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Posts Tagged ‘australian businesses’

Important Things to Consider Before You Launch a New Business

Posted by Emily Ridley

Launching a new business can overwhelming and is full of risks. It takes a lot more than just a great idea to launch a successful business, you need to surround with a good team, you need a good level of finances, a savvy marketing plan and so much more. Here is a list of important things to consider before you launch your new business.

What Problem Are You Trying to Solve and Who Is Your Target Audience?

For a business idea or product to be valuable it must help people in a way that they are currently not being helped. Asking yourself what problem can your product or service solve is essential to achieving business success.

It would be a good idea to undertake some research into what challenges people are facing and find one that is common, unsolved and which you could provide a profitable solution for. You also need to put yourself into the mindset of someone who refuses to accept the status quo and has an ambition of making the world a better place

If you already have a product or service idea, do some research to make sure it solves an existing problem.

Do Some Research and Figure Out Who Is Your Target Audience

It is crucial for you to figure out who the main competitors are within your niche? It doesn’t matter as much if you are entering a saturated marketplace if you have a established a strong purpose and a unique selling point that aims to solve a problem that people are begging to be solved.

When undertaking research for your business idea make sure you, search for communities of consumers relating to your area. What are the main pain points consumers want solving that you could provide solutions for?

Take into consideration factors such as; age, gender, social economic status and any hobbies and interests your target audience predominately have.

Also take into consider any factors such as how they communicate. Are they all on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or is email the best way to keep in contact with them?

In terms of geography, it would be wise to ask yourself what areas of the world does your ideal customer live in? Are you targeting audiences in a specific location like an estate agent might be, or is your audience spread around the world across a large variety of different cultures and time zones?

Create A Strong Business Plan and Strong Marketing Campaign

This may seem like an obvious thing to do but it’s often overlooked. Although it’s unlikely that your business will follow the exact path outlined in your business plan, it provides a way to focus your mind, come up with concrete goals to shoot for, and plan your finances in advance. This is also a great way to secure investment by showing potential funders that you know exactly what you’re doing.

Ask yourself what are your goals for the first few years and what do you hope to achieve within a certain timeframe?

Ask yourself what is your budget and how much money can you afford to spend on things such as; marketing and to hire new staff?

No matter how good your idea is, you’re going to need to run a marketing campaign that is highly impactful to keep new leads coming in, raise brand awareness, and advertise your services.

Do research into the main advertising mediums for your niche, what works for your industry and what marketing tactics doesn’t. Ask questions such as, are short term or long term marketing campaigns the way to go?

Once you know the kind of campaigns you are going to run, you should investigate the cost of running them and scope out the agencies and platforms that will help you get your campaigns off the ground.

Have Your Finances Organised

You need to have a realistic expectation of how much your business will cost and have 100 percent certainty that you know where that money is going to come from.

Don’t waste your time starting a new business if you don’t have the money to sustain it. Build up reserves of cash wherever possible. If you already have a regular flow of income, set aside some of it for contingencies; you never know when you’ll be bit by a surprise bill, have a major client drop out, or have a supplier raise their prices on you.

Have A Backup Plan in Case Your Business Fails to Succeed

In the unfortunate event where your business fails you don’t want to end up stuck with a warehouse full of products that you are unable to sell or a mountain of debts you can’t pay off. Before you start your business, you should make the sensible decisions to ask yourself “if everything goes wrong and my business fails, what’s the worse that will happen?”

You need to consider this question very seriously and know what the honest answer is. Maybe you can sell off your capital assets so that you’re not left with a massive financial loss. This is where it’s important you didn’t tell your boss to shove it before going solo, because you may need to ask for your old job back if things don’t work out.

Starting a business involves a serious amount of risk but, in many ways, it’s never been easier to do so. Many new businesses begin lives as internet-based projects until they have the capital to expand and today there are more ways to advertise your services than ever before.

How Your Small Business Can Become More Eco-Friendly

Posted by Emily Ridley

In recent years customers have become more conscious about the impact their purchases are having on the environment. If you are the owner of a small business, it is highly recommended that you evaluate the impact your business methods are having on the environment. By making any effort to do this your customers will be impressed and it will make you appear more trustworthy and respectable.

Here are some tips to help your business become more eco-friendly.

Use More Sustainable Products

The items companies purchase to ensure their workplaces function well be it printer paper, cleaning products or to-go containers can be toxic to the environment due to the processes that go into making them. 

For all those paper items commonly used, such as rolls of toilet paper and reams of printer paper, office managers can look for labelling that says it is made from post or pre-consumer waste. Recycled products such as these maintain a circular economy and reduce overall waste.

For cleaning products, there is a whole cottage industry of green cleaners that don’t include toxic chemicals, opting instead for natural ingredients that work just as well. Using these products keeps toxic ingredients out of the streams and their waste out of landfills. 

Write a sustainability page or policy

A brilliant way to share your sustainability values and efforts with both your customers and your staff is to create a sustainability policy or page and have it published on your website.

If you’re a business with many staff, a policy outlining the goals and steps to becoming more sustainable will help make sure that everyone who works at your organisation is on the same page. Your policy can literally be “Our organisation is aspiring to become eco-friendlier, here are the actions everyone in the business is required to take and the values that need to be considered when making future decisions within our business.”

If your business has a website, adding a sustainability page will help outline your values for your customers and explain what steps you’re taking to become a more conscious business.

This page can consist of a list of steps you’re both currently doing, and a list of steps your organisation is moving towards. Sustainability can be a work in progress, too as long as you’re moving in the right direction. If you don’t wish to have a whole page about your sustainability police, you can simply add a blurb or paragraph to your “About page”, “Values page” or even a blog or a post on your social media platforms.

Offer Your Employees the Opportunity to Work Remotely

Because we live in a world where it is possible for more work to be completed online, there is less need for people to be in a physical office. Remote work has taken off over the past few years, allowing employees to have work-life flexibility and substantially reducing their time spent commuting. 

Working from home has become a hugely popular lifestyle for millions of employees around the world during the covid-19 pandemic. By maintaining and expanding the number of employees working from home, emissions from commutes are greatly reduced. The less cars on the road the less emissions.

Give Your Staff Public Transport Commuter Benefits

When employees do need to be in the office, how their commute contributes to greenhouse gas emissions still can be influenced. 

Public transportation (buses, trains, vanpools) is the greenest way to commute, and companies can encourage employees to take advantage of these transport options.

Small businesses can provide employees with public transit benefits that help the environment, either directly or through their human resources (HR) software. 

To provide these benefits directly, many city transit agencies offer subsidized passes for businesses. Alternately, these benefits may be available to add through HR software that centralizes all benefit programs.

Encourage Your Employees and Customers to Make Environmentally Friendly Purchases

Many car companies are encouraging their employees to go electric when choosing a new car. Many businesses are incentivising employees to buy an electric car by providing them with a monthly voucher covering a portion of their lease or finance payment. Some businesses are encouraging carpooling to and from the office. Some businesses have switched to all LED lighting in their offices and have installed solar panels to offset their energy usage.

Emerge Advisory