Top 5 Ways to Build Your Business Digitally

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When you’ve got a small business, it’s sometimes hard to get the word out. While many small business owners depend on word of mouth to help drum up business, building leads by using the internet and the social feed is becoming increasingly useful. In this guide, we’re going to outline the top 5 small business internet techniques that you can use to create business leads.

Always Have a Site for Your Customers to Frequent
Even if you’re not technically inclined, having a portal for your customers to have access to your products and services is very important. Your site should be easy to navigate, have a good UI for your customers, and it should keep your potential customer’s attention. If programming and designing on a content management system (CMS) isn’t your cup of tea, there are a wide variety of companies that will set your site up for you so that you can convert customers online.

Keep Your Site Updated
Many of the small businesses that are converting visitors also happen to have blog content about their products and services. Nothing is more annoying for a customer than a site that has out-of-date information, other inaccuracies, or doesn’t look fresh and easy to read. Blogs are a great way to address the customer directly; you can make blog posts about the types of services that you offer, about the industry, about what makes your type of product stand out, or even about savings opportunities. Additionally, having a steady stream of new content will let your customers know that you care about your business.

Use the Social Feed
The majority of Americans access their social feed before they go to work, during work hours, and for about an hour after they get home. That’s a lot of time spent browsing Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and you can use the billions of users of these platforms to boost your business’s performance. Facebook, for example, has an ads feature that will let you reach out to a certain number of Facebook users in a day. Your business will appear directly in their feed and it’s relatively inexpensive.

Keep Your Generalized SEO Game Tight
Search Engine Optimization isn’t going anywhere. Google and Youtube are the number one and two search engines on the internet, and when someone is searching for a business, they seldom ever go past the first page on their search engine. This is why you should use SEO best practices for your page so that customers can find it on the top search engines. It doesn’t take much; sometimes some search-friendly keywords are all it takes, but that simple change can help your business grow exponentially.

Use Local SEO to Bring in New Clients
SEO on sites like Google aren’t the only types of SEO. Local SEO capitalizes on local search so that, once again, customers can find your business more easily. You can provide your business’s information on sites like Yahoo Local, Bing Places, or even Google My Business, which will get you started. Next, digital word of mouth is very important; it’s imperative that your customers have a good experience so that they can begin leaving reviews about your business on the key sites like Yelp and Foursquare, where the good reviews can help you convert future clients.

Final Thoughts
The future is digital, which means that you’ll need to leverage the internet and social feeds in order for your business to grow. Utilizing these five steps will definitely provide you with palpable results and propel your business into the future.

Jessica Kane is a professional blogger who focuses on personal finance and other money matters. She currently writes for Checkworks.com, where you can get personal checks and business checks.

4 Essential Items to Include on Your Company Website

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E-commerce continues to become increasingly central to marketing success. In 2016, global e-commerce sales reached $22 trillion, a 6 percent increase from 2015, according to eMarketer. By 2020, global e-commerce revenue will climb to $27.7 trillion.

So what does this all mean? Truth be told, your website’s performance is more important than ever for driving revenue. Here are four essentials you should include on your website to maximize traffic, conversion rates and sales.

Content

Valued at $99 billion, Amazon is today’s most successful online retail brand. This is primarily due to the company’s marketing strategy, which includes tactics like price matching and free shipping. However, the real key to Amazon’s success has been content marketing. Whereas most websites only feature product sales pages, an Amazon product page includes content like

  • Free sample pages
  • Customer reviews
  • Links to user forums
  • Links to other works by the same author
  • Related reading suggestions
  • Lists of recommended books in a given category

This information educates visitors, thereby helping them make more informed buying decisions and making them more inclined to purchase a product or service. Amazon’s content marketing strategy also includes featuring SEO-oriented keywords and topics to attract readers from search engines.

Amazon also shares content on social media to draw readers from sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, Amazon’s extensive help documentation provides content that’s valuable for both prospective and current customers seeking answers to frequently-asked questions.

Design

While valuable content can help attract readers to your site, eye-catching design can help keep them there. One company that excels at this is Adobe, which stays true to its focus on products for creative audiences in fields such as graphic design and videography.

Adobe’s homepage is currently paying homage to the 25th anniversary of the company’s Adobe Premiere video editing line of products, with the area above the fold highlighting movie hits edited with Premiere Pro, like Deadpool. This helps underscore the product’s professional target market. Below this are links where visitors can learn more about Adobe’s Creative Cloud signature product, which includes Premiere Pro as one of its components.

