6 Top Tips for success from those who know
We all want to be a success. We all have different ways we think we can achieve it. There’s no right or wrong answer but what about those who have already proven their success? Here’s six top tips to making your start-up business a success from those in the know: Simon Hughes MP Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats and MP for Bermondsey & Old Southwark “Work with somebody from your area who is five or more years older than you and is doing the sort of thing that you want to be doing” Lee McQueen Winner of BBC The Apprentice 2008, entrepreneur and founder of Raw Talent Academy that provides SMEs and corporate organisations with the vehicle to build internal sales academies into long term staffing plans. “Get as much critique as possible about your idea. Don’t just ask friends, family and those sort of people, they are just going to tell you what you want to hear. Do go and ask the sort of people who are likely to tell you the things you don’t want to hear. That’s how you are going to hone your idea. That’s how it is going to get much better.” Ketan Makwana A self-made serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Youth Enterprise Live and Enterprise Labs. He is a special advisor on youth employment & enterprise to the UK government and contributor to Parliamentary workgroups. “Believe in yourself and even when the going gets tough just keep pushing through. If you believe in what you are doing and you keep pushing you will breakthrough.” Claire Young Runner up of BBC The Apprentice 2008 and serial entrepreneur specialising in the area of social enterprise “Before you dive off and start spending any time or money make sure you do your homework. Research your market. Know who your competition is and take the time to have a plan in place because without a plan you will have no idea of where you are going. Naomi Timperley Entrepreneur and Co-founder of Enterprise Lab who once with a previous very successful venture turned down an offer of investment on BBC Dragon’s Den “Use and build your network – you never know who someone knows – treat people with respect and how you would like to be treated yourself.” Michael Sani Teacher, actor and founder of apolitical movement Bite the Ballot an organisation engaging young people into thinking about politics. “My top tip….well it’s right to say that I have not gone into this to make money…To be faced with the challenges of setting up and running your own business is a great thing. It means your doing something that has the ability to take you on a roller coaster of ups and downs, questioning what your doing whilst constantly redefining your desire to achieve and if you are the one at the steering wheel of the business, then you are the one that has to ensure it does not fail. But in between, that feeling of sinking deeper and deeper you see the landmarks of achievement that you know, one day, have the potential to be spoken about as examples of success, long after you are gone!” So that’s your six top tips from those at the top of the tree and now here’s a bonus one from this entrepreneurial blogger. My business background is nothing if not varied and coming to the party with many different hats on, I like to think I have a few valid points to make. So what is my tip for success? “Read, listen and absorb. Information is your weapon, your shield and should be your inspiration. Read words of wisdom (such as this) from those who have already lived it and hopefully you will avoid many of the pitfalls that can de-rail your plans for success. Listen to podcasts, attend conferences and network with those who hold golden nuggets of advice. Even friends and family running small operations will have knowledge that may come in useful. Don’t expect all that information you take on board to be of immediate use either. It may be years down the line but every snippet of learning you absorb will one day pay dividends.” 123-reg caught up with all our top tipsters at Youth Enterprise Live 2012 an event focusing on employment, education and enterprise for 15-30 year olds. The event hits the road in 2013 visiting 12 different cities in the UK.
The importance of being earnest – Why focus is the key to success
Being earnest in business is the most important lesson you could ever learn. Giving your business the importance it deserves and treating it to the serious attention it demands is the only true route to success. Striving on the road to success it can be very easy to lose sight of your goal. It is even easier to lose track of the path you are treading to reach that goal. Distractions are bad One of the biggest reasons for businesses not making it to that final step of viability is distractions. Be that family, studies, or juggling another job, or several other projects, the more your attention is diverted away from your business project the less chance of it being the full success you want it to be. In an ideal world those setting up a business would have six months of funding behind them. A well written business plan that they stick to and a smooth run in without any big life events or other time burdens. Reality check: We don’t live in an ideal world. In fact, we now live in a world where work – life – balance is often promoted as a reason to start-up your own business and in reality that too often leads to people seriously over-committing their time trying to ensure too many people are happy and given a fair share of their time. That’s not to say only single people with no spare time interests can’t be a success in business. Some of the most famous entrepreneurs are parents to multiple children, involved in various businesses, do charity work and still have time to run marathons! It is all about being aware of what your business needs to succeed and making sure you can at least match that. Hard work beats talent Not always, but certainly hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. Expertise is a fantastic thing and can give you a leg up in so many ways, but that is also where networking comes in handy. You don’t need to be talented personally in every field to make your business work, you just need to be able to spot what talents your business needs and then find a way of bringing the two together. That takes a bit of research, a bit of time and a lot of dedication. Success in business take a lot of dedication. There is a pattern for a reason. Putting in the hours won’t guarantee you success but it will give you a much bigger advantage than letting things slide or flounder. Even if you have the talent and expertise yourself, fail to properly apply it and your business is going nowhere. To properly apply it, you need to understand your business, that takes time and that takes focus. The more earnest you are the more chance your business will continually move forward and reach success.
How to check the pulse of your marketing efforts in just 10 Minutes
Time: We’re always complaining we don’t have enough time to get things done. However, as a marketer no day should go by without getting up to date with your website analytics. Results matter so you have to check and see if your marketing efforts are paying off. This article covers a few simple steps you should follow at least once a week so you can stay up to date with your site’s metrics. This is what you have to check: Traffic Traffic should be the first thing on your list. No matter the type of website you own/run getting traffic to your site is as important as air. And you don’t want to run out of air, do you? When you check to see what your site’s traffic looks like, focus mainly on the number of visitors – unique as well as returning. Try to find out from this data what drove visitors to your site in a certain period of time or at a peak – maybe you ran a marketing campaign, sent an e-mail newsletter or ran a special offer. If your traffic was lower compared to a previous month, try to determine the factors that lead to a decrease – were there holidays, for instance, that could influence it? Conversions How is your site performing in terms of conversions? You can have a huge amount of traffic but if your visitors don’t convert, it means you’re doing something wrong. Check to see your call-to-actions, special offers or anything that would convince the visitor to convert. Take a closer look at the pages with low conversion rates and figure out how to include more opportunities for your visitors that they wouldn’t want to miss out on. Obviously, check the copy too as there might be something missing there. Sources Take a look at the organic searches, marketing campaigns, social media traffic, direct traffic and see if there’s a trend that catches your attention. What about the referral traffic? Anything interesting there? Use the inbound links to see if maybe there’s a linking opportunity there – maybe offer to write a guest post to generate more traffic to your site. If your blog posts are also generating traffic, check to see which ones are the most engaging and create more topics around that type of content. Keywords Analyze the keywords and see which ones have converted better. On the other hand, don’t neglect those keywords with low conversion rates because often these are opportunities you need to explore more. Write down these keywords and remember to use them in future content and blog posts. For an even better positioning, try to avoid general keywords and instead go with long-tail variations that are more specific to your business. ROI You are investing time and money in to your website, but are you generating sales to provide a return on that investment? See how you can reduce costs where possible. As a conclusion, don’t just analyse. Review those stats but also write down some actions that need to be taken in order to constantly improve your marketing efforts. How often do you review your site’s metrics? What metrics do you consider to be the most relevant?
Video interview with Laura Rigney co-founder of MumpreneurUK
If you read our blog of yesterday you will know that we attended the very successful MumpreneurUK annual Conference and Awards over the weekend. While we were there, we caught up with co-founder Laura Rigney and asked her what MumpreneurUK is all about, why mumpreneurs are overcoming the current economic crisis and what it takes to be a successful mumpreneur. Don’t forget to check out the other videos on the 123-reg YouTube channel too.