How to Run a Business Successfully

Starting a business is one of the most thrilling experiences in life. It can be incredibly rewarding, both mentally and financially, as long as you have a bulletproof, step-by-step plan. 

But what does it take to turn your great business idea into a thriving reality?

In this article, we’ll help you learn how to run a business by sharing some of the tested and guaranteed methods implemented by successful companies. Designed for start-ups, small business owners, and entrepreneurs, this guide is everything you need to get started and achieve your business goals in the long run.

What Does It Mean to Run a Business Successfully?

Business success can be defined in various ways, depending on how success is perceived. 

For most, running a business successfully means achieving sustainable growth over time. It means being profitable, reliable, and most importantly, satisfying customers via the products or services that you offer. It’s all about positioning yourself strongly on the market and building a positive brand reputation.

Preparation, strategy, and adaptability are essential for long-term success. They’re the pillars that you can rest on when in doubt on the path to take forward. 

Essential Steps to Run a Successful Business

Although running a business may sound like one of the most challenging things you can do in life, it’s not. 

All it takes is an elaborate plan, an in-depth understanding of your niche or industry, the right business structure, and sophisticated financial management.

Step 1: Start with a Clear Business Plan

Let’s face it – it’s unrealistic to adequately run your own business without starting from the basics – the business plan.

The business plan is a vital document that contains important information that can be used for direction and funding. Although most business owners only think of it as a way to attract funding from investors, this document can be used for guidance over time, serving as a compass. 

Although there are no strict rules about the structure of the business plan, the key components we recommend including are:

• Business goals and vision;
• Legal structure, ownership, and location;
• Industry overview, market size, and growth opportunities;
• Market demand analysis and target audience;
• Competitor analysis;
• Organisational structure, management team, and roles;
• Financial projections and cash flow plans. 

Once you’ve created your business plan, don’t let it sit and collect dust. Use it in the years to come as a source of inspiration and comparison.

Step 2: Understand Your Market and Audience

Businesses grow only once they’ve fully understood the nature of their market and, most importantly, their target audience. 

As a new business, invest time and effort into market research. Where possible, work with the internal human power you have, but if necessary, partner with a professional market research company for extra value. 

Your research should be focused on identifying customer needs and spotting market gaps. Create a target market profile that will give you insights into who your ideal shoppers are. As a result, you’ll be able to market to this group more effectively and achieve better results.  

Include details on demographics, behaviours, and pain points of your potential customers. 

Don’t underestimate the power of competitor research. Uncover your rivals’ strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. As a result, you can differentiate yourself from the rest and gain a competitive advantage. 

Step 3: Choose the Right Business Structure

Opening a business always starts with choosing the right business structure. Deciding on a legal business structure will have an impact on taxes, liability, and growth.

In the UK, there are several types of businesses you can choose from:

• Sole trader business – The simplest structure to set up, as it’s only run by one person who is in full control and also fully liable for debts. Profits under a sole trader business are taxed as personal income.
  
• Partnership – A company owned by two or more people with shared responsibility and profits.
  
• Private limited company – The business is considered a separate legal entity from its owners, and the liability is limited to the invested capital.
  
• Limited liability partnership – Can be compared to a partnership, but the partners’ liability is limited. Profits are taxed as personal income rather than corporate tax.
  
• Public limited company – Shares can be sold to the public, and the company can be listed on the stock exchange. 

Before you select one of the available options, make sure you’re fully aware of the specifics of each type of business.

Step 4: Manage Finances Effectively

While the performance of any company is tightly linked to finances, for small business growth, they’re even more essential.

Why? Because in most cases, smaller companies have fewer available resources. 

This makes understanding cash flow a top priority. Monitor income, expenses, and profits on a granular level. Even more, put your organisational skills to practice and make sure everyone involved in running the business is on the same page when it comes to finances. 

The good news is that there are plenty of convenient tools that can help you streamline this part of running a business. For example, accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero can take a large portion of the weight off your shoulders. There are also budgeting tools that you can use for forecasting and financial support for small businesses.

Key Strategies for Running a Business Successfully

So far, we’ve covered the foundations of running a business successfully. Let’s not move on to the proven strategies that will help you maintain this success over time. 

Build a Strong Business Model

Turning your start-up business into a success story requires selecting a business model that aligns with market demand and profitability. 

