What are the Most Important Steps to Building a Business?

Add a Comment

Comment by Robert Sloan on August 2, 2009 at 12:03pm

I think that your advice is spot on for some types of businesses. One of the important things any entrepreneur needs to learn is to find what type of business is right for them by trial and error. The language you used to explain this sounds corporate and businesslike. That's trustworthy and predictable in some social circles and in others it can sound like a scam at first glance.

So don't assume there's one right way to present yourself. Create an image for your business of what you're like at work that's real, that is a part of who you actually are. When I worked as a street artist I went out there in a jeans and a paint-splashed white shirt that wasn't tucked in because I was using the tails as a smudger. I looked like an artist.

I looked exactly like what people expected from an artist -- free, footloose, doesn't care what people think of his clothes, colorful and artistic. So I was displaying my profession in that paint splashed shirt as much as a carpenter with a toolbelt or a medical professional in a lab coat. A big question about whether a given business is right for you is How do I feel about the uniform or expected clothing standards?

Someone who's selling heavy metal or goth music or clothes is not going to offend any real customers by having tattoos or a shaved head. Someone working at a bank would look out of place and have to cover the tattoos with long sleeves. It depends on who you are in real life, and if your business attire and style doesn't fit your real life there's an element of fraud.

Not on any legal level, the person defrauded may only be you as you distort your life to fit your work instead of choosing a profession that fits your life and you as you are.

Ask yourself how much offline personal contact you have with customers. If you don't want to have to spend money on your appearance at all, then choose a business where you can do the work entirely online, maybe get dressed up for a photo to put online in something that fits the look of your business (it may be worth it paying a photographer to make you look good) and then go to work in your pajamas. That's one of the big perks of working online versus working offline. These things don't need to matter if you work online and not everyone wants to spend a fortune on clothes and grooming in order to earn a living.

Communicate clearly with your real audience -- your targeted audience. Again, style of language may be affected by what that is. I was casual, told jokes, pretty nearly taught art while I was doing street art and thought of working out there as something almost like performance art. I was friendly and personal. It was an intimate business. They liked my art, so being friendly and likable was pretty much all that was required. But I had the price scale for types of art by size and medium set out on a big poster with the display of my finished art so that they knew at the start and could choose how much to spend on a portrait.

Art is subjective and personal. I have an egalitarian view of life, not a leadership model of how to interact with people. When I did my street art the whole image in terms of leadership was that I was in charge of myself, neither a leader nor a follower. I didn't try to compete with all the other artists out on the street. Their presence made it more likely that more tourists would come looking for a portrait or a painting.

To sell your own art, you need to just be yourself and make the work visible. It sells itself. Every one of the tourists coming by for portraits knew that was where to find the artists, expected variety, looked up and down the row for an artist who wasn't busy doing someone else and then chose among who wasn't busy. The more artists were out there, the more often all of us were busy with someone getting painted and someone else waiting.

I didn't expect to lead that community. I wasn't the best artist and wasn't the worst, something that left me very comfortable because I could learn something from the old timers who were so brilliant at what they did. I chatted with them all as equals and shared tips with anyone who was curious, client or artist. So I guess sometimes I fell into a teaching model.

The fourth one is interesting. Some of it makes sense no matter what you do: courtesy, charging a fair price, create real value, these things do apply to any business. A tattoo artist needs to keep good clean antiseptic conditions, get and maintain good equipment, stay in touch with the world of tattoos and communicate well in that social context. The style of communication would be very different from someone selling a business service to corporations but a good reputation in that subculture is essential.

Being willing to make good on it when things go wrong is priceless.

Any business owner, and I do mean in any business, who goofs up and then makes it up to the customer in a generous way is not buying trouble. That's buying enough good reputation ten times over that'll bring in so much more business by word of mouth that nothing else is that powerful.

I promote Dick Blick art supplies all over the place because the first time they goofed on my order, they apologized, sent a replacement item and let me keep the one that was the wrong color. It would've cost more to them to ship it back. But their responding that promptly to my telling them that colored pencil was the wrong color, that little pencil was a freebie that set my attitude about them for years. They do this consistently. So I don't go telling peolpe "Blick never makes mistakes in shipping."

