Setting up your business for success – Part 2

Along with knowing how to use social media and digital channels well can help you create awareness and set yourself up for success.
businessman hand with drawing a graph chart and business strategy for business success finance and banking concept on whiteboard

Knowing how to use social media and digital channels well can help you create awareness and set you up for success.

In part one of this piece we looked at the basic financials in setting up your business, what else is key to success in the early years?

Build awareness

One of the most important things is to create a brand or awareness around a message for your product or service. If you’re a food outlet, that could be having a reputation for quality, or for being vegan or for serving entirely beef. The business needs to have a strong brand. It has to stand for something, and you have to build awareness around it. Creating awareness is what creates a flow of customers, and you need to find out where to get more of them. Many times this is affected by amenities – how easy is it to park, what is the visibility of the business, and how easy is it to find online?

Remember, you cannot superficially decide that your brand stands for a certain promise – you also need to execute. That means everyone in your organisation will need to deliver on the promise faithfully. You have to be something, and you have to deliver it consistently.

If you get these core fundamentals right and deliver them well, you should begin to see your business grow.

With business success you’ll find new challenges, and decisions such as how to continue to drive growth. Will you make acquisitions or will you grow organically? Can you grow your business organically with the current funding, or do you have to borrow more money?

It may be necessary to engage with a banker to find someone who can actually do it for you, or someone like a business advisor.

Recruit, train & retain

When the business becomes too big, you need to put people in place who can do faithfully what you would do if you were in their position. It becomes more of a management game. This also means you need to give them the ability to make decisions, and you need to be able to trust in their decision-making process. That comes down to how you recruit, train and retain.

Use technology

One of the final things I think successful modern-day small businesses need to consider is how to use technology to forward the business.

‘Knowing how to use social media and digital channels well can help you find influencers and new customers.’

Accounting software now uses cloud technology to make account management far less time-consuming. Particularly in industries such as retail, I believe technology can play a really big role in terms of merchanting.

Banks also offer options such as enabling you to do credit-card transactions on your mobile phone. That way you don’t have to send an invoice and wait for your customer to pay several weeks later. This also takes away the headache of having to collect money when it is overdue.

Immediate billing is one of the most important things you can do, as it helps you manage your debtors and helps your cashflow. This also takes away the opportunity for people to renege on payment. You flush them out early.

I also think technology plays a big role in advertising for small businesses. People are all online these days. Understanding how to use platforms like Google Ads and Facebook advertising can be really cost efficient, and effective in spreading your messages. Always be willing to learn and try new things. Knowing how to use social media and digital channels well can help you find influencers and new customers.

Starting a business is tough, but with the right knowledge and tools you can set yourself up for success. Good luck!

Mark Bouris, Executive Chairman, Yellow Brick Road

This article first appeared in issue 13 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine