No business attribute is more important today as that of adaptability, as many, many businesses are on the brink of irrelevance … unless they change as fast as change itself. You need to have and try many creative business ideas as often as possible and implement these factors for small business success.

Your strategies for success do run out of steam, get old and become ineffective. You need to keep refreshing them based on your anticipation of the next change.

Building a small business for failure? Certainly not. But results show much more failures than successes. In 7 out of 8 industry sectors.

From a November 2012 article by Scott Shane, his results showed a services sector rate of success of 47% and a retail sector success rate of 41%. For businesses started in 2005. Not very success oriented, eh?

Why may you ask? Many reasons. Two of the top reasons … poor cash flow planning and not enough capital resources.

So what other actions can a small business take to improve its success besides having more cash as a safety net? Consider these 44 small business success tips to use to improve your business:

It is always a good idea to have a helpful checklist for reminders of improvements for your business. Here is one of the several checklists that I find helpful:

Knowing, understanding, and caring about your customer is … Rule #1

Always put your people first … they ARE your business

Be a talent hound … put a priority on finding the best people

Everyone is a marketer and … everything is marketing

Creating ‘WOW’ customer experiences … creates the best marketing

Establish and maintain clear value propositions

Be social and create conversations with customer … it’s all about customer relationships

Be adaptable … be a change agent … anticipate and embrace change

Make listening, observing, and continuous learning the centerpieces … your team’s core competencies

Keep it simple … in everything you do

Ideal customers

You can’t be a business that is all things to all people. Do you know who you target customers are? Your ideal customers? If not, you need to get busy.

Customer value

Look for customer value in places you might not expect to find it. Have you thought about building synergistic alliance and relationships with other businesses? Relationships that create customer value that neither business could create on their own?

Consistency

Look to provide customer service that stands out consistently. Deliver that consistency always.

Customer follow-up

Promptly follow up with your customers will be noticed. Go the extra mile. And always, always, always keep your promises.

Little things

How many times have you surprised customers by doing little things that were not expected?

Here is a customer success story as an example. My favorite florist always insists on taking my vase of flowers out to my car and setting it up so it won’t get knocked over. Consistently. A little thing, yes. But it makes a difference to me.

Remember, the more you engage with customers, the more you can own the moment. And the better your understanding of their needs and from these insights the easier it is for you to win new customers.

Focused business plan

It’s not clear to us why business plans are the way they are, but they’re often focused on too many things. If you want to maximize success, the key is to focus on five topics. We recommend dividing the business plan into these five sections:

Competitive analysis
Market research and analysis
Marketing plan
Financial plan and cash flow
Short versus long term

Creator of change

Be a creator of change. Watch for trends in the market and what your customers are doing. Stay ahead of the change curve by adapting before you have to. Remember the status quo is usually your worst enemy.

Network for support

Find local business leaders that can exchange ideas and support your thinking on a day to day activities. Activities like being a sounding board, idea generation, and offering lessons learned. They often see solutions that you can’t see. You can do the same for them. Create a large network and make it social … like a casual advisory board.

Work on right things

Sounds trivial, doesn’t it? But you would be amazed at how many of our clients have their priority lists inverted. Or work on things that should be ignored.

Trust your intuition

Tackle real problems on behalf of your customers, many of which may challenge the status quo. Be curious. Experiment on a small scale often and learn. Place lots of small bets to see what will work best. Don’t be afraid of unconventional paths.

Don’t get totally consumed

Be a team player … caring about your employees. Delegate and empower them to act on your behalf. Remember that you can’t do everything or be everywhere. Learn to back away occasionally. Maybe an afternoon … sometimes for a day. Find a balance between work and life that works for you.

Gain customer insights

Unlike big companies, a small business gives you the opportunity to interact with customers on a daily basis. Make use of these interactions by gaining a better knowledge of their wants and needs. Ask good questions, listen carefully, and take notes. You will be amazed at how eager many are to help and assist you in learning. Customer insights are one of your most valuable assets.

