Every year, more than 500,000 companies will open their doors for the very first time. In two years or less, 30 percent of them will be closed. In five years, at least 50 percent will fail. Looking out ten years will see that just one-third of them will survive. That means that if you were to open a company right now, you have better than a 66 percent chance that you will not make it to the ten-year mark. That doesn’t sound very encouraging, does it? Well, we are going to give you some tips that will help to ensure that you are going to make it past the ten-year mark. Of course, nothing is guaranteed in life, but it will be the start that you need.
Manage Your Brand
When you are first starting out, you get an advantage that an older company does not have. You have the unique opportunity to start with a clean slate. No matter what they do, or how hard they try, a company that has been around for decades cannot and will not ever get a chance to start with a clean slate. If you look at a business like Toys R Us, they went out of business and then reopened less than a year later. Even though they are opening again for the first time, they are still a well-known company and therefore have a few expectations that they must live up to. When you first start, no one knows who you are and what you stand for. This is the time you have to put your best foot forward. When you start getting customers, make sure that you provide them the service that they want and the service that they deserve. If you do something as simple as that, you will start to make your reputation shine and will be managing your brand. It is important to note that anyone you hire is an ambassador of your brand. That being said, you are going to want to make sure that anyone you hire shares the same values of customer service as you do. If the entire company is working with the same goal in mind, the brand name will rise in popularity and you will have a well-established brand that you can be proud of.
Review Management
Very rarely, if ever, will someone tell the business that they visit what they think about the service they received without being asked. Therefore, you are going to want to start asking people how they felt about your service. Just know that when you ask them face to face, you may not get the answer you desire. While some people will provide you with honest feedback in store, very few will. For this, you are going to want to get a way of contacting them. The easiest way to do that is through an email. So, while you are checking them out, ask them for their email address. Make sure they know that you have a privacy policy never to share their email with anyone, it will be used for promotional purposes only. Now that you have their email, you need to send them one and ask about their recent experience. Offer them a discount on their next visit for their feedback. This serves two purposes. First, it will get them back in the store for a second chance to give them great service. Second, it will give you the opportunity to get constructive criticism that you can use to make the customer experience even better. Reviews are important when trying to develop an online reputation. Make use of them every chance that you can.
Reputation
When you are just starting out, no one will know who you are, and that is ok. Do you think Sam Walton was known outside his hometown on the first day of business? Now, you find his stores, Wal-Mart in nearly every town in North America. Start out slow and make sure that you do all the right things that will get people talking about you. In the digital age, this means that they are going to take to the internet and provide customer reviews. This is a good thing. Yes, even the bad ones. If you do get a bad one, make sure you take the time to address the customer’s problem and make sure they know you care about them. There is no store that has 5/5 stars that have been in business over a day. Heck, you might even struggle to find 5/5 stars after your first hour of business. That is ok. Research has shown that people don’t care much for 5-star ratings. Everyone knows that every business will have some room to improve. Focus on the 4-star reviews and build your reputation off of those. Take what they tell you is good and keep doing it well. Take what they tell you is bad and make it better. This will improve your reputation over time and, hopefully, you will make it past the ten-year mark.
The Internet
Today, the fastest way to build your reputation is on the internet. You are going to want to have a website and a few social media accounts. This will help you to interact with your customers. Granted, you will not have a lot of followers to start with, but that will change. Make sure that you are giving them great content that they are willing to share with their friends and family. Just one share can have a huge impact on the number of people that will see your content. Don’t succumb to buying fake reviews. More often than not, it will do more harm than good. You may find that the fake reviews are taken down and your page will suffer as a result. Additionally, people can often see through the fake reviews and that will make you look bad in the eyes of current and future customers.
Conclusion
Starting a business is not easy. Building a reputation is very difficult. However, if you follow the steps above, you may one day become one of the success stories like Sam Walton. Just remember, he had to do that without the help of the internet. You have the internet as a tool that you can use to make your name spread far and wide.