More often than not, start-up businesses (enterprises) and organizations are faced with plethora of challenges as to how to kick start their operations and line of businesses efficiently and strategically.
The below 13 (thirteen) points termed as “KAILANI’S 13 GOLDEN PROMOTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE DECISION TOOLS for Start-Up Businesses/Organizations” proposes to guarantee strategic and optimal decisions on how to run a start-up seamlessly and productively.
- Registration of Business: Register and secure all required licenses, permits, legal and authoritative procedures to ensure you start your operation on a strict compliance with all laws and regulations in the industry of operation. This certainly saves time, resources and energy for the entity and its team of competent skilled brains to channel their money, manpower, material and machine to more urgent needs of the business.
Taking necessary steps to have your business or enterprise registered, births the entity and gives it the impetus to operate legally and be within the regulating legislations of its line of business or industry of practice. Registration of business can be: Enterprise, Association, Limited by Liability, Limited by Guarantee, and others. Secure the service of experts or competent brains (professionals) to assist with the appropriate registration of your establishment to suit the style and model of your intended business.
The law is no respecter of a person(s), and ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Ensure you take care of the registration of your business with all seriousness it requires, in otherwise, the legal status of your business entity. Registering your business has lot of benefits. The simplest is, it gives your business a legal status to commence operation as an entity with a (legal) going concern.
Secure a Postal Address, Location and Address: Securing a postal address, legitimate location and recognizable landmark address is key to running an efficient and productive start-up business to maximize profits and to achieve stated objectives of the business. This is extremely imperative in instances the start-up business seem not to afford the funding of an office space. The postal, location and (landmark/digital) address comes in handy and timely to guarantee the business’s legitimacy and credibility. A start-up business should make securing a postal address and strategic location coupled with an accessible address a priority to setting up its operations and business, if it wants to make huge (relevant) penetration and breakthroughs with customers and consumers alike (stakeholders).
As fresh starters to businesses we need to ensure we have secured a long term postal address, convenient location and a recognizable landmark direction to our places of work or business. Make use of these tools to make any potential customer easily locate and access your products or services. Invest time, efforts and resources to bring your business to your customers with less stress and inconveniences. With existing businesses, if in any case you already don’t have these tools at your disposal. Kindly access them and make beneficial utilization of them to the fullest.
- Secure an Official Office Line (Contact Number): To run a world class business, be mindful to secure an official contact number to be recognized as the accessible office contact by clients and all stakeholders of your business. Secure office line that is accessible and reachable to respond accordingly to the need for the business (products/services) from the business environment (potential market/clients) and for the business’s ultimate growth. It is the practice now for businesses to own a mobile phone contact as the official contact line. However for a fresh or infant business’s credibility, secure a landline to switch into a cellular phone for convenience and mobility in answering official business calls.
The strategy here to start-up businesses or organizations is, secure your contact numbers in mobile gadgets (cellular phones) to be moved with easily and conveniently. This is because, any customer is a necessity and might be the destiny changer (breakthrough needed) of your start-up. Cherish and relish all calls and treat any incoming call as the fortune to be harnessed immediately.
- Create and Operate a Swift Prompt Emailing (Emails) and Replies: Critical to the survival of any business in this 21st globalized business world is to create and operate a swift and prompt emailing and replies system. Emails correspondences and automated replies should be in real time and swiftly. Key is to instantly acknowledge inboxes (mails), scrutinize content and import of the mail, and reply accordingly.
Quite unfortunately, in recent times inbox mails are not acknowledge less to be replied. As a start-up business let it be your strategy and policy to reply emails or enquiries immediately or in no less than 30 minutes. I have come across firms and corporate institutions that hardly reply mails. Perhaps, they are well established and can take such actions. In the case of a start-up enterprise, such action or inactions should not be a culture to be entertained at your establishment. Reply mails and enquiries swiftly and appropriately. Correspondences should be timely. Follow ups and reminders if can be done on phones should be implemented and practiced. If not, be abreast to do follow ups and reminders via the mail.
- Create and Utilize an Affectionate Letter Head (for your business/organization): Any start-up business and indeed existing entities should have an affectionate letter head to be the interface of the business and the business world. This gives a corporate and legitimacy outlook of the business to any potential stakeholder of the business and beyond. Correspondences of a business on its Letter head gives a conclusive and affirmative outlook of the business, the competent brains behind the operations of such a start-up and how professional the business works.
Letter Head seems to be facing-off and irrelevant. However, the reality is, it is very necessary. To give your business/organization a good chance of securing good business offers, have an affectionate letter head of your establishment that corresponds to official and relevant business prospects of the going concern of your business or organization. With this you are assured of professionalism, and details of your business or organization is readily made available for correspondences with the business world.
- Create and Sanitize a Good Complementary (Business) Card: This we often overlook and denigrate, yet says lot about how professional and prepared is a business start-up in activating a client, appearing credible to the business environment, being relevant to its business prospects, and gaining a competitive advantage over other competitors.
A sanitized and good complementary business card is very important in the business world. Though admittedly there are softcopies or electronic copies of business cards to be exchanged immediately between the business and its customers. Yet, I strongly advocate the availability of complimentary card to be readily exchanged with clients. Just imagine what the client will think of you? Make your complimentary business cards available and give it out to a potential client(s). Urge the prospective client(s) to place a call or email at any time or moment, to be attended to accordingly.
- Run an Effective, Efficient & Productive Social Media Presence (E.g.: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.): Social media especially Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram is a great marketing tool and platform that any business start-up should take serious and implement effectively and strategically. Social media has drastically change the phase of doing business and reaching thousands (millions) of potential consumers of products and services. Create a strong and robust social media business presence. Link websites and other easily reachable business platforms to your social media handles.
As a start-up, religiously make use of the social media platforms. Set schedules for your social media presence and activities. Design the profile of your business to reflect what you do or can do. Create contents and posts that are relevant to what you offer. Make your products or services known on your social media handles or platforms. Reply to comments or remarks under your contents posted and shared. Engage more and more social media users. Craft a good strategy to get the attention of your followers or likely followers. Have a message that will activate and make users want to patronize your products or services. Take reviews seriously and take steps to ensure inappropriate reviews are addressed satisfactorily with reasons and assurances.
- Create and Publicize a Sell-able (catchy) WEBSITE: Website seems to be left out to big corporations and huge multi-national entities to utilize. This should not be the case. Rather, a start-up needs a website badly to leverage on and to refer far potential clients to. Websites basically is a virtual office, a representative of what the business stands for and aspires to achieve. Take website design, content, creation, publishing and hosting seriously and passionately. Invest in website creation for your business (organization), for a worthy plentiful plough back.
It should not be that, because in our part of the world people seldom visits the websites of intuitions to check on their businesses (profile), so we delegate such an important tool to the background and deem it unimportant. Rather, invest in owning a website as a short term (immediate) priority. You never can tell who is watching from afar and just your website (content) secures a life changing business opportunity.
The writer is the Head of Research and Operations, Aliska Consult Ltd-Accra.
Email: [email protected] / [email protected]
