9 Things To Consider When Starting A New Business
There are so many things that work against you when starting a new business, so it helps to have a definitive guide to how events will flow so you do not lose focus.
Things to consider when starting a new business includes Business model, Marketing and Distribution channels, Startup costs and how to fund operations and many more.
In this post, I want to draw your attention to this 12 point checklist I have put in place for you to gross over so you can avoid most of the pitfalls your path to business ownership has been rigged with. Before anything else let’s look at what business model is all about and what you can do to get started on the right foot.
Here are lists of things to consider when starting a new business:
Business Model
The business model is a complex question to answer, however in simple terms, what this means is that whosoever ask you for a business model, they want you to answer more than one question:
Who’s your target customer?
This is also popularly called niche marketing, where you pick an audience with a single specific need, then you work towards providing a solution to that particular targeted customer. In order for your business to succeed you need to do a thorough niche research into your targeted market so you can establish the best way to communicate your solution to your esteemed audience.
This article by Chuks explains what you need to know about Niche research
What customer problem or challenge do you solve?
Making money online or just about any other business, requires that you provide answers to punters who have money to spend. If you are in the business of entertainment, then put up a video blog where you can post funny jokes your audience will love and keep coming for more.
The question in the business model here would be how are you going to the bank when you have made your audience laugh their lungs out? Are you going to sell your own stand-up comedy DVD series? Will you promote club appearances in your city? Will you be selling funny print on demand accessories like mugs, t-shirts and wall mules?
What value do you deliver?
Value delivery is all about meeting your customer’s needs. How does your business plan to meet your customer’s needs? So as a new business you need to understand and conduct a deep research into what your customer audience might need, then deliver your most valuable service proposal to them.
A good example for me here is how we quickly discovered that much small business startup owners struggle with technology. So we put together an offer for any small to medium e-commerce business owner seeking to get their business online, we will provide them with a done for your solution.
What that means is that we provide a custom business in box solutions in exchange for a small fee or monthly subscription. The value for our customers is that where their business would have needed to hire a full-time technical web support, they get to use our team of creative and marketing to their advantage at no extra cost.
In these teams, the customer has access to SEO experts, Video marketing creators, Product launch specialist and Paid advertising experts. These skills cost tens of thousands when you have to hire them as freelancers or full-time employee.
How will you reach, acquire, and keep customers?
Any business that lasts for years has what we call customer retention strategy in place. As a new business, things to consider when starting a new Business will be how you intend to put your product in front of your customers, how you plan to keep them buying from you over and over for years to come.
In order for your business to survive and grow, you will need new leads to come to your business so if anyone is asking for your business model, they also want to know how you gonna keep them coming to you.
How will you define and differentiate your offering?
The buzz word in the marketplace is USP! Basically, it stands for unique selling point of whatever you are selling. How you plan to stand above or shoulder to shoulder with your competition matters most when you are just beginning.
How will you generate revenue?
This is the most exciting part and probably the most motivating factor for you to put yourself out there online. At this stage, your business model should be able to map out what you will have to exchange for money with your targeted audience. Here at Gradec media, we provide valuable free guides to getting your eCommerce business. What you might also not know is that we provide Web Design, Web Hosting and Domain registration to our customers.
In simple terms, we get to show you how to make money online step by step for free, knowing that if you want to get started you will need A Domain name registration, you will need web hosting and you will probably need help with your web design or Search Engine Optimization services. That’s how we make money.
How To Start A Blog and Build Best Conversion-Focused Content with WordPress
But that is not all, we also do business to business consulting especially for customers who want to advertise online or social media, we manage and run their advertising campaigns. With our $5/month minimum web hosting membership of over 7500 strong membership (and growing), we have a stable revenue stream.
What’s your cost structure?
Because the main focus of a business model is to map out an entry and an exit point, you have to understand what it would cost for you to get started in the first place. So things to consider when starting a new business would be appropriate costing of your startup and how you can break that into manageable chunks.
Some business models allow for low start-up costs simply because they have plenty of options on the implementation stage, that you can do yourself, avoiding having to fork out money you do not have as a new business.
What’s your profit margin?
A good business model offers new business owners more than one way they could structure their costs and revenue streams to increase or just break even.
With a business model to hand, you could use Spreadsheets to make quick, hypothetical changes to your business model and immediately see how the change might impact your startup business now and in the future.
This method has been used since computers came into the business scene and now has been perfected by the growing of business applications that are more intuitive than the old spreadsheets.
The great part of business models is that it allows you the freedom to look into the future and see:
- Everything it takes to bring a product or service to Market: A business model breaks down everything from design, raw materials, manufacturing, labour, and so on.
- Everything it takes to sell that thing: marketing, distribution, delivering a service, and processing the sale.
- How and what the customer pays: pricing strategy, payment methods, payment timing, and so on.
Many blog posts have been written about how easy it is to start a blog and make money off it. What most of these guides do not tell you is that a blog is a business that has a model built into it. Without having a clear business model around your blogging idea, it’s almost impossible to make money writing blogs.