Build on these enablers, and you will find success … status quo is most often your greatest danger.

Need some help in finding ways to grow your customers? Such as creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers? Or perhaps finding ways to work with other businesses?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of collaborative innovation. And put it to good use in adapting to changes in your business environment.

It’s up to you to keep improving your learning and experience with innovation and creativity efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.

Check out these additional articles on business and its performance from our library:

The Business Intelligence Process Part 3 Competitive Analysis

Competitive Growth Strategy … the Story of In-N-Out Burger

10 Entrepreneur Lessons You Need to Know

Collaboration and Partnerships Are Key to Business Growth

Whichever technique helps you tap into business success is a win-win marketing technique, isn’t it? And we are all looking for marketing techniques for business success, yes?

Not only will such techniques grab their interest but also keep them by your side as a potential customer. The sole purpose of marketing a product is to get more customers, sell the product/ service and get more profit on the deals that are made. No matter whether you have to use old marketing techniques that still work to achieve the purpose or hop onto the new ones.

Many marketing experts say that the old techniques do not comply with the new internet-based marketing techniques. Despite this, I have found they are still beneficial for the business brand. Are you willing to have a look at the old and new services that together will make a perfect blend of successful marketing?

You must have heard that old is gold, right? It is! Although not all the old marketing technologies are worth a shot in the twenty-first century of advanced technology, some of them even beat the new ones.

To make use of all the favorable techniques to gain full benefits, you’ll have to blend them both and produce an innovative strategy. The things that you can do are as follows:

Advertise the product using traditional and latest techniques

The advertisement is a very important part of marketing. Whether it is the traditional methods you use to market the product or work on the digital marketing strategies to do the work; it is going to work either way. You can continue printing the brochures, flyers, pamphlets, and posters to market your brand product offline and, do the same through content articles, videos, and images to market it on the internet.

Mailing is another old technique that you can shift to digital marketing and gain benefit from it.

best marketing strategies for small business — Best marketing strategies for small businesses.

Bring the old promotional gift offer to online stores as well

One of the traditional marketing techniques that worked throughout the ages is offering promotional gifts and discount offers to the customers. The promotional gifts helped in gaining the confidence of the customers and compelled them to buy from the shop to get the incentive.

You can blend this technique with the newer technique of promoting and advertising these promotional offers on the official websites and social media network accounts and, get more customers directed to the shop. Even the online stores can make these offers and benefit from the return on investment.

Use social media services to the fullest

The standards of social media services in Dubai have raised a lot according to the latest marketing techniques and offered us a great platform to learn from. As the use of social media has greatly enhanced the communication between the customers and the business brand, it has brought them closer in different ways. You can use social media to answer your customer’s queries and also advertise your brand’s latest offers and coupon details if any.

Keep this marketing technique alive with other techniques, and you’ll surely gain numerous benefits from it.

Marketing techniques for business success … use slogans/ jingles – they work online too

marketing ideas small business — Marketing ideas for small businesses.

The use of slogans and funny, rhyming jingles is an old marketing technique, but it still does wonders. They are easy to memorize, and the music tone along with the jingles attracts the listener. Once they are advertised in the community, you’ll see everyone talking about them. Then should you post it on the internet too?

Yes, for sure! It will be a lovely marketing step to take, and you’ll see how easily both these techniques will blend with each other.

Abide by the rules of SEO and work on CRO

Search engine optimization and conversion rate optimization are a part of the new marketing techniques. It helps in improving the ranking of the website in the search engine and improvising it according to the CRO obtained. Mainly, these techniques are the direct way to assess the quality of online marketing. You can use similar analytical skills to check out the progress of the old marketing techniques as well as the profit they make.

Running a successful business by using marketing techniques is no tough job. All you have to do is pick the right marketing technique, whether old or new, and blend them for better results.

What you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovate your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Tag: business success

15 Priorities to Follow for Business Success