I tell them the truth that when they do, as all mail order companies do, they resolve the situation fast in my favor every time.

What I find amazing about this is that big companies don't usually have that level of service and consideration. When I find a small store or independent business with that kind of integrity, then I stick with them, give word of mouth, go out of my way to shop there to keep it alive. Some little indpendent drugstore with that attitude might get my picking up snacks and rubber flip flops and other sundries there along with my prescriptions and not bothering to go to Wal-Mart for a few cents off the price, because I know I want that store to still be there.

Big companies that rely on volume are more likely to go for rock-bottom pricing than great service. Wal-Mart doesn't always treat me with that kind of respect, though it can vary with how good the individual manager is how well their customer service functions. Blick actually does it when they're on the scale of Wal-Mart so my opinion of them is very high.

When you're doing a secretarial service, give rational deadlines and do the work on time. When you can't, immediately apologize and warn the client before it's actually happened. This is more impressive than apologizing after you missed a deadline. "I'm sorry, I've gotten overwhelmed with too much going on at the same time and I'm not going to be able to have your resume by Monday. Realistically I'll be able to clear this mess up by Wednesday."

It's okay for an entrepreneur to mention it if there's a personal reason. "My kid got sick and I've been doing nothing but running around to drugstores and doctor appointments for two days, so everything got bumped to Wednesday. I haven't forgotten and I have your resume on a priority, you'll get it as soon as I can finish it up. If it's an emergency, please tell me so that I can give you more priority than the rest of my clients."

Most of them would look at that and respond by going "Oh, don't worry about it, Wednesday is fine." Then if you get it done on Tuesday it looks as if you gave them an extra effort and were putting them on a priority. The ones who are either extremely fussy obnoxious customers or have real reason to need it on Monday have just put themselves on the top of the priority list and will get theirs Monday. But you've got permission from the rest of your clients to do them first and get to theirs within the time available. You don't have to put all fifty of the resumes you need done on Monday by your previous schedule on the same priority.

You can solve a lot of problems with communication and wind up leaving a better impression than if nothing went wrong in the first place. This does connect with time management skills. It helps to know how long it will take you to do all the work you've already generated and learn how to accurately estimate deadlines.

Most people are horribly overconfident in deadline-setting. What works is to make your best estimate taking into account anything that can go wrong and then triple that before giving anyone a deadline. This accounts for all the things you didn't and couldn't think of. It accounts for your getting sick or your kid getting sick, it accounts for tons more business coming in all at once or your spouse found out your family needs to relocate. It gives much more elbow room for rescheduling, but if nothing major happens you'll finish everything ahead of schedule.

Bad deadlining also results in the non-customer tasks of running a business stacking up till they're overwhelming because the work you need to do for a client comes ahead of say, organizing your files or sitting down to work out your budget, cleaning your tools, maintaining your workspace, eating properly, sleeping... and if your work area isn't organized in the way that works best for you, then you can't actually work at the speed you think you can. Instead you're always behind eating yourself up about it and the stress leaves you snappish and grumpy instead of happy to see a new client.

Your post is about appearances. My comment to it is that you make some excellent points and I need to add to them that appearances must accurately reflect reality too. Don't take up a business that runs against the grain unless you also want to change how you live in your off time. Entrepreneurs must live the life of their occupation because we put in longer hours for less pay on startup than people working jobs for other people. You won't have time for a life if you try to start up a business that's at odds with your personal life. If you succeed and create that appearance but tank your personal life, burnout can happen if the work's not rewarding in itself and the social circles created by the work don't make you happy.

So think about who you are and look at these things in relation to that. Scruffy or suit-and-tie, the main thing is to be trustworthy and communicate that well.

Comment by M. Rita Metts on August 1, 2009 at 12:03am

I am constantly working on step 4.

