Advice for a Start up from a Start up
5 pieces of advice for your start up that we have found to contribute to our success as a web design company.
As we’re nearing our two-year mark, I wanted to look back at all the things we did right, wrong, and just plain scary. We have had many ups and downs, from hard times to celebrating success, we have learned a lot too. There are plenty of sources of advice for start ups, and plenty of resources, but I wanted to find some bare bones ideas and practices that we hold true to different industries. As I articulated my thoughts I came up with a short list containing 5 pieces of advice.
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Organization
This is a personal favorite of mine, organization to me is number one. Making lists of the tasks at hand and being able to find information quickly is very important. In the ever growing world of technology, there are plenty of helpful apps that improve organization. For myself I stick to plain old white boards and paper. I recently found that physically writing things down like ideas, tasks, or memos, drastically improves my creativity and memory. So what ever it might be that helps you stay organized, jump right in and keep practicing, eventually you will feel much more in control of your business.
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Repetition
Daily schedules, weekly goals and the like are very important to being successful. I like to think of this as my center of success. Doing the same thing every day will get boring so that’s not necessarily what I’m referring to. Setting goals such as every morning you send X amount of emails to potential leads, and in the afternoon you practice cold calling. What ever the task might be you will find it becomes second nature to you, this will generate better responses from clients and make you a better business owner. This will also make the boring mundane task take up less of your day and will allow you to spend more time being creative.
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Small Steps
You must have big goals but understand what can be done now. Don’t get overwhelmed by thinking your huge goals are not being accomplished right away. This is something that took us a little while to learn. It was a big down fall of my own to feel like we are getting no where and to be discouraged when pursuing a new business. As I look back over the last two years I can see all of our accomplishments, big and small. We have a long way to go still but I can assure you as long as you’re doing the right thing and continually working, you are making progress.
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Finding that one thing
It’s not always that simple to know exactly what services you want to offer right away. I can remember our first website and how many services we advertised. It is great to be able to do anything your client asks but in the beginning trying to get that client that needs your help is more important. We took a step back asked ourselves, “What about our site is generating less leads?” and found that there was just too much going on. We took this information dialed it back and focused on web design. This gave us a clear lane and opportunity to earn business. After that we were able to expand what we do now and advertise more.
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Staying Positive
Like I said before there are plenty of ups and downs in running your own business, as they say when its good its good but when its bad its bad. Whether its not having money in the bank or losing clients, we have been there. You can’t spend time worrying about the downs, but more time making sure you’re always moving forward. The biggest lesson I learned is to weather the storm, keep your head high, and trust that everything will work out. Positivity is very important, not just being patient with your self but also your team. If you have any negativity at all, even towards a business partner, I would recommend getting rid of that. Negativity is no good for a growing business and does nothing but bring down hard work.
I hope these 5 things mean something to you or at least help in some way. I know we have been down a long road and it is no where near over. I look forward to everyday learning and growing.