This design serves both to grab the viewer’s eye and to steer them toward clicking on a link for a featured product. For visitors seeking other information, there is also a menu icon with additional navigational options.

Graphics

Graphic selection is a key element of design. Your graphics send a message about your brand and products, telling your visitors something about your company as well as about who you perceive your audience to be. Your graphics also set the emotional tone for your site, with factors such as subject matter and color influencing your visitors’ mood.

One company that has succeeded in part by carefully controlling its graphic image selection is Apple. From its inception, the company’s corporate philosophy has emphasized simplicity as the key to functional sophistication. This philosophy is embodied both in the design of Apple’s products and in the company logo.

In fact, Apple’s distinctive logo consists of just two shapes: a bitten fruit and a stem. The logo shape has remained consistent over the years, with the color changing to reflect different marketing themes. Additionally, Apple publishes a detailed brand style guide, which lays out strict policies for use of the logo and other imagery. This helps Apple maintain quality control over its graphics to ensure a professional impression consistent with the company’s branding philosophy.

Products

Where and how you display your products is crucial in piquing customer interest and generating continued sales. A proven approach is to use the area above the fold to showcase a current sale or signature product, with additional navigational links available for other products.

One site that uses this approach effectively is TireBuyer.com. Mobile visitors will notice a sales offer for discounted tires, with a drop-down menu to select specific brands from which to purchase. Meantime, desktop visitors will see an alternate offer with a similar menu selection. This approach extends a special offer to visitors regardless of which product they’re looking for or what device they’re using.

The Art of Inquiry: Asking Great Questions

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Over the years, I have observed a skill that is often lacking in today’s entrepreneurs. I call it the art of inquiry, but in its simplest form what I mean is asking great questions. When entrepreneurs encounter failure, whether it be not meeting a particular business goal, a product launch that crashes and burns, or a business process that gets derailed, I’ve found it can often be traced to a failure to ask questions. Even more frustrating is when you realize that the question did occur to you but you put aside to get on with the work. In today’s rapidly-changing business landscape, asking great questions isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity.

Why Asking Great Questions is Hard

Part of what’s going on here is a failure in the way we educate. When kids are around the five, they’ve developed just enough that they start asking lots of questions. This is a good thing, even if some parents find it a bit frustrating at times. But then they go to school, and the plain fact of the matter is that most schools train students on finding and giving answers rather than asking great questions.

Think about what else goes on in school. It’s the teachers who ask the questions, right? And no student wants to look “dumb” by not knowing the answers, so they stay silent and don’t ask questions. It’s a lose-lose situation.

Layer on top of this our need for speed. Who’s got time to even ask questions, let alone pursue answering them? But if you don’t slow down and ask questions, how do you know what you’re doing is going to get the best results possible? Asking great questions is the absolute core of being innovative.

Modern American culture simply doesn’t value effective inquiry. Entrepreneurs especially feel the need to project an image of being certain of the answers. Asking great questions feels like some kind of weakness.

Regaining the Skill of Asking Great Questions

Asking great questions is a skill every entrepreneur needs to develop. It begins by training yourself to not dismiss those questions that pop into your head. Not every question is a great question, though, so you need to know what makes for great questions. All great questions should be empowering, meaning they lead to thoughtful discussion and further inquiry. They serve to do one or more of the following:

  • Challenge assumptions.
  • Enable a different view of a situation.
  • Get people reflecting on their behaviors.
  • Elicit discussion by being open-ended.
  • Lead to confidence and courage.
  • Result in effective action.

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss once said something worth remembering about inquiry: The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions. Your success as an entrepreneur depends on all kinds of factors, one of which is your skill in asking great questions. 

How to Build and Manage Your Retail Supply Chain

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As Amazon steps up its move into the supply chain market, retail chains are finding themselves forced to improve their supply chain management to stay competitive. As February drew to a close, Target announced it would sacrifice $1 billion in operating margins in order to lower its costs, an effort to compete with Amazon, ZDNet reports. Target chief operating officer John Mulligan attributed part of the company’s problem to inefficient supply chain management, reflected in slow-moving products and excessive inventory. Walmart also announced plans to adjust its supply chain in March, offering free shipping on orders over $35, says Business Insider.

Developments such as this illustrate how crucial supply chain management is to the success of a retail franchise. Here are some ways you can build and manage an effective supply chain to ensure the success of your retail franchise.

Plan Your Supply Chain Management Strategy

The foundation of an effective supply chain is supply chain management (SCM) planning. Map out the steps in your supply chain from supplier to customer, and select metrics to measure performance for each stage.

