Running a Business? How to Develop a Sustainable Foundation

Few things are as exciting as launching and running a successful business. However, getting off to a strong start is essential for building long-term, sustainable success, especially if you’re aiming to earn six figures. The following practices will help ensure your business is built upon a solid foundation.

Ask for Help

Running a business on your own entails taking on a number of roles, and successful business owners know that it’s important to ask for help when needed. Although you can take on certain tasks at first, make a plan for outsourcing tasks certain tasks in the future, including managing your finances and managing other day-to-day business tasks. Too often, business owners try to spend as little money as possible. However, time is limited, and outsourcing allows you to focus on the more critical elements of your business instead of spending your time on busy work.

Focus on Profitability

Although large, tech-centered start-ups are able to raise seemingly endless funds before proving an ability to make a profit, few small businesses have that luxury. A common mistake for new business owners is to undercut their competitors too much and fail to develop a sustainable pricing model. Make sure to charge close to market value, and ensure your pricing is enough to cover your expenses. In some cases, offering a discount can help you reach out to new customers, but doing so too frequently may place your business in the red. Furthermore, offering frequent discounts means potential and current clients may be tempted to simply wait for you to offer a discount before making a purchase. If you offer a great product or service, you deserve to charge a fair price for it, so don’t sell your business short.

Bookkeeping

In the early days of your business, your bookkeeping will likely be fairly simple, as your clients and customers will be limited. As your business grows, however, it becomes easy to feel overwhelmed if you don’t have an effective and cohesive bookkeeping system, potentially making it difficult to know how well your business is succeeding. In addition, subpar bookkeeping may leave you scrambling when dealing with taxes, and small mistakes made when filing and paying your taxes can prove to be difficult and expensive. Before launching, make sure you know what’s needed to stay in compliance with various regulations. 

As with other tasks, it’s often best to bring aboard an expert to help you get off to a strong start. Also note that online bookkeeping tools provide comprehensive capabilities and help keep your files safe from fires and other natural disasters, although keeping backups is still essential. Don’t procrastinate; it’s easy to get dangerously behind the curve.

Time Management

There’s one thing many business owners quickly find they don’t have enough of: Time. Spending your time effectively is the core of making your business a success, and time management tools are wonderful for ensuring you’re prioritizing your most important tasks first. In addition, digital time management tools let you stay up to date as long as you have a smartphone with you. Track your daily activities, and locate ones where you’re spending too much time so you can outsource or delegate to others.

Dream Big

Your business won’t grow until you embrace a business mindset and until you dream really, really big. If you have that dream of earning six figures (or some other BIG money) but need some guidance as to reaching that goal, I’m talking about Working Smarter (Not Harder) for Six Figure Sales in my next livestream training. Join my free community on Facebook to receive notifications.