Starting Something Special!
Crucial Components of Success in Business
So you’ve decided to graduate from simply having an idea and are ready to move on to start up your own business? That’s great! How exactly do you do that though? What does being an entrepreneur or starting a business even mean or entail? There are countless important factors that pull together to help make a successful business or happy entrepreneur and to be honest, there is no exact formula that someone can teach you in order to automatically become successful. No matter how many quick tips videos you watch or useful articles you read, there is no exact science in business... and that’s what makes it so interesting! That being said, there are more than a few items that are surefire cornerstones of winning business practices. While every existing business today might not be in complete control of all of these details, paying attention to how your own business approaches and executes on these elements will be instrumental in helping you as a business owner to attain your goals.
Defining your goals - The most important step to achieving your goals is defining them. It’s impossible to become successful unless you know what “success” looks like to you and your company. Take a while to sit down and map out clear goals for not just you as an individual but also for where you want your company to be at certain intervals in time. If you fail to meet a particular deadline, redouble your efforts in that particular field and refocus on approaching whatever the problems may be with the same passion that you started with and you’ll inevitably check more and more boxes off your list as you go.
Product/Service and Fit - You absolutely must know whether or not whatever product or service your business is centered around realistically makes sense as a business. What makes what you provide or are offering different and superior to similar ideas out there and do you have the ability to develop and provide all of the extra minutiae around it for it to truly come to life? Not only do you need to make sure you’ve got a good idea, but you must make sure that you’ve got a good idea for you. If you’re deathly afraid of being in front of a camera, it doesn’t matter how well thought out your traveling vlog is, you’re going to have a rough time enjoying what you’re doing unless you truly love it, otherwise you will quickly burn out and deflate your business.
Personality Style - The person you are and the essence of what matters to you will (and should) rub off on your business. Do you have to be an incredibly organized person to be successful? No. Do you need to be an incredibly organized person in order to be successful in a business where organizational skills are a crucial element of your success? Undoubtedly yes, and because of this, it is important to play to your strengths and do everything you can to improve upon your weaknesses.
Business Structure - Deciding on what type of business structure makes the most sense for your company is an incredibly important piece of starting off on the right foot. Learning the differences between LLCs/C-Corps/S-Corps/Sole Proprietorship/etc is a bit of a slog, but figuring out which is right for you can go a long way in helping to legitimize your ideas and your business as a whole.
Branding - Knowing what makes you and your product or service marketable or iconic is particularly consequential to the long-term growth of your company. Whether it’s through social channels, media, or simply through flawless design, having something that is instantly recognizable to someone as “yours” is an invaluable asset to your company.
Each of these pieces and how well you implement them are undeniably crucial to the successes and failures of any budding company. Because of this, rather than bombarding you with a massive article outlining each piece in its entirety, we’ve instead decided to devote the next five posts to covering these components one by one and hopefully in doing so we can make it crystal clear how to approach these subjects in a manner that will smooth the transition from fledgling apprentice to knowledgeable master.