Tweet

How to Choose Business Success Instead of Failure

Guest post by: Lisa Manyon

Article Overview: Anyone who has ever started a business knows there is work involved. It takes a clear vision, strategic planning, marketing and more to be successful. The two traits of successful businesses that I see most often (regardless of the type of business) are consistency and communication. To truly choose success, you must incorporate both into your overall strategy.

How to Choose Business Success Instead of Failure

Do you think that business success is truly a choice?

I believe that it is.

Anyone who has ever started a business knows there is work involved. It takes a clear vision, strategic planning, marketing and more to be successful.

The two traits of successful businesses that I see most often (regardless of the type of business) are consistency and communication. To truly choose success, you must incorporate both into your overall strategy. Consistency = staying power. When you create a strong brand and platform and continue to be true to that you'll gain trust, brand recognition and people will know you are serious about your business.

Communication = relationships. Relationships are key to business success because without them you don't have customers. It's important to communicate with customers and potential customers to let them know how you can be of service to them.

Successful businesses incorporate consistency and communication in all facets of their business. Businesses that fail generally don't have plans, lack consistency and don't let potential customers know what they have to offer.

I've been pondering this recently because I've had several people ask me if I offer specific services (even though they are listed on my website) or assume that they cannot afford to work with me because they didn't immediately see information about my editing /rewrite rates which are considerably lower than starting from scratch. Plus, there are some things I do that aren't even listed on my site... (and there are more to come, soon.)

This made me realize I'm not being as consistent with my communication as I should be (can you relate?). It also made me think about the businesses that are continually reinventing themselves with no apparent rhyme or reason...

It's easy to assume that people understand what you offer and know what is available but the truth of the matter is, they don't and won't unless you tell them and show them how you can be of service. It's equally important to be consistent in what you offer so you don't confuse people.

So, with that being said, I plan to communicate my offerings more effectively and consistently so I can truly be of service to those who need my offerings most.

Are there products and services you should be sharing with your community to support them?

Are you being consistent and communicating?

Are you REALLY clear about who you are, what you do and how you can best serve your ideal clients?

Related Articles
  Failure or Feedback You choose
  Small Business Owners - How To Overcome Fear Of Failure?
  The Truth About Failure
  Failure Is the Tuition You Pay for Success
  Do You Avoid Failure Like the Plague?
  The Magic of Thinking Big: Developing the Power of Belief
  Success or Failure Sequence
  Failure and Risk
  Fail to Succeed
  Question of the Day: What will you do with your failure?
  It's Better to Fail Quickly
  5 Secrets of Turning Failure Into Success
  Fear Free Selling
  Success Demands You Must Go Where You’ve Never Gone Before by Doing What You’ve Never Done Before
  Welcome In Failure!
  Do You Think You Are a Failure, When Failure Comes Knocking At Your Door?
  What is Failure Anyway?
  Are you prosperous worker?
  What’s the Real Key to Success? It’s Failure
  Consultative Selling Addresses the Need Buyers Never Admit

Article Tags: business, communication, marketing, relationships, strategic planning, successful business



Related Forum Posts
These maybe the coldest franchises out there: - Here are the worst 15 performing franchises in regards to having the highest Small Business Administration (SBA) loan failure rates. The list is dotted with sub sandwich shops, fitness centers and car shops. WORST FRANCHISE LOAN FAILURES Failure % 1 OBEE'S SOUP SALAD SUBS 55.56% 2 LADY OF AMERICA 41.94% 3 COUNTRY CLUTTER (BED & BREAKFAST) 41.18% 4 COPY CLUB 36.36% 5 ALL TUNE AND LUBE 35.71% 6 PICKERMAN'S 35.71% 7 PHILLY CONNECTION 35.59% 8 ROLY POLY ROLLED SANDWICHES 34.78% 9 COTTMAN TRANSMISSION 34.48% 10 HAIR COLOR EXPRESS 33.33% 11 LEE MYLES AUTOMOTIVE TRANSMISSIONS 33.33% 12 GODFATHER'S PIZZA 33.33% 13 SMOOTHIE FACTORY 33.33% 14 BLIMPIE 31.39% 15 GOLF U.S.A. (RETAIL GOLF EQUIP.) 30.77% Source: Small Business Administration, SBA Loan Performance Within Franchise Code for the Period of FY 2001 - 2005
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Books for the Entrepreneur - Here's one of my most recent books The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success By Brian Tracy
Why A Project Fails? - Hello Everyone As the size and complexity of ones business grows, so does their need to effectively manage projects. I have been thinking about the major reasons why a project can go wrong and my limited experience comes up with the following. 1 Leadership: A project manager with leadership skills and not just management skills. 2 Failure to (Foresee and) Plan 3 Failure to Manage: Ineffective change management control methods. Unclear decision making guidelines. 4 Talent: Finding, allocating and developing people 5 Scope: Setting an overly ambitious or amibigious project scope 6 Alignment: When projects are not prioritized in alignment with the business strategy, or project members personal objectives are not in tandem with that of the project / company 7 Lack of Candor: Communication Breakdowns I would be interested in knowing everyone's thoughts on this, especially on ways to overcome the above mentioned obstacles. Cheers!
Top performing Franchise Loans - Evan, There are over 120 Franchises listed by the SBA with 0% Loan Failure from 10-1-00 to 9-30-05 these companies have at leat 10 loans disbursed. A number of the companies are Hotel/Motel Franchises so I listed them separately. Since all the ones listed have 0% loan failure I listed them descending by # of loans disbursed. Top 20 (by # loans Disbursed) 0% SBA Loan Failure (does not include hotels/motels) 1 21425--CULVER'S FROZEN CUSTARD 85 2 66910--PRIMROSE SCHOOL (DAYCARE) 76 3 14467--CARTRIDGE WORLD STORES 54 4 68021--QUIZNO'S SUBS 41 5 06560--AUNTIE ANN'S (SOFT PRETZELS) 40 6 29912--FIREHOUSE SUBS 35 7 31154--FOOT SOLUTIONS 35 8 52707--MEDICAP PHARMACY 35 9 09802--BEN & JERRY'S ICE CREAM 33 10 67759--COMFORT SUITES 33 11 70150--RITTER'S FROZEN CUSTARD 32 12 05650--ARBY'S 31 13 65160--PLATO'S CLOSET 31 14 67417--PUMP IT UP 30 15 69149--REMAX 30 16 71456--SALAD WORKS, INC. 30 17 76282--SONIC DRIVE-IN 27 18 84725--UNION 76 OIL 27 19 17049--CHRISTIAN BROTHERS AUTOMOTIVE 26 20 78950--SUNOCO SERVICE STATION 26 Top 10 0% SBA Loan Failure Hotel/Motels 1 10275--BEST WESTERN INN 104 2 67750--COMFORT INN 98 3 38605--HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS 87 4 36680--HAMPTON INNS 57 5 53165--MICROTEL 33 6 75385--SLEEP INN MOTEL 26 7 04160--AMERIHOST INN 18 8 69134--RED ROOF INN 13 9 17230--CLARION INN & SUITES 11 10 20715--COUNTRY INN 11


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Rumor Has It

What is an Adaptive Organization

Inspiration for troubled times

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.