Just two out of every ten businesses survive past their first year of operation.
So it’s clear that if you’re going to be successful, you’d need lots of courage and discipline.
Here are three habits the successful entrepreneurs adopt to get the results they need.
1. They Focus On Customers
Your customers want to know that you care about them.
So focus on doing the things that make them happier and satisfied. That makes sense because your idea is useless if your market doesn’t see the need for it.
Why You Should Focus On Your Customers
-Distrust For Advertising
More and more customers are saying they don’t make their buying decisions from online and even traditional advertising.
That’s because most of the ads don’t connect with the prospects and appear to be another boring sales pitch.
Investing in content that speaks to your customers before pitching your product or service raises your chances of making a sale because they now know and like you.
-Poor Customer Service Kills
There are new reports that proof that a greater percentage of customers are willing to keep buying from you if you can fix their problems quickly.
If you’re selling a tech product, chances are that users would come across one or two bugs while using your app or site.
You should have your team on standby as very few people like to mess with code or other techy stuff.
-Bad News Travels Fast
You won’t be able to please everyone that walks into your office. But you should make sure you’re not annoying too many people.
Bad news travels faster than good news. And customers are more likely to share a bad customer service experience than a good one.
It gets worse when they share that bad experience more than once and at different places, that’s not good for your business.
How To Put Your Customers At The Centre Of Your Business
-Talk About Them
At board meetings, conference calls or just at any time when you and the team get to talk.
Discuss how your decisions would affect your customers’ businesses or their lives.
Having your customers in mind would make sure you’re not taking any decision that would kill brand loyalty in exchange for short term gains.
-Get Customer-Focused Employees
It’s not just about getting a team with all the technical skills to kill bugs in your systems, you should be hiring people that are ready to serve.
Employees that recognize that they have to provide value and see how their work connects with customers are the ones you want to keep.
And get everyone involved. Even the teams that don’t actually have to interact with customers on a daily basis.
Let everyone know those buyers are the reason you’re in business, so every innovation must be channeled to meet their needs.
Jeff Bezos agrees that serving the needs of the customers is what’s kept Amazon in business, so start treating those customers right.
2. They Build Winning Teams
No successful CEO hires just any group of people to work with themselves and serve customers.
They build winning teams. A group that’s progressive and detests complacency.
Look at four tips for building a winning team:
Let The Goal Be Clear
What’s the team’s goal? What do you intend to achieve today? This week? The week after?
If your goals aren’t clear enough, everyone on your team is going to have a different idea of where you want the company to be.
Great minds think alike, and great minds make great teams. So, everyone on your team should be on the same page.
Acknowledge Unique Talents
Everyone comes with their own little spark. Their areas of strength.
Use these strengths to achieve your goals and recognize them when they deliver the results. And make sure everyone gets this recognition.
Your team would see reasons to appreciate customers when you’re constantly appreciating and celebrating them.
Have An Action Plan
If your team’s all talk and no action, then you won’t make progress.
Procrastination is a silent killer, so you need a “to-do” plan that clearly spells out what each member of the team is supposed to do and when.
Nobody remembers you for the ideas you have, you’d be remembered for the ideas you’ve executed.
You should close your meetings with an action plan, so every team member leaves the discussion with work to do.
Let The Team Be Free To Explore
Most great ideas were labeled useless and crazy at a point.
Walt Disney’s editor said he had no good ideas, turns out an idea like Disneyland was one of them.
You should support risk-taking within the rules. Supporting risk-taking kills the fear of failure, so innovative team members would have the needed push to explore.
If you’re against risk-taking, creative team members would leave, and it wouldn’t take long before the rest get frustrated.
3. They Understand Timing
Every successful businessman understands that there’s a time for everything.
They don’t launch a new product because every other business is doing it.
They don’t jump on a new tactic because everyone is using it.
They do the right things at the right time, so it seems like they’re working more hours than you are.
Nothing could be further from the truth. They’re simply better time managers. It’s not difficult to be one too.
2 Time Management Tips That Work
Tip #1: Look For The Time Suckers
If you’re poor at time management, then you’re spending too much time doing stuff that doesn’t help you achieve your goals.
But you can’t stop something you don’t know. So you need to call these time suckers by name.
I’d help you with some of them, Facebook, email, too many and too long breaks and unnecessary calls.
Still can’t find yours? Keep searching and write its name down.
Tip #2: Implement The Time Management Plan
It’s not enough to write the plan. And let’s face it, writing the plan is the easiest part.
You should work on your plan by actually doing.
For something like social media, you can try a trick like creating a long password that you can’t remember and would need to move through lots of obstacles to retrieve.
Poor time managers are also procrastinators, so you wouldn’t even have the drive to go get your password.
There are even sites that make you place a few dollars in their care, and you get it back if you complete your daily tasks. If you don’t, you lose your money and it goes to charity.
You can also use apps that schedule your meetings and other things on your to-do list, so you get like 5 minutes to fire your neurons before the task itself.
The world’s most successful entrepreneurs employ habits that keep them at the top of their game, now you have three of them to adopt.