New Entrepreneur: 4 Tips for the Rookie Business Owner

Starting a business is both an exciting experience and a challenging one. If you are a rookie business owner, you are at a greater risk and need to take extra care to prevent things from falling apart. Here are four tips that can help you.

Diversify Your Portfolio

Many first-time startup founders fail when they over invest in certain types of lead generation and marketing activities. As a general rule, an entrepreneur should never put all their eggs in one basket. If you spend all your resources making cold calls and none building a high-quality website, you are setting yourself for failure.

The opposite is also true. If you spend all your money, time, and energy on building an elaborate Web presence but do nothing regarding research and reaching out to your prospective customers, you are going to miss out on vital opportunities. The best approach is having a good mix of outbound lead generation.

Put Down Agreements and Contracts on Paper

Written agreements are important for legal protection in case something goes wrong and also puts the mind of your client at ease. It helps you to set out your expectations and be assured that the job you are paying someone to do for you will be done right. These documents allow you to show not only your professionalism but also your credibility.

You should never take the mistake of leaving no paper trail for any reason. While it is fine to try to demonstrate that you trust your team and your workers, when it comes to your new business it is best to be extra cautious. A small mistake can mean the end of your startup. So it is fine not to take any chances at this stage.

Be Self-Controlled

Many rookie business owners often go wrong when they become their own biggest fans, especially when things appear to be on the right track. This is fine to some extent, but when it reaches a point where your reaction causes you to lose sight of certain truths until you cannot take care of the concerns of your customers, something is clearly amiss.

If you are too eager to close a business, your reactions might scare your customer or make them put on the defensive. Such over excitement makes them think that they are losing something or over spending. The secret is to control your feelings and reactions at all times so that your customers can only see the professionalism that is in you.

Be a Problem Solver

If you do not consider yourself a problem solver, you surely should not go into business. Marketing is all about solving problems. Entrepreneurs get into business simply because they have discovered a problem in the society and are prepared to create or improve something to fill that gap.

We can learn from the CEO of Check City, Tracy Rawle, who when they discovered that they could use the concept of financial services to help solve many problems for the people in Richmond, Virginia. They sold their two restaurants and started offering financial services there. From this single store, this business has grown and now has over 70 stores across the country.

Many people have the wrong notion that marketing is about overcoming objectives and talking people into buying a product or service. Most successful sales people know how to build relationships and have unique ways of solving the needs of their clients. So if you want to be sure your startup will serve your community for a long period and you will have no shortage of sales opportunities, focus obstinately on helping your customers get to a better place than you found them.

For you to succeed in your adventure, perfection is not a qualification. Entrepreneurship involves continuous learning and the best way to learn your customers and how to solve their problems is to be an entrepreneur.

About the author

Hannah Whittenly is a freelance writer and mother of two from Sacramento, CA. She enjoys kayaking and reading books by the lake.

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