She Leads Africa

Big Company Strategies for Start-ups/Small Businesses to adapt

Running a small business has its pros and cons, the same as running a large corporation. Large corporations may have endless resources to implement and execute elaborate and detailed strategies as they have hundreds of great minds constantly devising new ways to grow their business. Whereas in a small company, you have to keep overheads lean, hence, there is no massive budget for strategy sessions with great minds from Ivy league schools. In a small business, the entrepreneur is the great mind and the world is your Ivy league degree, you have to make do with what you have. But how exactly can you do that? I highlighted some solid, foolproof strategies that big corporations employ to achieve massive results and successes, which can be applied to your small business on a lean budget.   Market Segmentation Enterprises spend millions annually on research to find out what market segment their products are best suited to. Market segmentation is important in every business as knowing your customer is the key to finding your market, which consequently leads to sales. You need to know who your customers are, where to find them and how to reach them.   For small businesses, market segmentation helps you focus on a particular demographic or geographical area, thereby allowing you focus efforts on being the market champion in that market segment. To figure out your market, small business owners should ask questions like who is your ideal customer? Which customers are you avoiding? What markets are the most profitable? Answering these questions would help entrepreneurs prioritize and apportion resources to market segments that have the highest returns. Marketing Funnel A marketing funnel is basically a fancy term for all the points in your customer acquisition strategy where you contact prospective clients. As a prospective customer moves down the funnel, the better your chances of converting them into a paying client. Big businesses have a large team and budget to automate and implement this process, with small businesses on a lean budget, you can adapt this technique by being intuitive to your customer’s buying pattern. Ask yourself,  how does a customer find out about your service? How often do they come to your page? When do they buy? What motivates this purchase? Asking yourself these questions gives you a clearer understanding of how to move your customer from being aware of your product to become paying clients.   Partnerships That Work Large corporations usually cut deals with their counterparts that their customers can benefit from, small businesses should employ this tactic. By bundling your services with another that complements you and your customers, you rake up good points with your clients. For instance, if you sell hair extensions, you can offer your clients free hair care products, this would cause clients to be more inclined to your products, or event decorators could team up with an event space to offer a bundled service to customers. It’s about leveraging what you’re good at, not trying to be everything to everyone and giving your customer a more wholesome and rewarding experience. Chief Sales Officer Enterprises can afford to pay several people bucket loads of money. Especially people who work just to think about how to execute more sales every day. These people have access to real-time data and analytics. The data is what helps them make sensible insights, that make executing a large number of sales a reality. On the other hand, for small businesses, it is usually hard to have more than one person in this role. It is of utmost importance to have someone who is constantly thinking of ways the company can generate revenue. You must always know who your customers are, where they are and know what they want. As you scale, have more people in sales and segment each section of the market the person should be handling. By focusing on the customer and how to make them advocates, generating sales and loyalty. Most businesses have grown to become big businesses.   If you’d like to get featured on our Facebook page, click here to share your story with us.

Budding entrepreneur: Here’s why you need a Lawyer in Your Corner

Naivety and misplaced trust have seen many individuals lose money and opportunities they have worked for in business. Doing business with a friend can contribute to its success as there are cohesion and team spirit at work. However, delve into a little research and you will realize that many have also been swindled by friends they considered family. When setting up a business especially a partnership it’s good to get your agreement in writing and sign contracts. This will draw boundaries on which the business will operate. [bctt tweet=”A Lawyer brings perspective to your business.” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Most millennials excited by the start of something new forget that there are legal obligations that their businesses should meet. This is why it’s paramount to involve a lawyer from the onset of your business. A Lawyer brings perspective to your business. Instead of seeing the business as a friends venture or a short-term money-making investment. Lawyers see the bigger picture and plan for circumstances that we may not foresee as we are busy trying to build the business. Change is inevitable, mindsets change and people who were previously on the same page about the direction a business should take begin to disagree. This situation is dangerous as it can lead to the death of the business or the destruction of a brand if no prior steps had been taken to advise on what should be done in such a situation. That’s why it’s important to involve a lawyer early on at the start of the business albeit the extra cost the lawyer will add to your young business. In the long-term, you will realize this is cheaper as opposed to calling on a lawyer only when things go wrong and you are in court. [bctt tweet=”A lawyer will go out of their way to ensure your company’s intellectual property is protected” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Our current world is such that you can do everything by yourself online including registering a company in a span of one to three days. You can draw contracts to use in your business transactions using templates provided online. Such liberties are great but they should not delude us into thinking that lawyers are not key to our businesses success. A lawyer will go out of their way to ensure your company’s intellectual property is protected. In a business partnership between friends, they will bring the law on board to ensure no one is cunning enough to overwork the other and still expect to reap from the others hard work. Here are some reasons why motherland moguls should enlist the knowledge of lawyers in their businesses. A lawyer is your voice of reason. Most businesses sprout from our passions. This means we may not be very objective while making some decisions. We are tempted to use trust as a currency while dealing with our customers or partners just to get the business on its feet. This means we may end up with bankrupting the business due to bad debts. Lawyers come in handy as they assert themselves and insist on contracts with suppliers and customers. This saves motherland moguls from cons as there will be no loopholes to be exploited in the business. Lawyers offer security and protection A lawyer’s roles are to pre-empt situations and ensure we are not victims of unscrupulous people who we are doing business with. In situations where certain circumstances cannot be avoided, they ensure the law is on our side. Many times we are ignorant of what is required of us by law and lawyers protect us from our own ignorance.   Lawyers have connections and a clientele base like you The right lawyer will hold your hand and help you know the ins and outs of the business niche you have chosen to explore. They have other clients like you and so they have been on the journey you are just beginning. Lawyers will offer insights that may prove very useful in the long run to a start-up. In addition to offering legal services, they can be a marketing tool for your business as they speak of your business to potential clients. Got an article you’d like to share with us? Share your story with us here.