Whilst major business are struggling and failing in the tough economic climate, many small businesses are experiencing the opposite and are thriving. It’s never been easier to start your own business and become self-employed. If you are thinking of making that step and turning your talent into a business, take a few minutes to watch this inspirational video that I have found…
I came across this article today which states that most small businesses fail within the first 5 years – the article is based on US statistics but these statistics are likely to be the same for other countries.
One of the comments lists two things the reader believes indicate that the business has been a success:
Pays a living wage comparable to the national average to it’s employees and/or owner
I agree and disagree with the first statement. With the global economy in such a mess at the moment many people are starting up businesses in their spare time outside of their main jobs because a) they need extra money b) they have a skill/hobby/service that they feel is in demand.
If you are a Twitter user, take a look at your followers and the accounts that you follow, a large majority of these are probably ‘ordinary’ people who are using Twitter to engage with other businesses and to promote their own. Social Media is a great leveller and is a massive help for smaller businesses to compete against larger organisations. It also helps businesses talk directly to other businesses that they may never have interacted with before.
How do I think that you can define success? Like most things it’s all relative as each and every business is different. Below are a few ideas:
Does your business get repeat business?
Is it making a profit?
Is your product/service/skill still in demand?
Are you seeing sales growth?
Most importantly, is your business achieving what it set out to do?
If a business set out with the sole aim of increasing the owner’s income by an extra £500 a month to meet the day to day bills and it is providing that amount (plus enough to cover year end taxes), then the business owner will consider it a success.
One of the major factors behind businesses failing (small and large) is that the business sets unrealistic goals. If you make hand made chocolates, don’t set out with the aim of competing with Cadbury’s in your first year of trading. Be realistic about it. Use the mnemonic SMARTER:
Posted by Rob Scott | Posted in Blog, Tips, Tutorial | Posted on 01-06-2011
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I’d wanted to blog for a long time, but really struggled with just about every aspect of it. I never knew what to write or how to make it interesting for other people. I’d followed Nikki Pilkington on Twitter for a while and had heard good things about her skills from other people. When she advertised the 30 day blog, aimed to make me a better blogger, I jumped at the chance.What did I learn? More than I could have ever imagined, but most importantly that blogging can be a lot of fun. From keeping the posts short or splitting longer posts over a couple of days to including images and commenting on other blogs the whole challenge was fantastic and a lot of fun.I was sent 30 separate emails each with a different challenge ranging from writing about a specific topic to writing a guest blog for someone else, but the best part is that each one allowed you to use the lessons learned from the previous days to improve the blog post. Not only that I met a bunch of like-minded people who all wanted to become better bloggers and took the step to upgrade my website to enable me to host a blog within it.The main question is ‘Does it work’ and it’s an emphatic YES. Traffic to my blog was non-existent, but within a few days of blogging regularly the traffic increased massively – from 400 hits in a year to 600 hits in a month!
If you are serious about becoming a better blogger and have around 30 minutes a day to devote to blogging and reading other blogs then this a challenge that you will not regret taking part in, and most importantly it’s a lot of fun
I’d wanted to blog for a long time, but really struggled with just about every aspect of it. I never knew what to write or how to make it interesting for other people. I’d followed 
What did I learn? More than I could have ever imagined, but most importantly that blogging can be a lot of fun. From keeping the posts short or splitting longer posts over a couple of days to including images and commenting on other blogs the whole challenge was fantastic and a lot of fun.
I was sent 30 separate emails each with a different challenge ranging from writing about a specific topic to writing a guest blog for someone else, but the best part is that each one allowed you to use the lessons learned from the previous days to improve the blog post. Not only that I met a bunch of like-minded people who all wanted to become better bloggers and took the step to upgrade my website to enable me to host a blog within it.
The main question is ‘Does it work’ and it’s an emphatic YES. Traffic to my blog was non-existent, but within a few days of blogging regularly the traffic increased massively – from 400 hits in a year to 600 hits in a month!