There are a number of key metrics that help determine your SCM performance. For instance, perfect order measurement tracks how many orders are delivered without errors. This can be broken down into subcategories such as the procurement, production, warehousing and transportation stages. Cash to cash cycle time tracks how long it takes between when you pay for materials and when you get paid for your product. Knowing this is crucial for managing your cash flow. On-time shipping rate tracks how many orders arrive on time, which is vital for customer satisfaction. Simplicable identifies 12 key metrics that can be tracked to optimize supply chain management.

Your sales and marketing directly impacts the rate of your supply flow, so you should consider this while you’re planning your SCM strategy. For example, o-ring supplier Apple Rubber uses instructional videos distributed through social media as a promotional tool. If you use social media in your marketing, tracking your social follows and shares and correlating this with your sales rate can help you adjust your inventory flow to meet demand cycles.

Select Your Suppliers and Processes

After planning your SCM strategy, the next step is to select your suppliers and set up your processes. Look for reliable suppliers with a reputation for on-time delivery. You can investigate suppliers by interviewing them, talking to industry peers and reading reviews by customers and expert reviewers. Directories such as SupplyChainBrain can help you identify suppliers.

Processes that need to be set up include inventory management, pricing, payment, delivery and returns. To increase the efficiency of your processes, you can use supply chain management software (SCMS). Leading SCMS providers include SAP, Oracle and JDA Software.

Organize Manufacturing Activities

Next, you will need to plan the activities in your manufacturing cycle. These include production, quality testing, product packaging and delivery. Your planning should take into consideration which metrics you will use to track product quality, product output and workforce productivity.

Set Up Your Logistics Network

The next step is setting up your logistics processes and network. This involves planning how you will receive customer orders, invoice receipt of payments, coordinate orders with your warehouse and ship your orders.

Your planning will include selecting a delivery service for shipping your orders. In the United States, there are two types of delivery services. Services such as US Postal Service Priority and First Class package services provide confirmation of delivery. Services such as US Postal Service Express, UPS and FedEx provide door-to-door tracking for shipments. Delivery confirmation delivery services are less expensive than trackable services.

Prepare Your Returns Procedures

A certain percentage of your orders will get returned, so you will also need to set up procedures for how to handle returns. This involves setting up a procedure for receiving and processing defective or extra items. It also involves setting up customer service procedures for providing support to customers returning items. You should coordinate your returns procedures with your bookkeeping procedures so that refunds and returned inventory get entered properly into your system.

Unplugged Part 2: Unplugged Entrepreneurs find Business Success

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In Unplugged Part 1: Unplugged Employees Boost Business Success, I made the case for workplaces cultivating a healthier relationship between employees and the technologies they’re expected to use because their productivity and, by extension, your company’s success, depends on it. This follow-up article is aimed more squarely at you as an individual and your personal relationship to technology. Being constantly “plugged in” to the constant stream of emails, instant messages, texts, and all manner of other notifications from social media and other sources can take a serious toll on your personal sanity. Now is the time to overhaul your relationship to technology.

What Individuals Can Do

While it’s important for companies to overhaul their expectations of workers, it’s even more important for each individual to take responsibility for creating a healthier relationship to technology. We all know how addictive the social media feeds and texts can become. If you don’t intentionally set boundaries, you can get sucked in and lose big chunks of time in your life. As writer/designer/photographer Craig Mod recently put it in an online article, “There are a thousand beautiful ways to start the day that don’t begin with looking at your phone. And yet so few of us choose to do so.” I like that because it emphasizes the fact that unplugging is a choice each individual has to make, and depending on how dysfunctional your relationship to devices is, it might be really difficult to do. But remind yourself what’s at stake here: Your attention span. Your ability to focus on important tasks. Your sanity. The stakes are high!

The Business of Stealing Your Attention

There is something else that makes unplugging difficult, which is the apps themselves and how they are designed. The desire to check your phone is natural because the apps insistently demanding your attention are specifically designed to hook you in and keep you there as long as possible. The companies behind the distracting apps have made it their mission to steal your attention – and they’re very good at it.

Create a Simple, Sustainable Boundary

If you want to get your attention back and feel truly refreshed and able to focus on what’s important, then set some real tech boundaries and stick to them. Craig Mod came up with a very simple approach that works for him: Unplug before going to bed. Don’t plug back in until after lunch. Obviously, he’s prioritizing a well-rested morning without tech-induced distractions. If that many hours unplugged sounds like too much to you, start off with just an hour or two, and after you get used to that, see if you can increase it. Your ability to unplug will give you a surprisingly distinct competitive advantage in the digital era. 

