As small business owners, we have so many things to keep track of and juggle. Running a small business is an incredible achievement for absolutely anyone. However, one of the things I regularly get asked is how to ensure your small business is successful. While there is no clear cut answer, there are lots of different things you can do in order to ensure your business sees success.

Whether it’s putting together a strong social media strategy or working on your branding, you’ll be surprised how much difference making a few small changes to your small business can make. Especially when it’s things that you can outsource to reliable, talented and experienced people that can help make your business exceed its growth potential.

With that in mind, here are 13 things all small business owners need in order to be successful:

1. Have Strong Values And A Mission You Can Stick To As A Small Business Owner

One of the key things a small business needs to have in order to succeed is strong values and a mission you can really stick to. While it may take a while to create, once you have them everything will fall into place.

A great way to determine what your mission and values are is to work out who your target audience is. Creating a detailed avatar that represents your audience means thinking about where they shop, what they like to do for fun, their favorite things and many other details.

It is time-consuming, but once you have a clear idea who your perfect customer is you’ll be able to better market your business. You’ll be able to get inside the head of your customer, working out exactly how your product or service can help them.

2. Weekly, Monthly And Yearly Goals

Although setting goals isn’t for everyone, it’s a great way to ensure you stay on track and achieve everything you set out to achieve. Taking the time to set yourself weekly, monthly and yearly goals will give you a starting point to measure your ROI, allowing you to set targets and actionable ways to achieve them. For a guide on setting goals for your business, you can visit this site here.

Often a pitfall I find people fall into is that they focus very heavily on new years resolutions. While those are great to have, most people set some pie in the sky goal and give up on it a few weeks after the new year starts.

Or worse yet, it’s months before New Year’s and they put off any action for achieving their goals until the new year begins. If you are struggling with goal setting and have an online marketing business, check out my post on Online Marketing Goals.

3. Strong Branding That Is Recognizable To Your Customers

When it comes to creating a brand you need to ensure you create something that people will start to recognize as your own. If you don’t have design skills then it’s always worth outsourcing this to someone that is experienced in design, especially if you want to create a brand that is going to carry you through a number of years.

Ensure your branding is something that people recognize, make sure it clearly shows exactly what your business about and don’t over complicate things with too many colors and fonts. For tips, you can visit this guide here.

4. A Social Media Strategy

Social media is a great way to get your products or services seen by people that may not have heard of your otherwise. Whilst it takes a while to build a strong following and community around your brand, once you do you’ll really start to notice the difference in your sales. Again, once you’ve worked out your social media strategy this is definitely something you can outsource to someone who has experience.

If you struggle with creating your strategy, this is also something you can outsource to a consultant or professional. They’ll be able to help you decide what platforms you need to use, how often you should post and what you should be posting.

They’ll also be able to advise whether or not it would be worth you invest in any PPC advertising, increasing the number of people that see your posts. While it’s often a pricey strategy to use, it’s a great way to directly target your posts and put them in front of people who would definitely be interested in your product or services.

I’d recommend focusing on an organic social media marketing strategy to start, and building up to a paid social media strategy when you are profitable with organic marketing. Too often people tend to jump into a paid marketing strategy too soon and end up wasting a lot of money.

You may also enjoy my post on a simple 5 step marketing strategy to build your business online.

5. A Personal LinkedIn Account

For those of you that are not familiar with LinkedIn, it’s a social media platform that is aimed at professionals. You can create an online profile that effectively acts as your resume, connecting yourself with relevant people in your industry.

People share their advice, their thoughts on the industry and their opportunities – so it’s definitely worth signing up and networking with as many people as you can online.

I’ve generated leads, sales, and new clients into my business through LinkedIn as well. It can be a great resource when you know how to use it. Feel free to connect with me over on LinkedIn as well here.

6. Write Regular Blog Content To Promote Your Small Business

Having a company blog on your website may seem as though it is a lot of hard work but honestly, it’s definitely worth it. Creating regular blog content that your audience wants to share and interact with is a great way to not only get people to your site but also to raise awareness of your brand.

If people are sharing your content or engaging with it on social media, chances are other people who could also be interested in your brand will start to interact and follow you too. Whilst you don’t have to be putting content out every day, it’s important you keep a regular schedule running.

If you’d like to learn more about how to make money blogging, check out my post on can blogging make money, as well as the free PDF download on writing the perfect blog post below!

7. An Understanding Of SEO

Search Engine Optimisation can seem like a scary thing, to begin with, but once you get the hang of it, it starts to become second nature. If you’ve never heard of SEO before, it’s a marketing tactic that involves curating the content of your website in a way that will allow it to show higher up in a search engines search results.

So for example, if you were selling courses on learning a new language, you could optimize your site so that it shows up in the top search results when some searches ‘learn Spanish online’. It takes a while to master, but once you’ve got it the results will be 100% worth the time.

