Five things to consider after starting a business

Once you’ve started a business, all you want is to see it grow. And, the best way to do this is through networking. You see, businesses are built on an array of relationships. Therefore, you can only develop profitable relationships when you network. It’s important to make networking a crucial part of your marketing strategy as it can help you increase the awareness and visibility of your business. Furthermore, it can help you acquire contacts and helpful advice regarding your industry. But this is not all. Here are five other ways you should consider after starting a business.

1. Design and print an extraordinary business card

If you hand someone a typical and dull business card, they won’t look at it for long, chances are they’ll just shove it in their pockets and throw it away later. So, keep your brand out of the trash can and do something extraordinary. Most importantly ensure that your business card has all the important details about your company like your contact details and your website address. So that people know exactly who to call…

2. Communicate more effectively and increase your sales

When dealing with clients – making phone calls, sending emails – you must have good communication skills. Remain professional at all times, be responsive in a timely manner, and be authentic when dealing with clients. Also, when you’re in the middle of a project, always let your clients know about the next step in the process.

Don’t do all the talking yourself. Being a good listener is always the first step to effective communication. Don’t just hear what your clients have to say; listen and take note of their ideas, problems and whatever it is they want to convey to you.

3. Price your services appropriately so you don’t work at a loss

Pricing your services can be stressful and challenging. This hasn’t been easy for Sam too but she came up with a solution that works for her. Before starting a project, she speaks to her clients and checks what their needs are. After, she sets her prices.

“If you’re writing a 1,000 word article for a magazine it’s fine to charge a per word rate. However, if a website designer wants you to write 25,000 words for website content charging per word becomes very expensive and unrealistic. It is better to charge per hour or for the project as a whole.”

4. Pay attention to detail

Going solo means you’ll be pretty much on your own when it comes to proofreading and editing. So, you’ve to be able to spot any issues in your copy before handing it to your clients. Your work has to be impeccable at all times. Luckily, this also improves your attention to detail.

One of the best ways to do this and ensure that your work doesn’t have any errors, is to read your copy aloud. Sounds ridiculous right? I know it does. But reading aloud will help you check your punctuation, spot long unnecessary sentences and make it easier to see where commas, semicolons and colons would make meanings clearer and improve your copy. This stage of the polishing process might seem like a lot of work, but it’s really worth doing if you don’t want to submit an array of mistakes to your clients and risk losing them.

5. Handle your admin for maximum success

Similar to death and taxes, some things in life are unavoidable. Even though you might not like doing admin, you need to do it. Clients that pay you late can damage your business, so you need to make sure that your invoicing is done on time. They aren’t only an irritation but they can affect your cash flow and disrupt your carefully structured financial plans. So make sure your admin is done on time.

And what about those difficult clients?

If you don’t tell your clients exactly what you expect, don’t get upset when they do as expected. So, always ensure they know what you expect from them.

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