How to start your own business step by step?
If you’ve always dreamed of starting your own business and are wondering what to do, you should know that you need to follow some logical steps, starting with knowing the market you’re going to serve and what you’re going to offer . This is the first step. Then, you should begin the numerical analysis to determine the prices you’re going to offer. If you’re going to partner, find people who share your vision, people with whom you can share the workload to get started. Additionally, you can hire freelance business consulting whenever you need it or for specific periods of time.
If you’re considering starting your own business or want to know what it takes to start a business, today we’ll discuss the points mentioned in detail.
- Define your market
- Find the ideal partner
- Make numbers to establish costs
- Organize tasks and functions
- Business objectives
- Outsource what you don’t know
- Promote yourself
- Customer Service
You’re probably wondering what to do to start a business or what type of business you can launch. Starting a business is no easy task . It requires time, effort, investment, and intelligence, as well as a good marketing strategy to be successful.
It’s also important to clearly define your work plan so you know what your next step is. That’s why today we’re going to show you the 8 key steps you should follow to make starting your own business much easier and to have it well planned from the start.
Can I start a business while having a permanent job?
Of course. Starting a business requires work, coordination, and time for your business, but there are some services you can offer to get started in the world of entrepreneurship without having to leave your current job. These are jobs you can do even in your free time.
The best part is that they don’t require large amounts of capital. There are even businesses that require no investment beyond a computer and internet access.
The idea of this article is that after reading it, you’ll start thinking about these steps, develop your strategy, and decide to begin.
Are You Ready?
Check out the 8 steps to starting a business:
1. Define what market need you are going to cover
The first step in starting a business is knowing that what you offer meets a market need —that there are people interested in what you sell. Your job is to figure out who those potential buyers are.
Once you’ve defined the business idea you’re going to start, think about how you’re going to offer your product or service, especially if it’s something that already exists on the market.
To do this, you must answer yourself what added value you will offer your customers, what differentiates you from the competition, or what makes you special.
It’s about convincing yourself to convince others why they should buy from you.
You must justify your quality:
Vague answers like “because I’m the best” aren’t valid. You must justify the quality or find that differentiating aspect you’re going to offer that makes you better than the others.
For example: if your product is eco-friendly, affordable, uniquely designed, made with a better production process, or if it helps a cause…
Look at this:
Look for example at the advertising of some famous brands:
- Subway: Eat healthy and tasty
- Papa John’s: Better ingredients, better pizzas
- Wendy’s: We don’t cut corners
These types of messages are like a promise to the customer or highlight a special feature of the product. Think about this to determine your differentiating factor.
2. Find partners who share your vision
If you’ve decided to partner with someone to start a business, you should keep in mind that the decisions you make regarding the business will be made jointly. Choosing the wrong partner can cause problems down the road. The people you choose should be trustworthy and have a vision similar to yours.
Find a partner who shares your vision and goals and who complements you strategically , so that both of your strengths can be leveraged for the benefit of your company and help it grow.
3. Do your numbers
Before starting your business, you should develop a quick business plan, taking into account the following aspects.
Know your balance point
This is the point at which a business’s expenses equal revenue, meaning there is no profit or loss. To calculate this, you must determine the fixed and variable costs.
Fixed costs include, for example, office rent, fixed salaries, internet plan payments, etc.
Your business’s variable costs may include office supplies, travel expenses, sales commissions, outsourcing personnel, and telephone expenses, among others.
Once you have them, compare them to your total income.
Create a pricing strategy
Calculate the production or operating costs. Then, establish a pricing strategy to offer your customers offers.
It’s important for you to know that even if you negotiate sales prices, you’ll always have a profit margin.
Some types may include market penetration pricing, discount pricing, seasonal pricing, depending on the product’s life cycle, and others.
Calculate the customer acquisition cost
Customer acquisition cost is the amount spent on acquiring each customer who has purchased from you.
To calculate it, you must determine the cost of marketing and sales over a given period of time, including any other related expenses, such as base salaries.
Then you must divide the result by the number of clients you have obtained in that same period of time.
Estimate the average purchase per customer
It is the approximate or most frequent amount that customers usually spend each time they buy something from you.
To calculate it, divide the total sales for a given period by the number of customers who purchased from you during that same period.
That way, you’ll have an average of how much you bill per client, which is known as the average ticket.
These are some basic numbers you should have a handle on before starting any business.
A good way to develop your business plan, with a clear overview (such as customers, resources, distribution channels, etc.) is to use the canvas model. You can see the canvas model step by step in this Innokabi post .
4. Get organized, distribute tasks and functions
One of the most delicate aspects is knowing how to organize the work so that everything runs smoothly.
To do this, it’s important to determine the distribution of duties for each person involved in your company’s production or service chain, as well as a working method that will govern the operation. You should also consider how difficulties will be resolved if they arise.
One way to do this is to create a sales process outline.
What is it about?
It’s a visual way to review the logical steps of the sales or production process, from the first contact with the customer until the sale is closed.
To illustrate this further, imagine you own a digital printing business and describe the steps involved in selling:
- Take order from the customer: measurement, material, quantity, quantity of inks
- Quality control of the document to be printed: Resolution, color and format
- Sending proof print for review
- Approval of the test and signature of the client
- Submission of signed order to authorize printing
- Print requested order
- Delivery to the customer and collection
By having the sales process detailed, you can delegate duties and know who will be responsible for ensuring that a certain part of the process is completed.
