going to show you the problem, the most typical solution and outcome and then I present you with my suggestions for a proper solution.
Ready?
Problem 1: I need to communicate professionally with my clients.
Typical solution: Trying to create a nice looking mailshot, usually by means of pasting a word document with images and so on into an email message. Typical result: A disaster. The email, even if it doesn’t get marked as spam will most likely look awful on your clients’ machine sending completely opposite message to the one you intended.This is the mistake practically every startup I worked with recently made. It seems that sending offers and discounts is in our nature, we naturally think that this is the best way to get people to buy from us. Let’s face it, Amazon and others do it so we should too. And since they have those lovely emails, everyone should be doing this.
In reality (and leaving the technology on a side, at least for a moment) all of the above statements are wrong.
Discounts are good incentives; true but if you have only a handful of clients (and you always work with only few people in your startup stage) it is much better to focus on building relationships at this stage of your business development. Now is the time, it will be more difficult to do it when you have 500 people to keep in touch with.
So if you want to send an incentive to your client, don’t do a mailshot to all of your 5 clients. Send each one a personalized email, offer the client a discount but make it sound as if was for him. Since you have a small client base, keep things very personal, focus on the relationship.
People love personal touch and in reality, in business you can afford it only when you’re small. Big boys have to resort to mass emails but believe me, personalized one works million times better.
And when it comes to the fancy looking emails? Unless you are a developer and know how to do it, stay away from them. A simple few lines of text will work much better than something that will fall apart on the users screen, letting alone the fact that it may be classified as spam.
Problem 2: I need a fancy website and allow people to order online from me (or do any other fancy stuff).
Typical solution: Ordering one from a web shop that will do it for you even though you don’t need it.Typical result: Money spent on something that you won’t use anyway that you could have allocated elsewhere to a better result for your business.
This one is debatable however my feeling is that unless e-commerce is your business, you don’t need a fancy website, at least not at the beginning. You probably won’t have many visitors for quite some time and I’d say it is better to invest your time and money somewhere else.
The same applies for fancy technology on the site. You probably won’t use it yourself anyway and most likely your users don’t need all the bells and whistles too.
Instead of a fancy site that will cost you thousands, get a simple WordPress based one that you could do yourself for less than $100 and spend the rest of your money where you need them most.
A simple site will do at the beginning. In time, when you have the experience and money, you can revisit it and develop it further. Although from my experience, such site can last businesses for quite a long time (if not forever) and it is better to invest your money in other areas of your business, where they are more needed at this point of its development.
If you can’t do it yourself, ask someone for help, a friend or relative who can do it. Since design is not involved (you would be using a ready-made template) there is no danger that something will not look as it should.
Problem 3: I am ashamed that I work from home. I need a business address to look professional.
Typical solution: Renting virtual offices in a business part of the town.Typical result: Wasted money and everyone around you knowing that you have a virtual office anyway.
My solution? Work from home and use your money on more important stuff.
Most businesses in your town probably know all the addresses of virtual offices. I certainly do in mine and can easily tell when someone is pretending that they have a fancy address when they are only starting out. So no matter how badly you try, people will know that you have a virtual office anyway.
Instead, don’t be ashamed to work from home. Millions of businesses operate this way and I doubt that today anyone would have a problem with that. I work from home, I don’t hide this fact from anyone and actually I officially state that I wouldn’t like to have an office in town ever again.
There are few other aspects of working from home that actually attract clients. You become more personal with them, they may hear your kids in the background for instance and most of them will love it. You become a real person, not this guy in a suit with a business persona he maintains from 9 to 5.
Problem 4: My clients need to be able to reach me all the time. This will make me look much more professional.
Typical solution: Virtual office with phone answering service.Typical result: Your clients talking and leaving you messages to a stranger who doesn’t know a dime about your business, well maybe apart from your name.
I think as people we get obsessed by big corporations with secretaries and so on. In reality, in the world of small business no one cares about that. People are much happier to leave you a voicemail than to be talking to someone who doesn’t give a crap about them.
This is one of the biggest misconceptions in business; that you have to be available all the time. No, you don’t. In fact, there should be times throughout the day when no one should be able to reach you. Why? Because you are working or you are at meetings and can’t take the call. Or you simply may not want to be interrupted.
The thing is, no one will feel offended if you don’t take that call, or if your phone goes to voicemail. Naturally you need to return the call quite promptly, within couple of hours or a day at most but you don’t need to be available all the time. In fact, having a person answering your calls will not change anything. Your clients will still not be able to talk to you anyway.
Problem 5: My competition markets themselves everywhere, so I need to do the same.
Typical solution: Trying to do everything at once, social networking, marketing, networking and so on.Typical result: Abandoned social networking accounts that show up in Google searches and damage your brand, networking that you only do once in a while because of the lack of time and do not follow up with everyone you have met and so on.
You are not going to do everything at once. And in fact, trying to do so is probably more damaging to your business than if you only did one thing alone. Your competition have probably been around much longer and they had time to introduce all of the things that they are doing but I bet they also did it one by one. You, especially if you’re on your own are better off choosing one thing and mastering it first. Once you see that it works, put it on autopilot and move on to the next one.
Don’t open social networking accounts and so on if you haven’t worked on your marketing message and haven’t found your unique edge yet. Don’t go to big networking events if you have nothing to show for. Instead, start small, focus on the people around you, talk to them about your business, network and gain local reputation first. Once you gain some clients, reputation and know which direction you are going move on to the next thing.
If there is one thing that I learn from the people I work with now is that starting up a business is a scary thing. And I know it to be true, I have been there too. It’s exciting but it’s also hugely demanding and it is extremely easy to fall into a trap of setting too high goals for yourself.
It is easy to get distracted from what’s important, especially if you look at the big boys for inspiration and examples of what to do. It’s easy to focus on trying to be like them, or like your competition but the reality is, you won’t be. And in fact, being like them is the last thing you should try to achieve.
Instead, be yourself. Be proud to be a newcomer in business. Start small and no one will expect big things from you. Be honest about your situation and don’t try to do everything that you can’t do anyway.
Focus on what’s important and tackle those things one by one. You can’t learn sales and social networking at the same time so start with one and move on to the other when you’re done with it.
Just simply, be yourself.
Image by Flickr user, heipei distributed under creative commons license.
About Pawel