When creating your business model, ask yourself the following questions:

• What problems are you solving via your products or services?
• How does your offering dominate others in your space?
• Who are your customers and what pain points do they have?
• How will you be making money?
• What does your cost structure look like (what are your fixed and variable costs)?

Once you’ve answered these questions, explore the popular business models in your space. These could be product or service sales, subscription sales, a freemium model, a marketplace model, an advertising model, or even licensing and franchising. 

Focus on Excellent Customer Experience

Perhaps one of the most powerful ways to stay ahead and continuously grow as a business is by making sure your shoppers are satisfied via excellent customer service.

Most businesses underestimate the importance of customer experience and only focus on this aspect once they’ve discovered that something isn’t working. 

Businesses succeed by prioritising customer relationships. Explore different avenues to build trust and encourage loyalty. This can be done by offering exceptional quality that meets and exceeds expectations. It can also be done by showing that you truly care about your consumers and your community. 

You can also use technology to improve customer service and experiences throughout different phases of the customer journey. For example, invest in card machine solutions that make payments quick, seamless, and make no compromise with security. For the purpose, you can partner with a payment service provider like myPOS who will enable you to accept multiple payment methods like card machines, digital payments, and more. 

Another area to concentrate on is implementing a robust and reliable CRM system to track and engage with your customer base. 

Develop a Solid Marketing Strategy

Let’s not forget about marketing - a core pillar of business success.

If you want to witness company growth, make sure your marketing strategies align with your goals. 

Many businesses start with the following strategies as their initial stages:

• Content marketing - Produce high-quality content like blogs, videos, and guides that will educate and inspire your potential customers. Share interesting stories related to your brand or products and services, show real-life situations, and trigger discussions.
  
• Social media campaigns - Create powerful and precise campaigns across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and others to reach and engage your audience.
  
• Paid advertising - Paid ads across Google and Facebook can be expensive, but incredibly rewarding. Use paid advertising to reach specific groups and build brand awareness.
  
• Referral programs, word of mouth, and customer loyalty incentives - Your existing customers are your biggest asset. Encourage them to share their experience with your brand with the world. 

Create combinations of these strategies and test different approaches until you determine what works best for your business.

Manage Your Team and Company Culture

Engaged employees are the driving force behind success and market expansion. To achieve success, it’s vital that you are working with an engaged workforce that truly believes in your services, products, and mission. 

Remember, running a business is a full-time job for both you and your employees. 

Hire top talent in your space and make sure you can retain these skilled and capable people. When sourcing talent, concentrate on skills, cultural fit, and the ability to adapt. 

Once you’ve built the team of your dreams, prioritise engagement and employee satisfaction. Provide professional growth opportunities and do your best to make everyone on the team feel seen and valued. 

Motivate and inspire by offering employee benefits like flexible hours or referral bonuses. Most importantly, make sure you’re building a positive company culture where professionals thrive and grow, both individually and as part of a team. 

Leverage Technology and Tools

Thanks to the advancements in technology today, there are multiple tools you can use nowadays to improve business management, optimise processes, and increase sales. 

Naturally, the tools and digital instruments you’ll need depend entirely on the type of business you operate, the size of your team, your internal capabilities, and more. 

However, some of the most commonly used solutions include:

• Project management tools - Trello and Asana are great products that can help you stay organised and on track with important tasks on a company level.
  
• Payment solutions - Online payment solutions and card machines will allow you to make seamless sales and guarantee safety and security for shoppers both in-store and online.
  
• Accounting tools - Digital accounting tools are a must for managing financial records with zero human error risks.
  
• Marketing tools - Tools like Canva, Hootsuite, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, SEMrush or Ahrefs, and Google Ads are just a few of the must-have ones for implementing marketing strategies online.
  
• Financial tools - Some of the popular digital financial products companies use include software solutions for invoicing, expense tracking, payroll and HR finance, financial planning and forecasting, and others. You can combine these tools with external financial help you may be getting from certified advisers. 

Even if you equip your business with the tools it needs today, your needs and requirements can (and most likely will) change over time. Stay up to date with the arising trends, updates, and improvements, and if necessary, make adjustments in your digital tool portfolio. 

Financial Management: The Lifeblood of a Successful Business

We mentioned finances on several occasions in this article, and this is no coincidence. After all, financial management is at the forefront of business success, no matter the size of your company or your niche.

