Tips to help grow or start your business


  • November 15, 2016
  • /   Quint Studer
  • /   training-development,quint-studer

Businessman drawing business strategy concepts with chalk

Everyone has experienced some level of pressure in his or her career or business.

Maybe it was a project deadline. Maybe it was the pressure of meeting sales goals as the clock winds toward the end of the month.

From the people I spend time with through the Studer Community Institute’s work with small businesses, we know that businesses are generally working toward the same outcome.

We’re learning how to have positive cash flow to stay in business, retain employees and provide great customer service.

Quint Studer Quint Studer.

Most of that pressure to keep the business afloat lands on the shoulders of the business owner or a company’s high-ranking executives. You know that people are depending on you to support their families. You help put food on tables and roofs over heads. You feel that each and every day.

The SCI work and the role of entrepreneur in residence at the University of West Florida has allowed me to meet many people who want to start or grow a company. I’m empathetic to those out there taking risks to create better lives for themselves and their employees, while also giving us a better community.

We try to alleviate that pressure, small bits at a time, as we meet with local business owners to listen. What is going well? What are the next steps? We have a version of peer review where we all put our heads together to help each other. (If you are interested in being included in a discussion group, contact Nicole Webb at [email protected]).

I’ve felt the spectrum of outcomes as a business owner. I’ve had some wins like the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, Studer Properties and the Bodacious Shops.

I’ve had some losses, too, like in biodiesel fuel and BlabTV (though the positive takeaway at Blab is that we served as a bridge to keep it running until another operator was found, saving jobs).

Even at SCI, we’re still a work in progress. The key to success will be the ability to attract funding for our work in early learning, especially for ages birth to 3.

What have I learned as a business owner? What have I learned listening to business owners in our area? These are the three tips for people wanting to start a company, grow a company or attract outside investment:

— Depth, not breadth, is important. There’s a common tendency for new companies to try to do too many things to create revenue. They believe there is no revenue too small or too varied to chase. This is natural. Every operator knows that without revenue, the company dies. But research shows, owners who have a smaller scope with a focus on customer service make it. In many ways, less is more.

Scope means product as well as geography. I met with a CEO recently whose company has seven revenue streams. About 80 percent of the revenue came from just one of those streams. What’s the message? Put most or all the company’s effort in that one stream. Be great at one thing. Don’t diversify yourself into closure.

—Take time to plan. In these quarterly SCI roundtables, each person shares what they want to accomplish over the next 90 days. It is common to have attendees share that they have been so busy that they have not implemented some items they said they would (standard operating procedures, job descriptions, feedback sessions and customer satisfaction systems are examples). What comes across is that “we are so busy building the house, we don’t have time to shore up the foundation.”

Take some time each day to focus on key items that will build the organization. Busy can get in the way of focused discipline when it comes to driving the outcomes you want.

— It still is a customer-focused world. Today most of us face competition from companies worldwide. Be careful that as an owner or operator you aren’t spending so much time on other tasks that you are not in front of customers or potential customers. Here’s an example: A wedding video production company is in its busy season but is also moving into a new space. However, the business can remain in the current space if they want until after their busy season. While the owner is excited about the new space, should she spend time making sure they recruit business and provide great quality or focus on the move? The answer is always that customers come first. The move can come when wedding season slows down.

 

There are many factors that make a business successful. To me, it’s the “four P’s”: Make sure you have the right product, at the right price, in the right placement and the right promotion.

But if you can narrow your scope to what you do best, take time to plan and keep the focus on your lifeblood – customers – that’s one heck of a start.

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