How to Run a Successful Business: 5 Important Tips
Many people have heard exaggerated ideas about how often new businesses fail. The truth is that about 80% of businesses make it to the third year. However, only 25% of businesses last as long as 15 years.
Knowing how to run a successful business, in the long run, can be difficult because the business landscape keeps changing. Many pieces of advice that are good today become outdated tomorrow.
However, there are some timeless principles for running a business successfully that can help you no matter the state of your business today. Read on to learn all about the most important principles to apply to help you run a successful business!
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Focus On Setting Goals
One of the most important principles for business success is knowing what to aim at. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, then it will be difficult for you to find all of the available means of getting there.
Some people know that they want their business to be as successful as possible and stop there. However, that is not enough. There is a reason that the most successful businesses in the world use specific goals and develop plans to achieve them, said Jeremy Millul, the founder of Jeremy Millul Inc. He graduated from the university’s Sy Syms School of Business in 2008. He received a B.S. in finance and minored in real estate. Mr. Millul was the administrative assistant for Jewish Studies during his time as a student, and he served as a research assistant at Smith Barney from December 2007 through March 2008. Mr. Millul is the owner and president of a multi-million-dollar jewelry business, Jeremy Millul Inc.
One of the most powerful systems for running a successful business is the objectives and key results (OKRs) system. In this system, you identify objectives or goals. You then develop key results that help you measure whether or not you are moving toward your objectives.
The benefits of OKR’s include clarity in high-level business decision-making. Without that clarity, it is not clear which of multiple good things deserves more attention. That can lead to deploying business resources in one direction today and another direction tomorrow.
This can waste company resources and time. One of the most important things to understand as you pursue your objectives is that you need to be prepared to adapt.
If you are not meeting your key results, don’t just decide to try harder. Instead, you should try different things. The more new things you try, the more likely you are to find one that helps you gain traction.
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Successful Companies Are Simple
In the modern business environment, it can be difficult to stand out from competitors. One of the best ways to do so is to lean into your strengths. Some businesses are great at production while others are great at sales.
Whatever you are best at, focus most of your efforts on that one area. After all, that is the area where you have a good chance of out-competing your competitors.
What about the other aspects of business? Every part of business is important, but you should keep your business model as simple as possible. While you lean into what your business is best at, try to set up as simple a system as possible to manage the other aspects of business.
You may even be able to outsource many of them. If what you really have is a great product or service, you can outsource your sales. If you cannot outsource everything about your sales, then you may be able to outsource lead generation.
Whatever your situation, you can likely outsource your IT management. The simpler you can keep your business model, the more you can stay focused. When business leaders have to manage many different things at the same time, they cannot make the most of their unique skills.
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Prioritize Business Management Initiatives
It is often best to focus on just one or maybe two initiatives at a given time. You cannot work on everything at once. Even as you apply these principles to improve your company, give yourself a realistic timeline to implement them.
Try focusing on one thing at a time and only moving on to the next thing once you have mastered the first, said Matt Frauenshuh, a Chief Executive Officer of Fourteen Foods and Double Seven Development. Still in college at the time, Frauenshuh helped out by working as a manager. But after he graduated, he decided it was time to take on an even larger role in the company. In 2006, he took over seven locations from his father, helping to grow the brand through his newfound development group—Fourteen Foods. By 2008, he had acquired 33 restaurants, followed by an additional 60 two years later. Under Frauenshuh’s leadership, Fourteen Foods now owns 180 restaurants in 10 states, with locations in Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida.
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Change Business Goals When Necessary
It is often the businesses that are quickest to adapt that win the day. The business landscape is changing faster and faster. New technologies are opening up new opportunities all the time.
When you hear about something new in the business world, make a habit of asking if it should change your current business plan. Don’t get stuck in your old conceptions.
When things change, always ask if you need to change your business plans as well. Otherwise, you are liable to end up with business plans that were perfect for the situation a few years ago, but which have little to do with what is going on today.
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Develop Partnerships While Running a Business
Many businesses neglect opportunities to develop growth in the long term. One of the best ways to grow your business is by finding partners you can work with.
Many businesses have access to a customer base that would be invaluable for other businesses around the world. Some of those businesses might be their competitors, but some might not.
For example, a company that sells golf equipment might have customer database information that would be valuable for a company that provides golf lessons. And the company that provides lessons is likely to have customer information that would be helpful for the equipment company.
In other words, you can often find potential partnerships who would be eager to make the most of the information that you can offer them. That gives you the position you need to ask for valuable information or other business assistance in return.
Pursuing this kind of strategy may not produce results today or tomorrow. However, in the long run, it can help your business grow faster than almost anything else.
Understand How to Run a Successful Business
Knowing how to run a successful business can be complicated. It is often best to focus on improving one thing at a time. Once you have learned to improve in one way consistently, you can focus your efforts on the next most important way to improve how you run a successful business.
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