Now is the time to ask yourself what kind of relationship you have to technology and whether or not it’s time to make a change. As counter-intuitive as it may feel in this brave new world of the digital era, consistently finding times to be unplugged can go a long way towards boosting your success as an entrepreneur.  

Unplugged Part 1: Unplugged Employees Boost Business Success

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For better or for worse, we live in a digital era. Businesses that fully embrace the digital age are far more likely to be successful in the 21st century. At the level of the individual human being, things get a littler trickier. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this: One of the most valuable practices you can cultivate for success in business and life is the ability to unplug. Don’t get me wrong here: I’m not trying to convince you to “give up” your gadgets and devices. What I’m saying is your success is deeply impacted by your relationship to technology, and like any relationship, it can be healthy or it can be dysfunctional. In the first part of this two-part series about unplugging, I’ll focus on impacts in the workplace.

Unplug for Productivity’s Sake

Whenever I’m advising entrepreneurs or business owners about how to boost their productivity, I always recommend the elimination of distractions when you need to focus on an important task. Obviously, few things are more distracting than the constant flow of emails, instant messages, texts, and all manner of other notifications from social media and other sources. If you need your computer for the task, this means closing your Internet browser, email client, and temporarily disabling any other notifications that could pop up and only using the applications you need for the work at hand. But what’s the expectation at your workplace? Are your employees even allowed to unplug? 

How the Human Brain Works

The basic problem here is that the human brain evolved over the millennia without modern digital technologies, so our starting point here is asking our ancient brains to function in a very new, very recent high-tech world. If you think responding to the electronic distractions in the midst of your work is multitasking, you’re wrong. The human brain can only focus meaningfully on one thing at a time, unless you’re talking about routine activities that are entirely second nature (such as walking and chewing gum at the same time). For all intents and purposes, multitasking is a myth.

The Cost of Tech-Induced Distractions

Each time you allow an electronic distraction to interrupt your attention, you’re switching your focus from one task to another and then back to the original task, and there are real consequences to this sequence. Psychologist Larry D. Rosen, co-author of The Distracted Mind, notes that one study calculated this resumption lag of getting back to the original task, and the results are shocking: It takes a person on average nearly 30 minutes to go through the process of being distracted and then resuming work. The result is that tasks take longer to complete when distractions are permitted, causing additional stress and anxiety to workers. And it’s not always your fault either – many company cultures expect workers to respond immediately to work-related emails, texts, and phone calls. They think these immediate responses signal greater productivity, but if the act of responding is interrupting your essential work, then productivity is actually being harmed, not helped.

What Companies Can Do

The urgency of company management taking a more thoughtful approach to tech-induced distractions cannot be overstated. There are options. Some companies have created a 7-to-7 rule where any company communications received outside of those hours don’t require a response until your official workday has started. We also need new norms about handling digital communications during the workday, such as a 30-minute or even one-hour response time. If a communication is so urgent that it needs a faster response time, then it should be delivered through a phone call or an in-person visit. Rosen also advocates for company-supported “tech breaks.” You shut down all sources of potential tech distractions to focus on your work and set a timer for a specific amount of time. I would suggest 25 minutes, which is in line with what’s called the Pomodoro Technique. At the end of that chunk of time, you’re allowed to check whatever apps you want to check (or take a short walk), but only for 5 minutes, then you go for another uninterrupted 25 minutes of focused work. After four consecutive cycles of this, take a 30-minute break. This alone would revolutionize productivity in workplaces of the digital era. These are just a few of suggestions for how companies can change workplace practices to better support employee productivity in the digital era.

Keep an eye out next week when I’ll present Unplugged Part 2: Unplugged Entrepreneurs find Business Success – taking individual responsibility for your relationship to technology.

5 Commonly Overlooked Business Costs

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Approximately 543,000 new businesses are generated each month, according to data reported by Forbes. However, Inc.com research shows that 96 percent of businesses commonly fail within 10 years. What gives? In many cases it is due to financials. When starting your own business it is critical to know what expenses you’ll need to be prepared to pay down the line. Here are five overlooked business costs all entrepreneurs need to know about before flipping around an open sign.

