Alright! Let’s face it. Starting a new business has never been easy. Answering every “what ifs” and handling economy changes can be extremely terrifying. But you NEED to make a dive and start your business. Even when you make that plunge, you face struggles for a few years till you stabilize.
While different companies face different struggles sometimes, most of these struggles are common to everybody. And they are easily fixable as well. We have listed down some of the very common struggles that every company surely go through, when they are just starting their business.
Finding your market
Have you already thought of what you are going to do?
Then I am sure you must have a very broad idea.
For Example, a Business – Fivestarindy.com (Five Star Complete Restoration business) are focused on water extraction and Water Damage Restoration. They help homeowners in getting rid of all kinds of standing water. So they know their audience and segment.
Finding your segment is easy, but finding your niche is difficult. You cannot take care of the whole segment. So, you need to brainstorm what all niches are possible, and which one is feasible for you to run for a long term. In short, you need to narrow down your market and find a specific product or service you want to deal in.
Lets take an Example on how to make this truly work. Let’s say you are an expert in selling products. But can you sell almost everything in the world? I doubt.
So pick a niche of products. Let’s say you have experience in selling clothes.
Thats a good and specific niche, we can dive into. But can we dive further? Is it beneficial to go deeper in the niche?
Let’s say we choose to sell on Men’s Clothes. And Get even more specific and decide to sell sportswear only. Now you surely know about sportswear companies who make a tonne of money. So its very obvious that micro-niche business are sometimes more profitable than starting bigger and wider businesses.
If your business is about a social service to help the needy, you can use a donation software to get things up and running. But otherwise, here are some struggles you will face due to lack of funds.
Getting Customers
Having finalized the segment, how are you going to bring in customers? There are just so many channels from where you can reach them and bring them to your business. Which one are you going to begin with? For businesses who are just starting their work, this one gets tricky, since you might have to shell out a lot of money to do that.
Various ways of acquiring customers include
- Offline Marketing
- Pamphlets
- Hoardings
- Word of Mouth
- Digital Marketing or SEO
- Organic Traffic
- Social Media Promotion
- Sponsored Posts
- Paid Reviews
- CPC Ads or Search Marketing
Buying an Office Space
Till now, you have got the overall idea of what you will be doing for the next few years. Now comes the next hurdle – getting an office space. You need to pre-plan how many people will be sitting at your office in the near 3-5 years. And then, going by that number, you need to find a place that can fit all of them with ease.
Once you have shortlisted the space, how are you now going to get the office furniture? There are just so many things that go in an office, such as:
- Tables
- Chairs
- Stationary
- Drinking water facility
- Laptops and Computers
- Internet, and so on.
How and from where are you going to buy all these things? After all, you cannot begin working unless you have fixed all of this.
I recommend you to read this write up by Jason L, where he explains how to set up the perfect office.
Hiring People
Now comes your team! Before hiring the staff, make an organization chart based on what all roles you urgently need right now. See if any of those roles can be handled by you for some duration. Now get to work and hire people whose tasks you cannot do. Shortlist candidates from various channels, and start with the hiring process. Some of the popular channels where you can find people are:
- Giving job opening on your website
- Naukri.com
- Indeed.com, and so on.
Spread Awareness about your Business
Now everything is already set. You have an office, staff and have started working. Now, how are you going to advertise about your brand? How will you grow and become a household name for your target audience? There are some strategies that can help you reach your audience an spread your word.
- Make a website and popularize it
- Do blogging
- Social Media Promotions
- Join Forums
- Invest in Public Relations
- Use Below-The-Line marketing strategies, such as trade shows, catalogs, etc.