How To Inject A Little Sparkle Into Your Start-Up

Beginning your own start-up is one of the most stressful things that anyone can do. Even if you’ve been a boss for years, controlling everything about a company is a big deal – here are some tips to help you through it.

Find Your Niche

There’s nothing as important as originality when it comes to business. You need to identify your corner of the market and make sure that you’ve got it thoroughly covered so that your business is what people associate with that particular product. You need to make sure that you continue to develop and learn as more similar products and companies enter the field over time.

Retain Your Clients

A lot of people think that the hardest thing about starting up a business is finding clients, but after you’ve been running for a while then you’ll probably discover that it’s almost more difficult to retain your clients. A lot of people tend to sign clients on a yearly contract, and when you’ve just started your own business it can be extremely tempting to work harder on drumming up new business than on working with the clients that you already have. But the clients that keep coming back to you are the ones that will make up the backbone of your business, so you need to make sure that you pay plenty of attention to them. If you’re a small business, one of the reasons that people will be attracted to you will be because of the high level of customer service you can provide in contrast with big companies – so it’s important that you focus on that.

Get Some Help With Your Branding

Let’s face it, no boss is absolutely perfect – not even you! There will be some areas where you simply aren’t as skilled as other areas. If maths has never been your thing then you need to hire an accountant. Likewise, if you don’t know much about branding and you’re more figures focused, you don’t need to hire someone specifically for that – instead go with a company like Iconic Brand who will be able to help devise a branding solution for you and point out things that you hadn’t considered before.

Treat Your Staff Well

Finally, it’s absolutely crucial that you treat your staff well. Not only does hiring new people necessitate a lot of time training them and waiting for them to settle into the company, but it’s important to form a reliable team around yourself who understand how the business works. Provide incentives that will encourage people to work at the company for longer, like adding another vacation day every year that they stay. You should also make sure that you celebrate all achievements – have a small office party when you bring in important new clients, have a summer picnic, introduce summer Fridays so that your staff can go home early on Fridays during the summer. Treating your staff well will mean that they work hard and feel a great deal of loyalty towards the company – and it also allows you to acknowledge the hard work they do.