You may also want to check out this book on SEO and search engine marketing: SEO Fitness Workbook: The Seven Steps to Search Engine Optimization. I’ve been implementing some of the strategies and have been getting at anywhere from 15-20 new visitors a day from just a few of the tips from this book and it’s only been a few weeks.

8. Content On Well Established Sites Or In Popular Publications

If you’re looking to raise your profile and start to become known as an expert in your industry then you need to start writing pieces for other publications. Whether it’s giving your opinion on a related topic, sharing your tips and tricks or writing an advertorial for a magazine. The more you appear in other publications and on reputable websites the better.

Similar to writing for a magazine, you may want to start sharing content and writing on forums or question asking sights like Quora. Quora.com, for example, is a great way to start branding yourself as an expert in your niche.

You can find and answer common questions from your ideal target market and audience and also even drive traffic back to your website! Follow me over on Quora here and see my answers to some great marketing questions.

9. A Reliable Tech Support Team

When it comes to setting up your business you’re going to have a lot of different areas that will require technical knowledge. If you’re able to do this yourself that’s great, but if not it’s definitely worthwhile ensuring you have a good technical team behind you.

Whether it’s hiring someone who is freelance tech support or signing up to a tech support service, having them to fall back on will ensure your company has as little downtime as possible. You can click here for more information about technology companies.

You may want to outsource other areas of your business as well as your company grows. For some small business owners, this can be tough.

Most small business owners have the mindset of if they want something done right they should do it themselves. Well, this can end up costing you a lot of time and money.

A great book on shifting your mindset and outsourcing effectively is called Clockwork. You can pick up a copy on Amazon here.

10. A Well Designed And Easy To Use Website

Although you may feel as though having a simple website is enough, in a digital age it will mean you’re not keeping up with any of your competitors. Make sure you’re putting the time and effort into your website to make it aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. If people visit your site and discover it’s an eyesore and difficult to use, the chances are people won’t stick around to purchase anything or find out what you do.

In order to ensure it’s easy to use your site should have a contact form that is easy to find, a simple navigation system and colors and fonts that are not too difficult to read. For more advice, you can visit this site here.

Another simplified version of a website you can use to grow your business is with a sales funnel system. For most small business owners just getting started a sales funnel system could be a great option to grow their business online.

With a sales funnel system like Clickfunnels, you can create high converting sales pages and basic websites with done for your templates. All you need to do is edit the templates to fit your business and offers.

A sales funnel system can be a way to quickly have a basic website and sales pages in place to grow your business without having to know design or coding. If you’d like to try Clickfunnels for free for 14 days and start setting up your sales funnels click here.

11. A Willingness To Learn Is Essential For Small Business Owners

Although you may think that you need to have a certain amount of skills to start a business, it’s okay to continue to learn these skills as you run your business. Algorithms, trends, and strategies change on a regular basis so it’s important you’re taking all of the necessary steps to learn and grow on an ongoing basis. 

A couple of my favorite quotes for small business owners are that “if you’re not growing you’re dying.” and “Your business will only grow to the point that you do.”

Personal and professional development is key to your success long term and should be a focus as a small business owner. You may want to check out my post on the top personal development books I recommend.

Also, be sure to check out my post on the Top online marketing books every entrepreneur should read.

12. The Option To Be Able To Attend Events And Conferences

Attending industry events and conferences is not only a great way to get the word out about your brand, but it’s a great way to network with like-minded people.

Making connections as a small business owner is incredibly important as you never know where it could lead. Often a connection you make at an event may not be suitable for an opportunity that you are, so chances are they’ll be able to recommend you.

Attending events is crucially important if you are in a business like an affiliate marketing or network marketing. These are great opportunities to learn from other leaders in the industry and can help you get through your learning curve faster.

Another thing to consider is that your success levels are often determined by your belief levels. Having a high level of belief can be established by seeing others succeed in areas you are striving to do well in. Events are a great place to build this belief.

13. Strong Networking Skills

Although this ties into the point above, to be able to run a successful business you need to have strong networking skills. Whether it means networking at events, networking through LinkedIn or finding other ways to network with people in the industry – it could make the difference between being successful and not being successful.

If you find it hard to network, try starting small with local events for business owners. Attending a smaller, less pressured and quieter event will allow you time to practice your skills, giving you areas you may need to improve on.

Are you a small business or startup? What do you think you need in order to be successful? Let me know in the comment section below.

Did This Blog Help You? If so, I would greatly appreciate if you could comment below and share on Facebook

Mike MacDonald

Facebook: facebook.com/coachmikemacdonald

Email: [email protected]

Considering Starting a Home Business?

Check out my Work With Mike Section

“I help coachable and teachable professionals become Financially Free and Live Full Time!  Helping you create a better tomorrow through a better you!”

P.S. If you don’t yet have a home business, but would like to learn how to start one and make money from home, CLICK HERE

If you enjoyed this post on 13 Things Small Business Owners Need In Order To Be Successful, please retweet and comment below