This way, everyone within the business organization will know which areas they are responsible for and will ensure that everything runs smoothly in them.
* Also read how you can create your online store
5. Be clear about the business objective
The main objective of every business is to generate sales and be profitable.. To achieve this, your efforts must be focused on the 4 key stages of modern marketing:
Therefore, you must stay focused on it and not get distracted by activities that, while entertaining, may seem unproductive.
Like what? Like micromanaging your advertising design process, responding to social media comments, decorating your office, creating customer loyalty programs, etc. These are tasks you can delegate to focus your efforts on something more profitable.
That’s right, your job is to sell…
In the words of author and business expert Amar Bhidé :
“Focus on the quality and timeliness of your product or service, and on having a good after-sales department. And outsource the rest. Supervise it, but outsource it.”
Always remember your goal and your most productive task: selling and generating new business.
6. Find professional advice on topics you don’t know about.
You may have already defined your line of business or activity, have a partner, and already have an idea of how the work process will work, but it’s also important to seek advice on other aspects of starting a business.
For example, if you need help with legal registration or other permits , billing and taxes , market research, software implementation to optimize work, etc.
In all of these cases, you can hire an expert consultant in the area you need to provide guidance or create a step-by-step plan for you.
Outsource to save money:
Another key point when starting a business is maintaining operations during the first few months. This, while you manage to generate a customer volume that makes it sustainable and allows you to recover your investment.
To minimize operating costs, outsource as many services as possible that aren’t the core of your business so you can focus on what really matters .
Tasks like accounting , email marketing, social media , or website maintenance can be coordinated with someone else, who may not even be in your office.
The way to do this is through email, project management applications or virtual work platforms .
Online job platforms not only allow you to find the help you’re looking for, but also to manage the entire project within the platform.
Try to hire permanent staff only when necessary. That is, if it’s a daily task that requires on-site work or supervision.
Minimize operating costs by keeping your team small.
7. Promote yourself and get clients online
No business strategy would be complete without promoting yourself on the largest medium of communication: the internet, which offers a great opportunity to make yourself known. The internet is the easiest way to attract potential customers and make them aware of you.
To start a business, you should also create and optimize your website with the help of a professional: Hire a programmer to put your site online, and then find an SEO (search engine optimization) expert to help you appear on the first pages of search engines.
* Check out the essential tips on how to create a professional website
Add a blog to share relevant news about your company. Publish topics related to your business, providing interesting facts, news, and tips.
This way, you solve specific problems for people searching for what you offer and attract potential buyers. This is called content marketing.
This will be very useful to you:
Once you have your blog up and running, promote your site with advertising campaigns on search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo!
Afterwards, you can contact influencers , recognized professionals in your field who have good credibility and followers.
Invite them to learn about your brand or services, arrange interviews, or host video conferences that you can then add to your YouTube channel (creating your own YouTube channel is also important).
Another strategy that works very well is to talk about your services by offering to do guest posting on sites in your area that are visited by users who fit your buyer persona profile .
What is guest posting about?
It’s about publishing a topic on these sites that is valuable to them, but also beneficial to you. This way, you build credibility, offer value, and create interest in your product or service without having to rely solely on advertising. Remember that people prefer to buy, not be sold to.
Continuing with the digital printing shop example, you could guest post on a graphic design blog, covering topics like how to check photo resolution and quality, how to create a custom calendar, ideas for printed cards, and more.
* Learn the definitive guide to attracting customers 24/7 without spending on advertising
Don’t forget social media and email marketing:
A good digital marketing strategy includes social media. Creating a Facebook fan page and other accounts on the major social networks (Instagram, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube) allows you to attract followers who will become prospects, customers, or brand ambassadors.
You can include other networks, such as Pinterest, Soundcloud, YouTube, etc. It all depends on your business and your communication needs.
Send your customers newsletters with relevant topics you’ve published on your blog, as well as important news and offers.
* Learn how to create effective email marketing campaigns
Select the different types of audiences or customers you have. Offer each segment more personalized content that’s more interesting to the recipient.
* Learn the 7 steps necessary for an effective email marketing strategy
8. Implement good customer service
When starting a business, all the effort involved in advising you, implementing your marketing strategy, and promoting yourself must be complemented by excellent customer service.
Remember that you owe it to the customer:
You must make it easy for your potential buyers to communicate with you. Streamline the response time to their inquiries. Whether through email, social media, or phone lines. You can also implement a chat system on your website. This way, you can resolve simple questions or issues and provide information quickly.
At this point, it’s important to have links to your site handy. That way, you can send them to the client so they can view additional information for their questions. This way, you’ll provide a quick response that’s truly useful to the customer.
Always strive to treat your customers professionally, both when they contact you with questions and when they purchase your products and services.
* Learn how to improve customer service in 7 easy steps
Don’t forget to ask for contact information from those who show interest in what you offer. It doesn’t matter if they didn’t buy from you right away. You can offer them promotions or more specialized products to close new sales.
Remember that you don’t have to do the work alone. You can always count on the help of a professional to advise you every step of the way when starting a business.
Find expert help by posting your project or request on SoyFreelancer.com. Good luck and good luck!
