Thursday, October 26, 2006

Entrepreneurial Skills Secrets

What if you knew some skills that could help grow your business faster? One may say it’s all about customer service and how happy your customers are, but there is more to it than that.

There are certain skills sets that will help you in growing your business faster. What are they? How can you grow your business faster? How can you spend less time in your business?

Do you spend a lot of hours in your business? Do you wish you had employees that did just a portion of the amount of work that you did? Why is it so hard to find staff that will stay in your company and not leave just because of greater pay elsewhere?

1. Attracting people that contribute to your company’s success.

This can be a big one. Not only do you have to find people that are willing to do the job and interested in today’s market but you have to find people that will grow with the company. How you attract these people can be tough to if the market is competitive. There are many things you can do to attract the right people but we will touch on three. See what the motivation is behind people wanting to work for your company. Secondly, what do they have to offer in terms of skills that are complementary or needed for your business? Thirdly, how successful have they been in the past in achieving goals in other businesses? Fourthly, they are helping you succeed, so how are you going to help them succeed? What are you going to offer them?

2. Comparing what your product is priced at to others.

What do you charge for your product or service? How did you come up with this price? Do others charge more or less for this product or service? Why do they charge more or less? What is different about their product or service then yours? These are all important questions that you must ask yourself in determining how to value your product in the marketplace. A study of a group of potential consumers asking these questions would be a good start. Also getting someone to do some research for your or finding similar research that has been done would be beneficial to your business and greater success.

3. How much value do you add for your service?

Not all companies are the same. For example say a lawn maintenance service. So you have someone that comes over and cuts the grass for a few dollars. Or do you have someone the cuts the grass in the proper manner in the proper amounts of time. As well they may add products to your lawn or repair portions of your lawn. Perhaps they may also do things to beautify your lawn. Perhaps this could also add to the value of your property. See where we are going with this? The sum is greater than the parts.

4. What is the demand for your product at this time? Why is it at that level?

At certain times in the year products and service are priced at a certain level. Why is that? Well there are certain different times of supply and demand. When your product is rare or scarce and well valued then it is perceived to be worth more than others. Makes sense! So perhaps you should see how people perceive your product, the quality and the price. This will only help benefit your business in the long run. Anyone can sell product X, but how they present product X is what determines some success from others. Some people use others to become successful; others are genuine about what they have to offer. Does it matter, maybe not in the short run, but that could change in the long run.