Permits

Getting your business up and running requires a lot of paperwork. No form should be overlook or shrugged off, including necessary permits. Permits are not typically a one-time expense, so be sure to find out how regularly you will need to pay for licensing and permits for your business. Nearly all businesses require some sort of permit, when it comes to what kind it depends on the state you live in and your type of business, as well as what type of government rules are applicable. The U.S. Small Business Administration can be a great resource for entrepreneurs, as information concerning state and federal licensing and permits is laid out in an easy-to-understand format.

Maintenance

Maintenance is key when operating a company of any size. Routine maintenance should be conducted in order to stay competitive. This includes tech maintenance to make sure your company’s systems are running properly, payroll apps, computer updates, etc. It’s wise to take a hard look at each aspect of your business once in awhile to determine what needs maintenance. Before you launch, you should be considering potential future costs and how often you’ll have to sign a check for them.

Utilities

One of the most commonly overlooked aspects of running a business is the cost of utilities. This includes the rent of your space as well as everything else that goes along with it, from the water bill to the light bill. In many cases, startups or small businesses can operate from a home office or from a rented meeting room or shared office, like those found on ShareDesk. Entrepreneurs operating out of their home or online can book a meeting room or office space with ShareDesk to meet with clients, hold meetings, or hire staff. When it’s the right time to scale up, however, you will have to eventually consider utility costs.

Security Camera Systems

Your business is precious. No matter what your product is or what you are selling, you will want to protect it. Without a security camera system your business is at risk. Having a system can give you peace of mind, allowing you to rest assured your business is safe. Many systems can be operated remotely, too. The 2K IP security camera system from Lorex is great for small businesses, as it offers 2K resolution, double that of 1080P. The top-of-the-line security camera system features six 4-megapixel security cameras that all come equipped with color night vision, which provides extreme detail and top-notch picture quality.

Upgrades

Office supplies may seem like a menial subject; however, the cost of upgrades includes more than just an order of pens now and then. When starting your business it is critical to think about the upgrades that you will have to make down the line. Like maintenance, things around your space will need to be upgraded or replaced. This can include anything from carpeting and furniture to HVAC systems and computers.

Fund Your Franchise: Use our Pre-Qualification Tool

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Many people who feel the entrepreneurial itch make the wise decision to develop their business chops by purchasing a franchise. It makes a lot of sense to have a successful franchising company backing you up with a well-developed business model, operational procedures, training, and even marketing support. But there is still a significant bill to foot in terms of the franchise fee and a host of other startup costs. You need to know what you can afford, and what you might qualify for in terms of a business loan to fund your franchise. The Entrepreneur Authority is excited to announce we are forging a new partnership with the business funding experts at Benetrends Financial. 

Strategies to Fund Your Franchise

Benetrends has been in the business of helping entrepreneurs realize their dreams of starting and running their own businesses for more than 30 years. And they don’t just help you out with initial funding – they stand by you for as long as you need them. eAuth views that kind of commitment to your success as an absolute basic foundation for considering a partnership. “When it comes to offering a range of innovative services to help entrepreneurs secure the funding they need, nobody does it better than Benetrends,” said David Omholt, CFE, a Dallas-based franchise expert and the CEO of The Entrepreneur Authority and Veteran Franchise Centers. “We don’t form partnerships with just anyone, and Benetrends not only meets but exceeds our rigorous standards.”

Can you Afford to Fund Your Franchise?

One of the most important steps in the funding process, and one that is often also the biggest question for most entrepreneurs, is trying to accurately estimate what you can afford for a franchise. Our partnership with Benetrends includes a robust pre-qualification tool that will help you narrow your search for the perfect franchise opportunity by identifying the various financing options for which you’d likely qualify. 

This process just makes good business sense when you think about it. After all, in the same way that shopping for a new home is unwise if you haven’t been pre-qualified for a mortgage to know how much house you can afford, you should also get pre-qualified for funding when shopping for a business opportunity.

Pre-qualification can also save you a ton of time, which is the most precious commodity for any entrepreneur. There are literally hundreds of options when it comes to buying a franchise. A good portion of them will turn out to be well beyond your means. When you know in advance what you have to work with, your search will be much more efficient by ruling out many. 

Please note that this type of pre-qualification tool is not the same as an actual loan commitment. It is an early determination of what options and amounts you could qualify for based on your unique situation. But as an easy and free litmus test for what you can afford, it’s invaluable.

At eAuth we are constantly on the lookout for tips, tools and strategies that will give you an edge in finding the best opportunities, including the quest to fund your franchise. We hope this one helps you make the best decision possible!