Rita Metts

Comment by Therese on July 30, 2009 at 8:51pm

Thank's Marjorie for that interesting article. You are very right there and I also agree with Victoria Leal. I do agree that you need good comunication, leadership skills, respect for you customers but also love for pople and to be prepared to help every one that want to succeed.
Therese

Comment by Bill Peterson on July 30, 2009 at 6:52pm

One of the most important steps to building business success is pre-launch research. You should know your market and your competition. It doesn't make sense to make a large upfront investment into a business market that is already saturated. Finding a people need or desire and fill that void and your chances of success will increase significantly.

Comment by Steve on July 30, 2009 at 6:25am

I think that the most important step or thing about starting your own business is knowing what your niche will be or knowing exactly what you will be promoting.Some people are actually close to success but a lot of people do not know how to remain focused.In this ebook I explain how you can unlock your own ability to remain focused.I call the book Motivational Force.

Comment by Donna Marie Pannullo on July 29, 2009 at 6:26pm

The most important step in building a business is establishing credibility.

Comment by Michael Lambert on July 29, 2009 at 3:33pm

Good article! In my email, you asked for my opinion. My opinion is that it depends on the business one is building. Yes, all of your steps are important, but depending on the business one is building, some steps have greater importance, others lesser importance. For most businesses, almost anything can be achieved if one has money to work with and is not too greedy to use that money to hire capable people to build and maintain the business. In my own case, we are four people building social-networking websites that we believe can challenge and exceed Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or anything else out there! BUT we lack funding to do our websites the way that they should be done! So in my own case, money is the most important ingredient. But I myself neither have the personal credibility nor the social-confidence to approach angel investment groups, which also often require money to speak to the group. So unless I can find a one-on-one angel, which is very very difficult to find because they usually don't advertise themselves, I probably will have to struggle with cutting corners and taking a lot longer to develop my websites than should be taken. I believe I am developing the greatest business project in the world right now, not simply from a profit point of view, but from a humanitarian point of view: what I am developing can create millions of jobs throughout the world. About one week after I started this project I had a spiritual dream in which I asked if these websites would make money and the skies became cloudy. (I was in a field). The rainclouds poured their rain down. Everywhere I looked it rained gold coins! Millions of gold coins
falling from the sky! I believe that was an answer from Heavenly Father to me that the businesses I am developing are worth a fortune! And what I am developing I am going to share with the people of the world. But the God of heaven did not indicate that it would be easy or quick to develop these ideas of mine. He just indicated what the results would be. I need money, and the more money that I have, the better and the quicker these things can come about. I am willing to give almost anyone an EQUAL profit-sharing partnership with me for almost any investment by them: whether it's money or just work. Not only am I not a greedy person, but I believe these multiple websites will be worth $BILLIONS! Therefore even if I had 100 EQUAL partnership sharing partners, there should be lots of profit for all of us, and as long as no one is greedy thinking they need exorbitant profits to be happy, we would be okay as partners - because, frankly, most of the returns are going back into member's pockets!

Michael
talkingchinese@yahoo.com

Comment by Jo Kennard on July 29, 2009 at 3:24pm

Hi

Great article!!

To add to this:
1. Treat you customer with respect (don't try and pull the wool over their eyes!)
2. Deliver what you state - this may be a product or a promise.

BUT a big one for me to make sure we are successful is BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE. With out this all the best advice goes out the window!

Have a great day
Cheers
Jo

Comment by Rudy Hiebert on July 29, 2009 at 2:09pm

I know some people in business who did not follow these "very important steps" and are more successful. Generally I agree with them and will follow-up on them if I've missed some.

Comment by Dr. Erica Goodstone on July 29, 2009 at 1:46pm

Marjorie, Your advice and the steps you presented are right on. However, after spending the past few days tuned in to The Virtual Abundance Expo sponsored by Alex Mandossian and Scott Martinueau, I must say that you have left out the very first, most crucial and far reaching, essential steps. First, before creating your image and focusing on your target market, you need to decide what you want to create - think big, dream big, and develop clear and specific goals. And, more important and even more essential than that is to have a mindset that allows abundance and success into your life. Without big dreams first, how can you achieve big success? And, with scarcity thinking, how can you create abundant success? Everything that has ever been created actually originated as a thought. Aligning your consciousness with your dreams and goals is the essential beginning of any successful business. Thanks for your information. DrErica

• First
• Previous
• Next
• Last