4 Ways Your Startup Business Might Be Broken And How To Fix It

When you decided to push the button on your startup business I know it was a really magical time filled with tons of emotions.

Excitement, fear, happiness and uncertainty mixed with lots of motivation.

That is exactly how you should feel. But the problem is, is that sometimes things don’t always go to plan. When we make such a big decision in life, for it to not go in the direction we wanted, envisioned and believed in can be heart breaking.

Have you already started to think?

“Was this a bad idea? Why didn’t I try this instead? Maybe I’m not a boss? Should I just quit?”

Before you make any big decisions I want you to check out the items on this list. Every item on the list could be something that you are not doing. It could be the missing key to your success.

4 Ways Your Startup Business Might Be Broken And How To Fix It

To begin with, let’s start with the core of every business.

No matter what business or industry you are in every single business under the sun has a core. This core is the business light; this core is the business heart and soul…

The customers!

I know it’s easy to become distracted with competition, social media and highly creative content but ultimately, what is any business without customers?

Typically when a business is failing to growth it’s because the owner has forgotten a ‘piece’ of the bridge. And this ‘piece’ is failing to allow the customers gain access to what the business really has to offer.

You have to tune into your customers like a radio station. If you can’t tune your way to the right channel then you’ll never hear that sweet music.

So what are you doing wrong? What part of the bridge have you forgotten about?

4 Ways Your Startup Business Might Be Broken And How To Fix It

#1 Startup Business — Engaging the Right Way

Have you ever thought about how you speak to your customers? Have you ever thought about how they engage with one another? Have you tapped into their language?

You see, customers will unconsciously connect with you when you speak on their level. When they understand and relate to the language you speak it helps them to trust you. They will know that you can honestly solve their problems and solve their needs.

Now, when I talk about ‘language’ I don’t necessarily mean, do they say things like…”Hi, hello or hey”.

Customer language is when you connect with their ‘personal’ language? Are they highly ’emotional’? Are they ‘desperate’? Are they ‘professional’? Are the ‘irrational’?

Think about your own daily interactions and what helps you to connect better with people…

How comfortable would you be if you had a coffee with a friend and they spoke to you like a city lawyer?

How comfortable would you feel if your city lawyer spoke to you like a friend?

You have to match ‘language’ with your customers.

How You Can Understand Their Language

To start with it’s impossible to learn everything you need to know about your customer’s language overnight. It’s not as black and white as 1 + 1 = 2 and that’s that, the discussion ends there.

Learning about this group is a continuous process. Their language changes and evolves so what you learn today may be different in 3 years’ time. So you have to commit to always learning so you can stay relevant with your audience

But the simplest ways to learn their language is to start looking and listening at where your customers already are. You need to go to wherever they are already gathered. This is best way to get a good analysis of your customer’s language.

Start with industry leaders and your competition.

To find industry leaders just type in the main keywords for your niche into Google. Learn more about this process here.

Once you a have a list of at least 10 competitors and industry leaders next, visit common gathering places of customers. Just like comment sections on blog posts, testimonial sections and social media accounts.

Comments

If they have a blog that has a comment section the next task is to start looking through the comments. Look through as many as possible. The more you look through the better your knowledge will be.

Use a pen and paper and start to think about what types of engagement and emotions are coming through in the customer’s communications.

Are they serious, happy, sad, helpful, loving, angry, depressed, desperate or even spiritual?

Use bullet points and list down what types of emotions, thoughts and feelings are coming through. Once you know this information you’ll know what type of people you are speaking to. You’ll know what type of position they are in and how they are feeling.

Social Media

You can also gather further information by using industry leaders and your competitor’s social media accounts to. All industry leaders are highly likely to be active on social media.

Customers within your niche will ‘retweet’, ‘comment’ and ‘like’ what they are interested in. What’s great about this is that the customer also creates a foot grail back to themselves and their own account.

What you need to do is spend some time checking out customers actual accounts. If they have ‘commented’, ‘liked’ or ‘retweeted’ content then you can start to check them out.

What you’ll usually find is the customers have similarities in personas. You need to start noting down what these similarities are. If you can access their information then check their photos, what else’s they’ve liked, what are their favourite TV programmes, books or types of music.

I know all this checking might seem sneaky and time consuming but being able to see this type of information is like having an open window view into your customer’s lives.

