9 Top Tips To Run A Successful Start-Up Business

by Sam Yair, Business Adviser at Coventry & Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce

So you’ve started your business or you’re just about to… congratulations! Your start-up journey is beginning and you’ll be learning, implementing and adjusting your strategy often. Here’s 9 top tips to grow a successful start-up business from our experienced business advisers. We give you tips about creating a professional brand, finding, marketing and selling to your ideal customer and making sure you’re on top of your cashflow.

We also cover why good customer service is a small business superpower and how it can grow and sustain your sales. Plus, why it’s important to have a good support network when you’re a new small business owner. At Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, our job is to support and champion small business and we have an excellent free start-up business programme in Coventry and Warwickshire. Enjoy these 9 top tips and get in touch if you’re local and would like to find out more about our programme and check your eligibility.

If you'd like to find out more about the FREE support available if you're thinking of starting a business, or have just started a business, head to https://www.cw-chamber.co.uk/business-support/business-start-up/

1. Create a professional brand for your business to help you stand out

Creating a professional brand is important for every business, especially start-ups. Don’t underestimate first impressions! Your brand needs to stand out from your competition and give reassurance to your customers. It can take 6/7 times for someone to see your brand before they buy/trust you or your business. Branding doesn’t just stop at the logo and web design.  It also encompasses your brand values – what do you stand for as a business?  These values can become part of your USP or ‘competitive strength’.  Strong brand values that align with your target market will also help you market your business to your ideal customer every day. If you don’t have the budget to employ a graphic designer at first, there are plenty of tools out there to create your brand assets. This includes your logo design, brand colours and social media and digital marketing assets to match. A popular graphics tool is Canva that offers lots of customisable logo and social media templates for free. Or there is a monthly subscription upgrade for access to more content. Try the free version first – you’ll be surprised at how much you can do there.

2. Who is your ideal customer and target market?

Before you start planning or doing your marketing and sales, take some time to write down what pain points you solve for your ideal customer? What are the benefits to them if they buy your products or services? Are you saving them time? Saving them money? Literally stopping their pain? Or does your product allow them to feel special, pampered or ‘be different’ from the crowd. Are you serving a growing or declining market? (what are the bigger market trends?) Each of your products may appeal to slightly different market segments. This evaluation work may take a bit of head scratching, but it will help inform every aspect of your marketing and sales efforts.

3. Create a marketing plan to help you stay organised and stop the overwhelm.

Once you’re clear on what problems you solve, it’s a good idea to plan your marketing activities. Although it may seem easier to approach this in an ad-hoc manner, this can, in time lead to overwhelm. If you take the time to do a bit of planning, it can help you actually do the marketing activities more quickly and stay aligned with your bigger goals and objectives. Think about your marketing channels – ideally a mix between digital marketing channels (such as your website and social media) and traditional marketing (such as networking, events, market stalls or PR in print such as newspapers or magazines). Then think of your content pillars or a set of topics that relate to your business that you can consistently mix-up and post or talk about. If you’re a nutritionist, this could be topics such as: your services, nutrition-based tips and advice, general health and wellness, your events, national food calendar days etc. Don’t have too many ‘topic’ headers but then you can drop content ideas into each of these to pull upon for your next content piece. Then do a rough plan of what and where you will post or arrange a talk or do PR activities in the following weeks. Sketch out the next 6 months and fill it in with more detail as you approach. With all marketing, remember to include your call to action. Remember to tell the customer how to buy from you, how to find out more or sign up to your newsletter for example. Make your communications clear.

4. Keep track of your finances - cashflow is king!

If you’ve started trading in your new business, are you tracking your cashflow? A business can have plenty of customers and future orders, but if you don’t have the money in the business to buy stock/manufacture/pay your salary it can hinder business growth. Indeed, poor cashflow management can make you go out of business! There are plenty of cashflow templates available online. A good place to check is with your business bank. Forecasting, then recording your actual income from difference sources and outgoings is something to get to grips with as early as you can in your business. Your cashflow will also inform you year on year how the business is performing. You can use your first year to inform your second year sales targets, taking into account and planning for seasonal fluctuations for example.