Monitor Cash Flow Consistently

When dealing with finances, the most important thing is to be aware of your cash flow at all times. 

Cash flow is a key indicator of business health. Failing to acknowledge it can have detrimental effects on your venture.

To maintain healthy cash flow, make sure that you’re invoicing your customers and collecting payments on time. Delays can cause serious operational disruptions as they mean that you have tied up cash that you’re unable to use for other activities. 

One way to encourage your shoppers to make payments on time is to offer diverse and convenient payment options. Make consumers feel safe when shopping with your brand and most importantly - avoid time waste risks.

Plan for Growth and Financial Support

Sometimes, financing business growth is inevitable and external support is needed. 

If you’re planning expansions or simply need to get started but your available resources aren’t enough, seek help from outside.

Government grants and small business loans are some of the options you could explore, in addition to alternative funding like venture capital and crowdfunding.

Measure Financial Success

Last but not least, measure success continuously.

To measure progress over time, make sure you’re tracking key financial metrics throughout different stages of your business journey. 

Although there are numerous KPIs to analyse, the core ones consist of:

• Revenue;
• Gross Profit and Gross Margin;
• Net Profit and Net Profit Margin;
• Operating Profit;
• Cash Flow;
• Return on Investment (ROI).

Each one of these metrics represents vital information about your business and its performance. Ideally, compare these metrics against each other over different periods to discover how your company is reacting to changes in the market. This can also show you how effectively you’re optimising different processes and making positive change.

Common Challenges Small Businesses Face and How to Overcome Them

When running a business, it may seem that challenges and risks are around every corner. And to some extent, this is completely true.

But luckily, you can learn from other companies and take preventive measures before you experience popular problems that others are already dealing with.

Here are some of the most common small business challenges:

• Cash flow issues - Failing to understand and predict cash flow is a frequently seen challenge for small companies. To overcome this obstacle, implement better payment systems that will help you reduce delays.
  
• Attracting and retaining customers - Needless to say, customer acquisition and retention are equally challenging. What you can do is focus on targeted marketing campaigns and provide a service that your consumers won’t be able to resist after testing it once.
  
• Managing growth - Many businesses find themselves stuck in one position with no vivid growth. One way to solve this is to use scalable tools like project management software and CRM platforms that can help you identify weak areas and implement changes effectively.
  
• Staying competitive - Competition is always difficult, especially in crowded markets. To maximise your chances of gaining an advantage over others, perform regular competitive analysis and innovate with new ideas.

Being aware of these obstacles can help you avoid them, putting you one step ahead of others in your industry.

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Achieving Sustainable Business Success

Most successful entrepreneurs share one common trait - the ability to shape long-term positive habits. 

For example, set measurable goals by defining both short- and long-term agendas. Always put innovation over fitting in and keep up with market trends and customer needs, and expectations. Introduce new ideas and find creative ways to solve problems in the market. 

Another powerful habit is to build brand loyalty and consistently put in place strategies to retain customers. These could be loyalty programs, personalised marketing messages, or consistent and positive customer experiences. 

Most importantly, take calculated risks. Find the perfect balance between innovation and risk management and always test ideas on a small scale before full implementation. 

Running a Successful Business Doesn’t Have To Be Difficult

In the end, we can conclude that running a successful business doesn’t have to be a mission impossible. 

Yes, it’s likely to be a journey filled with unexpected situations, risks, and obstacles. But the truth is that with a clear plan and a step-by-step process, you can overcome any challenge and turn your business dreams into reality. 

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I run a business effectively if I have no previous experience as a business owner?

The good thing about getting started in business is that you don’t have to have years of experience. You only need to have a basic understanding of how to run a business effectively and be open to testing different strategies and making adjustments where necessary.

How can I run a business from home?

When it comes to how to run a business from home, the same principles apply as in the case of running a business from an office. Again, you’ll need to create a business plan, choose the right business structure, source funding (if necessary), research your market, promote your products or services, hire experts to join your team, and more.

Can I use strategies that have worked for one of my businesses to grow an entirely new business?

Yes, if you already have experience growing one business, don’t be afraid to use your tested methods for another company. However, keep in mind that chances are your target market will be different, and refinements could be necessary in other parts of your methods. .