Busting the Myth of Multitasking

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If you’re an entrepreneur that thinks of yourself as the consummate multitasker, this is one article you must read. Let me begin by stating the main idea: Multitasking is a myth! It’s important to debunk this myth and set the record straight so you know what’s really involved in boosting your productivity.

The human brain can really only focus on one thing at a time. In this sense, there’s really no such thing as multitasking. Your brain just can’t do it. Some people do get really good at quickly switching from one task to another, but it’s not what we all think of when we say we’re multitasking. And even that is hard to do. 

The one exception is when you’re talking about things that are totally second nature. Think walking and chewing gum at the same time. That is true multitasking, but it’s not going to do much to boost your productivity, right? The plain fact of the matter is that if you try to do two complex, non-habitual tasks at the same time, they’re both likely to turn out badly.

Many of you may be familiar with the name Daniel Goleman. If you are, it’s probably because he’s the one who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence. What you might not know is that he’s been looking into concepts related to multitasking and published a book about it a few years back called Focus. 

He would say give up on the idea of multitasking. What you need to do is totally focus on just one thing at a time. But even that is difficult given all the distractions and pace of life in the digital era in which we live. But there are things you can do to increase your ability to focus and concentrate.

When you need to focus on a particular task or issue, the first thing you need to do is to consciously eliminate as many potential distractions as possible. No, you won’t be able to preemptively prevent all distractions, so then you have to practice ignoring the ones that still come up. 

Perhaps the single-most effective thing you can do to increase your focus is anything that qualifies as mindfulness. Focus is what you need to produce superior results in your business. But it’s very easy to lose your focus. When your mind starts to wander, what can you do? There’s simple four-step process that can bring you back to the task at hand:

  1. Pay attention to your breath.
  2. Admit your mind has wandered off and why.
  3. Consciously set aside that train of thought.
  4. Now re-focus your attention back to your breath again and hold it there for a bit.

You’ll find you’re then ready to get back to work with greater clarity and focus. This little four-step process, however, is much harder than you might think. It takes practice to be able to recognize when you mind goes off-track, and even more practice to train your mind to come back and focus. You may find yourself needing to the do this four-step process many times a day until you get really good at it – but the health of your business will benefit from the effort.

Entrepreneur Bootcamp: 4 Exercises to Help You Launch a New Business

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Launching a business is not for the faint of heart. It requires long hours of dedication, research, planning, trial and error and deep introspection to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Here are a few DIY entrepreneur bootcamp practices you can try out to get your feet wet.

Determine Your Strengths & Weaknesses

If you really want your business to succeed, you need to fully understand your personal limits. This is crucial because, once you have determined your strengths and weaknesses, you can hire a team of people with the necessary attributes to help balance everything out.

There are many different approaches that you can take to uncover these qualities, including personal introspection, journaling and personality tests. One way that offers some great guidance through the process is called SWOT Analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and is a method that has been used for decades to help people better understand their business roles.

Take some time to dig deep and write out what honest answers to the prompts to uncover your assets and challenges. Share your discoveries with trusted friends to get their feedback and see if there are any other aspects that you may have overlooked.

Get Networking

When it comes to building a team of people to help you build your business, networking is always an effective strategy. While it may feel a bit forced in the moment, it is actually a much more natural way of connecting with people than putting out a job advertisement and interviewing a bunch of strangers.

To begin, use a website like LinkedIn to find local business groups and find networking events happening near you. Or, make money while you network by becoming a part of an organization like Amway that can help you diversify your income while you are working to launch your own business.

Make the most of your time spent networking by also using it as an opportunity to perfect your elevator pitch for your business. As you continue taking steps forward toward launching your company, this type of experience with selling your idea is especially valuable.

Find a Mentor

A great mentor is an invaluable asset, most especially when you are on the cusp of launching a new business. The ideal mentor will have years (or even decades) more experience than you do, work in a comparable field and a deep understanding of the challenges that you will face as you begin on the path toward building your business.

In order to help connect with a mentor, put your feelers out to friends and family to see if they have any connections who might be beneficial for you to learn from. You can also reconnect with past colleagues or you may find a mentor while attending a local networking event. You never know who could be a life-changing mentor for you, so it’s critical to remain open to the possibilities that come your way.

Learn About Your Audience & Competition

Once you have your business concept fully fleshed out, dive into learning everything you can about the market, from the intricacies of the audience to the field of competition. Get to know your competitors’ and what they offer so you can better distinguish your own offerings from theirs and find out what works and what doesn’t so you don’t waste time and money making similar mistakes.