Wazzup Pilipinas!
Becoming a better entrepreneur and earning more Pesos in 2019 should be one of your top priorities. Many workers, businesses and enterprises have resumed for the year hoping to be bigger, better and stronger. So should you.
But as they say, hope (alone) is not a strategy. Becoming a better entrepreneur, business owner or person in many cases requires hard work, change of approach etc. Following a clearly mapped strategy makes achieving your entrepreneurship dreams easier in the new year.
Perhaps you’re doing just fine or fantastic as an entrepreneur and wondering why bother? Here’re
5 Reasons to Become a Better Entrepreneur
You can and should become a better entrepreneur going forward for the following reasons
Still enough room for improvement
Competitors are getting better
Customers are becoming better and demanding better
Bigger, better patronage equals bigger, better revenue
Better revenue drives reinvestment, expansion.
Whereas some entrepreneurs fared well in 2018 some others fared worse and are fearing for the worst come 2019. In this post we’ll be sharing 10 key steps to becoming a (much) better entrepreneur in 2019 irrespective of where you currently stand on the entrepreneurial success spectrum.
1. Take Stock
Navigation systems rely on your current location to get you to your concurrent location. To become a better entrepreneur in 2019 you need to know just how you performed in 2018. To do this effectively you might need a more objective external auditor to take an impassioned look at your books, business practices and methods.
This will reveal your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, thereby helping you make smarter business decisions like other successful entrepreneurs.
2. Go Digital
Perhaps not going digital yet is one of the findings from your stock taking above. Learning what you’re missing out on by ignoring digital options versus what you stand to gain by going online can spur you to act.
There are over 1.5 billion websites out there many of which are businesses just as over 2 million businesses have or use an Instagram account. Many more are on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks where modern customers hang out. You should try digital marketing in 2019.
3. Use Data
One setback of staying analogue is relying on guesswork and gut feeling, which aren’t the best for entrepreneurship in the 21st century. Data on the other hand eliminates guesswork and gives you precision helping you make more informed business decisions.
Automating much or all of your business practices and processes will help you generate more concise data which will help you plan and prepare better. Accurate customer information for instance can inform product design and development which could result in happier repeat customers.
4. Try Social Media
Social media is huge. Reports suggest that over 2.6 billion people and counting are active on social media each day. That’s massive considering most markets are small depending on your niche, industry or vertical.
Social media posts can go viral in minutes reaching people and places you’d probably never reach in three lifetimes times three. Social media marketing should form a core part of your 2019 marketing strategy if you hope to become a better entrepreneur.
5. And Email Marketing
Email marketing is another inexpensive way smart entrepreneurs and marketers keep their businesses running profitably. ROI per dollar spent is said to be over $38. There are free and paid email marketing tools that can help automate your entire email marketing moves.
This way you can keep in constant touch with your customers, announce new arrivals, special offers, discounts, rebates, sales, etc. With email marketing you can upsell and also retarget cold or even dead leads thereby reducing cart abandonment.
6. Bulk SMS Too
Bulk SMS is another inexpensive way entrepreneurs can get their messages across to customers, especially if such customers live in countries or areas with limited internet access. Irrespective of location, bulk sms has been reported to have an open rate of over 90%. Impressive, plus more and more people now use phones.
You could include links in your message body to direct customers to your website where you can better engage them and increase your chances of conversion or closing a sale.
7. Study Competitors
In this digital era (see why you should go digital?), it is far easier for entrepreneurs to study, monitor or keep an eye on competitors. You can discreetly follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other such digital hangouts.
Chances are you’re also being cyber stalked, studied or monitored by other entrepreneurs especially if you’re doing well in business. By studying their social media habits for instance you can see how they succeed on social and try to implement or modify that to your taste.
8. Subscribe to Successful Blogs
Successful blogs in many industries are a dime a dozen, if you find any in your niche or vertical do well to subscribe to their newsletters and read their blogs for latest happenings in your industry. Sites like Business Insider, Entrepreneur and Forbes, Neil Patel, etc often feature content most entrepreneurs will fall in love with.
With such information entrepreneurs and business owners are greatly empowered to improve their businesses by copying and pasting proven best practices. Someday you may be down and then find inspiration by reading another entrepreneur’s success story.
9. Keep Fit
Keeping fit has physical, emotional and psychological benefits especially for entrepreneurs who are generally known to be workaholics. Taking breaks, resting, walking and working out can help you relax, refresh and reset your mind. As your body releases endorphins you’re at your best and can make better business decisions.
Plus working out at the gym can be a means of networking with other like minded entrepreneurs who can introduce you to a new business or tool that can increase your income or revenue or share rare tips about entrepreneurship you may never read in a book.
10. Hire and Fire Fair
Be fair and firm when it comes to hiring and firing staff or workers. By carefully selecting employees you save yourself and business a lot of stress down the road. Most entrepreneurs have discovered that hiring close family members may tie their hands and hurt their business, none of which you want.
Hiring and managing the right talent takes work, if you have them let them know you value their contributions to make the business grow and reward them as much as you can. Continuously redundant workers should be shown the exit or else your business may soon exit the market.
Author Bio:
Amos Onwukwe is an AWAI trained Business and Ecommerce Copywriter who has been featured in scores of blogs including Huffington Post, Dumb Little Man, Ecommerce Nation, eCommerce Insights, Understanding Ecommerce, Result First, Floship, Successful Startup 101, Small Biz Club, Small Business Bonfire, among others.
He is available for hire
Twitter: @amos_onwukwe
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
