Entrepreneurs enjoy the privilege of being their own bosses, but they have to carry a lot of weight on their backs and find ways to help businesses grow single-handedly. Reports suggest that there are over 580 million entrepreneurs in the world today and each one is constantly looking for new solutions to improve products or services.
It’s not an easy job in the ever-changing business environment, so you’ll need to be very diligent and agile in order to keep the company alive and kicking in the long run. There is no magic formula to help you grow the organisation easily, but we can identify a few techniques that proved to work well for the majority of successful companies.
In this article, we will focus on those techniques and show you seven features that will make an entrepreneur’s life more powerful in 2020 and beyond. Let’s take a look!
Build your brand
Are you aware of the concept of personal branding? By definition, self-branding (also known as personal branding) is a form of marketing that an individual uses to create a uniform public image that demonstrates his or her values and overall reputation.
Although it may seem irrelevant, personal branding is actually a major business contributor because customers will judge the business based on the entrepreneur who represents the company.
Also Read: Apple successfully changed customer behaviour. Here’s what entrepreneurs can learn from it
According to the report, reputation damage is the number one risk concern for business executives around the world – 88 per cent of them say they are explicitly focusing on reputation risk as a key business challenge.
So, what can you do to build an authoritative self-brand?
The goal is simple – promote yourself through quality online content. You can write LinkedIn posts, website blogs, and contribute to relevant niche magazines. Such activities will prove that you are a trustworthy and knowledgeable professional.
Of course, you shouldn’t over-promote yourself. Focus on content quality instead and let your in-depth insights and analyses speak for you.
Work with your team
The second recommendation is to take care of your team – no matter how big or small it may be. Employee engagement greatly depends on the way you treat them, so do your best to provide subordinates with a comfortable work environment. You can do it in many different ways, but here are some of our favourite tricks:
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Organise team building events to strengthen relationships among employees.
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Invest in joint social activities.
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Invest in fitness and healthcare programs because fitter employees are more productive.
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Let your team members work remotely whenever needed.
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Increase the number of free days and encourage work-life balance in your company.
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Reward employees for successful projects.
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Listen to their business proposals and put their ideas into practice.
All these tactics are fairly simple, but they can do miracles for the overall productivity of your team.
Focus on customer experience
Customer experience is getting increasingly important. As a matter of fact, studies show that customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020. How come?
Well, the only way a business can distinguish itself from the crowd of more or less the same offers is by promoting a more comfortable consumer journey. You should do your best to personalise offers and tailor products so as to fit the needs of each buyer in particular.
No one wants “one-size-fits-all” solutions anymore. On the contrary, personalisation is the only way to improve customer experience, so you better embrace the new trend and focus on every consumer separately.
Create a value system
Another thing you should to do become a better entrepreneur in 2020 is to promote a specific set of values. It will help you to win over new customers and boost employee morale at the same time. It’s not just our opinion, but rather a well-known fact:
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Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of surveyed global consumers prefer to purchase products and services from companies that stand for a purpose that reflects their own values and beliefs.
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Almost 80 per cent of American workers say company culture is an important factor in job satisfaction.
Also Read: Self-success begins with self-confidence
People on both sides of the business spectrum want something they can relate to easily, so you have to pick the desired direction and promote values through the business. It will make you a much more successful entrepreneur and also a much more desirable employer.
Tools for professional development
Digital apps and programmes should not be a novelty among entrepreneurs anymore, but we have to mention this feature just in case you failed to deploy new technologies by now. You can find hundreds of useful tools online, so the choice essentially depends on the nature of your business. However, we can recommend you a few platforms that we enjoy the most:
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Moosend: It’s a powerful marketing platform that you can use to control all promo activities effortlessly.
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Essay writing service: This is one of the best content creation agencies that specialise in all sorts of digital content.
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Grammarly: If you don’t like proofreading, Grammarly will get the job done on your behalf quickly.
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MOZ: It is a highly comprehensive search engine optimisation program.
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Zoho Books: Many entrepreneurs rely on this tool to manage accounting and invoicing procedures.
Best of both worlds
We just mentioned some of the best online tools and apps that you can use to improve business operations, but you should not forget to dedicate some time to offline activities as well. In the world where businesses spend 99 per cent of their time on digital projects, customers would be very excited to see some good old human touch from your side.
First of all, make sure to build stronger relationships with buyers in physical stores. Teach your staff to behave politely and personalise interaction as much as possible.
Also Read: 10 mistakes that new entrepreneurs tend to make and should avoid in 2020
Secondly, you should organise live events from time to time to give a chance to your clients and customers to meet you in person. It is a major business content that can drastically improve your entrepreneurship status. After all, this is why most businesses (31 per cent) believe that event marketing is the single-most effective marketing channel.
Learn from niche leaders
This tactic is far from being a new one, but it will remain fundamental in 2020 and beyond. Namely, every entrepreneur must keep an eye on niche leaders in order to learn new business methods and identify fresh industry trends.
The idea is not to copy/paste the same campaigns, but rather to keep in touch with the novelties and avoid lagging behind your closest rivals. It’s a precious piece of advice that just have to make use of in 2020.
Solo entrepreneurship is never an easy job, especially if you are managing a small team and have to do many different things simultaneously.
Do you think these tips can help you to build a more profitable company? Do you have other interesting business ideas to share with your fellow entrepreneurs? Feel free to write a comment – we would be glad to see your opinion about this important topic.
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