Are they parents? Do they like sports? Are they very social? Do they only listen to ‘gym motivation’ music?

This information is what will guide you towards speaking their language.

How you write and talk to a young stay-at-home parent is different to how you talk to an 18 year old surfer kid.

Engage with customer in the right way a start speaking their language.

#2 Startup Business — Have You Connected With the Right Product?

Do you already have products and services, but they are not selling? I bet you put in a lot of hard work and effort into your creation, right?

But did you do any research? Is it really what your customers want and desire?

Now that you have spent some time learning the language and maybe even seen personal photos of your customers, you have been able to gain a little more inside knowledge.

Know you have a little more knowledge what are your thoughts on the products and services you are providing?

Do your products match what the customers’ needs are? This is a time where you have to be brutally honest with yourself!

Don’t ask yourself… “Is my product great”… because I’m sure it is

Don’t ask yourself… “Would my customers find my product useful”… because I’m sure they would

What you need to ask yourself is…”Is this what my customers want right now? Is this what they are looking for and currently buying?”

How To Check If This is The Right Product

The good news is, is that you have already completed a large portion of the hard work by completing the previous step.

You now know the customer’s emotional state and general demographic.

So if you have products/services, do you believe they are really suited to what the customers are looking for?

What types of products/services are the industry leaders and competition selling?

What format are their products sold in?

Think about the current state of your customers. Think about what is already popular and being sold.

Are they selling seats for webinars? Are they selling EBook courses? Are they selling one on one coaching?

RELATED: Top 10 Elements Business Start Up Products Need to Be Successful

RELATED: 4 Critical Steps to Price Your Product Right

#3 Startup Business — Not Marketing Yourself Probably

How good are your marketing effects? Do you think you have positioned yourself in the right places? Have you positioned yourself in the places where your customers are at?

And if you are where they are at, then are you targeting them in the right way?

What are your customer’s favourite social network platforms? Facebook? Twitter? Snapchat?

What types of advertisement do they respond to better? Video sales? Blog posts? Facebook adverts?

How to Market Yourself the Right Way?

Any type of marketing is never 100% guaranteed to work. Sometimes it has to be tested, tweaked and changed. But a good way to start is to start thinking about what types of methods that your popular competition is currently using.

Are they using Facebook adverts? Are they leveraging content marketing? Are they using YouTube videos?

Establish a minimum of 3 methods that you want to use and creating a testing period where you can try a method, analyse it and whether to…

A. Continue to use it, but think about how you can improve your pervious results
 B. Stop using it altogether
 C. Tweak the current method and try again

#4 Startup Business — You Haven’t Built a Sales Funnel

Have you built an appropriate system for funnelling customers and making sales?

1st Part of Funnel — First Impressions
 The first part is brand awareness which is all about the first initial contact with your business. This could be through finding you on Google, social media message or even a Facebook advert.

2nd Part of Funnel — Education
The second part of the funnel is where you make people aware that you are the right one for the job. This is where you services and product information comes in. Use your product/services pages to make them aware that you can solve their problems and you have what they need. This part of the funnel is all about educating your readers. You can also do this through high quality blog post and a unique ‘About’ page.

3rd Part of Funnel — Trust
 The last stage is about trust building. If you have built up enough trust then the customer will make a purchase. You can build trust by offering making back guarantees, testimonials and success stories. This very important part of the funnel as it is the last stage and you last chance to convince the customers that you are their best option.
 To build a great sales funnel first think separately about each stage.

Part 1 — First Impressions
 What emotion are you trying to create within the customer after their first interaction?
 Once you know this answer all of the ‘first impression’ content created can be built around these emotions.

Part 2 — Education
 List three important ‘take aways’ that the customers will obtain once they read your content.
 What take ‘away action’ will you provide them with?
 How do you plan to stay in contact with them?

Part 3 — Trust
 Are you currently building trust with your customers?
 In what ways to you think you build even more trust in your abilities and business?

Conclusion

When you are building a business bridge for the first time it is easy to miss out a few pieces, especially if you are being bombarded with unhelpful distractions.

But it’s ok. Mistakes are what help you to learn and make you and your business better.

If your business is simply just not growing then instead of looking forwards, go back and check the bridge you’ve built so far.

Is something important missing?

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Originally published at www.StartBizQuitJob.com on January 26, 2016.