Small Business Owners: What You Can Do to Stay Ahead

Let’s paint a little small biz picture. Say you decide to fulfill your never ending love for sweets and start a candy store. Now, it’s nothing too extravagant, just a little corner store in your hometown. But, you’re happy because you not only get to eat all the chocolate you want, you also get to share your sweet tooth to the masses.

The only downfall to this (besides the pending cavities, of course) is that as a small business, there’s bound to be lots of competition out there, from the Dylan’s Candy Bars to the little kiosks at the mall that sell caramel apples. It’s pretty easy to brush this off though. After all, you own a pretty awesome candy store that is unique to you.

However, that’s just it. It’s not unique if it’s only towards yourself. Plus, you can’t expect everyone to fall in love with your candy store, or any small business for that matter, by just being present. So, what can you do to ensure you’re living the dream and not falling behind?

Be proactive

Knowing what the competition is doing may be half the battle to building your small business. Do yourself, and the future of your calling, a favor and conduct some proactive research on the other guys in the industry. Even if you feel like you’re too good for them, or not good enough, it’s probably in your best interest to be prepared.

What kind of research should you be doing, though? Any and all! Check out where the competition is located, conduct background checks on employees, do some social searches, find out what kind of advertising they’ve done in the past few months, etc. The more information you get, the better you can position yourself towards your competitors.

Be completely transparent

What’s one of the biggest gripes consumers have towards companies? The lack of transparency they receive, particularly from the guys at the top. Well, if you’re new to the business world, why not take this concept and run with it, positively?

For example, say a customer comes into your candy shop and asks if you have a candy-making background. In all truthfulness, you don’t. You actually have a background in chemical engineering. However, there’s no point to “sugarcoat” how you got to where you are by making up some elaborate past. It’s not authentic and its sure not transparent. Plus, if the customer ever researches you and find out you aren’t who you say you are, it doesn’t exactly bode well for you. So, try to keep things as crystal clear as possible. Your customers will thank you.

Enable trust

It’s a simple concept: Give your customers a reason to trust you. Don’t feed them lies, or false promises, or even the bad kinds of chocolate. Feed them things you can live up to, promises you can actually keep, and a business that they will support. As we mentioned, having transparency will enable this kind of trust. The key though is to maintain it.

For some, there’s a stigma out there that the less established companies can’t do the same kind of quality work the other guys can do. Enabling this sort of trust by ways of being present, getting to know the customer, staying honest, connecting with people online and off, and having a quality product, will ensure that you stay ahead of the curve. Further, be sure to maintain your reputation and always know what the competition is doing, maybe before they even know themselves. That way, you’ll never fall behind and always be moving forward.

What do you think? How have you succeed as a small business owner?


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