Over the last nine years I have had lots of experiences that have been rewarding, from renting my first office, to employing my first member of staff. One of the first things I thought of when thinking of the structure of my business, was to come up with a mission statement, and it was so easy for me. I chose Simple Creativity. Short, sweet, to the point and in itself – SIMPLE.
By living and breathing these two words for a decade, it has helped me establish a great presence with business owners locally and nationally to gain trust and reassure them that we won’t baffle them with bullshit to win them over.
Here are my top 6 tips to remember when starting your business. I promise you, by doing these 6 things you WILL be successful and you WILL get long term customers.
1. Be Yourself
We are all people, no robots. People buy from people. Be yourself and make sure your personality comes across in meetings, on your website and through your branding. In my business I don’t wear a tie and I never think twice about picking my phone up and texting a client ‘How are you doing today? What did you do last night!?’
2. Be Honest
If you’re expensive, be honest… for what you’ll do for the client, you’re probably great value for money. If you’ve forgotten to hit a deadline, be honest, it’s probably not the end of the world. We can all forget sometimes, its just human error. I have won so much business through just being honest.
3. Be Transparent
Don’t beat around the bush. Be clear to your customer with what they are getting and how it will work for them. No bullshit.
4. Be Responsive
How many times have you made an enquiry to a company and they get back to you a week later with ‘Sorry, no we don’t do that.’ It’s SHIT. We have a policy in my business that we respond to all customer enquiries within 3 rings of a telephone and within 30 minutes to every email regardless of the time of day. Customer service is paramount to a successful business. Any response is fine, so if you have to wait for your supplier to get back to you, don’t worry! Just go back to your client with a message saying ‘We are just finding out from our supplier, please give us a day or two and we will get back to you properly’….. That is bringing everything together. HONESTY, TRANSPARENCY and you are BEING YOURSELF. It’ll go a long way. Trust me.
5. Be Strong
Not everyone will buy your service or product. Not everyone will like you. You won’t win every quote. You won’t hit your targets every month. Sorry to tell you but that is part of life and business, but be STRONG, you will get over it.
6. Don’t baffle to win business
It has taken me almost a decade to get my business processes right.
I sit in so many meetings with potential clients and get told the horror stories about other marketing agencies, how they baffle with bullshit to win business and to justify there £3000 a month retainer. It shouldn’t be like this. I will tell you now, marketing isn’t rocket science, and if you had time, you’d be able to do it yourself. It needs to be clever and consistent to see results. We never baffle with bullshit, if something doesn’t work quite as it should, we own up to it. We are only human after all.
I hope you have found this blog useful. If you have a horror story, or would like help with your business. Talk to me. The link is below.
