Top 10 Tips for Successful Business Startup – The Top 3

From Tuesday, the first 3 of my Murray Top 10 Tips for Successful Business Startup, and from Wednesday, the next 4 tips, for Baby Boomers and others.

3.  Know what you are selling.  What is your USP?  A USP is a Unique Selling Proposition.  It describes what you are selling and who you are selling it to. The importance of the USP is in its description of your business as UNIQUE.  In order to be successful, you must set yourself apart from other similar businesses.  I like to use the analogy of the cereal aisle in the grocery store.  Each cereal has a USP:  Wheaties is “The Breakfast of Champions” – it describes itself as good for athletes.  Special K sets itself apart by talking about its benefit in a healthy diet.  What’s the difference between the two? Not much.  But you buy one or the other based on how you perceive it as different.  If you don’t know your USP, you don’t know (1) how/where to advertise it or (2) who to advertise it to.  If you don’t know those two things, how do you know you are spending your advertising dollars effectively?  It’s worth spending time making sure you set up your USP before you go out there and try to get your marketing and advertising program going.

2.  Take one step at a time.  Don’t get ahead of yourself by trying to do too much.  As you are working through the process of setting up your business, you may think that everything is overwhelming.  You aren’t sure what needs to be done or how to do it or what to do first.

Every day, take a 3×5 card and write on it the 3 most important things you need to do.  Then do them.  When you get them done, write down three more for tomorrow.   The two most important tasks for most business startups are (1) finding a location, and (2) getting financing.  If you don’t need to do those two things, there are lots more to do.

1.  Last, and most important, Never give up! I once consulted with a young woman who had just graduated from professional school with a health care degree (and a ton of student loan debt).  She knew where she wanted to be and she worked diligently on her business plan.  She went to bank after bank with her plan in the area where she wanted to live.  They all said, “You are asking for too much money.  Come back with a co-signer, enough cash for a down payment, or a smaller loan request.”  Instead of working harder, being more flexible (see #5 from Wednesday’s list), or cutting back on her request, she quit trying.

I talked with her a few months later, and she was a teller at a bank, where she had worked before she went to school.  She never achieved her dream because she gave up.  Marilyn vos Savant says, “Being defeated is only a temporary situation.  Giving up makes it permanent.“  If you want your own business, you have to be willing to work hard, work smart, and keep on going until you get it.  There is no other way.