About 80% of small businesses survive their first year. Unfortunately, only half survive beyond the five-year mark. If you want to ensure small business success, you’re going to need a plan.

Otherwise, you could run out of capital, develop an imbalanced team, or fall behind the competition.

Here are 10 tips that can help you discover how to make your small business successful. With a business development strategy, you can get ahead of competitors and give your business a boost.

Instead of struggling to make it past the five-year mark, you can develop a strong, successful business that stands out in the marketplace.

Give your business the strong start it needs with these small business success tips today!

1. Focus on the Big Picture

Successful small businesses know how to look at the big picture when developing a business plan.

Try using a top-down perspective. Look for ways to eliminate issues from the top level down before they impact sales. For example, instead of firing employees, make sure they have the proper training before opening your doors.

Don’t forget to consider your business’ position in the current financial environment. How is COVID-19 affecting your business? What changes can you make to reach customers and maintain sales?

Focusing on the big picture will help you forecast potential scenarios. Then, you can prepare yourself and your business to avoid issues down the road.

2. Determine Your Goals

Successful small businesses also know how to set and achieve goals. Your business objectives will keep you focused on the path ahead. Try establishing SMART goals to keep your team on the same page.

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-Driven, and Timely. For example, maybe you want to increase sales by 15% in the first quarter of the year.

Once you determine your goals, you can develop strategies to accomplish those goals. Determine what you need to achieve each goal. After gathering the necessary resources, get to work!

Track your progress as you go. Stay organized to make sure you’re not forgetting anything that’s essential to your company’s success.

3. Complete a SWOT Analysis

Analyze the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) to your business. Researching your competitors will help you recognize the opportunities they’re missing. Then, you can get a step ahead by focusing on that niche.

Keep an eye out for potential threats that could impact your success. For example, COVID-19 and social distancing are impacting business hours. Maybe you can use online purchasing and free deliveries to keep business from slowing down.

About 42% of businesses fail because there’s no market need. Make sure to complete a full SWOT analysis throughout the year. You might notice new threats and opportunities emerge every few months.

4. Remain Creative

Your SWOT analysis can also provide you with opportunities to act creatively. What improvements can you make that will help you stand out from competitors?

Using an innovative approach can help consumers see there’s a value in choosing your business. Remain open to new ideas.

Sometimes, you’ll need to make a calculated risk for your business. Make sure to measure the risk versus reward.

Take the time to consider worst-case scenarios. Then, develop a solution for each scenario. Developing these solutions ahead of time will help you optimize your small business success.

5. Know When to Make Sacrifices

Many small business success stories fail to mention the sacrifices business owners had to make along the way. You might have to put in long, tedious hours to become a success story yourself. Remember to focus on the big picture and everything you’ll accomplish in the months to come.

Don’t Sacrifice Quality

While you’ll need to make sacrifices to become a successful business, it’s important to avoid sacrificing quality. In order to cut costs, you might need to make smart changes to your business plan.

Make sure those cuts don’t impact the quality service or product consumers expect from you. Otherwise, you might lose their trust and loyalty.

6. Have Funds Ready

Only 40% of small businesses are profitable. Successful small businesses know how to utilize their funds to avoid losing money.

First, start small. Try not to tie too much cash into overhead costs.

It’s also important to maintain quality merchandise and control your inventory. Make sure to listen to your customers to determine demand, too.

Develop a plan in case an accident occurs. Otherwise, your assets are put at risk. You can discover why it’s important to consider business liability here.

7. Focus on Consistent, Quality Service

Your customers are key to your company’s success. With that in mind, make sure to provide the best possible service.

Take the time to gather feedback from your customers, too. How can you improve? What expectations do they have of you?

Providing consistent, high-quality customer service will keep customers coming back for more.

8. Build Your Brand

It takes about seven impressions before someone remembers your brand. Within the first 10 seconds of seeing your brand, consumers have already formed an opinion about you. You need to make those 10 seconds count.

Building your brand is essential for long-term small business success. Otherwise, you’ll never differentiate yourself from competitors. If you don’t differentiate yourself, why will consumers choose you over another business?

First, consider your unique value proposition. What value are you offering consumers that they can’t find anywhere else?

Your unique value proposition will help you stand out and acquire more customers.

Think about how you’re making the customer’s life easier.

Maybe you have years of experience in the industry that they can learn from. Perhaps your product is easy-to-use, eco-friendly, or the first of its kind. Either way, highlight that value as the focal point of your brand.

About 77% of marketers say branding is crucial for growth. Without branding, consumers might fail to remember who you are. If you fail to build brand awareness and recognition, consumers might choose your competitors over you.

You can also use a distinct brand to develop brand trust. As consumers grow to trust you, they’ll become loyal to your brand. Brand loyalty will help you retain customers; a key to small business success.

Over 70% of consumers love a brand that prioritizes offering helpful customer service. Make sure customer service is a core component of your brand. Finding new ways to help your customers will encourage them to return to your business.

Visual Branding

Take the time to develop the visual components of your brand. That includes your:

• Logo
• Imagery and photography style
• Font
• Color scheme

Using a distinct color can help improve brand recognition by up to 80%. Meanwhile, consistent brand presentation across all marketing platforms increases revenue by 23%. Brand consistency can help you improve brand recognition.

Take a look at your competitor research. What brand elements are they already using? If you want to set your business up for success, make sure to avoid looking like everyone else.

Instead, develop a unique brand that will help you stand apart from competitors.

You can use a style guide to maintain brand consistency. Make sure to outline the visual components of your brand along with your core values.

9. Make Sure You’re Marketing

Successful small businesses know how to use the latest digital marketing trends. Digital marketing will help you reach a broader target audience. Many of these tactics are also cost-effective, allowing you to maintain a strong ROI.

For example, you can send emails to your subscribers to keep them up-to-date about your business. You can also use digital advertising to reach consumers and generate website traffic.

Content Marketing and SEO

When developing your content marketing strategy, keep your customer research in mind. What questions are your customers asking? What unique insights can you provide them?

Almost 60% of marketers believe personalized content boosts brand engagement. Meanwhile, about 50% of consumers expect brands to know who they are. If you understand your customer’s needs, you’re more likely to appeal to their interests.

Make sure your website has a blog. Small businesses with blogs generate 126% more leads than those without blogs. Meanwhile, 71% of buyers consume blog content before making a purchase.

You can post different forms of content on your blog, including:

• Articles
• eBooks
• Infographics
• Polls
• Quizzes
• Video content

About 50% of consumers look for a video related to a product or service before making a purchase. Posting video content is a great way to get people engaged on your website.

Increasing your site’s clickthrough rate and dwell time can improve your search engine ranking. You can also boost your ranking with search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO allows you to optimize your website content for search engines like Google. The higher you rank, the more people will see you. SEO can build brand awareness, credibility, and authority.

It can also help you attract more website traffic, leads, and sales. SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy that can also help you improve your ROI. As a result, you’re generating more business and setting your small business up for success.

10. Support Your Team

You don’t have to go through this alone. Instead, build a strong team around you for support. In addition to gathering employees, you can also gain advice from your board of directors.

They’ll help steer you in the right direction to ensure your business becomes a success.

Boost Your Business: 10 Tips for Long-Term Small Business Success

Don’t fall behind the competition. Instead, give your business a boost. With these 10 tips, you can set yourself up for small business success.

As you attract customers and start apart from the competition, you can grow your business and survive any situation.

Searching for more advice? Explore the Business section for more business success tips today!