Every year thousands of small businesses are started, but a majority of them fail within a span of one year due to various factors like competition, lack of profit, limited sales or lack of growth.
A major reason for failure of most businesses is that, most of them start the same type of business that thousands of others have already established. There are people who start a business by establishing a road side stall, but even after generations, it still remains a road side stall. On the other hand there are people who start a roadside stall and turn it into a billion dollar empire. The secret behind such success stories lies in offering something really unique and innovative to the customers that their competitors fail to provide.
There are millions of small businesses, but only a few are converted into a billion dollar empire.
Some people start a small business with the aim of merely earning hand to mouth because they don't have the urge to think beyond a limit, while there are a few others who start off a small business by merging an innovative business idea with their capital. The ones, who start their business with an attitude of a millionaire, can grow their business into an empire and leave everyone else behind. Say, a person wants to establish a global fashion business; he will have to provide different types of exclusive styles at economical rates. He may push his brand with some innovative and unique ideas. Once, the brand starts to get noticed and its popularity gradually increases, he can provide franchise of the brand or he can set up his own stores. With increase in popularity, there will obviously be an increase in the profit, thereby the turn over because more number of people will start buying the branded product. So, the secret behind the success of a business lies in attracting more and more customers with the uniqueness and exclusivity of the product so that it may help the business to grow into a global success.
SECRET BEHIND THE SUCCESS OF SMALL BUSINESSES
The pages of history are filled with the examples of people who started their business with a limited amount of capital but transformed it into a billion dollar industry. Let us consider McDonald's for example. When it was started, there were thousand of such businesses but, why did only McDonald taste success. Today, it is a multi- national business empire with over 25000 franchises world wide. All restaurants have great recipes and appetizing food, but most of them do not achieve great success. They either limit themselves to a city or are satisfied with a few stores. The recipe for success that McDonald's used is in applying certain unique and extraordinary ideas. Apart from delicious recipes and speedy delivery services, it also concentrated on attracting children and made provisions for playgrounds, toys and games at every McDonald restaurant making it an enjoyable experience for the kids. Also, they created many advertising campaigns that showed thinner, leaner people getting healthier after having their food. Such ideas clicked with the audience, thus making it a global success. They also introduced the concept of happy meals by providing free toys and gifts, so that children may enjoy.
When Larry Page, along with his partner, finished his education, thousands of IT professionals and many billion dollars IT companies were in existence in the same field. So, why couldn't they recognize the opportunity that these young students recognized? Larry Page, along with his partner, found much more innovative and better methods for ranking web pages that helped create an excellent search engine. Today, Google, the search engine that they created, is the # 1 search engine which earns revenues of billions of dollars. They wiped out all the competition and even left behind Yahoo! that had established its monopoly as the king before Google made its presence felt online.
CONCENTRATE ON INTRODUCING SOMETHING USEFUL AND NEW:
The difference is not in the investments made for starting a new business; rather it is the introduction of innovative and unique ideas that may provide better benefits to the customers as compared to the benefits of the products or ideas offered in the past. Why do people spend their hard earned money to purchase a certain product? Nobody would spend a single penny on your idea or product if they are not going to get their money's worth.
If you concentrate on finding and developing new ideas or on improving the already existing products or the services, rather than planning to arrange capital or on increasing profits, then you have definitely taken the first step towards success.
When Amancio Ortega started designing his own line of fashion fabrics in his living room, there were thousands of fashion designers then who had already established their cloth stores in the market. But Amancio Ortega, managed to turn his business into a billion dollar empire. He started off by working as a delivery boy in a certain shirt shop where he observed and discovered the ideas on which a business is grown. He could have forfeited or given up, succumbing to the fear of investing millions of dollars to start his own fashion designing business. But he preferred to concentrate and invest his energy on the creation of exclusive and unique designs that he could sell to the customers at affordable and economical rates. He introduced an innovative concept of instant fashion where, instead of introducing new collections only twice a year as per the industry standards, he started introducing new collections in just two weeks. This just goes to show that, by concentrating on developing innovative ideas, you may attract the buyers which will in turn, help your business grow. You can start by making a list of additional benefits that you can provide to a customer with respect to quality, speed, economy or other features pertaining to the product or the service.
EVERY BUSINESS HAS POSSIBILITIES FOR GROWTH:
It is easy to start a business just like millions of others, but in order to see it expand and grow globally; you are required to develop the habit of constantly coming up with innovative ideas. Whatever product or service you provide to the customers, make sure that you provide an extra benefit or value to your customer. Failing to do so will result in someone else coming up with a new idea and earn the advantage. This is the same innovative idea that helped McDonald grow and become popular, ultimately giving their business the extra push.
Supposing, you own a restaurant and it is not running as you expect it to, what will you do? You might blame the location of the restaurant or the people who prefer visiting only the famous restaurants. But, what about those few people who visit your restaurant and have the potential to bring you thousands of customers more. Here you are only thinking about your limited customers, instead of improving the standard of the services. Why do people go to restaurants? You would say to have delicious food. You are not wrong in thinking this way but you need to realize that this is not the only reason people visit a restaurant. One good idea to understand what a customer wants would be to visit the famous restaurants and observe the services they provide. Make a list of all of their plus points that they have that your restaurant lacks. Their success secrets could lie in their offering of tasty foods, better services, different kinds of varieties, efficient waiters, music systems, comfortable sitting arrangements, quick serving timings, entertainment facilities for children, hygienic conditions etc. People's tastes have changed for almost about everything. Today people want to enjoy their evening and along with quality food they also expect great entertainment. In the past, furniture was used just for the purpose of seating guests, but today, people want more. They want comfort, style and uniqueness along with the function. Similarly, clothes are basically made to cover one's body, but with the addition of the concept of fashion, people look for exclusivity and latest styles as well. So, if you can provide something extra and unique that will prove to be a better experience for a customer, then they are bound to take note of your services, and in turn, you will never have a dearth of customers.
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