5. Make customer service your super-power

As a start-up small business, you can excel at customer service in a way that your big competitors cannot. You can communicate in an authentic and meaningful way with your customers, answer their questions with expertise and deliver great products and services. Customer service is worth the time and effort. If you get that and the product right, you’ll get repeat customers and they’re more likely to tell their friends (and remember to actively encourage reviews). In many businesses, a great proportion of their ongoing sales are driven by repeat customers, whether you’re a service or product based business. So good customer service isn’t just the ‘right’ thing to do, it also puts money in the bank.

6. Build a support network of people who will help you through the ups and downs of running your own business

In your small business you may be a team of one or you may suddenly be the boss of a small team. Wearing all the hats can be challenging, especially when you experience the highs and lows of being a small business owner and the pressures associated with both sides of the coin. ‘Running a small business is like being on an epic rollercoaster’ says Holly Tucker, co-founder of Not On The High Street. It takes passion, resilience and drive.  We’re not superhuman though!  This is where a support network of friends, family can be invaluable. Don’t bottle things up – seek support where you can and, additionally find some small business buddies to talk to (networking in real life or on social media are great avenues of support) Additionally, find out if you can access free business coaching and advice in your area. At Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of commerce, you can get free 1:1 advice and support if you are trading in those areas and been trading for under 24 months (under 12 months in Coventry).

7. Fail forwards

Don’t give up if you make mistakes, you disappoint a customer, a sales campaign flops or systems let you down – every failure is a chance to adapt and refine your business. You learn so much more with the small and bigger failures than you do with success.  Embrace the setbacks to do better next time and find what works best. Remember, every successful business owner has failed at some point, but being an entrepreneur means you have the drive and determination to try again!

• Remember, no successful business got it right first time!
• Get a business mentor to bounce ideas off
• Treat your customers as you would want to be treated
• Keep motivated and remind yourself why you started the business 

8. Sometimes you just need to start the business and make changes/adapt as you go along

If you’ve started your business and you’re finding the demand for certain products/services exceeds others, don’t be afraid to adapt as you go along. Sometime small business owners can be prone to ‘holding on’ to the products and services they like to do/make/deliver best and are unwilling to adapt. Remember this is a business, not a hobby or a replacement for the job you used to do. When considering if the business needs to make changes to products or services, have a look at the numbers. What’s selling best? What products or services have the best profit margins? That way you can make informed decisions about whether to adapt or change aspects of your business.

In my first business, I co-founded a shop selling interiors accessories, cards, gifts and a little bit of jewellery. Guess what flew out of the door best?  Yes, the jewellery! (which happened to have excellent profit margins)  So we leaned into that and then our business really took off.  We extended further into clothing and accessories (after we’d sold all those lovely interiors pieces).

9. Consider the benefits of having a business mentor

You’re the boss in your small business and if it’s just you running it, you’re in danger of being an unsupportive boss to yourself! (let’s face it, many of us are the world’s worst critics to ourselves)
This is where finding a business mentor can be a real help in your start-up journey, or indeed a few. Having successful mentors to look up to can help you keep your concentration and focus, and avoid making the same mistakes as they did!  They have access to various resources and tools that they can share with you to help develop your business. Finding a local business mentor means that they have local knowledge and have contacts within industries that they can signpost you to. Finally, 1:1 mentoring means you can have structured meetings and accountability to keep focused.  Mentors can give you the support you need to thrive in business. At Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, we can give you free mentoring and business advice, alongside a full programme of online start-up workshops to help grow your start-up business. Get in touch if you’re thinking of starting a business or you’ve just started and are within 24 months of trading. To access our programme, you need to be living or trading within Coventry and Warwickshire.

If you'd like to find out more about the FREE support available if you're thinking of starting a business, or have just started a business, head to https://www.cw-chamber.co.uk/business-support/business-start-up/