I’m going to set up a new company in the next few months. But second time around, it’s going to be a lot easier….So what have I learnt about setting up a company over the last four months? I’ve firstly learnt that for good business efficiency right from the start there are at least five elements that have to be up front in your mind before you commit any serious time, money or expense with your new venture.
1. Good Search Engine Optimisation
As the internet is probably one of the most important channels to market, search engine optimisation (SEO) is critical to your website and presence being found on the internet. Good search engine optimisation is a mixture of designing your website correctly from the start, and then hard work keeping your content fresh and resubmitted to the search engines. For example, my business name will include my important keywords – and my directory structure will also include my important keywords. I will design the structure of the website before I write any content…
2. Clarity on marketing strategy
A little bit of a guilty admission here, I’m still clarifying my marketing strategy for The Efficiency Coach. It’s becoming a lot clearer in the last few weeks – but still a lot to do! Second time around, the marketing strategy is being developed first before any products or service streams. If you can’t get your product or service in front of your target market right from day one – you will be inefficient with your marketing efforts.
2. Spreading the load
I’m running my new company as a joint venture. I, and my co-directors will share out the roles and responsibilities – plus make sure we are sharing up the work based on our individual talents and strengths. That way I make sure I focused on the stuff I love, which is creating things, having ideas and helping people. I suspect the marketing side of the new venture will be firmly & squarely placed at my door step. As a new business owner there will be lots of stuff that you have to do until you get to a certain size and revenue stream. My advice is aim to outsource everything that you don’t enjoy doing.
3. Sorting out the legal stuff
A lot of my business relationships are based on trust with no written contract. While this is fine, and I wouldn’t work with anyone without a high level of trust, it will protect myself and my co-directors if anything goes wrong. Plus, it will keep my accountant happy! It will bring a level of clarity to who has put in what investment.
4. What’s our niche?
That would be telling! But, we are very clear on what our niche is and who we are targeting. With this clarity we are able to conduct very precise market research to work out what we can charge and how our charging model will work. Without clarity on who you will be targeting and why they will want your product or service, then you will waste oodles of time marketing to the right (or wrong) people.
If you would like to benefit from my expertise in starting up a business – why not give me a call (01234 48 0123) or drop me a line heather@theefficiencycoach.co.uk.
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