Sometimes you might get inspiration for a very good business idea which eventually dies off without you trying it out. This could be as result of you not knowing how to kick-start the said business. If you fall in the above category, be sure this article would just solve your problem and put you on the path of starting a successful business.

See the 50 Successful Small Businesses in Nigeria with less capital startup

Steps to Start Successful Business

Here are some of the steps you can take to start a successful business :

Find out new trends concerning your business Idea

The first thing to do after you’re sure of a sellable business idea is to find out new trends concerning your new business idea and update yourself on this. Find out new grounds yet to be cultivated as it concerns the business. You have to ascertain challenges and needs in that particular industry and how you plan to meet it through your new business.

Don’t also forget to build authentic correspondence with people and authorities involved around that business line, to know if there are things you would need to do. This is because some businesses require you to notify specific authorities overseeing certain business jurisdiction.

You also need to keep a regular check on websites dealing with your line of business. This will not only keep you abreast of trends but will also help you to avoid costly mistakes in your new business. Flotation often takes place in most business lines and availing yourself of current information is a path to success already.

Some of this important information towards the success of your business could be gotten from a motivational platform like TED. This forum has the slogan of ‘ideas worth spreading’ and is very helpful in terms of helping you get information concerning any topic and aspect of human endeavor.

In TED, there’s a conference whereby professionals come together to share and synthesize ideas on areas that can make you very knowledgeable in terms of boosting your business. Within a time frame of about eighteen minutes, each person makes a presentation based on new trends in a particular area he/she is an expert. Watching the videos motivates and helps you to have a grasp of the particular business you want to go into.

Read also: 10 Ways to Source Funds for Business in Nigeria

Articulate and broaden your ideas

Identify business areas and human needs or problems you are out to solve as your business. Make clear notes on these. Tools like Evernote is good in this regard since it helps you save clippings you get from websites.

Also, Evernote is a good aid for you in saving useful business information which is presented in pictorial form, attachments and slides from PowerPoint presentations. This tool is a good aid in helping you to organize any useful business information you get. Just click on sync and all your materials are orderly organized for you with the aid of Evernote.

See: 7 Methods/Approaches to Generate New Business Ideas

Analyze your competitive advantage

Next, you need to establish the extent, at which your business would take care of certain needs in an area, which no other person has gone into or thought of before now. On the other hand, you must have a clear picture of what you want to achieve and how to go about it, if you want to produce already existing goods or services. This means that you must have spelt out what you want to do differently from others already doing the same business.

The difference you would make might just be the way and manner you attend to your clients or customers. You might start the same business as your neighbor’s, and still have everybody beating down your doors to patronize, just because of one or two things you are doing differently. It could be that you use kind words rather than being harsh on your customers, even as they get on your nerves by complaining unnecessarily every time.

Develop a business plan

Another step is to develop a business plan.  Developing a business plan may be tedious if you’re not good at it. In this case, why not use Leancanvas and or Canvanizer.  The two templates aid you in developing one page business plan that wouldn’t stress you much.

With the above two templates you can be able to easily add or update this plan. Business value propositions, customer segmentation, customer relations, income flow, major resources, value adding steps, major stakeholders, expenditure, feedback mechanism with stakeholders, among others are major aspects of the business model which you shouldn’t joke with.

Read: Business Plan for Mobile phone Accessories & spare parts

Make a testable sketch

Make your sketches on readable/understandable platforms. You can use some online tools like Balsamic or Framebox. The two help you in creating Wireframes and also export them through formats like jpg and pdf. The above provides buttons aspects of web interface enabling you to make easier sketches.

InfluenceApp is equally good for you to use especially when you become confused and so much distracted.  Upload various designs in various formats while you articulate the remaining material into a full presentation.  Then share out the completed mockup just by sharing your URL. Also give room for feedback mechanism.

Your colleagues would be able to give feedback just by pinning their comments on particular aspects of your design.

Carry out market survey

An effective market survey will go a long way to launch your new business idea into reality and success. You can use websites like SurveyMonkey to create a good online questionnaire which you can equally send through the URL to an audience of your choice.

This goes a long way to boost the process because an online questionnaire is capable of reaching as many people as possible within a little interval. On the other hand, an ordinary field survey would not give you such a broad reach transcending geographical locations.

However, you can as well use a focus group session before or after completing the Minimum Viable Product. It enables you send invitation to people within a particular population area to be part of a given group discussion on a given product/services.

Putting up focal group discussions enables you to accurately get the first impression of the consumer on a product, in terms of marketing campaign and product packaging.

Focal group also helps in terms of tweaking particular market strategies, thereby modifying a product quality for the better before releasing it.

Product development

You can make the required adjustments and then create your developed product using the masterplan. You need to make use of various project development software interfaces, to enable you monitor the process effectively. You can use Trello and Agile Zen as the two have been proven effective over time. This method is often broken down into stages to also known as boards. This is to ensure that different people oversee the various sections.

In this case of putting different people in charge of various sections, tasks could be taken from one stage of the process to another. For instance, the tasks might be taken from the backlog, to working stage and then to the approved stage.

The above steps ensure that  unnecessary mistakes that could be very fatal to the life-wire of your business is avoided.

Also, a well mapped out business strategy consisting of the guidelines given in this material would help you start your business with good confidence since you have done your homework well in terms of research that has equipped you with vital information concerning the enterprise.

When you however begin to experience continuous, unexplained setbacks, you can reach out to your business audience quickly, with the aid of Qualaroo.com. You can do this by installing this wonderful feedback mechanism platform on your website. This will help direct necessary questions concerning challenges faced by your business to visitors as soon as they hit your page.

Imagine how happy you would be when visitors get the signal and get to your page and react to the questions concerning their perceptions of your product for instance and general challenges you are experiencing.

The Qualaroo system enhances flexibility so that you are in charge of the type of visitors exposed to the online survey.

You should also not forget another veritable tool called Kissmetrics. It helps you in tracking and surfing tracking behavior of visitors to your platform. Kissmetrics also helps you by providing very important information regarding the background your visitors come from. Knowing the background of your visitors helps immensely in modifying and improving your business strategies.

Conclusion

When you dutifully follow the steps and guidelines given in this article, just be sure to have a successful business that would equally stand the test of time and also withstand competition.

However, periodic overhaul of the entire process given in this piece is very crucial. You don’t have to rely on your former wins as change is constant. Competition would override you if you relax and become careless as regards you being up and doing.

You must always update yourself as it concerns trends as advised in the beginning of this write-up. If you do all the above and keep yourself abreast of happenings, your business is likely to expand by the day.

See: 30 Hot Selling Products to Import in Nigeria and make profit

Good luck!