The hallmark of a competent business owner is being able to look back at their beginnings and reflect on what they could have done differently. Meanwhile, a smart novice will seek such advice out and take it to heart without having to experience the downsides personally.
Here are six pieces of hard-earned wisdom a new business owner should consider and learn from.
Key Takeaways
- Sound finances underpin every other aspect of success
- Diversifying clients, staff, and tools makes connected issues more manageable
- Early documentation ensures clarity and compliance
- Choose digital tools strategically and treat cybersecurity as a day-one priority
- Finances Define Possibilities
Having a financially savvy mindset should be among your first priorities. Striving for profit and getting to grips with the numbers along the way isn’t enough, though. You’ll want to secure a steady cash flow and observe how money moves in real-time to anticipate issues and make informed decisions.
Eventual rough patches are a given, so set up a monetary safety net to weather seasonal lulls or unexpected expenses early. Your goal is to build up a sustainable business, which means basing financial decisions on long-term outcomes and maintaining discipline even when things start to look up.
- Single Points of Failure Increase Uncertainty
It’s normal and expected to start small. Maybe you’ll land an awesome client or have luck partnering with a reliable supplier. However, if you want to grow, so does the need to diversify. Expanding your customer base, workforce, and toolset dilutes the impact that losing a single piece of the puzzle in each category will have on your business.
- Develop and Document with Intention
You won’t go far if you do things haphazardly, and other employees won’t be able to realize your vision if everyone’s not on the same page. That means documenting everything early and deliberately, from detailed business processes to policies that define accountability and responsibility. The tidier and more up-to-date you keep this, the easier it will be to meet compliance needs and transfer knowledge to new employees.
- A Smart Digital Tool Use Strategy Is a Must
If there’s an aspect of business to be streamlined, a tool with which to do so likely already exists. They’ll work to your advantage, but you need to be smart about adoption.
Careful selection is key. You may be tempted to opt for the newest and most talked-about tools, especially if they feature AI capabilities. Consider their reliability and scalability first to ensure you can keep using them as the business expands. One technology advice – avoid digital tool sprawl by carefully vetting new ones and focusing only on tools that are proven to speed up workflows and free you from rote tasks.
- As Is Cybersecurity
The tools mentioned above, your website, the networks you access these from, and the AIs you use – they all represent potentially exploitable weak points. Inexperienced business owners fail to address this because they don’t believe they’re interesting targets. A single compromised account and subsequent data breach are enough to disprove this and shut the business down for good.
Practicing cybersecurity basics from the start is non-negotiable. Having strong and unique passwords, regularly backing up data, understanding what does a VPN do, using it when connecting from outside networks, and being cautious about oversharing information are essential practices that everyone in the organization should internalize and start implementing early.
- Relationships Trump Sales
Setting your business up for long-term success means maintaining a stellar reputation. Customers come first, so treat each one with respect and try to accommodate all reasonable needs. Adjust and extend this approach to suppliers, third-party vendors, your local community, and all other stakeholders that prop your business up. This builds long-term trust and connections, with higher customer lifetime value and an impeccable reputation as natural consequences.
